Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I would like to give my farewell address. We spent a lot of time in my office writing out a long speech. However, once I read it, I realized it is more emotional than I thought, and we set that speech aside. Last night I made a lot of notes of what I wanted to say, and then I realized this morning that I was just trying to get the last word on a lot of the politics we have been discussing, so I set that aside and decided to speak from my heart.

Certainly, this is much more emotional than I thought, and as I look around this room, the realization that I am standing on the Senate floor speaking for the last time is a lot to digest. It makes me very appreciative of the privilege we have all been given by the American people, and particularly those who have come before us and who have given their lives for us to have the opportunity to settle our differences in a civil and democratic way. This is a great opportunity and privilege to share a few thoughts before I go on to the next phase of my life.

First, I have to give a particular thanks to my wife Debbie, who, for the last 15 years, has spent many days and nights alone as I have tried to change things in Washington. She has often reminded and questioned me how I thought I could change the world when I could not even mow the grass. But she has been a supporter and certainly so important as I left my children, who were still in school when I began serving in the House, keeping them on the right track. I particularly wanted to thank them.

All of those who serve here know that when we sign up for public life, we also sign our families up for public life. In a lot of ways it makes their lives much more difficult. So I want to thank my children, my wife Debbie, and my family for putting up with this and being so supportive of me.

I also have to thank the people of South Carolina who have entrusted me with this job in the Senate for the last 8 years, and in the House 6 years before that. All of us who serve our States know that as we travel around and meet people and tour businesses and speak to groups, it creates a deep love and appreciation for everyone back home.

I look at what we are making in South Carolina in these small businesses. When we drive by we don't know anything is even there, and then we go and find that they are making things and shipping them all over the world. It makes me very proud of what we are doing in South Carolina, and I know everyone here feels the same way about their States.

I am very appreciative that the people of South Carolina have given me this opportunity. I am very grateful to my colleagues whom I have often scrapped with on a lot of issues. I appreciate their patience. I think I can leave claiming to have good friends who are Democrats and Republicans.

I am particularly grateful for a lot of the new Senators. Some are sitting here today. I have had the opportunity to work with the folks in their States around the country. Their respective States have elected some new people to the Senate who are bringing the right ideas and some new voices to those principles that we know have made our country successful. So I feel as I leave the Senate, it is better than I found it, and that our focus now, despite the difficult challenges, is on America and how we turn America around.

I also want to spend some time thanking my staff. I have to say my greatest inspirations have come from the staff who I have had the opportunity to serve with in the House and in the Senate. As all of my colleagues know who are serving here in the Senate, this country is being run by people in their twenties and thirties who get us so busy they have to follow us to meetings to tell us where we are going and what we will be talking about. But it is incredible to see that these young people, particularly those whom I have served with, have such a passion for our country and freedom and they are willing to put it all on the line to make a difference here. They feel a lot like my family, and I am certainly going to miss them, but it is encouraging to watch them moving to other office, taking their ideas and that courage to other places on the Hill.

I want to add my thanks to all the Hill staff, the folks sitting in the front here and those who have worked with us. I know sometimes we have pushed the envelope a little bit on things we were trying to get done, and I have seen a lot of very intelligent, active, and engaged staff all across the Hill, both Democrat and Republican, and I am very thankful for what they do.

About 15 years ago, I started campaigning for the House. I had never run for public office. At that time, I believed--and I think it still holds true today--that there were normal people such as myself and then there were politicians. I was a businessman. I had a small business for about 15 years. I had four children. I was active in my church and in the community. I had begun to see that well-motivated, well-intended government policies were making it harder for us to do the things at the community level we know actually worked. That is what I have always been about here. It really was not about politics. I had no strong political affiliation before I decided to run for office, but I saw ideas from the time I was a young person. Ideas that worked.

I actually saw this statement the other day which I wish to read because it reflects what I think a lot of us know works in our country. This is one thing I will try to read today:

I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be

uncommon. If I can seek opportunity, not security, I want to

take the calculated risk to dream and to build, to fail and

to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for dole. I prefer

the challenges of life to guaranteed security, the thrill of

fulfillment to the state of calm utopia. I will not trade

freedom for beneficence, nor my dignity for a handout. I will

never cower before any master, save my God. It is my heritage

to stand erect, proud, and unafraid, to think and act for

myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, to face the whole

world boldly and say, ``I am a free American.''

I saw this on a plaque called ``The American Creed.'' In South Carolina, at least, we have adopted this as what we call ``The Republican Creed.'' But it is really not a Republican idea or a political idea, it is an American idea. The ideas in this statement are ideas we all know work, and ideas we would hope for our children and everyone around us. We know there are people all around us who are having difficulty, but this idea of helping them to become independent, self-sufficient, and responsible creates the dignity and fulfillment in their life that we know we want for all Americans. This is not for a small few. This is an American idea, and it is an idea I know has worked in my life, and I have seen it work all around me.

That is what I wish to talk about for a second today; not political ideas but ideas where we can look back through history and all around us today and point to them and say, That is working. I think if we did that more here in the political sphere, we might find a lot more consensus.

As we look around the country today, we can see a lot of things that are working. Sometimes we couch them in our political rhetoric, but I can guarantee my colleagues they are not being done for political reasons at the State level; they are being done because they work and they have to get things to work at the State level.

We saw last week the State of Michigan adopted a new law that gave workers the freedom not to join a union. They didn't do it because it was politically expedient or because they thought it was a good idea. Actually, it probably will get a lot of the politicians in hot water in Michigan. But what they did is looked at 23 other States that had adopted the same idea and saw they were attracting businesses and creating jobs, and these States, without raising taxes, had more revenue to build schools and roads and hospitals. It is just an idea that worked. It is not a political idea to give people the freedom not to join a union; it is an American idea and it is an idea that works.

We can look around the country today--and, again, we make these things political and give them labels that are good or bad, depending on I guess which party one belongs to--and see that a number of States have been very innovative and creative with what they are doing with education. We see what they have done in Florida, creating more choices, and in Louisiana particularly, forced by Hurricane Katrina to start a new system, in effect. They see more choices and opportunities for parents to choose are helping low-income, at-risk kids, minority kids. We can see it working. It is not political. It is an American idea to give parents more choices to put their children in an environment where they can succeed. It is an idea that works.

We can look around the country at States that try to create a more business-friendly environment not because they are for businesses or for any political reason, or they are for special interests, but because they know the only way to get jobs and prosperity and create opportunity is to create an environment where businesses can thrive. We make it political here and we ask our constituents to make choices between employers and employees, but States such as Texas have created a business-friendly environment with lower taxes and less regulation. They have passed some laws that reduce the risk of frivolous lawsuits. What they have seen is businesses moving to their State. They have seen jobs and opportunity created not for the top 2 percent but expanding a middle class, creating

more opportunities and more tax revenues to do the things at the State government level that we all want for everyone who lives there. This is not for a few; this is for 100 percent.

We see specials now on TV comparing California and Texas, businesses moving out and delegations from California going to Texas to try to figure out why businesses are moving and families are moving there. It is not political at all. We make it political and we talk about it in political terms, but creating an environment where businesses can thrive is an American idea and it is an idea that is working. We see it all over the country, where some States are going down one road, with higher taxes, bigger government, and more spending, and they are losing to States such as Texas, and I hope more and more like South Carolina. They are moving to where they can thrive. This benefits every American.

We look at energy development and we talk about that at the national level of how it can create prosperity for our country if we open it up. We don't have to guess at whether it works. We can look at North Dakota, we can look at Pennsylvania--States that have gone around the Federal rules and figured out how to develop their own energy and are creating jobs and tax revenue for their governments. They are able to lower their taxes and use the revenue to improve everything about their States. Here we make it political and partisan, whether our country can develop more energy, but at the State level it is about what works. All we have to do is look at what works.

This is not rocket science. I came to Washington as a novice in politics, believing in the power of ideas, seeing how ideas could revolutionize different industries, can create new products and services, meeting the needs of customers everywhere. That is what I hoped we could do here in Washington. Maybe naively, I went to work in the House, often working with the Heritage Foundation, to create a better product here in Washington. I saw Social Security--and not too many people look below the surface--but we knew it was going broke. We knew people were paying for this Social Security retirement benefit, but we were spending it all. I thought, What an opportunity it would be for future generations--for my children--if we actually saved what people were putting into Social Security for their retirement, and we didn't have to do too much math to see that even for middle-class workers, Americans could be millionaires when they retired if we even kept half of what was put into Social Security for them. It seemed like a good idea to create wealth and independence for individuals in retirement, but we made it a political idea and somehow convinced Americans it was riskier to save their Social Security contribution than it was to spend it.

I am leaving the Senate to work on ideas I know work. I have seen them work all over our country. We can look all over our country and showcase these ideas that are working. I know there is power in ideas. However, I have learned one thing about the political environment: Unless there is power behind the ideas, they will not emerge here in the Congress. There is too much pressure from the outside to maintain the status quo. No matter how much we show it is working, it won't be adopted here unless we are able to win the argument with the American people.

I spent most of my life in research and advertising and marketing and strategic planning. What I hope I can do from this point is to take these ideas and policies I know work--and the Heritage Foundation for 40 years has been creating the research and analyses that show these policies work--and what I hope I can do is to help connect those ideas with real people, real faces, and to show these people that these ideas are not theory, they are not political policies, but they are ideas that are working right in their State or the State right next to them. If we can win the arguments, if we can win the hearts and the minds of the American people with these ideas, I know we can engage them and enlist them to convince all of my colleagues here to set the politics aside, the parties aside, and to adopt those ideas that work. My hope is to make conservative ideas so pervasive, so persuasive across the country that politicians of all parties have to embrace those ideas to be elected.

I am not leaving to be an advocate for the Republican Party. I hope we can create more common ground between the political parties by showing everyone that ideas that work for their constituents and our constituents are right in front of our faces if we are willing to set aside the pressure groups, the special interests, and just focus on what is working.

Over the next few years, we are going to see more and more States doing the right things, becoming more prosperous, creating a better environment for people to live and work. We are going to see some States that will continue to raise taxes, to create more regulations, and make it harder to start businesses and be profitable in those States. They will continue to lose businesses and people. Many of those States will come to Washington and ask us to help them out from their bad decisions.

I hope at that point we can show, by pointing at these States and their right ideas, that we know the solutions at the State level and we also know we can change how we think at the Federal level and make our country work a lot better.

I leave with a lot of respect for my colleagues. I know my Democratic colleagues believe with conviction their ideas, and I know my Republican colleagues do too. But I hope we can look at the facts. I hope we can look at the real world. I hope we can look at what is working and set aside the politics and realize what makes the country great and strong is when we move dollars and decisions out of Washington back to people and communities and States, it works not for 2 percent but for 100 percent of Americans.

I feel our customers in the Senate, at the Heritage Foundation or wherever we go are 100 percent of Americans for whom these ideas can work to build a better future and a stronger America. I am not leaving the fight. I hope to raise my game in my next phase, and I hope I can work more closely with all of you, as well as Governors and State legislators, to take these ideas and to convince Americans, as well as their legislators, their Senators, and their Congressmen, that we have the solutions all around us if we have the courage to adopt them.

I thank you for this opportunity to serve. Certainly, I will miss my relationships. But I hope we will have the opportunity to continue to work together for what is the greatest country in the world, in what I believe is a generation that could be the greatest and most prosperous generation of all if we just look to the ideas that work.

Thank you, Madam President. I thank my colleagues.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have participated in the hearings and debates on this treaty, and I understand the aspirations of the groups who support it. But I have serious concerns about reaching those goals through a legally binding United Nations treaty.

Other U.N. organizations have failed to achieve their stated purposes and actively work against the interests of the United States.

Not even a week ago, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade the Palestinian Authority to ``non-member observer state'' over the objections of the United States and Israel. This is a breach of the Oslo accords and will hurt the Middle East peace process. Secretary Clinton called it ``unfortunate and counterproductive.''

The U.N. Human Rights Council includes notable human rights violators such as Cuba, China, and Russia. These countries have made little progress improving the rights of their citizens, and nearly 40 percent of the council's country-specific human-rights condemnations are against Israel.

More worrisome, convention committees--such as the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women--have a track record of overstepping their authority and advocating positions contrary to American laws and values.

In the past, these committees have supported giving voting rights to felons, the decriminalization of prostitution, gender quotas, and increased access to abortion.

Overly broad language included in this treaty would likely allow the U.N. to meddle in many of our domestic matters. International bureaucrats working with the U.N. should not be able to influence how the United States creates and implements laws for the disabled, especially when members come from countries with lower human rights standards than our own.

The purpose of any treaty should be to advance specific security or economic interests that make us a stronger and safer nation. This treaty does neither.

Last week on the floor, Leader Reid argued that we must ratify this treaty to ``take the high ground'' on these issues with the rest of the world. But the United States does not have to join a U.N. convention or any other organization to give ourselves legitimacy and moral authority in the world.

For decades, the United States has been the global leader and champion for persons with disabilities. We must continue to work hard to improve the lives of disabled citizens in our country. Encouraging respect for disabled persons is important and the goals of this convention are admirable.

This convention will do nothing to improve the rights of Americans in the United States. We have little evidence to suggest that joining this convention and its committee will ensure that other countries improve their protection of disabled people. Of the 126 member countries, this convention's committee has only issued recommendations to a handful.

Portions of this convention also concern reproductive health, the rights of families, and the use of the treaty in our courts.

Attempts were made in the committee to clarify some of these sections and protect American sovereignty, but those attempts were defeated.

These issues should be addressed by individual U.S. States and local governments, not an international bureaucracy where Americans have no elected representation.

We should never cede the authority of these matters to an international organization. President Washington's warning in his farewell address bears repeating here. He said:

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign

nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have

with them as little

political connection as possible. So far as we have already

formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good

faith. Here let us stop.

His words serve as a compelling argument against this treaty today.

We should be wary of international alliances and only work within them when they will strengthen America or make her safer.

I encourage my colleagues to reject this treaty and address this important issue in a format that does not endanger the sovereignty of the United States.

Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, Americans are crying out for us to stop giving away hard-earned tax dollars to countries that are not our friends. I agree. We need to review all our foreign aid and make any aid conditional on the protection of Americans and of our interests. But when it comes to the bill offered by Senator Paul, I have to say I do not like how some parts of it are worded. It has some flaws and Members on both sides of the aisle have some legitimate concerns. I have been working all day with Senator Paul to improve the language to address concerns on our side.

Senator Paul has been more than accommodating on this. He was willing to limit the scope of the bill to Libya, Pakistan, and Egypt. With respect to Libya and Egypt, he agreed to loosen restrictions so the funds would not turn off for 60 days, and only turn off if it was clear their governments were not cooperating with the investigation into the attacks and efforts to find the perpetrators. In short, he was willing to accept the legitimate concerns that have been raised by colleagues with respect to the potential unintended consequences of the bill.

Then Senator Paul asked the majority leader if he could modify the bill. Senators do this all the time--or at least we used to. We work together, we have managers' amendments, we allow Senators to modify their legislation to fix issues raised by other Senators. So after all this work and this good faith accommodation by Senator Paul who, to address the concerns of colleagues on both sides of the aisle, was agreeing to changes that narrowed the scope of the legislation far beyond what he personally wanted--after all this, the other side of the aisle decided to play gotcha. They would not let him modify his own amendment. His request was made 8 to 10 hours before the vote--plenty of time for Members to review the changes--but the normal rules of comity apparently do not apply anymore in the Senate.

This Senator is ashamed of the way the Senate is being run. We have had an entire Congress of gag rules, limited debate, limited votes, limited amendments, and the result has been no accomplishments. Over the last 2 years, the Senate has become a laughingstock. I may not like the way Senator Paul's bill is worded, his unmodified bill. I do not agree with the scope of the conditions in some cases, but I support the goals of providing accountability in our foreign aid, of freeing Dr. Afridi, and of ensuring that those we support with our precious dollars are defending our interests and our diplomats overseas.

I will vote yes on this bill in support of these principles. The bill will not pass, but the other side cannot hide from this issue forever. Senator Paul will be back and I will be back with him. We will get the votes the American people are demanding.

Certainly.

I say to the Senator, if that were true, I think he has to admit Senator Tester has one that his side pushed this night that has not been through committee, violates the budget, and a number of other things.

The point is this. Senator Paul has been working on this legislation for several months and has been working to try to get a vote on this floor for several months and he could not get it. He was turned down time and time again. This legislation has been out there. The issue of foreign aid has been out there. We have not taken it up as a committee as we should have. The fact that he is not given the opportunity to get a vote on the amendment of his choice, to modify his own amendment, does break the precedent of the Senate and does break the comity we should enjoy here. When a Member offers an amendment, they should be able to modify it.

Mr. President, President Obama, when you took office almost 4 years ago, you promised to create jobs and reduce our deficit. Yet 4 years later we have fewer Americans working than in the last 30 years and we have historic debt and deficits. Now you say raising taxes will solve our problems. But those who create jobs disagree.

Yesterday a businessman from South Carolina came to Washington to present a very simple proposition. He had built his business from his garage to 150 workers, putting every dime he could back into his business. His plan was to add 25 workers next year if we keep taxes the same but to do nothing if we follow your plan to raise taxes.

Mr. President, if you really want to create jobs, help our economy, and reduce our deficit, stop threatening to raise taxes.

Madam President, I wish to thank the chairman for her hard work, as well as the staff of the committee, and Representative Jeff Miller and others who have worked on this bill. I am very supportive of the underlying bill, and I appreciate Senator Murray's willingness to consider the modification to make sure the veterans who deserve these benefits get them and they are not taken advantage of by the fraud of others who don't deserve them.

I think the modification the Senator and I have talked about will solve that problem, and hopefully we can get this bill agreed to this afternoon.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to bring up amendment No. 2273.

Mr. President, the farm bill adds a new grant component to the existing rural utility service broadband loans and loan guarantee program. My amendment would eliminate the authority of the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture to increase the taxpayer share of these broadband grants beyond 50 percent.

Please keep in mind that these are not direct loans, these are grants that require no payback. It is important that recipients have some skin in the game so that they make good decisions. My amendment allows the 50-percent threshold cost sharing but does not allow the Secretary to waive that and make that a 75-percent share by the taxpayer.

I encourage my colleagues to support this moment of fiscal sanity here.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2263.

Mr. President, the President's 2013 budget asks for about $9 million for the Rural Utility Service to expand broadband services in rural areas. The average spending over the last 10 years for that service is about $14 million. The current level of spending is at $25 million. If anything, given our $16 trillion in debt, one would think we would come in somewhat below that. But the farm bill doubles our current level from $25 million to $50 million.

My amendment keeps spending at the $25 million level. That is the least we can do, given the President has asked for $9 million. The average is $14 million, and we are now at $25 million. We at least need to keep it there.

I encourage my colleagues to have a brief moment of fiscal sanity and vote for my amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, this amendment is a sense of the Senate that reflects what all of us talk about not just with the farm bill but with the whole U.S. economy--the importance of a free market and letting our competitive system work.

This amendment says that nothing in the farm bill would interfere with the free market by setting prices or doing anything that I think all of the proponents of the bill say it will do--that it will protect the free market.

So it is a sense of the Senate, and I agree to a voice vote on this, but I encourage my colleagues to add their voice to the free market system and support this amendment.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 2268.

Mr. President, as we look at some of the loan guarantees--such as Solyndra--that have gone bad, this amendment would prohibit loan guarantees for the farm bill. There are many programs that guarantee loans that expose the American taxpayers to millions of dollars. This bill would prohibit those guarantees--not prohibit the programs themselves and the crop insurance and things farmers count on but just the liability we put on the American taxpayers. CBO has said loan guarantees do cost the taxpayers money. So I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment and save the American taxpayers from this additional liability.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I believe this will be the last vote of today, DeMint amendment 2276.

Mr. President, this amendment would give individual businesses and small farmers the freedom to refrain from joining 1 of the 19 check-off programs against their will. Right now, a lot of businesses are forced into programs they do not want to be a part of. As a lot of us know, a lot of the large corporate farmers, a lot of large businesses love to form these check-off programs to force the smaller companies to pay into them.

This just makes it strictly voluntary, so any company that wants to be a part of this, any farmer who wants to be a part of it, can. But it makes no sense to continue to force small businesses into these check- off programs against their will.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

How much time do we have?

I will remind everyone that while it is not taxpayer money, we are forcing businesses to do things they don't necessarily want to do. My amendment would allow any business to join the check-off program voluntarily. That is the American way.

Mr. President, I would like to speak in support of Senator Toomey's amendment and to point out some of the things about the Ex-Im Bank that are important for the taxpayers to know.

As a businessman I know if I can get a guaranteed loan, I would take it in a second. I don't blame companies that are interested in lower rate financing. But as Congressmen and Senators and as the President of the United States, our job is to protect taxpayers. We are forgetting in this debate that when we guarantee a loan, we are signing the taxpayers' names to a loan guarantee. In the real world if an individual or a business guarantees a loan, that is a very real liability to them, and we are not just talking about the Ex-Im Bank.

The taxpayers of this country are now liable for about $1 trillion for student loans, trillions of dollars for mortgages and other loan guarantees and insurance.

We cannot continue to pass these bills without realizing someday these bills are going to come due and the folks across the country are going to have to pay them.

We were promised, when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were making all these loans, that it was good for the taxpayer, that we were making money, we could not lose. But the taxpayers have lost billions of dollars. And now as we continue to guarantee loans around the world, some of the countries these loans are going to are on the watch list by Moody's and other ratings services because of the financial situation in Europe and all across the world, which is more and more strained. We cannot assume this money is coming back to the taxpayer.

We probably heard already from some of the speakers that the Export- Import Bank was started many decades ago during Franklin Roosevelt's administration, and there was a limit on how much could be lent. It was $3.5 billion. But we know how government works and how government grows. The bill we are considering this week is not in the millions; it is in the billions; and it is not $3 billion or $4 billion, it is $140 billion of loan guarantees to American companies that are selling overseas.

Unfortunately, that does not help American companies that want to sell here in America, which means much of the domestic market for our products is financed at a higher rate. It is only the rest of the world. And we are the biggest consuming market in the world. This is not an idea we should continue in America. We are in a bidding war with China and Europe to see who can subsidize the most loans at a time when all of us are broke.

We need to bring this to a close. Senator Toomey's amendment is a logical way to proceed. The World Trade Organization is set up to make sure there is a level playing field and that we are not subsidizing imports and exports. But this is a very real subsidy and a very real risk to the American people.

Let's begin the process of taking away this excuse of why we need to subsidize them. The excuse is always: We have to do it because they are doing it. But as a world trading organization, we need to take down these subsidies and phase them out. We can do that and decrease the amount of money the American taxpayer is liable for. It is common sense. Hopefully, my colleagues will support it today.

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

Mr. President, I wish to make a few comments about free markets, free enterprise, and the role of government, particularly as it relates to the Export-Import Bank.

When people ask me if I am pro-business or pro-labor, I say I am neither. I am pro-freedom. Freedom is the only political principle that cannot be bent to serve special interests. Remember how 7-Up used to call itself the un-cola? Well, freedom is the un-special interest.

Freedom, protected by the Constitution and the rule of law, works for everyone. It allows everyone--left or right, young or old, rich or poor--to make their own choices according to their own values.

Government's job shouldn't be to tilt the field for one team or another but to guarantee a level playing field for everyone. That is why I am against forcing workers to join unions. I am against congressional earmarks for favored groups, government bailouts for Wall Street, and energy subsidies, both for oil companies and for green energy companies.

Let's look at recent events surrounding the Boeing Company, one of South Carolina's most important employers. As a South Carolinian, as an American, and as a guy who likes cool airplanes, I love Boeing. When Boeing's home State labor union ganged up with President Barack Obama's National Labor Relations Board to try to sue Boeing for building a new factory in north Charleston, I strongly supported Boeing's freedom to build factories wherever they please. More recently, dust has been kicked up over the extension of the Export-Import Bank, a Federal program that subsidizes American businesses' exports. Because Boeing receives export-import subsidies and because I favor winding down the Ex-Im Bank instead of increasing its budget, some asked if I went from being pro-Boeing to anti-Boeing. Neither. I am just being pro-freedom.

In both cases, my guiding principle is the same: liberty. Freedom isn't perfect, but it is fair. And any time government hands out favors, they are being unfair to someone. When Washington picks winners and losers, in the end taxpayers always lose, and the Ex-Im Bank is no exception. The Ex-Im Bank started out decades ago with a lending cap of $5 million to help American companies sell into a global economy that barely existed. Today, the cap has ballooned to $100 billion in a booming global economy. And what have the American people gotten for their money? They have gotten $10 million in loans benefiting the now bankrupt Solyndra, millions of dollars in loans to another solar company to sell solar panels to itself in another country, and $600 million in loans to Enron projects before Ken Lay went to prison--all this after Ex-Im has already sought its own $3 billion taxpayer bailout.

This isn't a criticism of an agency or an administration but of government subsidies in the first place. When government stays out of markets, businesses focus on their customers; quality improves, prices fall, and everyone wins. When government steps in, businesses turn their attention from their customers to their Congressmen and hire influence peddlers instead of innovators. Competition sags, the pace of innovation slows, prices rise, and product quality suffers.

Defenders say the Ex-Im Bank is needed because Europe subsidizes their exports, but Europe says the same about our Export-Import Bank. We are in a bidding war with other countries for the biggest subsidies. Still, exporters say the cost of doing business in America is too high to compete. I agree. We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, so let's cut taxes. Let's reform our insane $1.75 trillion per year regulatory state. Let's reform education and liberate our children from failing schools and create a better prepared workforce for the future. Let's repeal the government takeover of health care and put an end to predatory lawsuits filed against innocent businesses. In short, let's fix the rules of our game to make all of our exports competitive rather than rigging them for one company or product at a time.

Our policies should make the United States the best place in the world to buy, sell, farm, manufacture, patent, invent, invest, innovate, and educate--for everyone in every industry.

Look at what today's ad hoc economic policymaking has done to America--where a collection of narrow special interests vies for the favoritism of discredited politicians while we mount unsustainable debt onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. That is what I am against. What I am for is a level playing field, a set of clear rules that guarantee the freedom of entrepreneurs to make and sell what they want, and the freedom of customers to buy what they want.

I am not for big business or big labor. I am for big freedom for everyone.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2046.

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

Mr. President, this amendment is the Paycheck Protection Act, and it protects the first amendment rights of postal workers by requiring postal labor unions to obtain prior approval from their workers before they spend their dues money on behalf of political parties, political candidates or other political advocacy.

Unions are the only organizations in many States that cannot only force people to join but forcibly use their dues for political purposes without the permission of the members. Sixty percent of union members object to their dues being spent for political purposes without their permission.

This amendment protects their right to have their dues used in the way they intend them to be used. So I encourage my colleagues to support this freedom, this protection of constitutional rights. It is consistent with the Supreme Court ruling in Communications Workers v. Beck.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to Senator Collins.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Collins be given 30 seconds to explain her position.

Mr. President, I object. I would like a rollcall vote. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the new Federal regulation that many may or may not be aware of. According to the Department of Justice, every swimming pool of ``public accommodation,'' meaning any pool at a hotel, motel, lodging establishment, recreation center, YMCA, apartment complex, condominium complex, school, or community pool, is to install a large, expensive permanent pool lift for the disabled, or else face steep fines from the Department of Justice and the threat of lawsuits.

We must make sure that we have accommodations for the disabled in every public place. This is happening around the country. But to do this with very little thought of the implications and the cost and the actual service to the disabled is a huge problem.

As we have seen time and time again, one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington don't work. We want public pools to have the flexibility to work with people with disabilities to ensure success.

On January 31 of this year, 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division published revised requirements for swimming pools and their means of entry and exit. This was 2 months ago.

The DOJ has now put forth new requirements for all facilities ``of public accommodation'' that go beyond those contained in the final rule issued in 2010 giving hotels and other residential communities insufficient time to comply with this burdensome new rule.

We need to think about it for a minute, because their lack of planning here is pretty evident by the fact that they are suggesting that this already be in place in less than 2 months, when the equipment is not even available in the country to do it. So it is clear that they have not thought through how to best serve the disabled, how to make sure that these services are available, and to do it in a way that does not put an undue burden on businesses that want to provide this service.

Senator Graham and I have a bill that nullifies the requirement and stops the Attorney General from enforcing this requirement or any ``guidance'' associated with it. It also prevents against any third party using this rule or guidance in any manner.

To be clear, our bill will allow public pools to work directly with people with disabilities to meet their specific needs. Hotels, motels, and other public pools already have financial incentives to meet the needs of people with disabilities that use their facilities. They have been working diligently to do that. Our bill simply says the DOJ should not impose a national mandate for a one-size-fits-all solution that may not be appropriate for every facility.

This new burdensome rule seriously changes the obligations of public facilities around the country. There are an estimated 309,000 public spas and pools in the United States. The number of businesses--and not just the large hotels and resorts--that will have to comply is staggering.

The rule requires a permanent pool lift be installed for every pool or spa. So if a hotel, resort, or community association has more than one pool, they will have to get multiple lifts, instead of what is being done now, which is using a portable lift that can be moved around the facilities as needed.

A pool lift can run from $4,000 to $10,000, and the installation could run $5,000 to $10,000, depending on how much work needs to be done. So we are talking about billions of dollars being spent on something that could perhaps help the disabled but also become an obstacle and danger to others using the pool if this is not thought out and done in a careful manner.

The last thing we need to do right now is to add burdensome rules and requirements on businesses across the country. Hotel owners want to work in good faith to make sure pools are accessible to everybody, but we have to make sure that here at the Federal level we are not killing off more businesses by imposing mandates.

Mandates such as these are burdensome on businesses, and we all know these costs will be passed on to consumers--including the disabled--in the form of higher hotel costs for rooms and services.

The Department of Justice has left many questions from the hotel industry and others unanswered on issues such as compliance ability, timeframe, and economic cost, as well as rising insurance premiums.

It is clear that the deadline for compliance should be extended to allow hotels and other places of public accommodation flexibility in providing access to guests with disabilities. We should start over. They have given a 60-day relief period, but that is not enough time for this to be planned or for the equipment to be manufactured. The companies cannot comply in this period of time.

We need to guarantee that services are available to the disabled, but the quickest way to do the wrong thing is the way the Justice Department is doing it now. So instead of us letting this go into effect and letting large fines be put on businesses all around the country, even community pools and YMCAs, let's set this judgment aside by unanimous consent today, and if we want to debate and work with the Department of Justice to come up with a rule that works for the disabled and works for America, we can do that. But I have a unanimous consent request here that I wish to read.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 336, S. 2191, that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill appear at this point in the Record.

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

Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity to talk about the amendment that we call the Transportation Empowerment Act. This is actually legislation that has been worked on for over 10 years. Our ranking member, Senator Inhofe, helped to develop this legislation, and it is essentially the same as when he introduced it 10 years ago. He pointed out that he had long believed that the best decisions are those made at the local level. Unfortunately, many of the transportation choices made by cities and States are governed by Federal rules and regulations.

This bill returns to the States the responsibility and resources to make their own transportation decisions--those were Senator Inhofe's words. I think we all know, as a Nation, that we are not going to solve our spending and debt problems unless we are willing to begin to move some public services from Washington back to the States where they can be done more effectively and less expensively, and one of those public services is transportation.

I would point out that the Transportation Department at the Federal level was formed almost 60 years ago to build our Interstate Highway System and this system is essentially complete. The States maintain most of the interstate highways now with some Federal support. The problem we have now is that 18 cents out of every gallon of gasoline comes to Washington and a majority of States get back less than they send.

We have what I think could be called an infrastructure crisis in America. Roads and bridges are decaying everywhere and we are behind on our maintenance in the building of new roads, so it is obvious that what we are doing is not working. Instead of solving the problems with real reforms, the underlying bill is adding to what we are spending above the trust fund--above the 18 cents--without any real reforms to make the system work better. So I think I can conclude that the current Federal transportation finance system is broken.

Since 2007, rather than evaluate true infrastructure priorities and attempt to live within our means by eliminating special interest programs, Congress has bailed out the highway trust fund to the tune of $35 billion. With the pending reauthorization, the trust fund will require a bailout of another $13 billion.

At the end of this big-spending 2-year reauthorization, Congress will be back at the drawing board scrambling for additional budgetary gimmicks and offsets to keep this charade from imploding. If this were a traditional 6-

year highway bill, at this rate of runaway spending it would require a bailout of $39 billion from the general fund.

There is a better way. It is time to get the Washington bureaucracy and costly regulations out of the way and empower States to be the primary decisionmakers for their own local and State infrastructure. My amendment allows for States to keep their gas taxes and set their own priorities while avoiding an additional layer of Washington bureaucracy.

We should devolve the Federal highway program from Washington to the States. We can dramatically cut the Federal gas tax to a few pennies, which would be enough to fund the limited number of highway programs that serve a clear national purpose. In turn, States could adjust their own gas taxes to make their own construction and repair decisions without costly rules such as Davis-Bacon regulations and without having to funnel the money through Washington's wasteful bureaucracy and some self-serving politicians.

My amendment would free States from the wasteful and corrupt Davis- Bacon Act, which needlessly focuses or forces the government to pay labor union wages for construction projects. Davis-Bacon harms workers who choose not to join unions, and it raised the costs to taxpayers last year by nearly $11 billion.

Our Nation's fiscal situation is perilous, with a $15 trillion debt set to double to $30 trillion in the next decade. Bipartisan compromises on spending like this bill got us into this mess and we will never get out of it if we don't embrace bold commonsense reforms.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and empower the States by giving them the flexibility they need to maintain their infrastructures.

If I could take a second to summarize, I know some Members have stepped into this legislation that has been under development for many years. It is one that has been talked about by the States, with over half of our States what we consider donor States. If we were able to not only remove the Federal bureaucracy but also the regulations that force States to spend money in ways they don't like, the overwhelming majority of States would have a lot more money to spend on roads and bridges than they do now.

We are not talking about cutting spending on transportation. What we are talking about is actually increasing it by moving this service back to the States where it can be guided with a lot more on-the-ground knowledge of what needs to be done, without all of the political maneuvering in Washington to send money to one State versus another. This is a way to maintain our Federal priority with a small part of the gas tax and allow the States to basically keep the rest of the gas tax to serve their own needs.

If we cannot do this, I don't see any way that we are going to be able to deal with our national debt. If we can recognize there is an obvious service here that can be done better and less expensively and quicker at the State and local level and we can move that bureaucracy out of Washington, we can make the highway trust fund solvent.

If we can't do something that makes this much common sense and saves the taxpayers money and actually delivers a better service, it is difficult for me to understand how we are ever going to deal with the huge debt and spending problem we have now in Washington.

I reserve the remainder of my time.