Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today, regretfully, to oppose the nomination of Harold Koh to be the State Department legal adviser. It is hard to do because in meeting Mr. Koh, I certainly enjoyed him. I have friends back in South Carolina who know him. He is certainly a very likable person. But his nomination to this important position requires some scrutiny about what his philosophy is when it comes to the United States and our international agreements and the sovereignty of our country.

I oppose Mr. Koh's nomination for many reasons, and most important of these is my belief that if confirmed, he will work to greatly undermine the principles of sovereignty that I believe all Americans expect of our Federal Government.

Let me talk a little bit about his role and what that would be if he is confirmed as the legal adviser to the State Department.

According to the State Department's Web site, the legal adviser would furnish ``advice on all legal issues, domestic and international, arising in the course of the department's work and negotiate, draft, and interpret international agreements involving peace initiatives, arms control discussions, and private law conventions on subjects such as judicial cooperation in recognition of foreign judgments.''

On a daily basis, Mr. Koh will also advise our government on a variety of Federal legal issues that he believes affect international law and our foreign relations. He will determine positions the United States should take when dealing with international bodies and in international conferences, and counsel administration officials on international negotiations, treaty interpretations, and treaty implementations.

As we move forward in the future as a country, one of the biggest debates we are going to have is what role does American sovereignty play in the world and how important is it, and there is a difference of philosophy here in Washington today.

So as we review this nomination, it is very important to us, particularly Republicans, that we start from the foundation in our State Department that we will act in the best interest of our country and the American people, and that our interests as a country are paramount in how we deal with the rest of the world. Of course, that does not mean that we don't try to support other countries as best we can, but the fact is, the role of the Federal Government is to protect and defend our people and our interests. So we need to make sure this key adviser to our State Department and our international relations believes those principles.

Many of Mr. Koh's supporters claim that the allegations that have been voiced against him, such as undermining the Constitution, are unjustified. However, Mr. Koh's own writings suggest otherwise. For example, in a 2004 law review article titled ``International Law As Part Of Our Law,'' Mr. Koh states:

U.S. domestic courts must play a key role in coordinating

U.S. domestic constitutional rules with rules of foreign and

international law, not simply to promote American aims but to

advance the broader development of a well-functioning

international judicial system. In Justice Blackmun's words,

U.S. courts must look beyond narrow U.S. interests to the

``mutual interests of all nations in a smoothly functioning

international legal regime'' and, whenever possible, should

``consider if there is a course of action that furthers,

rather than impedes, the development of an ordered

international system.''

Certainly we want good relations with countries all over the world, and we are looking at making treaties of various kinds, but an idea of a smoothly functioning international legal regime, when it subordinates the interests of the American legal regime, should cause all of us to stop and think. Our protection, our prosperity,

our defense--everything we are as a country--depends first on our sovereignty, as does our support of other nations depend on our sovereignty. This idea of a global world order of some kind is frightening to many people, including myself.

It appears Mr. Koh is reinterpreting our own Constitution to comply with rules of foreign and international law instead of first protecting and defending our Constitution and seeing how we can interface with other governments. Frankly, this statement should frighten American citizens who believe in upholding our Constitution, and I hope it will get the attention of my colleagues. Certainly the President has the right to nominate anyone he wants, but it is our role as the Senate to provide advice, and in this case I think disclosure to the American people, of this nominee and how he might direct our State Department activities.

In 2002, in a hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Koh testified in support of ratification of the United Nations Treaty on the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Not only did Mr. Koh testify in support of ratifying this treaty, he opposed any conditions to ratification of the treaty, even those proposed by the Clinton administration. This included the very important condition stating that the treaty is not self-executing; that it has no domestic legal effect absent an act of Congress.

Our rules here are that the President can sign a treaty, but it has to be ratified here in the Senate before it is executed. To insist that once this is agreed to by the administration it becomes self-acting violates those principles.

Mr. Koh also claims that allegations by those who opposed the treaty due to its promotion of abortion, the legalization of prostitution, and the abolishment of Mother's Day are untrue. However, one only needs to look at the policies issued by the committee--the United Nations body charged with monitoring countries' compliance with their legal obligations under the treaty--to know that Mr. Koh's claims are untrue.

For example, on May 14, 1998, the committee interpreted the treaty to require that ``all states of Mexico should review their legislation so that, where necessary, women are granted access to rapid and easy abortion.''

In February 1999, the same committee criticized China's law criminalizing prostitution and recommended that China take steps to legalize it.

This does not represent American values.

Also, in February 2000, the committee made the following outrageous statement regarding Belarus's celebration of Mother's Day:

The Committee is concerned by the continuing prevalence of

sex-role stereotypes and by the reintroduction of such

symbols as a Mothers' Day and a Mothers' Award, which it sees

as encouraging women's traditional roles.

As these former Soviet republics, countries all over the world, are looking to America for guidance as they develop their democracies and institutions of freedom, these kinds of statements coming out of the United Nations are concerning, and I certainly don't want this same philosophy coming out of our own State Department.

How can anyone argue that ratification of a radical treaty such as we have discussed will not undermine sovereignty? It is pretty obvious it would.

In a speech entitled ``A World Drowning in Guns,'' published in the Fordham Law Review in 2003, Mr. Koh states:

If we really do care about human rights, we have to do

something about the guns.

That ``something'' is a ``global system of effective controls on small arms.''

In that same speech, Mr. Koh also expressed his disappointment that the 2001 United Nations gun control conference had not led to a legally binding document. He urged that the next steps be the creation of international arms registries, giving nongovernmental organizations, such as the International Action Network on Small Arms, power to monitor government compliance with international gun control and stronger domestic regulation.

In a May 4 column in Human Events, Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation writes:

Koh advocated an international ``marking and tracing

regime.'' He complained that the ``United States is now the

major supplier of small arms in the word, yet the United

States and its allies do not trace their newly manufactured

weapons in any consistent way.'' Koh advocated a United

Nations governed regime to force the U.S. ``to submit

information about their small arms production.''

Dean Koh supports the idea that the United Nations should

be granted the power to ``standardize national laws and

procedures with member states of regional organizations.''

Dean Koh feels that the U.S. should ``establish a national

firearms control system and a register of manufacturers,

traders, importers, and exporters'' of guns to comply with

international obligations. This regulatory regime would allow

the United Nations members such as Cuba and Venezuela and

North Korea and Iran to have a say in what type of gun

regulations are imposed on American citizens.

This is not constitutional government in America.

Taken to their logical conclusion, Dean Koh's ideas could

lead to a national database of all firearm owners, as well as

the use of international law to force the U.S. to pass laws

to find out who owns guns. All who care about freedom, should

read his speech. Senators need to think long and hard about

whether Koh's extreme views on international gun control are

appropriate for America.

Let me cover a couple of other things. This one is about the Iraq war. Mr. Koh published a commentary in the Hartford Courant on October 20, 2002, entitled ``A Better Way to Deal With Iraq.'' Here is an excerpt from that article.

I believe that terrorism poses a grave threat to

international peace and security. I lost friends on September

11 and have shared in the grief of their families. I believe

that Saddam Hussein is an evil and dangerous man who daily

abuses his own people and who wishes no good for our country

or the world. I fear his weapons of mass destruction and

believe they should be eliminated. Yet I believe just as

strongly that it would be a mistake for our country to attack

Iraq without explicit United Nations authorization. I believe

such an attack would violate international law.

We need to think for a minute and digest what this means. Even though Mr. Koh believed that attacking Iraq would be in the best interest of America and the world, he believed we should wait on explicit directions from the United Nations before we acted. Both this commentary and his testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations demonstrate that Mr. Koh believes that if our President and Congress, empowered by our Constitution, decide military action is needed to defend our Nation from harm, we must get United Nations approval or our actions are illegal. This is an incredible position for the chief legal adviser to the State Department to adhere to.

Some may argue that Mr. Koh's position on the Iraq war is merely a principled liberal position. However, his belief that countries----

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

Mr. President, I encourage my colleagues to look at the record. Mr. Koh has a very winsome personality, which I appreciate, but the record gives us many reasons for concern that the State Department may not be acting in the best interests of our country under his legal counsel.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I have no problem going to this bill, but we have been working with Members on our side on a finite list of amendments that we wish to be considered on this bill. I am happy to work with the distinguished leader to obtain an agreement, and if he wishes me to cover some of those amendments today, I will. But at this point I will object to the motion to proceed and hope that we can work out an agreement.

I say to the Senator, I am prepared to grant a unanimous consent to move ahead right now if I can be guaranteed seven amendments: three by myself, two by Senator Coburn, and two by Senator Vitter. I will be glad to describe what those are if you like?

Yes, I will be glad to. Again, this is a trust but verify.

We had a few problems getting amendments on some other bills, so I just want to make sure we are in agreement and there are no surprises. I have three amendments we would like. One is related to the Capitol Visitor Center. The other is related to rescinding unspent stimulus money. And the other is asking for a GAO audit of the Federal Reserve.

Senator Vitter has an amendment related to, I believe, our pay raises, as well as a motion to recommit the--I guess he is going to have to explain that one to me.

Senator Coburn has a transparency of Senate expenses amendment as well as something about enumerated powers.

Enumerated powers. The minority has no powers. But this is enumerated powers of the Constitution.

These are our amendments. If we can just get agreement now that these can be included, we will be glad to proceed.

I understand the leader's position. I will object and agree to work with you in the next few hours or tomorrow if we can get general agreement and perhaps some compromise if that is possible. We certainly don't want to hold this up, but we would like to participate in the debate with a few amendments.

If the Senator will yield for clarification, regular order would be motion to proceed, debate, cloture. What we are trying to do is shortcut the regular order with unanimous consent, which I am very willing to grant, with some assurances that we will have some amendments.

I think, just for clarification, if we went through the regular order--I think the request is to bypass regular order. I am more than willing to agree to that if we can get some assurances we will have amendments.

I object. I make a point of order that the pending Lieberman amendment is not germane.

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

Madam President, all of us know the United States is facing many challenges at home and abroad today. We are in the middle of an economic crisis. Many Americans are losing their jobs. We are also being tested by our enemies and potential enemies all around the world. We have certainly seen Iran continue its nuclear weapons program. It snubbed its nose at the international community as the international community asked it to halt.

Recently, perhaps the most alarming threat to our security has come from North Korea. We have seen them fire test missiles over the last year, actually test a very powerful nuclear weapon, and now they are telling us they are going to test a rocket that is capable of reaching our shores. In the middle of this, they kidnapped two Americans and sentenced them to, I think, 12 years in a labor camp.

Throughout all this, America has talked tough, but I am afraid North Korea believes we are all talk.

The problem with our position with North Korea at this point is there are other rogue nations looking at what is happening and seeing that they can basically ignore the United States and the international community and continue to be a growing threat to all of us.

It is very important that the United States not reward this behavior as we have done for North Korea. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was added to the State Department's ``State Sponsors of Terrorism'' list in 1988 for activities ranging from the protection of Japanese terrorists to its role in the bombing of a Korean airliner. Since that time, North Korea has remained, as a matter of documented fact, a sponsor of terrorism.

Last June, President Bush announced his intention to remove North Korea from the list. At no time before or since has anyone said that North Korea ceased to be a state sponsor of terror. The delisting of North Korea was a carrot waved in front of Kim Jong Il as part of a well-meaning but extremely dangerous attempt to deal diplomatically with the urgent problem of North Korea's illegal nuclear programs. Secretary of State Clinton acknowledges that North Korea was delisted only in exchange for North Korea's commitment to abandon its nuclear weapons program and submit to outside verification.

Since then, I think as most of us know, North Korea has gone further in its campaign of militant destabilization of the world than ever before. It has detonated a large nuclear bomb. It has launched missiles capable of hitting our allies. It has withdrawn from the six-party talks. It has reprocessed spent fuel rods. It has withdrawn from the United Nation's treaty that ended

the Korean war over 50 years ago. It has announced its intention to launch a ballistic missile capable of hitting the Western United States.

In response to these threats, I and seven of my colleagues wrote Secretary Clinton asking that she relist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. In addition, Senator Brownback and I authored amendments that have been endorsed by 15 Senators directing Secretary Clinton to redesignate North Korea. The response thus far has fallen short. Secretary Clinton says relisting is being considered but as part of an ongoing diplomatic process. President Obama has offered strong words, but we have yet to see action.

North Korea has proven that it is immune to talk, whether that talk be sweet or tough. The President gave a speech last week saying that good relationships require speaking ``clearly and . . . plainly'' about international controversies. Relisting North Korea will speak clearly and plainly about the true nature of North Korea's regime. It will send a strong signal to our allies in the Pacific.

It is now clear that President Bush's diplomatic gamble, which many opposed last year, has failed. North Korea has exploited its newfound flexibility and respectability and used it to threaten Asia and the United States. They have tapped unfrozen assets to fund their mischief, and they remain a supplier to both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Secretary Clinton's statement over the weekend that she wants ``to see recent evidence of [North Korea's] support for international terrorism'' misses the point. North Korea was not delisted because it ceased assisting in sponsoring terror. If a convicted arsonist is released on parole, he does not have to burn down a house to go back to prison. Any crime will do. That is where we are with North Korea today. They are not operating in the spirit or letter of their agreements, and without a shred of good faith. They have not reformed and cannot be trusted. They are a state sponsor of terror and should be recognized for it.

Once relisted, North Korea will suffer consequences for its aggressive provocations. There will be trade restrictions, there will be sanctions and the refreezing of assets to limit North Korea's ability to fund its weapons program. Relisting North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism will let them and the world know that the United States is serious--something this administration has yet to do.

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

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

Mr. President, do we need to set aside a pending amendment?

It is my understanding, Mr. President, that I have 20 minutes to speak.

I would like to say a few words now and then reserve the remaining time.

Mr. President, I am going to speak on my amendment to S. 1054, and it addresses a large amount of money that has been added to the war supplemental bill. In these times, it is, first of all, somewhat surprising that we would take $108 billion and add it, unrelated to war supplemental, to this spending bill. My amendment would strike $108 billion from the current spending bill, and I would like to take a few minutes to explain exactly what my amendment does and what we are striking.

The Chair and all my colleagues know these are very challenging times. We often refer to it as one of the worst economic crises we have had. I think we and many Americans are concerned about how much we are spending, how much we are borrowing, and what that might mean in the not-too-distant future as it relates to inflation and interest rates and higher taxes. I am hearing very often when I go back home: Enough is enough.

We have to remember, as we look at this amount of money that has been requested, what happened to what we called the TARP funds. The last administration asked us to come up with $700 billion to be used for a financial bailout because we were in a crisis, and the money was going to be used--and this was very clear--to buy toxic assets, nonperforming loans, here and around the world. It had to be done immediately or the world financial system would collapse. Under that duress, Congress approved $700 billion--really, a trillion with interest, over time--but none of the money was ever used as it was supposed to be used. We never bought any toxic assets. In fact, the money was used in different ways: to inject money into banks--even some banks that didn't want it; it has been used to make loans to General Motors and to Chrysler; and now we are talking about converting those loans to common shares so that the Government is owner of General Motors and Chrysler, as well as the AIG insurance company and possibly part owners of many banks.

But the interesting part of this that relates to my amendment is that this week I asked Secretary Geithner: What is going to happen when this money is repaid? Well, if it is repaid, he said, it will go into the general fund, but the Treasury will maintain an authorization to take up to $700 billion from the

general fund anytime from now on. It becomes a permanent slush fund for Treasury. So what we have done is made the Treasury Department appropriators. Anytime they want, they can appropriate up to $700 billion.

That is, in effect, what we are doing with the International Monetary Fund. Let me explain to my colleagues a lot of things I didn't know until I looked into this. The International Monetary Fund was set up to make loans to nations; to help nations that might need money to get through a financial crisis. Many nations are involved, but we give them $10 billion as a kind of deposit to the fund. Currently, the IMF has the authority to use that money continuously. But we also give them the right to draw another $55 billion from our Treasury at any time. In effect, the International Monetary Fund can appropriate $55 billion from the U.S. Treasury anytime it wants. They now have over $60 billion of our money that they can use all over the world.

We can debate whether that is a good thing, but what the President has asked for, and this bill provides, is an additional $100 billion credit line, in effect, to the International Monetary Fund, and it ups our deposit another $8 billion. We are going to take another $8 billion and put it in the International Monetary Fund to be used. But then we make appropriators out of the International Monetary Fund. We give them a permanent credit line of an additional $100 billion that they can appropriate anytime they want around the world.

There are a lot of good things we would like to do as a country, as a Congress. We would love to improve our education system. There are a lot of challenges in health care. We have talked about our roads and bridges decaying. There are so many good things we would like to do that we don't have the money for. How can we possibly tell an International Monetary Fund that they can take $100 billion anytime they want from the U.S. Treasury if there is an emergency somewhere in the world?

There will be emergencies in these times. The interesting issue we are not thinking about is we are going to have more and more crises here at home. We know California is heavily in debt--over $20 billion. They are talking about a financial collapse, as is New York and other States. But the size of California's debt is only one-fifth of what we are giving the International Monetary Fund.

I don't think we have added up all of this. I am very concerned we are not considering how much money we are talking about. Let's put $108 billion in context. I know some will come and say we are not spending that amount of money, we are just authorizing it, which means it can be appropriated anytime, but we are not spending it. In fact, they took the effort to get CBO to change the way it normally scores so this is not spending. They are saying the risk is only like $5 billion. But the International Monetary Fund can take $100 billion out of our Treasury anytime it wants.

With the world situation the way it is, I think we are being very naive to think it will not come out. We were told most of the TARP funds would not be used. We used most of the TARP funds.

But let's think about this $100 billion. That is more than we spend as a Federal government on transportation all year. The 2010 budget for transportation is $5 billion. It is more than we spend on education for a whole year--$94 billion in our country. It is more than we spend on veterans' benefits. It is a lot of money. But very often we are talking about our own services to our own people in this country for which we do not have enough money. We need to remember the International Monetary Fund, while it may serve in theory a good purpose, people on the board who decide how this money is used include countries that we say are terrorists, such as Iran. Do we think Iran is going to help the United States when we are in trouble?

Let's look at our current situation. Our current national debt as a country is $11.2 trillion--more than any other country in the world. We are the most indebted country in the whole world. Our per capita debt is $37,000. Every man, woman and child in this country owes $37,000, based on what we have already borrowed. But if you include Social Security and Medicare liabilities, our current expenditures will exceed tax revenues by $40 trillion over the next 75 years. Our debt is now 80 percent of our gross domestic product--80 percent of our total economy, which is the highest level since 1951.

The President's budget estimates that total debt relative to our total economy will rise 97 percent by 2010 and 100 percent thereafter. We are going to have debt that is larger than our total economy in the next year or two.

We currently owe $740 billion to the People's Republic of China and we owe $635 billion to Japan and $186 billion to the oil exporters. Keep in mind, if the IMF does access this $108 billion, we will have to borrow it in order for them to get it, and we will have to pay interest on that money. We will be told we will earn interest on any money that is borrowed, but we will likely pay even a higher interest rate in order to make that money available. When we do, we increase our debt even further.

Yes.

Does the Senator have that? I have the bill with me. It would be a great help to point this out. Of course, 5 years, the drawing of $100 billion anytime in the next 5 years is something we should not even consider.

Yes.

That is a little smoke and mirrors. If the Senator will allow me to read from page 104 of the bill, on line 4 it says:

Any payments made to the United States by the International

Monetary Fund as a repayment on account of the principal of a

loan made under this section shall continue to be available

for loans to the International Monetary Fund.

You may have a date somewhere on this, but that is pretty clear, that it will continue to be a draw.

Do you have the cite?

I will answer the Senator on how much this costs. I think the Senator is aware, as I said, our normal way of measuring costs was changed for this bill. We are saying that, OK, if the International Monetary Fund accesses this money, it is just a loan so it is not a cost. But we have no guarantees it will get back. We say the International Monetary Fund has never lost money, but we have never been in these economic times before. We have never been in as much debt as a country. Can we afford, even if it is for the next 5 years, to have an international group that can draw $100 billion from our Treasury at any point they want? Do we want to be in that position? We have already given the Treasury Department a lot of credit to the general fund for $700 billion--which the Secretary has basically said is going to continue--and now we are going to give another line of credit to an international group in case there is a crisis around the world when we are facing crises here at home?

Mr. President, we need to equally apply the time now against both sides.

I will yield the time in a minute and reserve the remainder of my time. I appreciate the comment of the Senator. I think we should have open debate about this. I would like to talk a little bit more about this idea that a line of credit is not spending. We use that a lot around here. We say we have authorized it but have not appropriated it yet. But what the language

of this bill does is it not only authorizes $108 billion of new money for the International Monetary Fund, it gives them the power to appropriate it at any time. We may not call that spending around here, but that is just political talk. If that money is taken from our Treasury, we have to borrow money to give it to them, and they may or may not pay it back. We may say the International Monetary Fund has been stable for years, but part of the bill that is going through here today--the other side will say we have collateral, they have gold--but part of the bill here, and what my amendment strikes is, giving the International Monetary Fund the ability to sell over $12 billion worth of their gold, which is collateral supposedly for our money, in order to create more cash for them to lend around the world.

I am not saying the International Monetary Fund does not have a function. But we have already put at risk over $60 billion at a time when our country is struggling, at a time when it looks like we are going to triple the national debt over the next years, at a time when many of our States are near bankruptcy, and at a time when we do not have the money to fund the priorities such as health care and transportation, energy research, health research that we are always talking about. We need more money to do those things that are essential here in America. How can we possibly, on a war supplemental bill, add $108 billion that is unrelated, basically extort the votes out of the Members by forcing us to either vote against our troops or vote against this reckless risk we are talking about taking?

It makes absolutely no sense in this crisis that we have talked about in this country to put ourselves at risk for another $108 billion, when we don't even know how we are going to pay the interest on the money we have already borrowed.

Mr. President, I yield and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I objected to that. I was allowed 4 minutes. The other side is not showing up. I do not think that is right to take my 4 minutes. If the other side would like to yield back, I will be glad to close with my 4 minutes.

I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I reserve my 4 minutes.

Let me simplify this. I will go ahead and speak.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments that we have heard today. I want to make it clear we are not trying to minimize or change our commitment to the IMF at all. We are already committed for about $65 billion. We are the largest contributor to the IMF, and that will continue.

What I am opposing is a massive increase in our commitment of $108 billion at a time this country cannot afford it. We have also heard this is not really any spending, that no money will really come out of our Treasury. If that were true, we would not need to ask for it; it would not need to be in the bill. If that were true, it could be $200 or $300 billion, and it still would not cost us anything.

This is just political speak here in Washington. We are giving a credit line to an international agency where we do not control the vote, where they can take $108 billion more than they already have, 108 in addition to the $65 billion we have committed to this agency, to use in a way that they would like. I object to this because I have businesses in South Carolina that can't get a loan, a small loan from a bank that has taken Federal money. They can't continue their business because the bank says these are difficult

economic times and that is a high risk. So we are going to take $100 billion and give it to countries that are high risk because supposedly that helps our economy. Enough is enough. We have spent more than we can pay back already. It is wrong to attach this type of spending to a bill that supports our troops. This should be taken out of the bill right now. That is what my amendment does. It strikes a section that would give an additional $108 billion of appropriation authority to the

Will the Senator yield?

Are you reading from----

How much time do I have remaining?

I wish to make sure the Senator understands that the bill we vote on today amends what he just read about our ability to get out of this in 5 years. Sometimes it is hard to get the straight scoop here.

It is real money or we wouldn't be asking for it. This is not a time in our country's history that we can afford to put another $108 billion on the line, when we can't get our own businesses enough money. We have to stop this reckless spending. I encourage colleagues to support my amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and bring up DeMint amendment No. 1026.

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

Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to explain this amendment. I appreciate the chairman allowing me to offer this amendment. It relates to what we call

TARP funds or troubled asset funds we passed last year.

If I can take my colleagues through a little bit of history on how this happened, at the end of last year, the President and the Secretary of the Treasury came to us and explained a very dire crisis, not only in the United States but the world, that the whole financial system was on the verge of collapse, and if we did not pass this $700 billion Troubled Asset Recovery Program, it was very likely we would have financial chaos and even depression in the United States and around the world.

It was a pretty stunning presentation. It curiously lacked a lot of facts. There were no PowerPoint slides or statistics or graphs. It was more: Trust us, we know this is going to happen. We need to pass this immediately.

What they were going to do with the funds--and Secretary Paulson was very specific--was they were going to take this money and buy troubled assets in financial organizations that were too big to fail, that if they failed, it would cause severe problems all around the world. We were being told that unless we pass this money and use it immediately-- and they were talking within 24 to 48 hours--to buy troubled assets, the financial system in this country so many depended on would collapse.

At this point, after hearing a number of stories, we started this time last year mailing out checks, mortgage bailouts, all kinds of spending programs. None of it worked. None of it had been done exactly like they said it would. I did not trust the whole process. This was a Republican President. I voted against it, but many of my colleagues voted to pass the troubled asset funds to buy toxic assets, troubled assets in this country and around the world.

It passed, and the President signed it. Not one of these troubled assets has been purchased. Not one. A funny thing happened. The world financial system did not collapse. The people who told us it would either did not have the facts or they were not telling us the truth.

What they did with the money was loan some to the banks. Some of the banks had to have it immediately, apparently, or they would fail. They were too big to fail. We had to have the money.

What our Government did was go to a whole lot of other banks that were doing OK and say: You have to take this too. If you don't take it, then it will be harder for these other banks to take it. We need to have this money spread around. They did not buy the toxic assets. They loaned it to banks and put a lot of pressure on other banks to take it. As soon as they did, we got more and more involved with their business, regulators on the banks' backs. Some of the banks want to give it back. Guess what. We won't let them unless they pass some kind of test.

The Government has moved closer and closer--it kind of reminds me of the children's story, ``The Gingerbread Man.'' It is was one of my favorite stories growing up. If you remember, an older couple did not have any children. The husband was out working in the garden. The wife was making some gingerbread. She had a little left over and made a gingerbread man and put him in the oven. An hour or so later, she heard some rattling in the oven, opened it, and out jumped a gingerbread man. The gingerbread man ran around. She couldn't catch it. It ran out of the house. The husband tried to catch him. All they heard from the gingerbread man was: Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I am the gingerbread man.

Long story. The gingerbread man ran through the whole community. The townspeople were chasing him. The horses and the mules and everyone were chasing the gingerbread man, who kept saying: Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I am the gingerbread man.

The gingerbread man came to a wide river and not accustomed to swimming--gingerbread probably doesn't hold up real well in a river--he was stuck with all the town running behind him. Then appeared a fox that offered to give him a ride across the river. The gingerbread man was real suspicious. He knew that fox would probably eat him. The fox said: Don't worry, you can sit way back on my back on my tail way away from my mouth. No trouble, not to worry. Gingerbread man didn't have a lot of choice. He jumped right on his back.

As the fox got out farther and farther in the river, he sank a little deeper and deeper. Gingerbread man howled and jumped up a little closer on his neck. Out a little farther, the fox went down a little bit deeper. Gingerbread man jumped right up on his head. As he got close to the other side, he started sinking his head down and gingerbread man jumped right up on his nose, and as soon as he did, slap, gingerbread man was in the mouth and gone.

Gingerbread man is a lot like our free market system, free enterprise system, and what our whole free market system is in America--fast, dynamic, made our country exceptional and prosperous. Our banking system is the same way. Some of the greatest people in our communities are running banks.

With this TARP program, what we did is similar to a fox. We invited our whole financial system to jump on the back of the Federal Government. What they told us they were going to do they did not do, and each time the Government took another step, a different step, like the gingerbread man and the fox, the gingerbread man jumped closer and closer to the mouth.

What our whole free market system is doing now is sitting on the nose of the fox, the Federal Government, which keeps taking us deeper and deeper into this river. The Federal Government did not buy toxic assets. They kind of pushed loans out into the market. They said they had to do that.

Now we see where they are, telling us this does not look good on the books of banks for it to be a loan. So we are going to just change the balance sheet from a loan to an asset. We are going to turn these loans into common stock, equity, which will make the Federal Government owners in the banks, voting owners.

Folks, there is kind of a sacred line in this country we had not crossed. There is a separation between what the Government does and what the private sector does, and this Government does not own private companies. But just like this fox, we have been led into this thing with misinformation--I hope that is all it is and not outright deception--but we are at the point where the Government is now telling us they are going to own a lot of these banks. They will not let them give it back. They are going to convert it to ownership. All these private companies out there are going to be owned, in part, by the Federal Government.

What we are hearing from investors--Chairman Bernanke said it at lunch today--is when they are trying to get people to invest in financial institutions, what they are finding is a strange thing. The private investors, smart investors, do not want to get in bed with the Federal Government because they do not know what we are going to do. They have every reason not to know what we are going to do because we have yet to do what we said we were going to do with this $700 billion, which will ultimately be over $1 trillion, with which we are now playing in the private stock market.

As we pass this bill that is supposed to protect homeowners, I am offering an amendment. It is an amendment that would force this Government to do at least part or keep it from going further than it already has into the private sector. It would prohibit the Government from converting these loans, which are sometimes referred to as preferred stock now. It is not voting. It would prohibit them from converting this to common stock, to ownership, to equity in these banks.

It should not surprise anyone. We were told this would not happen in the first place. We were told the money was going to buy these toxic assets. This amendment would at least put up a firewall that says: You cannot go any further, fox; you cannot take over private enterprise in America.

A lot of my colleagues are going to give a lot of excuses why they cannot vote for this amendment, but I hope America is looking in at this and remembering that it was not this Government that made this country great, that made us exceptional and prosperous and good, that put us on the top of the world in a lot of ways, the envy of the world. It was not this Government. It was a limited government. It was free markets and free people.

This Government now has pushed and pushed and intervened in the private market to the point where it is not

working. We wonder why people are not investing and why the markets are erratic. Because no one knows what the Federal Government is going to do once it starts playing in the stock market in this country, once it starts arbitrarily converting loans that were for a crisis to own our banks, to own our private companies.

They took the TARP money and made loans to General Motors. What are they going to do with that? They are going to convert it to common stock so this Federal Government owns General Motors.

That is not America. That is not free markets. That is not free enterprise. That is not what we signed up for, and we shouldn't allow it.

This amendment is pretty simple: Government, you cannot go any further. Enough is enough. You cannot convert these loans to common stock. We are going to have a firewall between where you are now and where you want to go.

Folks, we cannot let them go any further. We have lost the line between Government and the private sector. The Government is not set up to manage things and control things. Everything we try to do, we mess up. What we are here for is to develop a framework of law and predictable regulations so free markets and free people can operate. We are not set up to manage auto companies.

I was in a meeting this morning talking about how we were going to manage General Motors and Chrysler. I have been in a lot of boardrooms because I have done a lot of strategic planning for private companies in my lifetime. It is so obvious, we do not have the capability to manage a dynamic, complex, global marketplace. That is central planning. That is what Karl Marx thought we could do. But every time it has been tried in the history of the world, it has failed because there is no way a legislative body and a large national government such as this can manage the private sector.

What happens, though, is we get involved, we make things worse, and then we say we need more government to solve the problem. We are doing that now with AIG, the largest insurance company in the country. We have gotten in, we own most of the stock, mismanagement is rampant, and we are talking about we need more government, we need more money. Folks, it doesn't work.

I would encourage my colleagues to consider what I think we are hearing from all across America: Enough is enough. We can't do this under the guise of one crisis after another. Let's stop this rampage of the Federal Government into our private lives, the free markets, the whole concept of America. Please support this amendment that would stop the conversion of loans--TARP money--into common stock. It is a simple concept. We shouldn't be able to excuse our way around this one.

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

Mr. President, if I could have my colleagues' attention, the next amendment is one that would prohibit the Federal Government from converting TARP loans to common equity. Millions of Americans are telling us that enough is enough. We were told that the TARP money would be used one way, and it hasn't been used that way. It has been used for loans. We cannot let it go further to let these loans convert to common stock.

I urge my colleagues to support at least some firewall between what the Federal Government does and the private sector. We didn't approve TARP funds so the Government could become common equity shareholders in banks across the country. Let's let them give this back when they are capitalized, but let's not get the Government in the business of owning banks.

My amendment would prohibit the conversion of these loans to common equity. I encourage my colleagues to support it.

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

Madam President, in a moment I would like to bring up an amendment, but in deference to Senator Dodd, I wish to wait for him to be back on the floor. In the meantime, I would like to explain amendment No. 1026 and talk about it briefly until the Senator returns.

We are all well aware of the bailout bill that was passed last October. It had one purpose, at least as that purpose was described to us, and that was to purchase what they called toxic assets that were clogging up the credit system. That $700 billion was then used in other ways, and I believe unconstitutionally, to loan money to banks, insurers, auto companies, and to actually turn those loans into preferred stock, in some cases.

It now appears the administration is going to take this a little bit further. We have seen the hiring and firing of executives. We have seen the Government, in effect, break contracts that were established in the private sector. We see the Government continuing to use this TARP money to gain more and more control over private sector industries, particularly the financial industries.

The administration appears now to have a plan that would swap this loan money in the form of preferred stock for common stock, which means we not only own but we have voting rights and, in some cases, controlling interests in General Motors. My amendment addresses specifically financial institutions, but we are talking about financial, auto companies, and other aspects of our economy using this TARP money in ways that were totally different than we ever imagined.

My amendment addresses specifically banks. It would prohibit the Federal Government from converting preferred stock to common stock and basically taking ownership and control of banks across the Nation.

Many banks that participated in the TARP funds suggest they were pressured to take it when they did not need it. Many banks now say they would like to give it back, and they are not allowed to give it back. We need to back the Federal Government out of our private sector financial system and set up a good system of laws and regulations so it can work in a way that is transparent, honest, and good for the American people. But we don't need the Federal Government to own our banks and to try to run the day-to-day business in our banks, just like we do not need the Federal Government to own General Motors and to run General Motors.

My amendment would address, specifically, the financial institutions in our country and prohibit the use of TARP funds to be translated into common stock ownership and voting rights.

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

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

Madam President, I would like to bring up amendment No. 1026.

I thank the Senator and yield the floor.

I object.

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 994.

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

Madam President, our economy has shed 3.3 million jobs in the last 5 months. The Dow Jones is down 25 percent since September. When the bank bailout or TARP was conceived, it was conceived, ironically, to save the market. We had been told by both President Bush and President Obama that we needed this massive spending in order to get the financial markets working again and the economy moving. It has been 6 months since Congress gave away $700 billion to the Bush administration with essentially no strings attached. The Obama administration has, unfortunately, continued conducting massive and risky experiments in central planning since taking control of the TARP in January. We need to remember that we have yet to use this money the way it was promised.

We were told, when this money was requested during the last months of the Bush administration, that if we didn't have all this money to buy the toxic assets, the world financial market would collapse. I am afraid we were not told the truth. Clearly, the world financial market did not collapse, although it continues to have trouble. But we did not buy up any of the toxic assets, and the world financial market didn't collapse. The Bush administration--and now the Obama administration-- set about figuring out different ways to use the money rather than admitting the ideas they had were not right.

Sixteen of the 19 banks that received the largest amounts of this TARP money are loaning less now than they did when the money was provided. We received a report this week that the design of the TARP was ripe for corruption, waste, and fraud. There are already a number of cases in the media that this is happening. Yet we continue to toy with this money in ways that are unprecedented. Now the Obama administration has announced President Obama is going to use the money in a totally different way. We need to look at what they are proposing.

What our economy needs now more than anything else is certainty, certainty that the Government will not undo contracts retroactively, which we are talking about doing here, certainty that spending will be brought under control to avoid future tax increases and runaway inflation, and certainty that failure will not be rewarded by a government bailout. Of course, there has been anything but certainty from our Government in the last several months. Government intervention has become the norm rather than the exception.

Now we understand the Treasury Department has concocted a new scheme to convert these loans, which are preferred stock in certain banks, into common equity in order to increase those banks' capital. This is only a paper change. We move it from a debt to an asset, and we say we have done something. The problem is, when the Government has common stock in banks, it owns banks. It would likely have positions on the board. The taxpayer, who is making this money available, is at risk. If a bank goes under, the common stock is gone. So we are taking what was some security for taxpayers and shifting it to another place. We are crossing a dangerous line where the Government owns and controls banks and insurance companies, auto companies, a line we have never crossed before as a country, a country based on free markets, not central planning by government.

The American people are starting to send us a signal that they are concerned, alarmed by the amount of spending, all these bailouts, the rewarding of failure, the debt we are creating. We saw about a million Americans last week in numerous tea parties across the country take to the streets, hold up their signs, express to their elected officials that we need to stop this out-of-control spending and waste going on in Washington. Loaning banks money temporarily is one thing. It is something I oppose because I have seen government operate long enough to know that it can't do it effectively. It can't do it without waste and fraud and corruption.

Our own Treasury Department has now told us that. We can't put this much money out there without bad things happening. We need to let the market work. If we have banks that are too sick to succeed, then we need to allow them to fail while we protect the depositors in that bank.

The amendment I offer focuses attention on the idea of government owning banks. It is pretty simple. It would prohibit the Government from converting TARP loans to common stock. We have heard of other amendments that would allow banks to give this money back and allow the money to go to paying down debt. This is not a slush fund that we created for politicians to play with, to scheme in different ways on how we could come up with new ways to spend money we don't have. It is all borrowed money. If it is not needed the way it was intended, it needs to come back to the taxpayer rather than what is happening now. The idea that we are going to have the Federal Government actually own stock in banks, insurance companies, and other private companies is an idea we need to stay away from.

I hope all of my colleagues will support this amendment that simply prohibits our Government from converting what was supposed to be loans, what was promised to be loans, what was promised to be used to buy bad assets so banks could loan again, it would prohibit this money from being used for common stock and ownership in the banking system.

I thank the Chair for the time and encourage my colleagues to support the amendment.

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

I send a motion to the desk.

Madam President, we are here to talk about the budget. Obviously there are a number of different

things in the budget of concern and some controversy. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this motion which addresses a particular part of the budget related to health care. During the campaign the President promised that any changes in health care would protect the patient's right to pick their plan, their doctor, and to keep the plan they have if they want it. My motion simply codifies that, in a sense, we make sure we keep the promise.

In the budget there is a downpayment which has been referred to of, I think, around $700 billion on some massive changes in health care. My concern is this could mean an expansion of Government plans rather than making private health insurance more available to patients. We do not need to just speak of the public interest when we are talking about health care; it is important that we talk about the patient's interests. I think most of us agree that when the patients can work directly with their doctors, choose their own doctors, choose their own health plans, the Nation is better off.

There is an old saying that success has many fathers while failure is an orphan. Our health care failures have a father. In most cases it is the Government. See, our policies make it hard for individuals to have a health insurance plan they can afford and own and keep. One part of that is the Government today pays for over half of the health care in America through Medicare, Medicaid, children's health programs, and veterans health programs. But, unfortunately, when they pay doctors in hospitals they often pay below cost.

In fact, it has been estimated that Government payment causes private health insurance to be 20 percent to 30 percent more expensive than it would be if everyone paid their fair share of the cost. So the Government at the beginning is a big part of the problem of making health insurance too expensive for individuals.

A number of us had the opportunity this week to hear from the President and CEO of Safeway Supermarkets. They have over 200,000 employees. He was going through a lot of the statistics about their health plan and how they have been able to keep the cost of health care level for the last 4 years. They have done a lot of things not only to make health insurance and health care more accessible, they have done a lot of things to make their employees healthier. You see, they use a lot of incentives, recognizing that 70 percent of our health problems as Americans are caused by our own behavior--whether it be smoking or overweight or poor diets. It is pretty obvious through the statistics that people have a lot of control over how healthy they are and therefore how much they have to spend on health care.

Safeway, through a lot of incentives that discourage smoking and encourage people to get in better shape--eat better, lose weight--are able to save their employees money and to make them healthier and to reduce the cost of the health care for the company and for the employees.

There are a lot of demonstrations like this around the country that show private health insurance can work. Freedom can work if we let it.

The President of Safeway asked us to make some changes that would give them more flexibility to offer even more incentives for people to cut their own cost of health care by changing their behaviors. This is something we should all want. Instead of moving immediately to some massive new Federal plan, let's look at what we can do to let the free market system work, where patients and doctors and employers and associations can work together to make private health insurance work.

There are a lot of things we do here that make it harder. I will list a few. Small businesses could do the same thing as Safeway if we allowed them to work together in associations to buy their health insurance and to provide these incentives for better health and better access to health care. But, yet, we have consistently voted against allowing this to happen. Why will we not let that happen? Why will we not let individuals deduct the cost of their health insurance, like we do employers? It is almost as though we do not want individuals to have health insurance. Then we throw up our hands and talk about how many people are uninsured in our country.

Health insurance would work much better if it were portable. We could change some of our laws and regulations to make it much easier for people who have insurance with one company to take it with them when they leave to go to another company or to start their own business. Yet we refuse to do those things that would allow the market to work.

Right now in this country, individuals can only buy health care or health insurance from companies that are in their State, that are certified in their State. Why not let people buy health insurance from any State in the country as we do with other services? Why restrict it to a one-State monopoly, where regulations or mandates or other things could shoot up the cost of health care? We could create a more competitive, higher quality health insurance market if we let it become national market.

We do other things that seem absurd, such as we will allow a small employer to put money in a health savings account for their employees but we will not let that employee use the money in the health savings account to pay for a health insurance premium. Why do we do that? If we want people to have health insurance, to have the freedom to buy and own their own health insurance, we would do these simple things that put the patient more in charge. They would have better health care, better health insurance, and probably a lot better health.

What we are doing every day is sliding closer to a national or socialized health care system, saying the system we have does not work when the fact is we have done about everything we can to make it impossible for a free system to work. We do have serious problems and challenges in our health care system but almost all of them are made worse by the people who work in this place everyday.

The question now is whether more Government will make those problems better or worse. I think to ask that question answers it on its face. We know the free market did not create these problems because there is no free market for health care in the United States today. Government dominates the market. It does not pay its fair share. It regulates everything to the point where it makes it very difficult for the private market to work.

Let's not give up on freedom and go to socialism here in America before we have tried to fix the simple things that are obvious, in front of us, the things that companies such as Safeway say we can do to provide better insurance and make people healthier and lower their cost and give them plans they can keep.

No matter what the problem is in Washington, people here seem to think the solution is more Government. But we do not need a new Federal program for health care. We need to remove the Federal barriers that keep freedom from working in health care.

We have taken over banks, auto industry, mortgage lending, education, transportation system. Look at the areas the Government is running today and ask yourself, do you want to run health care the way we have been running education in America; as we have been running the financial markets for the last few months; or how we are doing with the auto industry now that we have essentially taken it over?

Health care is the best in the world here in America because of that small segment of the private market, the free market, that is working-- the best pharmaceuticals, the best technology, the best private health care.

Socialism does not work. There is not an example in the world where it does. We keep hearing here, why don't we be more like Europe or more like Canada, where people have to wait 6 months or more to get an MRI. The only reason theirs works as well as it does is they are the beneficiary of a lot of American technology that is developed in the free market system. They are the beneficiaries of a lot of the prescription drugs that come out of our country that are developed here because there is still a free market. This is a reason that the technology and the prescriptions are not being developed in other countries that are socialistic. Freedom works and we need to expand it here in America.

Let me talk briefly about this motion to instruct conferees. Hopefully it

will not be controversial because it is essentially a promise from the President of the United States. My amendment would require a supermajority vote to consider any legislation in the future that would take away people's freedom to keep their own health plan or take away people's freedom to choose their own doctor or decrease the number of people with private insurance while increasing the number of people in Government-rationed health care programs. All my amendment says is give freedom a chance. The American people have not given up on freedom and neither should their elected officials.

I thank the ranking member, I thank the Presiding Officer, and ask for the consideration of my motion.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my motion simply codifies some promises during the last campaign focusing on health care as part of this budget. My motion would create a 60-vote point of order for any legislation that takes away a person's right to pick their own doctor, to choose their own plan, or to keep the health plan they already have. These are promises the President made, that no health care reform would take away those rights, and my motion is to insist that the budget conference report include that.

Mr. President, I appreciate the offer very much, but knowing that the chairman probably doesn't see my nature as good as Senator Coburn's, I suspect it might not stay in, in conference. I would like a rollcall vote, but I thank the Senator from North Dakota very much for his offer.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Kansas for making such a powerful, persuasive case for human rights and freedom in North Korea and around the world. I wish to change subjects slightly for a few minutes and talk about some experiences over the last couple of weeks.

Stop The Spending

Last Wednesday, tens of thousands of Americans celebrated tax day by speaking out against the direction of this Federal Government. I attended three tea parties in South Carolina. What struck me the most was how nonpartisan these events were. These were families, couples with children, not

necessarily Republicans or Democrats, but both were there. They did not care about parties or candidates. They cared about their kids and the debt we are saddling them with, with almost everything we do in Washington. They cited with their signs and their voices that every American today has a $35,000 share in our national debt. That is just today, not counting what we have added. And it does not count the unfunded costs of Social Security and Medicare that we borrowed from our future.

The way we are spending up here, the per capita debt in our country will soon exceed the per capita income. We are not just bankrupting our country, we are bankrupting generations of Americans not even born yet.

This is a moral issue. Every dollar spent represents another freedom seized, another constitutional principle ignored, another opportunity squandered. The American people are tired of politicians--Republicans and Democrats--borrowing and spending money on programs we do not need, programs they know will not work.

The message of the tea parties is clear: Stop growing Government and spending all our money, all our kids' money, all our grandkids' money.

But will we get the message? We keep hearing that we are in the middle of an economic crisis, but we are in the middle of a political crisis. We hear a lot about corporate greed, but that pales in comparison to the political greed of elected officials who continue to make promises that we cannot pay for and borrowing the money to do it.

A poll conducted last week suggests that while a majority of American people have a favorable view of these tea parties, only 13 percent of the political class does. It is the same pattern over and over again on the stimulus, on earmarks, on socialized and rationed health care, on the proposed tax on electricity and energy. Americans disagree with Washington on these socialistic experiments, and our leaders act as if it is the American people who are the ones who are out of touch.

Indeed, no sooner had the protesters gone home than they learned that their preference for freedom, limited Government, and local control marked them as potential terrorist threats, according to a report by the Department of Homeland Security.

Americans have been misled and lied to by elected officials who promise the world while stealing our future. And they have had enough. Tea parties are only the beginning. Americans have come to understand that many of our problems are caused by more Government and that they can only be solved by more freedom.

Think of the things that are categorized as crises today--a crisis in education, a crisis in health care, a crisis in energy, our transportation infrastructure, banking and finance, the auto industry. But who has been running these services for the last several decades? Who has been running our education system? It has not been the free market. It has not been the free people. It has been Government, with the price we are paying expanding faster than any other service. We spend more per capita than any other country in the world, yet consistently we lose ground to other industrialized nations. We do not need more Federal control, we need more freedom in education, more choices, more competition, more technology, the kinds of things that Government and union control cannot provide in our education. It may be a crisis, but it is not one caused by freedom, it is one caused by politicians.

What about health care? We talk about the number of uninsured Americans, but have we given freedom a chance? The rules and laws we pass here make it virtually impossible for individuals to own and keep their own insurance policy. There are ways we can solve this problem, there are ways we can get every American insured without spending one additional dime of tax dollars. But instead, the movement in Washington is toward Government health care, socialized medicine, and we have made a downpayment in our recent budget in that direction.

We have an energy crisis, but who has held back this country from exploring and developing our own energy reserves? It has not been the free markets or the free people; it has been this Government. And under the name of environmental protection, we have actually made the environment worse by blocking nuclear energy, blocking natural gas development, and not moving where other countries have toward cleaner energy sources that are within our reach.

What about our transportation infrastructure? Who has been running that? Increasingly, the Federal Government takes more and more gas tax dollars and instead of giving them back to States for their priorities, we earmark it in every different direction. The last Secretary of Transportation basically said we cannot have a transportation program because it is all politically directed. That is political greed. That is not a fault of freedom.

What about banking and finance? The Government was going to help our financial system, so they made loans, not just to those too big to fail. If you talk to local bankers, the Federal Government essentially forced these banks to take this money, and now they will not let them give it back. And they are now talking about converting these loans into common stock so the Federal Government owns the banks. That is not freedom. That is not the America we know. That is nationalization, that is socialization of a country.

Freedom has not failed in the financial markets. It has been this Government, our oversight, and the Government intermediaries of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that essentially packaged and brokered all of these so-called toxic assets.

Freedom has not failed. Has freedom failed in our auto industry? Of course not. The Government and the labor unions have been running the American auto companies for years. Management has very little discretion. If you look at other auto companies that are free of Government control, free of the barnacles of unionization, we see these companies succeeding in the United States. You cannot bail them out with more money; you have to bail them out with freedom.

Over the work period, I had a chance to visit Europe and the Middle East. I had a chance to welcome the new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, back to office. It was interesting to hear him talk. He is concerned about the direction of our country moving toward a more socialist direction, while he realized the opportunities in Israel were to move away from socialization to more free markets, more land reform that allowed more property ownership, exactly the opposite of where we see us going. He realized that in order to have a prosperous Israel and a strong military and a bright future, he needed to move his country more toward freedom.

I heard the same thing in Brussels from a lot of our European allies, startled at the level of spending and debt the United States has taken on, concerned that we have the ability to pay it back, concerned that our commitment to the military is falling off, concerned that America will not be there as promised as part of a NATO partner sometime in the future.

But it was concern about our abandonment of free market principles, free trade, the things that can make the world safe and prosperous, that the United States seemed to be pulling back from those principles.

I just wanted to share a few thoughts today because as we talk about more Government and more spending in almost every area of our lives, and we continue to blame our problems on freedom and capitalism--the people who work hard and take personal responsibility--it seems we have it backwards from what actually made America great and exceptional and unique and prosperous and good.

I keep hearing our economic problems were caused by the free market. But what free market? What have I talked about that has had a chance to work as a free market? If you look at those areas where the Government has not yet reached its tentacles in to regulate to the point of paralysis, look at our telecommunication system, which we are talking about in committee as to how we can regulate it. The incredible explosion of innovation and choice and competition--the cell phones, the BlackBerrys, the fantastic ways we have to communicate all over the world--could never have been created by a government system. It was created by free people and free markets, and that can work in every area, as it has before in America.

Let's not blame this financial crisis and the housing problems on freedom and free markets. The Government itself, through its public- private partnership of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was the broker of these deals--the middle man of toxic assets. No private company would take the kind of risks that were taken unless they could first get cheap money, which the Federal Reserve provided, and then have a basic government guarantee for these loans that they were making and packaging. The Government is in the middle of this crisis. It is political greed. It is not the fault of freedom.

This Congress and this Federal Government are really at a crossroads, and the American people are standing there with these tea parties telling us: Don't give up on freedom. Government does not work. Socialism does not work. There is no example in history where it has. Yet we contemplate every day another step closer to more Government control. I am thankful the American people are standing up. They are alarmed at what we are doing. It has nothing to do with politics. It has nothing to do with a political party. It has everything to do with what makes this country great and good. But we have abandoned it in Congress, and this crossroads at which we stand is the crossroads between freedom and socialism.

Some folks say you shouldn't use that term, ``socialism.'' But, folks, when the Government basically controls or owns most aspects of economic production, which is where we are headed today, we are talking about socialism, and socialism that is to the left of where many European countries are. We can stop it, but we have to stop it starting today, and that is why these tea parties are so important. I hope they will shake up a few people here in both parties. I hope they will send a message that this Government is for the people, and of the people, and by the people. If we don't get it right, if we don't listen to them, these people can take it back, and I am thankful they are willing to stand up and express their voices. And I am very sorry anyone in this administration or this Government would categorize them as a threat in any way just because they are willing to speak out against what they know is wrong in Washington.

I encourage my colleagues, as we think about one spending program after another, one Government takeover after another, that we not give up on freedom and that we listen to the American people.

With that, Mr. President, I yield back.

I call up amendment No. 965.

Mr. President, this amendment is called the Auto Bailout Prevention Amendment. We are debating an amendment which spends more, borrows more, and taxes more than any budget in history. Americans are already fed up with how much we spent on all the bailouts. One of the areas they are most frustrated with is the auto bailouts. We have already taken over $17 billion from funds designated to financial institutions and now the administration is talking about some form of bankruptcy while General Motors and Chrysler have asked for another $21.6 billion.

This amendment reduces function 370 funds by $21.6 billion, which prevents the President from further using TARP to prop up General Motors and Chrysler with taxpayer dollars.

Enough is enough. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I would like to call up DeMint Amendment No. 967.

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

Mr. President, one of the changes President Obama said he would bring to Washington is earmark reform.

Last month, on March 11, he laid out his plan. And that is what this amendment is. It is a four-point plan. I will explain it with quotes from the President: Any earmark for a for-profit private company should be subject to the same competitive bidding requirements as other Federal contracts; No. 2, each earmark must be open to scrutiny at public hearings where Members will have to justify their expense to the taxpayer; No. 3, earmarks that Members do seek might be aired on those Members' websites in advance so the public and the press can examine them and judge their merits for themselves; and, No. 4, that he would prohibit the trading of earmarks for public favors.

It is just that simple. This is the President's plan for earmark reform. I ask my colleagues to support it.

I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to waive.

Mr. President, I wish to call up DeMint amendment No. 963.

Mr. President, there are a number of concerns about this budget, and I have heard from a number of Americans who see in the budget hundreds of millions of dollars for health care which suggests that the Government is not only going to expand into banks and auto companies and education but to expand into health care. One of the propositions President Obama made is that Americans will always be able to pick their own plans and choose their own doctors. This amendment simply codifies that. It creates a point of order against any legislation that would eliminate the ability of a patient to pick their own plans or their own doctor.

I encourage my colleagues to support it.

If you can assure me we will win.

It is a done deal. Thank you.

Mr. President, I wish to call up amendment No. 964.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add as cosponsors Senators Bennett, Enzi, Brownback, Coburn, and Vitter.

Mr. President, I ask for my colleagues' attention because this is not a partisan amendment; it is not a messaging amendment.

Many of my colleagues have probably heard from a number of constituents about some problems with the Consumer Product Safety Act that we passed. This amendment simply allows for the improvement of that bill with certain considerations such as allowing current inventory to sell through, exempting thrift stores and secondhand sellers, exempting book sales and children's motorcycles, allowing manufacturers to prove there is no lead content

by proving that their components have no lead contents. This means they don't have to destroy existing inventory if they can prove it is safe. This amendment does nothing to diminish safety, but it is common sense.

Please, this is costing millions of dollars, thousands of jobs across this country. I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

Mr. President, I wish to speak for few minutes on the Serve America Act. I think this is a great opportunity to talk about what is good about a lot of the Members of the Senate. I certainly appreciate and applaud the sponsors of this bill for their good intentions and know their hearts are in the right place. Some of my best friends are supporting this bill. But I think, as we look at what is good about the hearts of many Members of the Senate, we need to recognize this bill does represent a lot of what is wrong with our Federal Government today--a lot of our philosophies, and a lot of our departures from a constitutional form of government.

What works in America today is our civil society--a lot of the volunteer groups that many of us have been a part of. I know for years I spent more time in United Way and a lot of the charity groups, being on their boards back in my community, and I saw what the volunteer arts groups and PTAs and health groups did to build a strong community. Civil society works in America. They are small groups. They are the true engines of character in our country. They promote service and patriotism. In this time where we have seen some of our economic institutions let us down, we have certainly seen our Government and our policies let us down, civil society does not let us down. It works in America today.

It is understandable why Congress would want to get involved. We see that passion to serve, that desire to do something that is greater than yourselves. We look at that working in our civil society and we want to get involved and expand it.

Unfortunately, our history shows us when Government gets involved, it tends to take something that is working and make it not work nearly as well. Civil society works because it is everything Government is not. It is small, it is personal, it is responsive, it is accountable. Civil society must be protected from any effort to make it more like Government.

That is what we are doing with this bill today. This bill centralizes control of important functions of our civil society. There is a downside to good intentions here in Government. The Founders created a limited government and our oath to support and defend the Constitution means that is our focus here. Our oath is to a limited government. The Founders wanted the people to be free from our good intentions. Government charity is anathema to what our Founders intended and what our Constitution stands for. Despite our good intentions, where we try to implement those good intentions and our compassion through the force of Government, we are effectively violating our oath of office here.

Well-intended legislation has left more than half of all Americans dependent on the Government. Today in America over half of Americans get their income from the government or a government source. About 20 percent of the country works for the government or an entity that gets its primary source of revenue from government. Another 20 percent gets their income and health care from Medicare or Social Security. Once you add in welfare and other subsidies, you make it so over half of all Americans are already dependent on the Government. This bill proposes to spend nearly $6 billion over 5 years, which means it will be probably $10 billion, probably more, over a 10-year period. It will have nearly a quarter of Americans working for it, which means it will be the 14th largest company, as far as employees, in the entire world.

What have we done here that suggests we can manage anything like that? Do you see anything in our history as a Federal Government that shows we have the ability to effectively manage something like that without extreme levels of waste and fraud and abuse? Look what we have done recently with the stimulus plan and the bailout plans. As soon as it comes to light what is actually happening with that money, people are outraged at what is going on. Despite the good intentions of this bill, we are creating a huge new government entity that will be unmanageable and violates some of the core principles of our civil society. Every time the Government steps in to solve a problem, it creates three new problems in its place.

This bill is everything wrong with how Congress sees the world. Government will make service organizations less effective, less responsive, and less personal. When the French historian de Tocqueville came to the United States not long after we were founded, one of the things that amazed him about our country that was so different from France was that in his home country when there was a problem, people would say: Someone ought to do it and government should do it; but in America we were different. When someone saw a problem, they went and got a friend and formed a small group and solved the problem themselves. Much of that was motivated by religious convictions that our place in this world is not only to help ourselves but to love and help those around us. That was key.

Jefferson called it little democracies, when he saw these little groups all around America voluntarily doing things to solve problems and make communities better. Burke called them little platoons. Most people who understand America know that those voluntary groups are what made our country great and what sustain us even today. Civil society binds communities, not by its fruits, but by its motives--charity, donations, giving without thought of getting anything in return. This is the selfless sacrifice that happens throughout America today. This is what works.

What does not work is what we are doing right here. The big difference is private service organizations exist for the people who receive the aid. Government service organizations exist for the people who give it--in this case, for the people who are paid to do it. You cannot pay people to volunteer and expect the organization to remain focused on its mission. Charity is a private, moral impulse, not a government program.

Government will not and, by definition, cannot strengthen and replace the civil society. Volunteerism is something that works in America. When we think of America, we do not think of Congress and Presidents, we think of Little League games and PTA meetings and bake sales.

Civil society is America. It responds to needs, meets challenges, and solves problems because it is free from Government. Because volunteers donate their time and money, accountability is acute. I have seen it. I have sat on a United Way board. Every year we evaluate every program and every dollar we have given to someone, and we determine is it working or can we make it more efficient.

If the program is not working, the money goes away immediately. That does not happen here. If the program does not work here, we add more money to it. That is going to happen with every program we start, including the one we are talking about today.

Projects that do not work in a civil society get cut. Organizers who lose or abuse funds are dismissed. It is voluntary. So everyone is invested in its success. We know the large groups throughout America, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the United Way, the Salvation Army, the YMCA, Catholic

Charities, fraternal orders, groups such as Kiwanis, Rotary, Knights of Columbus. These are large organizations, but they work because they are locally controlled.

Smaller groups, local arts councils and community theatres, PTAs, youth sports leagues, the animal rescues, the book clubs, crisis pregnancy centers, soup kitchens, food and other clothes drives that go on, church service groups, they are everywhere.

Those are the little platoons, the little democracies that make this country work. For us to presume, in the Congress, that somehow we are going to reach out into all these groups and make it work better is pretty presumptuous based on our history.

Why now? Why at a time in economic crisis with unimaginable debt and spending do we come in and say: We need to spend another $10 billion over the next 10 years to create another Government program to do something that is already working.

At the same time, we are talking about creating this new bureaucracy to replace private voluntarism with Government programming. We are actually cutting some of the incentives for people to give to charity and for the private sector to work. The President's budget actually cuts the charitable donations of the people who give the most to charity in this country. So look at what we are doing. We are making it harder for the private sector to work.

You also look at what we have done over the years, forgetting that a lot of private charity and the motivation to serve God and community is a religious-based motivation. What have we done in this country?

We have essentially tried to purge that motivation from our country. Most public schools, or at least a lot of them, used to sponsor Boy Scout groups. But after being sued for years because the Boy Scouts have God in their pledge and they set standards for their leaders that some do not agree with, the threat of lawsuits essentially means our Government schools have thrown out the Boy Scouts.

More than half our astronauts, half our FBI agents, a lot of the most successful people in this country were trained in the Boy Scouts to serve their community, where their character was developed. But this Federal Government has forced them out of public places. For years we purged religion from our society. Religion was the primary motivation for a lot of civic groups, a lot of services, a lot of charities, a lot of hospitals that were formed, a lot of schools.

But we have said that has no place. Because we have unleashed the ACLU and other groups to constantly sue and intimidate groups, that religious motivation has been moved, has been purged in many cases.

Now we are going to come in and help solve the problem we have created. We want to promote voluntarism, we want to promote community service, when what we have done over the last several decades is essentially tried to destroy the motivation for people to serve a cause that is greater than themselves.

We cannot replace private charity with Government programs. If we try, a lot of people are going to miss meals, suffer cold winters, and leaky roofs. I wish to go back to where I started. I appreciate the motivation, the heartfelt sense of compassion and the patriotism that I know my colleagues feel in sponsoring this legislation.

But I think we need to come to a point as a government that we recognize we cannot do everything. That is why we take the oath to the Constitution to defend and protect the very limited form of Government. This Congress, this Government, does not need to start or expand an organization to a quarter million people, when we are paying people to do work that we decided needs to be done and take those decisions out of the hands of millions of Americans who look around every day and see what they can do to make their families, their communities, and their country a better place to live.

These are not Government decisions. We need to focus on what we were set up to do and do it much better than we are doing, instead of every week coming in here, bringing our good intentions and our compassion and every problem we see across the country we say something needs to be done. Then we say: The Government needs to do it.

That is the fatal flaw of the Congress today, is we forget that sacred oath of office that says: We will protect and defend the Constitution which says this Federal Government has a very limited function. And those functions that are not prescribed in the Constitution are left to individuals and to the States.

This is a huge well-intended mistake we are making. It serves a point that we need to realize this Government needs to stop spending and stop borrowing, stop taxing, and let America work.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, everyone is well aware our country is going through some serious tribulation economically. The whole world, in fact, is dealing with serious economic troubles.

There are signs of hope in many areas of our economy. I think it is important for us, particularly those of us in elected office, to recognize those good things, and that the strength of the American people will certainly pull us out of this hole, as they have many times in the past.

Hopefully, what we do here in Washington will help and not hurt. I think everyone is aware a large part of our recession is the banking and credit problem. Certainly, if it did not cause it, it made it much worse, and continues to today.

Unfortunately, the new administration and the Congress have not put forth any plan to fix our credit crisis, to make our banks work appropriately. While many of them are calling me to remind me they are loaning money, they are working, there is still a lot we need to do in the credit area that we have not fixed.

Unfortunately, the trillion-dollar so-called stimulus plan we passed only a couple weeks ago--all borrowed money--did not address the credit/banking problem. It addressed issues that had nothing to do with the recession. The stimulus provided a lot of additional funds for education, health care, and infrastructure--a lot of good things. But those things did not cause our recession, and they are certainly not going to get us out of it.

I think the failure to bring forth a plan that addresses the real causes of the recession has many people around the country wondering what we are thinking. The fact is, what we are thinking is about the next election and not the next generation. It has become clear we are not addressing the real causes of the problems but are doing things that are more politically beneficial than beneficial to our economy.

As we deal with the difficult economic situation, it is almost hard to see the White House going in a lot of different directions, and some that are especially painful, particularly the issue of life. The new President campaigned on reducing the number of abortions, but in the first month or 6 weeks of his Presidency, he has changed the rule where now the American taxpayer is funding abortions all around the world. They put forth an Executive order to strike the conscience clause, which means we are

going to require physicians who are opposed to abortion to perform abortions. That makes no sense at all. When there are physicians who make a living performing abortions, why should we take a physician who considers it the taking of a life and force him to do it? Why do we need to do that in the middle of a recession and the economic problems we have?

Today, the President reversed a prohibition on Federal funding of certain types of stem cells. It seems to be opening Pandora's box to begin the destruction of unborn human beings. His Cabinet nominee for Health and Human Services has been one of the most radical pro-abortion folks in the country, having encouraged and protected late-term abortion and partial-birth abortions. Many people who are not pro-life believe we certainly should not be performing late-term abortions in this country. Yet the President seems to be going in a rather radical direction, in the middle of this economic storm we have. We have to wonder: What are they thinking?

Today we come to this, what we are calling an omnibus spending bill. Only 2 weeks after we passed this huge spending bill we called a stimulus--$1 trillion or more if you add interest and 2 weeks later we are talking about a bill that is over $400 billion. The Federal agencies cannot even spend the money as fast as we are throwing it at them, but now we are here today with this other bill under the pretense that we have to have this money to make the country operate. Americans need to know we have been operating under this year's funding through what we call a continuing resolution, which means we are operating essentially at last year's budget. The country has been operating effectively. The reason we are passing this bill is not that we need it to fund the Government because the Government is funded under a continuing resolution which we could extend through the end of the year. We actually need to be about working on next year's budget and next year's appropriations. That is what we are supposed to be doing now. Instead, we are going back and creating this new spending bill, which I consider an ominous spending bill, not so much an omnibus.

What I have in front of me right here is the reason there is such a rush to pass this additional spending bill. All Americans have heard of earmarks. These are the earmarks in this spending bill. This is the reason it has to be passed. Remember, last week they brought it up and said we had to pass it before Friday or the Government would shut down and it would just not be right to pass another continuing resolution. Well, come Thursday, they found out that because the American people had gotten agitated and outraged and had begun to call and e-mail their Senators, they didn't quite have the votes to pass this bill last week. But they will pass it because they have taken over 9,000 earmarks-- special projects--and sprinkled them all around among Republicans and Democrats in the House and in the Senate. It is hard to vote against a bill that has a special project in it.

Some Americans have begun to hear a little bit about these earmarks. I will take the one that is sitting right here on the top of this stack. Keep in mind we have over 9,000 earmarks for most of the Congressmen and Senators. Now, a lot of Senators will come today and talk about how it is wasteful and we should cut the earmarks, but they will vote for it because a lot of them have already done the press releases on the money they are taking back home.

I will read a couple on the front page. There is an amount column, a project column, a purpose, and a location. Then they have the names of the Congressmen and Senators, but they have struck those. I am not exactly sure why. The first amount is $200,000 to Providence Holy Cross Foundation and it is for tattoo removal to a violence prevention outreach program in Mission Hills, CA. Now, I am sure that is a worthy cause, but in the middle of a recession, when we are borrowing trillions of dollars to try to keep this country going and the President is saying we have to make every dollar count and he is going to strike every item of waste, what is the Federal Government doing funding the removal of tattoos?

The second item is $75,000. That is not too bad, although it is more than most families make in a whole year. It is for the city of Albany. It is for Totally Teen Zone. This is Albany, GA. This is where they go and play with Xboxes and things such as that. I am sure that is a fine thing, but you have to wonder, in these times when we are out of money as a country, do we need to be involved as a Federal Government with this kind of thing?

The next item is $400,000 for the University of Montana. It is for teacher training, curriculum development, and awareness initiatives to combat bullying as well as the development of emergency protocol for school shootings--something I am sure is very necessary to combat bullying in schools; it is certainly something every school has to deal with. But how can we as a Federal Government send $400,000 to one university and expect to solve problems all over the country?

Well, the next one is $50,000 to Los Angeles for after-dark gang prevention. Again, these are all good things, but there is probably no Senator who has read all of these, but they know the ones that are in it for them because that is why they are going to be voting for the bill. The tacit agreement always is, we are going to get the votes to pass this bill so these 9,000 earmarks--these 9,000 press releases-- will go out all over the country.

Our only hope of stopping this is if the American people continue to show their outrage and to continue to connect the dots of what we are doing because we are not doing this to fund the Government. This isn't about last year's business. It violates every pledge many people here have run on and certainly the President. If you recall, the President has said he was against earmarks. When I introduced a 1-year moratorium on earmarks, he flew back, along with all the candidates for President--or at least the top three at that time--to vote to have a 1- year moratorium on earmarks because more and more we are seeing the damage this is doing to our country. You can pass almost any bill with any bad policy with almost any level of spending as long as you fill it with earmarks for people back home.

They are thinking about the next election, not the next generation. They are not thinking about the families who are hurting because they are losing their jobs right now because this is much more likely to cause additional job losses over the next 5 to 10 years than it is to help create them. So this is the seed. This greases the skids to pass almost any type of bill. If my colleagues remember, when the first Wall Street bailout came through the House, it failed. So when the Senate took it up, what did they add to it to help it get passed? More earmarks.

Now, we have had several amendments to strike some of these earmarks, and there have been some heroes on the issue. John McCain has certainly been on the floor talking about the problems with earmarks he has seen over the many years he has been in the Senate, and he has one other amendment that will be on the floor that will basically take all these earmarks--they aren't in the legislation; they are in what they call report language off to the side, so it is not seen in the bill that is on the desk right here. But there is a reference in here to this, and that supposedly makes it all legal. The Constitution says we have to appropriate money based on law, which means it has to be in the bill, but we do everything we can to get around that Constitution and law by attaching some rider in here that says all these should be considered as law.

Folks, this is no way to run a Federal government. This is just one bill; it has nothing to do with the trillions of dollars on Wall Street and the banking bailout we have been talking about or the $1 trillion stimulus 2 weeks ago. It is over $400 billion, with over 9,000 earmarks they wanted to rush through last week, but because of people back home, some were shamed into saying they couldn't vote for it unless we had a longer process with more amendments.

Now, this is show. There is already a strategy to kill every amendment that comes up, so we are not trying to pass an amendment to strip earmarks. You will see Senator McCain's good amendment, a commonsense amendment that, in the middle of our financial crisis, let's us take these and set them aside and pass the bill that funds our

Government. It is a good amendment, but the decision has already been made on the other side to kill that amendment unless the American people can shame a few more into voting against it.

John Ensign has an amendment that will strike some language in the bill that seeks to discontinue school choice in Washington, DC. It is a small program--only 1,700 kids are involved with it--but there is a waiting list of parents who would like another choice. In this funding bill, this must-have funding bill, they sneak in a little policy such as that to kill a little bit of freedom in our country that we need to be expanding to every State, not killing it in Washington, DC.

David Vitter has an amendment that will force Congress to vote on pay raises for Congressmen and Senators every year instead of what we do right now. Currently, there is an automatic provision in appropriations bills that goes through and gives us a cost-of-living pay raise. This should be done in the light of day. Right now, we can say we didn't vote on a pay raise, and we didn't because it was set up years ago to be automatic. So at a time when many Americans don't have work and some are taking pay cuts to keep their job, Senator Vitter's idea to be more transparent in what we do in Washington makes a lot of sense.

The President has promised change. Our growing concern is that the biggest change so far in Washington has been in him. We want to support him as much as we can. He did say he would stop this practice of earmarking, but he is looking the other way on this bill. He is saying he supports it. He could veto this bill and send it back to Congress and tell us to get rid of these earmarks. He could keep his promise and he could force us to change. But right now, this stack of earmarks is so addictive that the Congressmen and Senators who have these projects that they are so proud of back home are not going to vote against the bill. You could double this bill to $800 billion, and I am pretty sure it would pass anyway, as long as it had these earmarks in it.

Folks, as Senator Coburn from Oklahoma says, earmarks are the gateway drug to this runaway spending we have in Washington. We are spending our children and grandchildren into such a hole it is going to be almost impossible for them to get out. We are almost guaranteeing them a lower quality of life than we have had, as we borrow more and more money from other countries, as we print more and more money, and as we spend more money as a government than we ever thought possible.

This is the time when we need to stop this runaway spending. An amendment will be on the floor to strike these earmarks and to continue to fund the Government through the rest of the year. The other side doesn't want any amendments passed because that would mean we would have to go back and work with the House on a final bill. They want it to go through amendment free. It is up to us to make sure the American people know what is in this bill before we vote on it. That is the whole point of extending the debate. My hope is we will have 2 or 3 days to make the American people more aware of what is in it and, even more importantly, what is in this stack of earmarks, which is the reason this bill is being rushed through the Senate.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, it was great to hear Mrs. McCaskill, the Senator from Missouri, speaking on the floor. She has been a real champion of fighting one of the real causes of excess spending and waste in Washington. She came down to talk about earmarks. In this case, she was talking about Republican earmarks. I congratulate her because we have to go after them all. If there is one thing in this whole Congress that is bipartisan, it is earmarks. If America wants to know how well bipartisanship works, you can look at earmarks because when it comes to wasteful spending, there is great bipartisan agreement here in the Congress that as long as we get our pork, as long as we get our political projects we can take back home, then we will vote for whatever is in the bill no matter how big it is.

Senator McCaskill, though relatively new to the Senate, has been willing to take on not just my party but her own in fighting this root cause of much of the wasteful spending in Washington. So I commend her very much for coming to the floor, not just today but many other times.

She has worked with me on several earmark-related bills. She supported a 1-year moratorium on earmarks, which then-candidate Senator Obama flew back to vote to suspend earmarks for a year so we could look at ways to reform them so we would not continue this pattern of very wasteful spending.

I honestly believe the reason we are looking at trillion dollar bills today is because of this whole earmarking process. This $400 billion Omnibus appropriations bill we are considering this week, I am convinced would be voted down if the leadership on both sides had not sprinkled earmarks for about every Member of the House and the Senate. It is a way to pass bills that otherwise would not pass.

I do need to correct one thing Senator McCaskill mentioned, which is this idea that since the Democrats took over the majority, they have cut earmarks in half. I wish that were true, but, unfortunately, it is not. If you look at this chart I have in the Chamber, earmarks have grown under bipartisan agreement for years.

As we came into 2006, we began--several of us in the Senate and the House were putting increasing pressure on both sides to cut the number of earmarks, and they dropped a little bit. But this lower figure here, as shown on the chart, came as the Republicans had lost the majority in the election but had not yet given up the majority in that January. A number of us held back an omnibus bill with thousands of earmarks in it, and we ended the year 2007 with less earmarks than we had had in almost 10 years.

But, as you see, under the Democratic majority, it is already back to the second highest number, counting this omnibus we are talking about this week with over 9,000 new earmarks which are totally unnecessary, totally against the things that have been said in the last election, that in 2009, at least counting as of this week, we are nearly at 12,000--the second highest in history. So neither party can boast we have done anything significant about earmarks.

As America looks in, they are becoming increasingly outraged at this flagrant waste we are shamelessly involved with every week. So I commend Senator McCaskill for taking on both parties, senior Members in both parties, on this earmark issue.

But the real issue now comes back to leadership in our country, and is there anyone in Washington with the power to change this who is willing to take on the issue. My hope has been since the last election that while I know I will disagree with President Obama on a number of things, it was my understanding and my hope he would keep his word on fighting earmarks. He certainly talked about it during his election.

He said, in April of 2008: We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a Member of Congress's seniority rather than the merit of the project.

He said, in October of 2008: We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure we're not spending money unwisely.

But, last week, his Budget Director said: This omnibus we are talking about this year is last year's business. We just need to move on.

So I guess this week we have suspended the Presidency, we have suspended hope and change, and we have gone back to nearly 12,000 earmarks.

Senator McCaskill said: Do not take anyone seriously who says one thing and does another. That is the worst sin of all.

What I am afraid of, at this point in the new Presidency, is that the only change that has occurred in Washington is the change with the President himself. This is an issue he said he would help us on. This is an issue he said he knew was a core problem of waste and corruption here in Washington. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. Neither party can sit down here and say they are righteous in this. But both parties need to come to the understanding, the realization, that this earmarking process is destroying our whole work as a Congress.

You see, what this has done is this has trained the American people to believe that our purpose here in Washington is to take money home to our States and congressional districts. It is teaching the American people that we use earmarks as a reward to help those groups and organizations that helped us get elected. Or we use taxpayer money to bail out people who have been irresponsible in their decisionmaking.

But what we have forgotten is that our constitutional oath is to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States of America, not to get projects for our district. But what earmarking has done has perverted the whole purpose of this Congress. Instead of working on fixing a Tax Code that is destroying our economic base in this country, and overseeing our financial system to keep it from financial collapse, and fixing Social Security and Medicare so we can keep our promises to seniors, and defending our country by funding the military properly-- instead of doing that, we spend most of

the year here in Washington figuring out which local roads and bridges and water and sewer plants and bike paths we are going to build.

In this omnibus bill or ominous bill--whatever you want to call it-- it is hard to read the list and then think about the rhetoric of how treacherous these times are, how difficult they are, and that every penny we spend of taxpayer money has to go to help our economy and help the American people.

What does $1.8 million for swine odor and manure management research have to do with these difficult times we are in, or $200,000 for a tattoo removal violence prevention outreach program, or $75,000 for a Totally Teen Zone where people can play Xbox?

Folks, if I read this, it is only going to make you madder and madder and madder. This is a mix of Republican and Democratic earmarks. You would hear a lot of Senators say: I know this is a bad bill, I know it is wasteful, but I have something in it for back home. I can't vote against it.

There is only one person in Washington who can stop all this because Congressmen and Senators will say, similar to a bunch of drunks: I am not going to drink as much tomorrow. But they don't have the power to stop themselves. I have become convinced, after 10 years of being in the House and the Senate, we don't have the power to stop ourselves.

There is one person in Washington who can lead on this issue and he said he would lead on this issue and he said this is a change we could expect from his administration. The President should veto this omnibus bill with over 9,000 earmarks in it--9,000 of what I am reading here. It takes money. They say: It is not that much money; oh, it is just $7 billion or $8 billion or whatever; but the reason we are passing a $400 billion bill that we should not be passing right now is because it has these earmarks in it.

The reason you won't see very many people on the floor of this Senate come in and vote no is because they have something in it for back home that they have already done a press release on, taking credit and beating their chests for taking home the bacon, but the taxpayers are paying for it. Folks are getting more and more outraged, and I am, too, because I have children and I have grandchildren now and I know we are taking all these millions of dollars and putting it on their backs for the rest of their lives and taking credit for our little projects in our press reports.

There is only one person who can stop this; the person America counts on today for changing the way we do business in Washington. After only a month in office, if this system has changed him rather than him changing the system, then we are all in trouble. We have not reduced earmarks, and we are on track to have the highest number of earmarks in history within the next year, in a bipartisan fashion. There is nothing noble about combining bad ideas from both parties and calling it bipartisanship, and that is what we are doing here today.

I would encourage the President to threaten a veto of this bill, to follow through on a veto of this bill, and make this Congress send this bill back to committee and do the things America needs instead of the things we want politically to help us get elected in our next election that is coming up.

I wish to thank, again, the Senator from Missouri, Mrs. McCaskill, for bringing up this issue and having the courage to fight both parties on a very important issue to our country.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.