Floor Statements

Mr. President, first of all, I say to my good friend from Florida, I thank him so much for the compassion he has. I appreciate very much him bringing this issue to our light and to the attention of all of us, and maybe we can help. I thank the Senator.

To my good friend, the Senator from Louisiana, I think what she speaks about is us identifying who we are as Americans and the way we have taken care of each other. I do not know of any State that has not had to depend on FEMA for help--and not just the States she showed where ``hurricane alley'' is and where the tornadoes and hurricanes have hit, but basically all of us have had to depend on FEMA for assistance. So I think what she brings to light is the fairness we identify with as Americans and to do what we have always done: to take care of each other. I, for one, have said we need to rebuild America; we need to take care of Americans first.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the difficult fiscal choices we, as Members of Congress, must soon make and the deficit-cutting proposals that President Obama has recently made.

As we discuss these fiscal choices, and as we face our exploding debts and deficits, it is clear our Nation is truly at a crossroads. A nation that was built on the strength of our people's optimism must struggle to overcome a loss of confidence--a loss of confidence that comes from an economy that has struggled for far too long, a loss of confidence that comes from watching debt and deficits explode, a loss of confidence that comes from watching Republicans and Democrats engage in a fruitless partisan fight.

The American people worry about how to get their families out of debt and their financial house in order. They worry about finding or keeping a job. They worry about how they are going to pay the rent, how they are going to take care of their children, how they are going to keep clothes on their backs, and how, maybe, they can buy them a Christmas present.

Once again, instead of all of us coming together to do what is right for the Nation and lighten their worries, congressional Republicans and Democrats alike, and the President, are again gearing up for a fight about politics, even as our Nation's fiscal and economic picture gets worse every minute.

Today, we yet again find ourselves on the brink, and I cannot begin to explain why to the American people. This summer, they watched us go through this exercise--the Senate, the House, and the President--and then we agreed on spending cuts to keep the government working. Where I come from--the same as the Presiding Officer from the great State of Minnesota--your word is your bond, and an agreement is an agreement, and it is one that should be kept. It is one we negotiated. It should not be changed in midstream. I am committed to passing a clean CR to keep our government working until the supercommittee we all are supporting comes up with the recommendations to reduce the deficit.

In the midst of yet another disagreement over whether to keep the government running, the people of West Virginia and the American people are demanding we put our partisan differences aside and work together in the best interests of this country. They are pleading for us to quit fighting and worrying about the next election and start worrying about the next generation.

With our Nation facing a death spiral of debt, now is the time that each of us should be zeroing in on credible, commonsense solutions that have truly bipartisan support.

After carefully reviewing the President's recommendations to the so- called supercommittee, I believe they fall short of what this country needs to put our fiscal house in order. President Obama's deficit recommendations not only fall short of his stated $4.4 trillion goal, but could, according to an analysis done by the Center for Responsible Federal Budget, have the perverse effect of adding as much as $1.9 trillion to our Nation's debt.

I am also greatly concerned about rehashing unproductive recommendations such as raising tax rates on small businesses in a recession and budget gimmicks such as the notion that taxpayers will somehow ``save'' $1.1 trillion from not fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq--and I believe we should not be there anyway.

I have said this: On my best day, I cannot sell that to the people of West Virginia, nor should we try to sell it to the American people.

That is not to say that the President's proposal is all bad. There is some good stuff in there. I have long said our tax system needs to be more fair and balanced and that billionaires such as Mr. Buffett should pay their fair share. I appreciate the concept of the Buffett rule and look forward to seeing more details. And I agree that one of the best investments we all could make is in the infrastructure of this great country.

But as they stand right now, President Obama's proposals are too skewed to appeal to both sides of the aisle. So we see what we see happening again. If we are being serious about addressing our debt and deficits, neither Republicans nor Democrats can propose partisan proposals and then pretend they are credible. We cannot do that any longer. The American people deserve better, and I also know we can do a lot better.

In my short time in Congress, I have seen only one plan that has earned support from Members of both parties. In fact, the President's own bipartisan deficit commission--the Bowles-Simpson group--is the best example of what can be accomplished if we put politics aside and do what is right for our Nation. While no one, including me, will agree with everything in the Bowles-Simpson approach, it at least offered a commonsense, bipartisan template that would cut spending, restore tax fairness, and would help restore fiscal sanity to our Nation.

To date, it is the only plan that has offered a framework that has had bipartisan support from the beginning, and still has it now. But instead of this approach, there are many people on both sides of the aisle who have chosen a path that all but guarantees that Republicans and Democrats will continue to fight over how to solve our fiscal problems, instead of seeking common ground and commonsense solutions. For the sake of our Nation, for our families, we cannot let this happen. We must act, and we must act together.

Looking ahead to the vigorous debates of the fall, my hope is the deficit supercommittee will seize the moment and seek common ground to develop a plan that puts our Nation on the right path to fiscal accountability. Common sense, to me, is that you would start with a plan that already has bipartisan support because it will take both sides of the aisle to fix this problem.

I urge them and the President to look beyond partisan politics and do what is right for this country. I continue to urge the committee to look past their legal mandate of $1.5 trillion in savings and revenue and, instead, look for reforms that will create much broader fairness in our system that will lead to deficit reductions of at least $4 trillion.

I, for one, will work with the Senate Democrats and Republicans who are committed to develop a commonsense debt fix that responsibly reduces spending; makes our tax system more fair, cuts waste, fraud, and abuse, and

makes sure we protect critical programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

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

Thank you. It is hard to add to the Senator's recognition of Agnes, and also my colleague, the Senator from Ohio. You can tell Agnes touched quite a few of us in so many different ways.

Agnes was a friend of mine and also a friend of my family's. She was a dear mentor to my daughter Heather, who is in the industry. We are all going to mourn her passing. Heather introduced me to Agnes about 10 years ago, and from the first day I met Agnes, she was the type of person I always heard my grandmother would say: People don't know how much you care until they know how much care.

The thing about Agnes was it was not how much you had here, but it was what you had in your heart. Agnes was that type of person who was truly remarkable. She lived an astonishing life, Mr. President, as you referred to. She represented the best in our country, and she truly lived the American dream.

Agnes was a first-generation American and went to college at a time when few women attended college. She started at the very bottom rung of the chemical industry and worked her way up the ladder to the top. She was truly an entrepreneur. She and her husband Karl loved the arts, but they also took a risk. They took their life savings together of about $50,000 to start Agvar Chemicals.

Agnes was a fortunate American. She used her wealth to support the causes she most believed in, especially the arts, women's issues, and caring for the workers in New York after September 11 and, as we heard from our colleague from Ohio, after Katrina.

Agnes was always telling my daughter Heather that you can see a lot more from the edge than the middle, and it was the few who were willing to be on the edge who created the right middle. That deep and poetic statement is a piece of wisdom many in this country could benefit from hearing. Agnes had such a generous spirit, and over the years, my daughter Heather sought her ``agvice,'' as she called it, many times.

Our entire family and all of my colleagues, I know, who knew Agnes well are definitely going to miss her. Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family. I am glad we had a chance to honor Agnes on the floor of the Senate. I know she would be so proud. I thank my colleagues for recognizing her also.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to speak about the tough fiscal choices this body, this government, and our President now face. But before I say anything else, I wish to start off with a profound apology. I want to apologize to every West Virginian and all Americans for the terrible process they have been made to endure and witness. With 5 days before the August 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling, this government faces yet another crisis of its own making. Yet it is not we who pay the price for our failures to govern, it is the American people. To the tens of millions of American families who work hard to take care of their families, I can only imagine the anger and disgust they have at witnessing a broken government and a President and Members of Congress who can't seem to even agree sometimes on what day it is, let alone on how to solve the Nation's debt crisis.

The American people deserve better.

Some will say Washington is broken and that is the best we can do, but I do not believe that for one moment. Washington may be broken, but it will not break me, and you should not let it break you either. I came to fix things, not to make things worse. I came to solve problems, not to ignore them, and I came to worry about the next generation, not my next election.

I, for one, am willing to make the tough and painful decisions that will improve the lives of every West Virginian and all Americans for generations to come, regardless of what it means for my party or for the next election, and I know I am not alone.

After our beloved Senator Byrd passed away, I chose to run for the Senate for one simple reason: I saw the great challenges our Nation faced: exploding debts and deficits, our Nation's energy dependence, costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a painful jobs and economic crisis, and I wanted to help make things better by bringing a little common sense to Washington. I knew we had to focus on rebuilding America and doing so meant making hard, politically difficult choices.

Some of my colleagues often remind me that fixing problems as complex as our debt crisis isn't easy. But with all due respect, it seems we make it harder than it needs to be. My friends, it doesn't need to be this way.

I did not come to Washington with the illusion that I could reinvent the wheel, but I did come to help balance the wheels and make the car run a little smoother.

Months ago, when I said I would not vote to raise the debt ceiling without a long-term fix, I thought this Congress and our President would be able to tackle the issue head-on and have it done by now. As I made clear on that day, the choices we make to address our debt now will determine whether the vital programs we all deeply care about, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, our veterans programs, education for our children, Head Start, are there for those in need and for the decades to come. However, instead of coming together months ago to focus and deal with the gravity of our debt, we delayed, and we continue to delegate.

While I will never question someone's motivations or their heart, we all have a right to question the strategies of our leaders and colleagues, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, because these strategies have once again led us to a crisis and the brink of a disaster. At a minimum, this entire process has, once again, fed a growing public cynicism that is corrosive to the very fabric of our government, and we all bear the responsibility for that.

I truly believe we can do better. I know this to be true because we proved it in West Virginia.

When I first became Governor of the great State of West Virginia, our State faced similar grave fiscal concerns. After facing dismal credit ratings for far too long and a dark fiscal future, some thought our State's best days were behind us. But after confronting our fiscal challenges head-on in West Virginia, even during the deepest recession in our lifetimes, we are one of the few States in the Nation that has had its credit rating upgraded the last 3 years in a row, and we had surpluses for 6 years in a row during the toughest times. We did this in West Virginia by cutting spending but not cutting the vital programs or services we hold so dear. We did this not by raising tax rates but by ensuring that everyone paid their fair share in our State. We did this by tackling waste, fraud, and abuse so as to ensure that we took care of those most in need, not those bent on greed. By doing this, we helped to restore confidence to the economy of our State, and that is a factor we can't overestimate.

West Virginia may be a small State, but these are commonsense solutions I strongly believe can apply right here.

I did not blame these fiscal challenges we had in our State on the mistakes made by past Governors or legislators, whether they were Democrats or Republicans. I reached out to all members of our legislature, whether they were on the front row or the so-called back row, and I met with them and anyone who had an idea on how we best could solve our fiscal problems. It required sacrifice, it required patience, and it required trust and respect. Can anyone honestly say that with all that has taken place here? In fact, if we turn on cable news right now, we will see exactly where this broken process stands. We as Democrats sometimes are rushing out to attack our colleagues, the Republicans, and the Republicans are rushing out to attack us, the Democrats.

We are better than this, and for the sake of this Nation's future we must do better. I owe it to all West Virginians and we all owe it to this great Nation to do much better than we have. From time to time, we should remind ourselves we took an oath to do just that.

As idealistic as it may sound, I implore this great body, each Member, the leaders of both bodies, the President, the two parties, and especially the political committees, to put away their political knives and swords and let us do something that has become rare in Washington: Put aside the political attacks for a few months and actually work together, openly, honestly, with respect for our profound differences, and build a trust that will fix the big problems we face as a nation.

The stakes are too high to do anything else. Our Nation faces not only a threat of default but of a downgrade. The credit rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor's, have made it clear that the United States needs to cut nearly $4 trillion over the next decade or they will lose the confidence in our long-term ability to pay our bills.

Yet in my estimation, neither of the two plans that are currently proposed by both Republican and Democratic leadership comes close to preventing our Nation from being downgraded or actually solving the debt crisis we face. Each falls far short, whether it is in time or dollars.

The truth is, both of the plans being discussed and that the Senate may consider, one offered by the leader of the Republican Party, Speaker John Boehner, and the other offered by the leader of our Chamber and my party, Senator Reid, do not solve the Nation's long-term fiscal problems as presented.

Make no mistake, I have the utmost respect for both of these fine public servants. Both find themselves in difficult positions, and I know they are trying their best to do what is right. I understand the desire to prevent our Nation's default. But what we have before us are effectively a short-term fix and a shorter term fix. Either one might prevent a default, which is a good thing, but neither may prevent a credit downgrade, which is a terrible thing.

To me, it doesn't matter if it is a Republican proposal or a Democratic proposal, but including $1.2 trillion in savings from the wars we should not be fighting as savings doesn't make sense. Saying we will save money that we haven't even budgeted or spent is akin to saying that because your family bought a $20,000 car instead of a $50,000 car, you saved $30,000. It is even worse when we consider we couldn't afford to buy any car in the first place. Most of the American people understand that, and I know in West Virginia they do.

As for Speaker Boehner's plan, his was supposed to save $1.2 trillion, but the Congressional Budget Office just took a look and determined it would save only $917 billion. So instead of fixing our problem, it kicks the can down the road to 2012, which will be an election year. If we think this process is ugly now, we ain't seen anything yet.

As these two proposals currently stand, I could not, in good conscience, support either one of them unless they include a pathway for a long-term debt fix. While it is true our Nation will suffer if we only enact a short-term deal, we will suffer much more if we fail to fix our greater fiscal problems.

We must solve our Nation's problems now, not in 2012 and certainly not in 2013. This is not just my opinion. As many rating agencies have warned and economists have predicted, every year that goes by, the options on how to fix our looming debt crisis will become worse and worse.

If we are being honest, neither of these proposals, as they stand today, can prevent a credit rating agency's downgrade, an event that would be as catastrophic or maybe even worse than default because I, personally, know a government's climb back from a low credit rating is extremely long and painful.

To be clear, a downgrade in our credit worthiness could lead to selloff of stocks, Treasury securities, and U.S. dollars. Gold prices could rise even higher, and interest rates could increase across the board, which would not only have a devastating impact on consumers, small businesses, and local governments but would make the price of financing our Nation's debt even more costly. At a minimum, the shock to our Nation's confidence from our first-ever downgrade could prove more costly than we could even fathom.

We can't let this happen. For the sake of our Nation's future, we must come to a compromise that acknowledges that a long-term debt fix is needed and our spending is out of control and that raising tax rates, whether it is the rich, the middle class, and most especially even the poor, will not cure our spending problems.

But we must also come to a compromise that acknowledges that tax reform is not the same as raising taxes and that there is something morally wrong when a large corporation, such as G.E., pays zero in Federal taxes while small businesses or a middle-class family pays more.

We must also come to a compromise that finally acknowledges we simply can't fight three wars for years to come while we cut services here at home and we choose to keep taxes low. I have said this before, but it is so important. If I have to choose between rebuilding America and rebuilding Afghanistan, I choose America.

So with the clock ticking toward default, what can we do?

As part of any deal to raise the debt ceiling, I would respectfully encourage leaders in the Senate and the House and our President to find common ground by committing to a guaranteed vote on a long-term fix; otherwise, as I said months ago, I simply cannot support a short-term deal that is just a little better than the shorter term deal.

With all due respect to my colleagues, I will not look West Virginians in the eye and say: Don't worry, all is good; I saved myself for the 2012 election, but you are on your own.

A vote on such a long-term debt fix, I would hope, could come within the next 90 days or a reasonable period of time so as to prevent what I fear the most, a downgrade of our Nation's credit rating. I believe such a vote on a long-term fix is possible because many good people have already worked hard to put together the framework and pieces of what such a long-term fix could look like.

Already we have seen two promising, commonsense proposals from bipartisan groups: the Bowles-Simpson debt commission, which presented its report nearly 9 months ago, and a similar framework that was presented last week by the bipartisan Gang of 6.

In fact, the day the Gang of 6 announced their proposed framework was one of my better and prouder days as a Senator. For the first time since I have been in the Senate, I saw Democratic and Republican Senators, almost equally divided, come together to put politics aside and agree to the principles of a commonsense solution that recognizes the urgency of fixing our long-term problems.

No plan is perfect; no plan will be. No plan will please all, and no plan can. But within these two plans I believe lies the path our Nation can take if we are to get our fiscal house in order. Of course, some will have other ideas, whether from the right or whether from the left, and we should listen to them all. But I would ask each of us and all the groups that undoubtedly will be mobilized to stop any fix, to think hard about what will happen to our great Nation if we fail and do nothing. What will happen to the programs we cherish, such as Social Security and Medicare, for all those people who depend on that for their only means of livelihood? What will happen to our Nation's defense and to our tax rates? What will happen to the people who are truly in need? What will happen to our seniors, our veterans, and our children if we choose to do little or nothing at all?

Finally, as the negotiations for this long-term fix proceed, I would hope we could all remember that if we are to negotiate in good faith, we must have faith in each other. We cannot turn a fair compromise into the enemy, and we can't tear each other apart with attacks if we are to come together to solve our Nation's great problems. We can respectfully disagree as long as we never forget to respect each other.

As difficult as the next few days and weeks and months will be, I believe we, the President and this esteemed Congress, have the opportunity to make this one of our finest hours. We have within our hands an opportunity where we can prove to the naysayers and the doubters that the government of the people is as great as the people which it serves.

I, for one, am willing to do whatever I possibly can, whatever is asked of me; I will work hard every day, across the aisle, until we have a long-term solution to our debt crisis.

I know no Senator or Member of Congress can do this alone. But together, putting politics aside, we can do this. For the sake of this great Nation, our children, the State I love, West Virginia, and this wonderful country of ours, the United States of America, I truly hope we do.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to pay honor to a life cut tragically short, to a young man whose service to this country went beyond the call of duty.

West Point Cadet Jacob Bower, from my great State of West Virginia, and my hometown of Fairmont, died at the age of 18 last week and will be laid to rest Friday at a family cemetery with full military rights.

Cadet Bower was the sort of young man who would make any--any--parent proud. He was a three-sport athlete at East Fairmont High School, where he graduated in 2011. He was in the National Honor Society and was valedictorian of his graduating class. He was a role model and led his peers by example.

Cadet Bower had something that set him apart: He was a young man who felt the spark to attend West Point. I learned from his mother Ginger that as a young man--or a boy, really--he was very interested in history. He studied the paths that have formed our greatest leaders-- the men and women whose names are in the history books. He learned the best of the best have attended our military academies, and he told his mother that is what he wanted to do. I think he wanted to be in the history books. He wanted to be a part of that. He wanted to give something back. He told his mother: Mom, I have had everything given to me. It is time for me to give back now.

Cadet Bower was 18 when he died during a land navigation exercise Thursday of what may be a heat-related cause, though we are not sure yet and it is too early to tell. We do know that Cadet Bower trained vigorously before

the exercise and had successfully completed the first 3 weeks of his 6 weeks of basic training.

Nothing can explain a death so tragic, a life cut so unfairly short. This is the one time, above all others, that you have to believe and trust in your faith. My wife Gayle and I send our prayers and thoughts to Cadet Bower's mother Ginger, his father Dean, his brother Ryan, and the entire Bower family and all their friends. We continue to pray every day for the safety of the brave women and men who put their lives on the line every day for all of us.

Mere words cannot pay tribute to the magnitude of this tragedy and the depth of his sacrifice. In these challenging times, our entire country would do well to think of Cadet Jacob Bower as we work together to put this country first, as he did, before our own interests. Our thoughts and prayers are with this family. May God bless them through this difficult time, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak of one of my gravest concerns, which is our Nation's fiscal future.

All of us--Democrats, Republicans, liberals, moderates, conservatives--face a choice about whether we will seize the moment before us and confront our great fiscal nightmare or whether we will let this moment pass us by. Clearly, we face tough and difficult decisions. The decision we make as Members of Congress must be the right and responsible ones or our beloved Nation and our hard-working families will needlessly suffer.

In my State, when I became Governor, we faced challenging times-- growing debts and tough budget choices. When I was first elected in November of 2004, the first thing I did afterwards was go to New York and talk to the rating agencies--the people who knew our State best--to find out what our gravest challenges were. I went back home and we started making changes.

I did not blame anyone--any past administration, Republican or Democrat or any other body. I was elected to fix things, not to put blame on people. As West Virginians, not as Democrats or Republicans, we set about fixing the problems of our State. We didn't raise tax rates. People came to me and said we needed to do that, but I couldn't look people in the eye and do that without trying to run our State more efficiently.

The difference between what we did back home and what is happening here in Washington is that we faced these choices together. We worked across party lines in a responsible way to address our fiscal challenges. In doing so, we set our State on the right fiscal path and--let me stress again without sacrificing our moral responsibility or obligations to our seniors, our veterans, and the people most challenged in our society. We did that without raising their tax rates.

Right now, because we made the right choices, our State is doing well. Even in these most difficult, challenging financial times, we have had record surpluses every year--6 years in a row. For the last 3 years, we have been one of the few States in the Nation that has an increase in our rating from Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch, the rating agencies. We did this by living within our means. It is the reason why I am such a strong supporter of a balanced budget amendment. It makes you put in place your priorities based on what your values are. I truly believe most Americans support a balanced budget. Every family I know in my State and in this Nation works off of some sort of a budget. Nearly all our State governments operate on a balanced budget. I have never seen another place, except here in our Nation's Capitol--our government in Washington--that puts a budget together based on what they want to spend, not on how much they have to spend.

But how we balance our budget is critically important. We have a moral responsibility and an obligation to our seniors, our families, and those who are the most fragile in our challenged society. That is why I cannot support the cut, cap, and balance plan passed in the House, which we will be voting on shortly. As a moderate Democrat who is also a proud fiscal conservative, I agree with the bill's goal of a balanced budget. However, I cannot support the path it takes.

The cut, cap, and balance plan does not reflect who we are or what we want to be as Americans. I believe we need to cut but not so deeply and without regard for our seniors and the most vulnerable. I believe we need a cap on our spending but not at a level that could destroy the most important and vital programs we have in our society. I strongly believe we need a balanced budget amendment but only one that takes a responsible and reasonable approach.

Clearly, we can all agree it is time for us to make the difficult choice that will get our financial house in order, but we must do so with the right plan in a responsible manner--one that keeps our promises to our seniors, our veterans and, most importantly, our children. And like it or not, neither Democrats nor Republicans can tackle this enormous challenge on their own. This is not a political problem, this is an American problem, one we all face. We should put politics aside and truly put our country first.

Earlier this week, I saw that spirit at its finest. On Tuesday of this past week, the Presiding Officer, along with 49 of our other colleagues, came together to listen to the Gang of 6, who worked so hard on ideas based on the President's fiscal debt commission. Democrats and Republicans rolled out the first bipartisan proposal to address the Nation's fiscal nightmare. At that meeting, 50 Senators from both parties--evenly split--came together to listen to the hard work of the Senators who spanned the ideological spectrum. At that moment, the Gang of 6 turned into what we affectionately called the ``Mob of 50.''

And for the first time in these negotiations about our fiscal future, we had a bipartisan plan with momentum that was putting our country first.

We should not waste this moment. We must work together to cut spending and attack waste, fraud, and abuse in every sector of our country, every department, every program that needlessly costs our Nation hundreds of billions of dollars every year.

We must work together to reform our Tax Code, not to raise tax rates but to make fairness a priority. It is simply unfair that hard-working middle-class families in West Virginia and all around this great country would pay more in taxes than a Fortune 500 company such as GE, which didn't pay a cent, or billionaires such as Warren Buffett who pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. Democrats and Republicans must work together to remove unnecessary loopholes, subsidies, and tax credits we simply cannot afford in light of our ballooning debt.

It is time to end the three wars we have that we are spending so much on and the resources we can't afford and the lives we can't spare.

I say to all this is a time for us to come together as Americans, to put our politics aside, and do what is right for all of the future of this generation and for this country.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, first of all, I rise in total support of Mr. Leon Panetta as the new Secretary of Defense. He is an outstanding public servant who has served in many capacities and he has been a tremendous leader in every role he has held.

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

Mr. President, I have the utmost respect for the Senator from Arizona and his commitment to this country and his service to this country.

I can only report what I have seen. I was in Afghanistan twice--as a Governor in 2006, representing the National Guard of West Virginia, and I went back in 2010. While there, I saw deterioration. I did not see a country that had an infrastructure and an economy. I saw corrupt leadership and nothing good coming of it.

With that, I know that the Senator has had much more experience. I can only speak from common sense and for the people of West Virginia about what they feel. We are a very hawkish State and a patriotic State. If 10 years is not enough, how long is enough--I think that is the question being asked--for the sacrifices being asked of them? When we cannot buy water lines and sewer lines or fix roads and repair bridges in West Virginia, yet they hear about the billions we are spending in a country that doesn't want us there, I think it is time to leave.

Respectfully, that might be the disagreement we have.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 195, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I understand there are three measures at the desk. I ask for their first reading en bloc.

Mr. President, I now ask for their second reading and object to my own request en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the President of the Senate be authorized to appoint a committee on the part of the Senate to join with a like committee on the part of the House of Representatives to escort His Excellency Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, into the House Chamber for the joint meeting at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, May 24, 2011.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 24; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1038, the PATRIOT Act extension, postcloture, and that any time during tonight's adjournment count postcloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1038.

Mr. President, there will be a joint meeting of Congress tomorrow at 11 a.m. with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Senators should gather in the Senate Chamber at 10:30 a.m. to proceed as a body to the Hall of the House of Representatives at 10:40 a.m.

Mr. President, we anticipate additional debate and adoption of the motion to proceed to S. 1038, the PATRIOT Act extension, during Tuesday's session.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

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