Floor Statements

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Was the Senator aware that the President's budget proposes a new national energy tax that will be paid by every person who turns on a light switch, heats their home, or puts gasoline in their car?

Mr. President, will the Senator from Alabama yield for a further question?

Mr. President, is the Senator aware of what one of the authors of the Budget Act, the esteemed Senator from West Virginia, has to say about this? He said:

Americans have an inalienable right to a careful

examination of proposals that dramatically affect their

lives. I was one of the authors of the legislation that

created the budget reconciliation process in 1974, and I am

certain that putting health care reform and climate change

legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage

that must be resisted.

Does the Senator agree with this view?

Mr. President, I wish to ask the manager of the bill if I may bring up a couple of my amendments. We gave the amendments to her staff about 4 hours ago. I was recently informed I was not going to be able to get those amendments up and pending. The majority leader of the Senate asked us to get amendments up. I cleared my schedule to make sure I could come over and get my amendments up. Now I am told by Senator Mikulski's staff that there would be objection to getting any more amendments pending.

I appreciate that.

I ask for the regular order concerning the Baucus amendment and I send a second-degree amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, this is a very simple amendment. The Baucus amendment wants to pay legal fees for some of these organizations that are volunteer organizations. Sometimes these organizations have significant legal fees. What my amendment says is, even though the bill doesn't specifically exclude any organizations, I wish to make sure that several of these organizations or types of organizations are able to be included and eligible for some of those legal fees. In my amendment, it points out things such as crisis pregnancy centers, battered women shelters, rape crisis centers, various organizations that are specifically geared toward helping women. I wished to make sure that somewhere down the line somebody at an administrative level doesn't exclude somebody because they have a different political philosophy. We want to make sure the people in these organizations are included. These are people, obviously, from both sides of the political aisle whom we have included in our amendment. I urge its adoption.

I yield back my time.

Madam President, this Nation is in the midst of a serious and defining challenge. Every single day we are buried in the news of our economic turmoil. Thousands more are being laid off, foreclosures are reaching new highs, property values are dipping to new lows, more businesses are shutting their doors, and Americans are struggling to pay for life's essentials. Consumer confidence is tragically low, and Congress has not acted appropriately to make things better. If this is not another Great Depression, it is surely greatly depressing.

Instead of innovative policies that put more money in the hands of consumers and create incentives for small business growth, we are passing trillion-dollar and multibillion-dollar spending bills as if we are in a race to spend money as quickly and as recklessly as possible. It is time to say hold on. It is time to seriously consider what we are doing, what the impact will have, and how we are quickly driving this Nation off a financial cliff.

For as long as living standards have been recorded, Americans have looked to the next generation as an improvement over the last generation. Opportunities, living standards, and conditions have improved. Technology and research have advanced. There is hope that our children will have more, that it will be even better for them. The optimism that has been uniquely American has always driven us to want more for the future generations but, unfortunately, that has changed. Now we are

becoming accustomed to taking more from future generations. We are digging ourselves into greater and greater debt at an alarming and an unbelievable rate. We are spending obscene amounts of money today without thinking about who will pay for it. This keeps falling on deaf ears, but it is our children and our grandchildren who will be stuck with the bill.

I know some of my colleagues like to ask: Where was this concern over the last 8 years as the deficits kept rising higher and higher and higher? Rest assured, there has always been a dedicated group of us beating this drum of fiscal responsibility. My question is, why aren't my Democratic colleagues listening now? They can keep blaming the policies of yesterday while this happens, or they can step up now, as more and more of my colleagues have, to demand an end to this selfish spending addiction.

Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that America was made great because of its good and moral people. How good and moral are we if we are so committed to this immediate gratification that we are willing to jeopardize the potential of our children and our grandchildren? If we continue to spend at the rate we are, our children, and even some of us, will be facing tax bills as high as 88 percent. If you think we will still be the land of opportunity with that kind of tax rate, you are wrong.

When I speak to high school students today and tell them they may be facing tax rates as high as 88 percent when they start working, they become speechless. You can see the disbelief and the fear on their faces. It takes a lot to really throw off teenagers these days. Forget doing better than their parents. They won't have a fighting chance at any level of success while bearing this kind of a tax rate burden.

We cannot afford to let selfishness absorb our purpose of life. Once that takes root in our policies, as we are seeing right now, the great experiment of this democracy will be closed and ready for the history books.

Instead, we need to refocus. We need to refocus our efforts on another very American concept--that we are each in control of our own destiny. That means we keep more of our own hard-earned money because we know best how to spend it or save it or invest it. We don't just throw all of our money to the Government and let them choose one cause they believe is better than another cause. That has never been the American way.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration is taking a huge step away from this concept with its effort to knock down charitable groups at a very crucial time. Non-profits around the country are feeling the pain of this economic recession today, and they are serving more and more people and are having a harder and harder time raising the funds they need to address these increased needs. It is a horrible situation. To make it worse, the Obama budget seeks to reduce the tax deduction that donors can take for their contributions. Studies show that this type of change will discourage almost half of those people from making charitable contributions.

The outrage from the non-profit world in Nevada and across the country has been loud and clear. Groups across the spectrum--education, health care, food banks, rehab, et cetera--have all been stunned by this attack on their missions.

Charitable groups have come face to face with an administration that wants to spread the wealth by spending more money on government solutions to education, health care, hunger, and other services.

Unfortunately, the administration's budget is saying to these groups, who work tirelessly in the communities to improve the quality of life of the citizens, that Government knows better and can do better. I believe, as many others do, they are wrong on this point.

I hope more of my colleagues and more Americans will join me in expressing outrage over the Obama Administration's efforts to decrease the charitable deduction for certain taxpayers.

For all the campaigning the President did on transparency in Government spending, he is going to have an awful lot of trouble masking the intent of his budget. It is full of tax hikes that will stifle future growth and knock the wind out of the middle class.

Benjamin Franklin once said:

It is a maxim that those who feel, can best judge.

Well, the American people are feeling a great deal of pain right now. They are in a perfect position to know what will best improve the economic situation they are facing, and it is not tax increases.

While President Obama has promised not to raise taxes on families who earn less than $250,000 a year, a proposal called cap and trade will certainly result in people paying more for everything that takes energy to produce--obviously including their electricity bills. This is an indirect tax on all Americans.

This is a quote from last year by then-candidate Barack Obama:

Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates

would necessarily skyrocket.

He is admitting electricity rates will skyrocket under his plan of cap and trade. Does he really think Americans can afford that right now? This is a violation of a campaign promise, just like the one made by the first President Bush when he said, ``Read my lips.''

Energy Secretary Steven Chu explained earlier this month that because higher prices are supposed to motivate changes necessary to reduce carbon energy use, climate taxes may drive jobs to countries where costs are cheaper. I didn't realize our country was in a position right now to drive jobs overseas. I know lots of Americans who are looking for jobs right here, right now.

People seem to think they have discovered a pot of gold, but that money comes out of the pockets of American families. This is a tax we will all pay--rich and poor. The average annual household burden will be a little over $3,000--and that is on the low end of the estimate. How many families do you know right now who can handle an additional $3,000 a year? And because it is a regressive tax, lower income families will actually be hit the hardest.

Compare this to a Making Work Pay tax credit that is supposed to help working families by using money from the new climate tax. Individuals, under the President's proposal, will get $400 per year, with a phase- out at earnings of individuals earning $75,000 a year.

I ask unanimous consent for 3 more minutes.

Families will get $800, with a phase-out of earnings of $150,000 a year. I am pretty sure that if we ask most families whether they would like to get $800 in return for paying over $3,000, they would tell us to just skip the whole exercise. In that respect, the American public is smarter than many folks in Washington.

What will Washington do with the excess money this bill generates? We know what it will do: it will spend it, of course.

Not to worry, President Obama's budget provides targeted tax increases as well--targeted at small businesses that are responsible for a significant amount of the job creation in this country. Top tax rates on small businesses are going up under President Obama's proposed budget. The lower rate is 33 percent now, and under his proposal it will go to 40 percent. On the highest end, right now, it is 35 percent, and that will go to 42 percent.

History and research have shown that raising taxes on businesses depresses investment. It is not surprising that lower taxes on businesses increase employment and wages. It seems like a no-brainer. But in this new area of Government command and control, rather than personal responsibility, President Obama is opting to increase people's taxes--especially on those who creates jobs--in order to pay for a larger and more intrusive Government.

This tax, the President has said, only affects 3 to 4 percent of the small businesses out there. This chart refers to the fact that about half of the small businesses, with 20 or more employees, are eligible for the top tax rates I just pointed out.

This is the important point to make: these small businesses that will be hit by this tax create two-thirds of the jobs in America, and we are going to raise their taxes. That doesn't seem like a bright thing to do, especially

with the economic position we are in today. My home State of Nevada has been led by small businesses. We have led the country for many years on the percentage of small businesses creating jobs. We really can't afford to have small business taxes increased in my State, nor in any other State across the country.

Going back to the wise words of Benjamin Franklin, the American people are feeling the pain of this economy. They elected President Obama because he campaigned on a slate of ``change.'' I don't believe this is the change the American people signed up for: reckless and endless spending, higher taxes on small businesses, increased energy costs for all families, fundraising hurdles for charitable groups, and a devastating national debt. The list goes on and on.

Madam President, this is the President's budget, and it is a recipe for disaster. We need to come back to the idea of personal responsibility and letting families and businesses have more of their own money to make the kinds of decisions and investments that will drive prosperity in America.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I wish to talk about the state of our country and the President's budget that has recently been offered.

There are many Americans who are hurting right now. Many have lost their homes or are afraid of losing their homes. Many are concerned that the value of their home, their greatest asset, has gone down tremendously and they can longer count on their home as an asset when they retire. They have seen their 401(k)s devastated. Certainly, many of us in this chamber who have Thrift Savings Plans have seen our plans go down because of the problems in the stock market. Over half of Americans are invested in some way in the stock market. So there are a lot of people who are hurting out there right now. The unemployment rate all across the country is rising. I think California is over 10 percent now. My home State of Nevada is over 9 percent. Nationwide, unemployment is a little over 8 percent. So we should be focusing on the economy.

During Bill Clinton's campaign back in 1992, he coined a phrase: ``It's the economy, stupid.'' That is when we were in a very minor recession. Today, we are in a severe recession with no end in sight. Some people say we are going to recover next year. Other people say this is going to be a long, deep recession. No one really knows for sure. We do know that is the past, when we do the wrong things, recessions can become very severe, and can lead to depressions. When we do the right things, recessions become more mild.

We recently passed a so-called stimulus bill. I don't think it is going to do a lot. It is going to help short term in a few areas, but I think the long-term damage is going to vastly outweigh the short-term prospects. Last week, we passed another massive spending bill that increased funding 8 percent over the same programs we had last year. An 8-percent increase at a time when families are cutting their own budgets, businesses are cutting their budgets, is irresponsible.

I just had the mayor of Las Vegas in my office. Local governments across America are having to cut their budgets. State governments are cutting spending because Governors are required by constitution in almost every State to balance their budget. They are looking for any kind of waste. The only place that is not looking for any waste is right here in Washington, DC. Why? Because we can print money. We can borrow from our children.

Every generation of American has said: I may not have everything I want, but I want my children to have a better America than I did. Growing up, part of the American dream has been: I want to go past what my parents did. Today's generation has become selfish. We want to keep our standard of living and borrow from our children's future, no matter the cost to our children. That idea is what the President's budget accomplishes.

The President's budget double the public debt in the first 5 years. Let me repeat that. In the first 5 years of the President's budget, the debt doubles. In the first five years of the Obama Administration, assuming he is re-elected, this budget will increase the debt more than the debt has ever increased since the founding of the Republic, all the way from George Washington to George W. Bush. After 10 years the public debt triples. This is not sustainable. If we go down this path, it could lead to the downfall of America as we know it.

There are many items in the budget that are problematic. We had a discussion this morning about the differences between Europe and America. In Europe, they believe the state is the answer, government is the answer.

One of the things de Tocqueville observed when he visited America in the 1800s was the charitable nature of Americans, how we helped in communities through voluntary acts, through our churches, through our community organizations, secular, religious--we helped each other voluntarily. It was not forced on us by the government.

Europe today believes the state is the answer. As a matter of fact, not too long ago, the King of Sweden made a charitable contribution to private charities, and people in Sweden criticized him because instead of giving the money to charities, they said he should have given the money to the state. That is the European attitude.

Most Americans believe that the private sector can deal with problems in our communities person to person through charitable giving. We are the most generous Nation in the history of the world when calculating the percentage of our income we give to charities. That has been part of the miracle of America. Whether it is for disease research, whether it is for organizations such as the Boys and Girls Clubs or Big Brothers Big Sisters, community food banks, Catholic Charities.

We have some amazing charities that give compassionate care to those who truly need it. As a matter of fact, the word ``compassion,'' if you take it at its root, means ``to suffer with.'' Charities and individuals can relate to people on a one-on-one basis and suffer with them. They can walk through life with them. That is why when the President put in his budget that we were going to eliminate charitable deductions for people making over $250,000 a year, there was a hue and cry across America, especially from charities saying: Mr. President, this is going to hurt. You are going to hurt us at a time when, because of the economy, charitable contributions are down.

We have seen that. Food pantries across America are hurting. Every organization that has come to me in Nevada has told me: We are hurting right now. Please don't allow this part of the budget to be adopted. Don't let the charitable deduction go away.

We have to ask ourselves: Why would someone want to eliminate the charitable deduction just to increase the size of Government? Is it because they believe the state is a better answer than the private sector? Maybe. If that is the case, this is a very dangerous precedent we are setting going forward.

The budget has many other problems. There is a tax in this budget on which, I believe, the President violated his pledge. He said taxes were only going to go up on those people making $250,000 a year or more. I guess that is true as long as you don't use energy because there is an energy sales tax in the President's budget. So if you use electricity, if you use gasoline, or if you buy any products made with energy in the United States, you are going to pay higher taxes on products, higher taxes on your electric bills, higher taxes on your gasoline.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for an additional 3 minutes.

I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam President, this energy tax I was talking about is a very regressive tax. I understand why people want to do it, I support the transition to a greener economy, but instead of putting incentives for us to go to a greener economy, they want to put a tax on Americans that will hurt the poor more than anybody else. It will severely affect those making under $250,000 a year.

They say they are going to distribute that money to those through the Making Work Pay tax credit. But that is for lower income people. What about

the people who are truly middle-income people--the people making around $100,000 a year, or $80,000 to $100,000 a year. This includes teachers, firefighters, and police officers. They are going to pay that tax.

According to MIT, the refundable aspect of this tax provision is going to raise about $300 billion a year. They are not refunding that. So this is another giant problem the President has with his budget.

A couple other concluding points. We have a situation here where we should sit down together and think about our children, our grandchildren. Instead of giving us what we want today, let us think about the debt we are passing on to them. What is that debt like? It is as though we have taken their credit card and we are running up their credit card and they have to pay the finance charges. That means they have to work harder and they have to pay higher taxes in the future to pay those finance charges. This debt adds trillions of dollars in interest payments on their credit card--trillions of dollars.

This is not the direction our country should be going in today. We should be thinking about being fiscally responsible and thinking about future generations, just as generations before us have done.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I wish to talk about my amendment dealing with the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Unfortunately, if the current bill should pass, this program will end. There is specific language in the bill that says unless this program is reauthorized and the DC City Council approves it, 1,700 children will lose their opportunity scholarships that allow them to attend a private school in the District of Columbia. That is unfortunate, and that is why my amendment must be adopted.

When we take a close look at the data on DC schools, it is no wonder the DC opportunity scholarship parents are so vocal about keeping this program alive. Here in the District of Columbia, public schools spend, on average, over $14,000 per year per student. The DC class size has one of the lowest student-teacher ratios in the country, 14 to 1. Yet reading scores continue to languish at or near the bottom in every national assessment. Recent data shows that 69 percent of fourth graders in the DC Public Schools are reading below basic levels as defined by the Department of Education. DC students in DC Public Schools ranked last in the Nation in both SAT and ACT scores. About 42 percent of DC students drop out of school.

Beyond the low performance in the classroom, DC schools are often violent and dangerous. A Federal government study found that roughly 12 percent of DC students were threatened or injured by someone possessing a weapon on school property during a recent school year. This percentage is well above the national average. Perhaps, it is because of these statistics, that President Obama chose to enroll both his daughters in a private school.

Let's see what his Secretary of Education said about the DC scholarship program:

I don't think it makes sense to take kids out of a school

where they're happy and safe and satisfied and learning. I

think those kids need to stay in their school.

Secretary Duncan was referring to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, the same program we are trying to save today.

Michelle Rhee, the Chancellor of DC city schools said:

I would never, as long as I am in this role, do anything to

limit another parent's ability to make a choice for their

child. Ever.

That is what she said.

DC Mayor Fenty said:

We should not disrupt the education of children who are

presently enrolled in private schools through the DC

Opportunity Scholarship Program.

Last Friday, Senator Durbin, the senior Senator from Illinois, made some charges against this DC Opportunity Scholarship Program that I wish to address. Senator Durbin claims the program doesn't work. He claimed the Department of Education study proves the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program doesn't work. What Senator Durbin failed to mention were some of the fundamental flaws of the Department of Education study. First, the study fails to examine the performance

of students who actually took advantage of the scholarship and actually attended private school versus the performance of those who attended public schools. Instead, it compares the students who were just offered the scholarships to those in public schools. In fact, over a quarter of the students who were considered private school participants for purposes of this study did not even attend the private schools.

This study has many flaws and we could go through all of them. How can the program be considered not working yet there are 1,700 kids whose parents showed they are satisfied and that think their kids are getting a better education? The parents are happier, and they can sleep well knowing their kids are going to safer schools. I believe that if there were more than 1,700 scholarships available, there would be a lot more people who would be enrolled in the program because of the satisfaction of both the parents and the teachers.

According to the Heritage Foundation, 37 percent of the members in the House of Representatives and 45 percent of Senators send their children to private schools. That is almost four times the rate of the general population. The senior Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, stated on Friday that he and his wife sent their children to private Catholic schools. He said this was their choice, and it was a personal family decision. I respect Senator Durbin's choice to send his own children to private schools, but why should the choice to send children to private schools be the right of only a privileged Senator's family or those who make a lot of money?

Keep in mind, the 1,700 children we are talking about come from families whose average income is less than $23,000 a year. A good education is a civil right, and this should not be the exclusive purview of the rich or the well connected.

Before closing, I wish to highlight some of the stories of success in the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program so it can be clear who is losing out because of the Democrats' efforts to kill the Program. I wish to put some names with some of the faces and show how important this program truly is.

Sarah and James Parker attend the Sidwell Friends School in our Nation's Capital with President Obama's children. Here they are right here. Unlike the Obama girls, they could not afford this school without the $7,500 voucher they received from the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Now, keep in mind, these two students are funded at half what it costs to send a child to DC Public Schools. Every time we take these students out of the public schools in Washington, the DC Public Schools save money. So why would we want to end this program? Plus the fact that these kids love going to school where they are going.

Now, Sanya Arias is a scholarship recipient who lives in Adams Morgan. She said some of her friends she went to school with in middle school and who now attend public high school speak using profanities and aren't making the kind of progress she is making academically. This is Sanya, here. Sanya said in middle school she started slacking off and she would have probably followed her friends' path if she didn't receive the scholarship to attend private school. Sanya currently has a GPA of 3.95. She is vice president of her class, captain of the soccer team, a player on the lacrosse team, president of the International Club, and a peer minister. This is the type of student the Democrats are going to take out of a school that she loves so much.

Rashawn is 16 years of age and started school in 1996. His father had him tested and found he was 3 years behind his grade level. The scholarship program gave him the opportunity to attend Academia De La Recta Christian Day School where Rashawn has said: ``I can now do my classwork with very little help'' because of this scholarship.

Dominique, who is Rashawn's sister, is a 14-year-old girl who lives in Washington, DC. She is now attending the same school and, in Dominique's own words, she says: ``I love my school, and I am working on my level and my grade.''

Breanna Williams is a 9-year-old girl in the fourth grade. She loves her new school, St. Peter's, because she is getting all As and Bs. She loves to read and is doing that at a level above her grade. In addition, Breanna plays the clarinet in the school band and when Breanna grows up, she wants to be a translator who travels the world.

I would be remiss if I did not reintroduce you to Ronald Holassie. He is a 10th grader at Archbishop Carroll High School in the District, where he is thriving--running track, studying physics, mentoring middle-school students. Further, he has just been appointed as DC's deputy youth mayor. Ronald said that maintaining the DC opportunity scholarship is his chief legislative priority. Ending the program will send Ronald, who is just a sophomore, to Woodson High School, a failing school under the No Child Left Behind Act, for his senior year.

Individually and collectively, these students demonstrate just how important it is to continue the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program and just how wrong the program's opponents are to eliminate it for political purposes. We should continue this scholarship program and help students like the ones I just pointed out--help them to continue to succeed and to develop in our Nation's Capital. I ask President Obama and the Democrats to keep Sarah, James, Sanya, Rashawn, Dominique, Breanna, and Ronald in mind before deciding to kill the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. I ask my colleagues to please join me in supporting this critical program.

Madam President, I will close with this. I met Ronald last week. I met him and his folks. I met his little brother who is also in the program. I looked in their eyes and saw their heartfelt pleas to keep this program going. I challenge any member to look into their eyes and then vote against this program. We should be putting kids before special interest groups. Shouldn't our educational system be about kids? Shouldn't it be about their education and providing them the opportunities to compete in the 21st century?

I think the people who are against this program are afraid of this program for one reason--because it is actually working. This program is very popular. The senior Senator from Illinois sends his kids to private school. Parents choose to send their kids to private schools because they want better education for their kids.

Let's give these children a chance at a better education. Let's prove that it is working. Let's study the students and the program. Don't stop this program when it is still in its infancy. Let's decide how we need to measure it, prove it is working or not working. But I predict that at the end of the day, if we really follow these kids in an objective manner, we will show this program has great promise, and maybe we can even take it to other places in the country and help other low-income kids get a better chance at a better education.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, will the Senator yield?

I thank Senator Durbin for yielding.

Madam President, is the Senator aware that in all of the private schools these kids are attending the core subject teachers have 4-year degrees and that it was only in subjects such as art and wood shop that they did not necessarily have 4-year degrees? Madam President, I ask the Senator from Illinois, through the Chair, whether he is aware of that.

Madam President, I actually send my kids to schools where not all of the teachers in core subjects have 4-year degrees. But if a teacher is teaching art, if a teacher is teaching woodshop, or some other kind of program, I would ask: Does the Senator from Illinois really believe imposing that on private schools is necessary?

You send your kids to private schools just as I am sending my kids to private schools. We sent them where we thought they would get a good education. Does the Senator think these parents who are taking advantage of these programs don't care enough about their kids to send them to the best schools? That is why they are choosing to get them out of public schools. Wouldn't the Senator from Illinois agree those are wise parents signing up voluntarily for this program because they care about their kids?

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

Mr. President, I wish to speak once again about my amendment dealing with the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program we have here in the District of Columbia. Currently, 1,700 children from lower income families are able to attend a private school with a $7,500 voucher thanks to this program, a program we implemented about 5 years ago.

It seems the No. 1 priority for the National Education Association, one of the largest unions in the country, is to eliminate this program. We are talking about real children here. These are two of the kids who attend school with President Obama's children. It is a great school. The President and Mrs. Obama could afford to send their kids to any school. They chose this particular school because it is an excellent school. They chose not to send them to a public school in Washington, DC. After seeing some of the statistics on the DC public schools, it doesn't surprise me. Why should these two happy, healthy kids who are enrolled at the same school as the President's children be forced to leave?

The bill before us allows the program to continue for one more year, then, if not reauthorized and approved by the DC City Council, the bill de-funds the program and forces 1,700 children out of private schools where they are happy, healthy and learning.

I quoted these statistics earlier: forty-five percent of Senators and 37 percent of members of the House send their children to private schools. That is almost four times the rate of the general population. Quality education shouldn't be only for a privileged few. We should be able to send kids such as Sarah and James here to the schools where they can get a better education, where they are safer.

The safety of DC public schools is a major concern. One-half of all teenagers attending DC public schools are in a school that has enough criminal activity to be classified as persistently dangerous. In school year 2006-2007, DC Metropolitan Police reported that over 6,500 crimes were committed in D.C. public schools. Too many of these schools are not safe.

It is a civil right to get a good education. So we came up with a plan a few years ago that took up to 2,000 poor children in the metro DC area and sent them to a school of their parents' choice. Washington, DC, spends more than any school District in America per student. The District of Columbia spends over $15,000 per student per year--three times as much as we spend in my home State of Nevada. Yet the public schools are failing here in Washington. So we decided to design a program to see if we can help some of those kids escape the failing public schools in Washington. We thought: if it works as a pilot project, maybe we can expand it to other places.

Well, the National Education Association has come out with their No. 1 priority, which is to destroy this program. My question is, Why? I believe they are afraid this program is working, so it is a threat to their power. It

is a threat to union member dues. That is unfortunate because when it comes to education, our only concern should be in the quality of education for our children. They need that kind of quality education to compete in the 21st century.

I have a couple other kids to tell my colleagues about.

This is Sanya. She is a beautiful, happy young lady, and is receiving a great education in a private school here in DC. Today, she has a 3.95 GPA. She is the vice president of her class. She is the captain of her soccer team, a player on the lacrosse team, president of the International Club, and she is a peer minister. She is a future leader whom we are going to be taking out of the school she loves if this bill is enacted without my amendment.

Rashawn is 16 years old and a handsome devil. He started school in 1996. His father had him tested and found out he was 3 years behind his grade level. The scholarship program provided him the opportunity to go to the Academia De La Recta Christian Day School. Rashawn said he can now do his classwork with very little help because of the scholarship. His sister, Dominique, who is 14 years of age, is now attending the same school, and these are her words. She says: ``I love my school now. I am working on my level on my grade.''

Do we really want to take these kids out of their schools? Do we really want to do that? We have to ask ourselves, Do we want to protect this bill and the special interests this bill is addressing so much that we are actually going to pull 1,700 children from lower income families out of the schools they are attending today? I think it is unconscionable that we are going to be doing that.

Breanna Williams is 9 years of age and in the fourth grade. She loves her new school, St. Peters. She is getting all A's and B's. She loves to read and is reading at a level above her grade. In addition, Breanna plays clarinet in the school band. When she grows up, she wants to be a translator and travel the world.

Lastly, I wish to tell my colleagues about Ronald Holassie. He is currently Washington, DC's deputy youth mayor. I had the honor of meeting this young man, and I had the honor of meeting his little brother, Richard. His little brother, Richard, 8 years of age, came to our press conference and stole the show. These are two incredibly bright young men. Ronald, a tenth grader, runs track, he is studying physics, mentoring middle-school students, and absolutely loves every minute of it. As the Youth Deputy Mayor, he considers saving this program his chief legislative priority, because he has seen what it has done for him and what it has done for his little brother.

So individually and collectively these programs are working. We just have to put ourselves in a commonsense position.

There have been some studies quoted here claiming that this program wasn't working. First of all, the studies were incredibly flawed. We pointed out all of the flaws of the study. But we just have to ask ourselves, if 45% of the Senators send their kids to private schools, and they pay a lot of money to do that, would they do that if they thought the educational opportunity was inferior? Of course not. It just makes common sense. Do you think the parents of these 1,700 children would voluntarily send their kids to the DC schools of their choice if these schools were inferior or if their kids weren't getting a better education? Well, of course not.

This is what President Obama's Education Secretary said about the DC scholarship program. He said:

It is a mistake to take kids out of a school where they're

happy and safe and satisfied. I think those kids need to stay

in their school.

So we need to adopt my amendment to keep the DC scholarship program funded. It is the right thing to do for these kids. Showing them we care more about their education than we do some special interest group is the right thing to do.

So I urge all of my colleagues, when they are voting, to think of Ronald. Think of the kids we have talked about and many others. Instead of doing away with this program, let's study it. Let's study what is working about it. If it is working, let's expand it to other places in the country.

America leads the world when it comes to higher education. Our colleges and universities are the best. One of the reasons they are the best is because you can take a GI bill, student loan or Pell grant, and you have the opportunity to attend any college you desire. You have a choice. About 5 years ago, this program gave these kids a choice. Our public, K-12 school system is in bad shape when compared to the rest of the industrialized world. We are falling behind, especially in science, math and in the technical fields. If we want our kids to have the chance to compete in the 21st century, we have to improve our school system. One of the ways to do that is through competition. This is just a little experiment and a little competition that some people now want to come to this floor and destroy.

So let's think of these kids, and let's think of kids all over America when we are thinking about the educational choices we are going to be making in the Senate. Let's give children in DC a choice. We, as senators, are fortunate enough to have a choice for our children. Forty-five percent of the Senators chose private schools, including the chief opponent of this amendment, Senator Durbin.

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

Madam President, in the underlying bill there is language addressing the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program that would effectively, after next year, kill the program. It requires that not only it be reauthorized by Congress but also that the DC City Council approve the program. There are 1,700 kids from families making an average of less than $24,000 a year that now participate in this program. The parents love this program. The kids love this program. I am a big believer in the public school system, but the DC Public Schools, which spend more than any other school district in the country, over $15,000 per student per year, are failing too many kids in Washington. So this program was put in to give some low-income kids the opportunity to succeed.

Guess what. They are thriving in this program. Earlier, the senior Senator from Illinois said we have to make sure all the teachers have 4-year degrees. The omnibus bill before us requires that. My amendment does not touch that requirement. He also says we have to make sure they are in structurally safe schools. The bill before us requires that. My amendment does not touch that. So those are both side issues that are not affected at all by my amendment.

We need to put special interests aside and focus on the children from Washington, DC, especially those low-income children

I ask unanimous consent that this letter from the Mayor of Washington, DC, Adrian Fenty, be printed in the Record.

Mayor Fenty is agreeing with the Education Secretary, who says these kids should not be pulled out of this program, and this program should not end. There are so many scholarship recipients across this town who want to stay in their private schools. We should stand up for the kids and not the special interest groups, such as the National Education Association, that want to end this program.

Is there any time remaining?

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, in a moment I am going to ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so I can offer an amendment dealing with the DC scholarship program for low-income children. I wish to talk about it first and give the other side fair warning, because I understand that the other side is going to object, which is very unfortunate.

We have had a wonderful program that recognized DC public schools are failing children of the District of Columbia. Most of those children are low income, minority children. A few years ago, under a Republican Congress and President Bush, we put together a program that initiated a little experiment. In DC schools, the dropout rates are high, kids aren't learning to read at the appropriate levels, they aren't learning math at the appropriate levels; across the board the crime levels are too high in the schools. Since the vast majority of the schools in the District of Columbia are failing the kids, Congress decided to experiment here and see if something works. So we selected 1,700 kids and we gave their parents a $7,500 scholarship to be able to go to the school of their choosing in the area. The response by the parents was overwhelming. A lot more people wanted to sign up for this program than there were scholarships available, but we at least allowed 1,700 children to participate for the last five years, this being the sixth year now.

In this underlying bill, there is language that effectively kills this program, because it says that unless the

bill is reauthorized and the DC City Council approves the program, no funding shall be allowed to go toward this DC scholarship fund.

Now, we know Head Start and the Higher Education Act both continued, even though they weren't reauthorized, for many years until we were able to come together to reauthorize. That is not uncommon in this building because it is difficult to get legislation reauthorized. So we continued funding Head Start. We continued funding Higher Education. But the No. 1 issue for the National Education Association is to kill the DC scholarship program for poor children. I ask: What are they afraid of? Well, as was stated today in the Chicago Tribune, they are not afraid of this program because it is failing; they are afraid of this program because it is actually working. Let's ask a commonsense question: If this program weren't working, would the children who have received this scholarship continue in this program? The obvious answer is of course they wouldn't. They would go back into their other schools.

We had a press conference earlier today with some of the parents and teachers who are involved in this program. Three wonderful young men came together with us today. We had Fransoir, Richard, and Ronald. Two of them had written statements, and then there was little Richard who got up and spoke off the cuff. All three of them were incredibly articulate. They were talking about how important this scholarship program was to them and how they didn't want to go back to the other schools because in the schools they are in today, they are actually learning.

So do we put the interests of the National Education Association first, or do we put the interests of our children first? It isn't just these 1,700 kids whose future is at stake. We are trying to look for programs in education, reforms that actually work, because the No. 1 priority for our children should be about their education into the future. If they are going to compete in the 21st century, they have to have a good education. It is the new civil right of our day. It is not a civil right to stick them in failing schools that are unsafe, that are gang ridden, that are drug ridden, that have teachers who are not teaching our children in a constructive manner. It is not a civil right to say to them: I know other people have more money than you. They can go to a good school and can learn, but we are going to trap you in this poor performing school simply because you don't have enough money. Civil rights is supposed to be about giving people opportunities, not based on income, not based on race, not based on religion, but simply because they are Americans who can actually have a chance.

So this program is going to show, I believe, as the studies come out on it, that these kids did better because they had an opportunity. I think this is what the National Education Association is afraid of. They are afraid this program is going to work and it will then be tried in other areas. What are we afraid of? Are we afraid we are actually going to improve education in the United States through an innovative program?

Even yesterday, the Secretary of Education under President Obama made this comment about the DC scholarship program. He said:

I don't think it makes sense to take kids out of a school

where they're happy and safe and satisfied and learning. I

think those kids need to stay in their school.

He was talking about those 1,700 kids who are in the DC schools under this scholarship program today. Two of those children actually go to school with President Obama's children. Unfortunately, the majority party in Congress has written into this bill that we are going to take those kids out of these schools. We are going to effectively eliminate the scholarship that allows them to stay in their schools. One young man, Ronald, who was here today is a junior in high school. Ronald is also the Deputy Youth Mayor for Washington DC and has made education his number one priority. Next year Ronald will be a senior. They are going to take him out of a school he has attended the last 5 or 6 years and make him go to a different high school for his senior year. At this other high school, it's likely over half the kids aren't learning at the grade level they should be learning at and where about half of them drop out of that school. Instead, Ronald should remain at the school that gave him a future, hope, and opportunity. I wish all Americans could have heard him speaking today, and then I would like to see the other side of the aisle vote against this amendment and vote against allowing this amendment to even come to a vote.

It is very unfortunate that the other side is not allowing us to do but just a few amendments, amendments that they deem worthy to be voted on. That is not the way the Senate has worked the last several weeks. It has actually been working. As the minority, we realize we have fewer votes on this side. We understand that. We understand we are going to lose most of these votes. Occasionally, as last week, we did win one, but most of the time we are losing these votes. That is the way this body is at least supposed to work, you debate amendments and you have votes on the amendments.

Unfortunately, with regards to the bill before us, that is not the case. Normally, we vote on appropriations bills one at a time and somewhere around 15 amendments per bill are offered and voted on. We have eight or nine bills combined together and, so far, I think we have had six or seven amendments voted on. We will have a few more voted on tonight. That seems to be the total that the majority wants us to vote on. By the way, the Democrats have come to an agreement that they are going to defeat them, whether they are meritorious or not, because they set a false deadline of tomorrow to finish the bill. They said tomorrow the funding runs out for our Government. In reality, all you have to do is pass a continuing resolution that will fund the Government for another week. We could do it on a voice vote, and then the House can do it on a voice vote. Then we can come back next week and debate amendments and have votes on them.

This is one of the amendments that needs to be voted on. If you want to throw 1,700 kids out of good schools and put them into nonperforming schools, I want you recorded on this vote. Some have said this isn't just going to poor children. The limit is 185 percent of poverty and below. That is the limit of the income to qualify for this scholarship program. The average income for families qualifying for this scholarship is $23,000 a year.

The National Education Association said this is a threat to public education. Oh, really? First of all, $7,500 is what we give as a scholarship. The average spent per student in Washington, DC, public schools is around $15,000. So we are spending half that. We didn't give them the full $15,000, just half that. This was in addition to the Washington, DC, School District money. But the benefit is, every child you take out of Washington, DC schools, allows money to be spent on other students.

I have a couple stories to tell you about. Sherine Robinson, the parent of an opportunity scholarship recipient, believes parents should not have to worry about violence in their schools. That is one of the reasons some of the parents are taking their children out. It is not just the educational opportunities, it is the violence they may have to experience while they are in school. She believes the parents should not have to fight for their kids to learn. She believes all parents should have a choice and ``the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program gives us a chance to find the best school possible.'' Those are the words of a parent. She now feels her child is in a safe school and is doing well. Why do we want to deprive her of that opportunity?

Obviously, I believe strongly in this scholarship program. I believe this program is working. I believe we can prove it is working statically and spread this program across the country. Let's put our children first; let's not put special interests before our children and their education. That is what this argument comes down to.

Let's use common sense and put compassion back into this bill. Let's allow amendments so we can take care of our kids and educate them in the way they deserve to be educated.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that I be allowed to call up the Ensign amendment No. 615, which provides an

opportunity scholarship for 1,700 poor children in the District of Columbia.

Madam President, this is most unfortunate. It is what I thought would happen. There was a rumor going around today that this would happen. I plead with the other side to give these 1,700 children a chance to learn, a chance to continue in the program that is working for them. I would love to expand the program, but I know that is not doable in this Congress. But let's at least keep these 1,700 schoolchildren in school with the ability to learn, in safe schools that are actually giving them hope and opportunity for the future.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that I be allowed to call up amendment No. 615.

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

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, very soon I am going to talk about an amendment I want to offer on the DC Voucher Program for low-income kids. But first I want to talk about the bill in general for a few minutes.

Yesterday, I talked about the spending bill we have before us as being 8 percent over spending from last year on various programs that are contained within the bill.

We just had Secretary of Treasury Geithner before the Senate Finance Committee. I asked him a question. I said: I applaud the President for hosting a fiscal responsibility summit just last week at the White House. I think that was a great thing. It set some very important goals for us to be fiscally responsible to the next generation. I told him this administration had an opportunity to say these are last years bills, drafted under a different administration. But rather, they said, we are going to look the other way; we are not going to hold to our ``no earmarks'' pledge or fiscal responsibility pledge on this bill, we are going to do that on future things.

But the problem is, it is not just this bill that increases spending by 8 percent. This bill gets added into the baseline. This extra $23 billion gets added into this year's baseline, which means that next year's the baseline goes up and the budget for the next year after that goes up, and up and up, so this $23 billion increase in federal spending ends up being several hundred billion over 10 years. That is not what we should be doing now.

We have entitlements that are going to be exploding. Every family in America today is looking for ways to cut their budget. We are hearing that the movie industry is actually doing pretty well right now because people are saying: That is actually a little luxury I can afford, because they can't afford some of the bigger luxuries they wanted. Instead of buying cars or big-purchase items, they are buying smaller things. That is why Wal-Mart seems to be doing well at this point. People are looking for values.

Businesses across the country are looking to cut expenses. They are looking to cut wasteful spending. Every bureaucracy, whether it is private or public, grows over time, so businesses are looking for ways to be able to handle these tough economic times.

Local governments and State governments are forced to live within a budget. So what are they doing? They are making tough choices right now. Even with the money the Federal Government sent them, they are still having to make difficult choices, so they are looking for what wasteful spending is out there and what ways they can cut back on waste.

The one place that seems immune to cutting wasteful spending is the Federal Government, and the people responsible for that are right here in this Chamber and in the Chamber across the Capitol. We control the purse strings. This is not a time for us to increase spending. This is a time for us to ask every Federal agency, department, program out there: How can you save money right now? How can you cut administrative costs? Which programs are duplicative? Which programs are working and which ones are not? Let's take the money away from the programs that are less efficient right now, let's cut back on bureaucracy instead of expanding the bureaucracy at this point. I would say this is really an irresponsible moment for this Congress.

I applaud two Members from the other side of the aisle, Senator Evan Bayh and Senator Russ Feingold. They have come out in opposition to this bill because they said pretty much the same things I was saying this morning. Senator Evan Bayh from Indiana wrote a great opinion editorial today in the Wall Street Journal laying out why this is an irresponsible bill and why he is going to be opposing it.

If we are going to care about our children and our grandchildren, we cannot wait a year or 2 years. We need to be fiscally responsible today. We should have been doing it in the past years as well. I agree there has been irresponsible spending in this body by both sides of the aisle and by the previous administration, but that is no excuse for us to say we can just continue it.

Federal spending has been rising and rising, much of it off budget. I agree with the Democrats when they criticize Republicans in the previous administration for off-budget spending. I have been one of the people up here saying the tricks we were playing with the budget on defense were dishonest. They were trying to say they were not increasing spending because it would take money away from defense, knowing it would be added on later so they could increase other spending bills. That was dishonest. That was dishonest budgeting, and it is time to get to honest budgeting.

But it is also not just honest budgeting we need to get to. We need to get to fiscal responsibility. So really take a look at what we are doing here. Think about the next generation and

future generations. Do we really want to add this kind of debt burden, where they have to pay hundreds of billions of dollars and even trillions of dollars in interest just because we were unwilling to take tough votes here in the Senate?

The second issue I wish to talk about is the issue of DC choice. The schools in Washington, DC, are some of the worst schools in America. We brought this issue up last week, and we were able to get an agreement that, instead of having a vote on the DC voting rights bill, the majority leader would give us time on the Senate floor to reauthorize the program. It is a program that says for very low income kids in the District of Columbia, we are going to experiment and see if maybe we can give them a decent education.

The District of Columbia spends around $15,000 a year per student on public school education. We said we will give them a $7,500 voucher towards the ability to go to a private school, a school of their choice. The number of people who want to get into this program is incredible. Why? Because DC schools are failing too many children. DC schools are mostly made up of minorities, and we are trapping those very minorities into a school system that by and large does not work. So the DC voucher system was put in to at least take a few of those students out and see if they can do better in a different setting. Does it work? Some people say we are not measuring it right. All you have to do to know whether it works or not is to talk to the parents and to the students who have been involved in the program. Guess what. They want it to continue. As a matter of fact, they would like to see it expand. But what are we doing? This bill all but guarantees its elimination. How does it do that? If this language is not removed from the omnibus the program would be effectively cut. The omnibus contains language to eliminate the program after the 2009-10 school year unless congress reauthorizes it and DC City Council approves it. We know where the votes are on the DC City Council. The votes on the DC City Council would kill the program. The teachers unions in the District of Columbia, as they are in most cases, are totally opposed to any kind of voucher system. They believe it is a threat to their power base.

I am concerned about the kids and their education. That is all I am concerned about. If this program is going to work--and it seems to be working based on the interest of the number of families who want in it and based on the desire of the families who are in it to continue in it--then that is what we should be concerned about.

I am going to be offering an amendment that would strike the language in the omnibus bill and would allow us to authorize it this year in the Senate. That is the right thing to do, to make sure these kids still have a chance to get a good education in the United States.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I don't think we need a long time to discuss this amendment. It is a pretty simple amendment. What it says is, we are going to take this bill back to the Appropriations Committee and have the Appropriations Committee make the appropriate cuts so this bill comes back at the 2008 funding level.

We have to ask ourselves: When is the Senate going to start being fiscally responsible? The other side of the aisle criticized us, and rightly so, for free spending over the last 8 years. That was one of the things President Obama campaigned on and the Democrats across the country campaigned on. They said they were going to be the party of fiscal responsibility.

The debt held by the public has continued to increase. The problem is that under the President's new budget, over the next 5 years, the debt is actually going to double. Over the 10-year budget he has proposed, the debt held by the public is going to triple from already unsustainable levels.

My amendment says that we give spending a little haircut around here. It is not significant. It is saying that at a time when we recently passed a stimulus package, which tremendously increased Government spending, let us not take last year's spending bills and also tremendously increase their levels of spending. The current omnibus proposes an 8-percent growth in the size of our Government from one year to the next. We are talking about a record deficit this year. $1.75 trillion is a big number; people can't even get their arms around that number.

If you to spent $1 million a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, beginning at the time Jesus was born, you still wouldn't be at your first $1 trillion today. Our deficit this year is $1.75 trillion. To add to that deficit with this spending bill, I believe, is outrageous.

There is a saying--and I don't remember who said it, exactly or how it was said, but it is basically along these lines: The systems of government such as we have always collapse due to two reasons: The first one is a moral collapse, the second one is followed by an economic collapse. You can understand why they happen in that order. Because what happens if people aren't moral enough to care about future generations? What they do is they vote people into office who give them what they want. They borrow from the Treasury to get it, and when the debt gets too high, it collapses the economy.

What we are doing around here is exactly that. We are repeating the mistakes of history. We are borrowing from our children. We are running up huge debts. If folks don't think our economy can't completely collapse due to the huge debt burden we are passing, they have another thing coming. Confidence in the dollar right now is questionable around the world. Looking into the future, as we run up these larger and larger deficits and add to a huge burgeoning debt in the United States, people around the world are going to wonder about the strength of the dollar. They are going to wonder whether they want to continue to buy our Treasury bonds and finance our debt. If they stop buying our bonds, our economy collapses. It literally falls off the cliff.

We have a fiscal responsibility to be moral enough to care about future generations of Americans, to not continue to add dollar after dollar, million after million, billion after billion, trillion after trillion onto their debt load. I would encourage this body to adopt this reasonable amendment to this bill; that instead of increasing the Government 8 percent over last year on these particular spending bills, let us freeze it at last year's level. We are not asking to cut anything, but let's freeze it at last year's level.

It will be up to the Appropriations Committee to decide whether some accounts are more worthy than others. They can plus up those or cut others that are not as worthy. They can take care of Members' projects if they wish to take care of Members' projects. But the bottom line is, this amendment would at least start down the road of fiscal responsibility to future generations.

I have a couple other comments. Can anybody rightly say this bill is full of good spending, of justified spending? We have heard about all the earmarks. Let me note a few of them, if you think this bill is full of good spending. Mr. President, $1.79 million--and I am not exaggerating--$1.79 million for swine odor and manure management research. I am a veterinarian by profession. I understand that pigs smell and pig farms smell worse than almost anything else. But when did it become the responsibility of the Federal Government to control pig odor? Shouldn't that be the responsibility of pig farmers?

Of course we need to pay back the labor unions. There is $190,000 to the Plumbers Local Union 27 and Steamfitters Union 449, and that is in Pennsylvania for the Western Pennsylvania Pipe Trades Regional Training Project. We also have almost $500,000 for the George Meany Center for Labor Studies at the National Labor College.

I have a whole list. As a matter of fact, I ask unanimous consent to have this list of earmarks printed in the Record.

There are plenty of others we could go through, but for the sake of time, let's just be fiscally responsible right now. Let's add a little fiscal responsibility into this body, and let's adopt this amendment that says we are going to freeze spending from Government that was not already plussed-up in the stimulus bill. Let's be fiscally responsible.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to first address a few of the misrepresentations of my amendment by the Senator from Washington. My amendment does not cut any specific program, and you know it. It says to the Appropriations Committee: We will send this back to the Appropriations Committee, and you determine which programs are funded and which ones are not funded. But you will fund them at last year's level. If you want to raise the level in certain areas, then you will have to cut funding in other areas.

We just have to ask ourselves the question: Does anybody believe there is wasteful Washington spending? Does our Government have any wasteful spending in it? If you say there obviously is wasteful spending, when was the last time we cut anything? When was the last time we cut any wasteful spending? Congress needs to address this wasteful spending. Part of the Appropriations Committee job is oversight. The Committee then figures out what is working, what is not working, fund what works and cut what does not work. But that doesn't happen around here. All they do is add and add.

If you check the Constitution, the purse strings are controlled by Congress, not by the President. Democrats are entering their third year of that control in both houses. So what we have to do here is exercise our authority and say we are going to be fiscally responsible. You can say you are fiscally responsible all you want, but unless you act on it, the words are hollow.

Businesses across America are looking for ways to cut waste from their budgets during this economic downturn. Do you know what they are finding? Talk to them. I have been in business myself. I understand that when times are good, you sometimes add staff you don't need, you waste money in places you don't need to, and that is in the private sector. The Government is less efficient than the private sector.

Times are tough in this country, instead of thinking we will just add to the deficit, we will just raise taxes, let's look for efficiency and let's eliminate wasteful spending. We have a bill in front of us that is going to increase spending over last year's level by 8 percent. Is that fiscally responsible? We just passed a nearly $1 trillion spending bill called the stimulus bill, and now we are going to increase this by 8 percent? It seems to me that is not fiscal responsibility. That is the height of irresponsibility.

Let's have a debate on this, but let's have a honest debate.

We are not cutting any specific programs. Do not say we are cutting education. Do not say we are cutting health care. Do not say we are cutting police and firefighters because this amendment does not do that.

What this amendment says is, let's send this bill back to the Appropriations Committee, to last year's level. The Appropriations Committee can determine which programs are funded at what level. If you believe there are certain priorities that need more funding, then fund them; otherwise, let's be honest about this debate. And I am more than happy to go back and forth with the other side about the merits. But if anybody thinks there is not wasteful spending going on in Washington, DC, you need to wake up and smell the coffee because it is outrageous how much waste there is in our Government today--outrageous. We do not require fiscal discipline in our agencies, and that is what we need to start doing.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside to call up the amendment No. 587.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to call up my amendment, get it pending, and speak on it for 2 minutes.

Yes.

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

Madam President, I rise to offer a DC voucher program for low-income children at or below 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Line. Children would be eligible to receive up to $7,500 to attend a private school in the District.

It has been said that education, especially K-12 education is a civil right. I

believe it is. In Washington, DC, public schools are failing too many of our kids--especially our low-income kids. These children are trapped in schools that are failing.

About half the kids in Washington, DC, public schools do not graduate, and this is not because of money. The District spends perhaps the most in the country, on education. They spend almost $15,000 a year per student per year in public schools. That is almost three times the amount we spend per student per year in Nevada. Yet the performance of the public schools in the District is pathetic. There are very few Members of Congress who would allow their kids to go to these failing schools.

The reason I am offering my amendment today, which would reauthorize, for 1 year, a very valuable voucher program, is because the upcoming Omnibus appropriations bill basically guts the program. We need to make sure this program is in place in time for parents to plan for their children's education in the fall.

This is an important amendment. This is a civil rights amendment. We are talking about the right to a DC Representative voting here, we should care enough about our children to give them the right to a good education. That is what this amendment is about. Now, we are going to try to work this out. We may not be offering this amendment if we can get an agreement from the majority leader for time on the floor sometime this spring to be able to debate a full bill. That is what I would hope we could be able to do. If not, then we will hope for a vote on this amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to take a little bit of time to refute some of the inaccuracies about my amendment dealing with the repeal of the gun ban in the District of Columbia. This really is about restoring second amendment rights to residents who live here in the District of Columbia. We have a constitutional right and duty to deal with matters dealing with the District of Columbia.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the laws that had been passed by the city council in the District of Columbia were in fact unconstitutional because the District of Columbia did not recognize there was a constitutional right to the individual--not just a militia but to the individual--to keep and bear arms. Since then, the District of Columbia has attempted to subvert what the Supreme Court said by putting very burdensome types of laws to make it more and more difficult for District residents to own a gun in order to protect themselves in their own homes.

It is interesting. If you go back to what the Founders talked about, as far as the second amendment, look at James Madison. He wrote in Federalist No. 46:

. . . the advantage of being armed, which the Americans

possess over the people of almost every other nation . . .

forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more

insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form

can admit of.

Washington, DC, has blatantly violated this right for more than 30 years, and it has led to catastrophic results. This chart reflects the murder rates in Washington, DC, relative to 48 other of the largest cities, excluding Chicago, from the top 50 list. And this is all weighted by population. You can see here, and especially as we go forward, when other crime rates in the country were actually going down and murder rates in the country were going down, as Washington, DC, was enacting more and more gun ban laws and stricter gun ban laws, the murder rate in Washington, DC, continued to rise.

It has been characterized that this bill would allow a 10-year-old to carry shotguns in the streets of Washington, DC. That is completely ridiculous. That is a scare tactic. Our amendment basically ensures the individual's second amendment right. It removes the tremendous barriers and burdens on law-abiding citizens to be able to have the protection they want, to protect themselves in their own homes.

Right now, we know that if a criminal in Washington, DC, wants to get a gun, they will get a gun. We are making it difficult for the people who actually abide by the law to get a gun. We want law-abiding citizens to have the arms, not just the criminals. That is what this amendment is really all about.

You are probably going to hear some people say that Washington, DC, is just trying, within the Supreme Court decision, to enact laws that will put reasonable restrictions on guns. I would say that is not the case, and the reason it is not the case is they are actually trying to make technical changes in the law which they think will restrict people's rights to keep and bear arms. It is going against the intent of what the Supreme Court has enacted.

People across the United States have recognized for a long time how important it is for individuals to be able to keep and bear arms.

Around the world, we often hear asked: Well, why does Great Britain have a lower murder rate than the United States? Well, first of all, there are a lot of cultural differences between the United States and Great Britain. But also, since Great Britain enacted some of its strictest gun control laws, murder rates have actually gone up in London.

In case after case where you look to find out whether gun control laws actually are effective in reducing crime, the statistics are pretty overwhelming against it. Criminals will get the guns. They get them on the black market or they go someplace, but they get their guns. The question is, Are law-abiding citizens going to be able to protect themselves in their own homes?

That is what this amendment is attempting to do, to say to citizens who live in the District of Columbia: We are going to protect your second amendment rights. The laws the District of Columbia has enacted to own a gun are stricter than what we require in Nevada to get a concealed weapons permit.

Mr. President, I believe it is high time this body give the citizens who live in the District of Columbia that second amendment right to keep and bear arms in order to protect themselves in their own homes, so I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. President, I will save a couple of minutes right before the vote to be able to conclude my remarks, but how much time remains on my side?

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wish to clear up a couple of misstatements made by the other side. First, they said that somebody who is mentally ill could get a gun under this provision. That is not the case. We basically take the Federal definition which does not allow people who are mentally ill to get guns because reasonable background checks can be required and should be required so that somebody who is mentally ill won't get a gun. We don't want to see a Virginia Tech type of a situation happen again. This amendment does not allow it.

The bottom line is, the District of Columbia has the highest murder rate. It has had the highest murder rate, and that rate has gone up as the District has enacted stricter and stricter gun control laws. As the Senator from California said, we want to protect citizens. Shouldn't we do what other places have done and allow law-abiding citizens to actually own guns? That is what the amendment provides. It says: Let's protect the second amendment rights for law-abiding District of Columbia residents so they can protect themselves against intruders coming into their homes.

Criminals are going to get their guns. We know that. Criminals get their guns in DC and around the country. They do it through the black market. In DC, they can go right across the border and get a gun pretty easily. We want to make sure that law-abiding citizens are able to get guns and to protect themselves. That is the basis for this amendment, to say: Let's uphold the Supreme Court. Let's make sure we protect the second amendment rights of citizens in the District of Columbia. We are exercising our constitutional duty both with oversight over the District of Columbia and by protecting the second amendment rights of our citizens.

I urge a yea vote on the amendment.

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

I ask for the yeas and nays on amendment No. 575.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so I may call up my amendment, which I have sent to the desk.

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

Mr. President, while we are here debating the constitutional implications of this bill, I want to take this time to discuss a 30-year constitutional injustice happening right here in Washington, DC.

On June 26 of last year, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling affirming the second amendment right to bear arms as an individual and constitutionally protected right. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court

affirmed that the District of Columbia's ban on ownership of handguns was an unconstitutional restriction on that right. Prior to this decision, Washington, DC, had enforced the most prohibitive gun control laws of any city in the nation. Not only did the District prohibit ownership of handguns, it also required that allowed firearms, such as rifles and shotguns, be ``unloaded and disassembled'' or ``bound by a trigger lock.''

Millions of Americans were supportive of Mr. Heller, who was simply wishing to excise his constitutional right to protect himself. Recognizing the District's restrictions were not only unreasonable but also unconstitutional, the majority of the Supreme Court held that ``the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self- defense.''

Despite the Court's ruling in June, the District of Columbia City Council has continued to exact onerous and unconstitutional firearm regulations on law-abiding residents.

In response to the District's obstruction of the text and spirit of the Court's decision, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6842, the National Capital Security and Safety Act. Last year, almost half this body joined me in a letter to the majority leader urging prompt consideration of this bill, which was denied and the bill died. That bill would have unequivocally restored the Second Amendment rights of the District residents, and that is why I offer this updated bill as an amendment to S. 160 and encourage my Senate colleagues to join me to address this real injustice.

Mr. President, the residents of the District have waited long enough, and it is time for us to ensure that they realize their constitutional right to bear arms. We must pass this amendment so the Second Amendment rights of the citizens of DC are protected.

This amendment is substantively identical to the bipartisan compromise that passed the House last year, with the exception that it repeals the 2008 DC anti-gun law that was enacted in the interim, and the inclusion of a severability clause. As I said, these are merely technical changes to this widely supported bill that 47 of my colleagues supported in a letter to the Democratic leader in the 110th Congress and two of our new Senate colleagues voted for while they were in the House, when it passed by a vote of 266 to 152 including 85 Democrats.

These changes were necessary to guarantee the second amendment rights to DC residents are adequately protected. Instead of abdicating our constitutional duties as a co-equal branch of Government, we should enact legislation such as my amendment, to defend and protect the constitutional rights of American citizens. It is high time we address this real constitutional injustice and adopt my amendment.

Mr. President, it is high time that we address this real constitutional injustice and pass my amendment. According to the Census Bureau, Washington, DC, is the 27th largest city, with close to 600,000 residents. Similarly large cities, however, have not enacted comparably restrictive gun laws. For example, both Las Vegas proper and the District of Columbia are cities with populations between 500,000 and 600,000 residents. According to the Census Bureau, in 2007, Las Vegas without incorporated areas, was the 28th largest city, just behind DC. These cities, however, have very different gun-control laws.

According to FBI Criminal Justice Information Service Division, in 2007, the murder and non-negligent manslaughter rates were higher in DC than Las Vegas, including all the incorporated areas. When you include the incorporated areas, this more than doubles the population count in Las Vegas. In fact, if you total all the population of Nevada, DC still would reigns in this category. Can you honestly tell me gun control in DC has been effective?

According to the FBI, murder rates in the United States peaked at around 10.2 per 100,000 persons in 1980. Despite the strictest gun ban in the country, however, murder rates in the District continued to climb well into the 1980s and 1990s, peaking in 1996 at about 80.6 per 100,000--nearly 8 times the average of what the rest of the United States had experienced.

Since then, the murder rate in DC has declined somewhat and is now fairly level, following a national trend of decreasing violence. As this chart shows, however, the murder rate in DC still remains over 250 percent higher relative to the 48 largest cities in America.

Law-abiding, Nevada residents only need to register handguns if they live in Clark County, the home of Las Vegas. And then, to do so, they simply bring an unloaded handgun to any police substation--unlike the District of Columbia's single location--where they receive a cursory background check and are given a gun registration card. There are no fees or other onerous hurdles to infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

The DC gun registration laws for lawfully permitted firearms are even more restrictive than Nevada laws for concealed-carry permits. Yet, I repeat, even with a gun ban, DC crime rates are significantly higher. Disarming the law-abiding residents of DC has made them easy prey for criminals to target. Furthermore, most criminals who use guns get them through unregulated channels. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, most criminals get guns via theft or the black market. According to the ATF, almost 90 percent are acquired through unregulated channels, and the median time between a gun's acquisition and its use in a crime is over 6 years.

Mr. President, it is high time we address this real constitutional injustice and let DC citizens lawfully defend themselves. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to protect the Second Amendment rights of DC residents.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, is it in that order----

Mr. President, I claim the 7 minutes that is part of the unanimous consent agreement.

Mr. President, the scope of this legislation is enormous and endangers our country's future economic health.

Currently, the U.S. debt burden is huge, but it is going to rise to 54 percent of the economy in just the next 2 years. That is before we take into account this omnibus spending bill that

is still to come before the Congress, another round of TARP, and approximately $1 trillion that we have in the bill before us today. When we add the Children's Health Insurance Program that was passed, TARP, a supplemental, the omnibus bill, we will add an additional $2 trillion to our national debt. That means higher taxes for our children, our grandchildren, and actually just in a few years for almost all Americans.

We have been borrowing against future generations. Keep in mind that we have a $60 trillion debt out there in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs. That money has to be paid someday.

We have to ask ourselves: What will the credit markets around the world think? What will they think about the idea of the United States being actually solvent? The previous administration, as we heard from the other side, spent money like crazy. I am not going to defend them. I was one of the people fighting against a lot of that spending.

The spending that is before us today is unprecedented. Unfortunately, in the so-called stimulus bill, only about 25 percent of the bill is in true tax relief. A lot of it is disguised as tax relief, but it is just spending. Not all tax relief is equal when it comes to stimulating the economy. Unfortunately, some of the tax relief in this bill that was actually good was stripped out of the bill.

Today, as a percentage of GDP, Government spending last year was around 21 percent. This year, it is going to be close to 30 percent. The historical average over the last 40 years is around 20.6 percent. If we continue to add and add, in not too many years, it is heading toward 40 percent. This amounts to the Europeanization of the United States. Why is this? The government takes up a large percentage of the budgets of Europe's economies. These are more socialist-type economies, and that is the percentage of their gross domestic product they spend on government.

Let's consider the cost of this bill. If we count everything that is going to expire in the stimulus and say it is not going to expire over the next 10 years, the true cost of this bill is somewhere around $3 trillion. We have to ask ourselves: When was the last time a Federal program was cut or was discontinued? That does not happen around here. Once we put something in place, it seems to be in place forever.

The assumptions in the bill that the spending put in place is actually going to go away in 2 years seems a little ridiculous to me. That is why we actually should be honest about the true cost of this bill.

According to CBO, all the stimulus spending will do little to help our long-term economic growth. It will help some in the short term but not in the long term. We have to think about not just short term. Too many companies in America were thinking short term. We have to think long term as well for our, once again, children and grandchildren.

We did not even receive this 1,100-page bill until 11 p.m. last night. Thanks to all my staff, and the Republican Policy Committee staff. They spent most of the night and today going through this bill. There is no way everybody is going to know everything that is in this bill because of the difficulty of trying to go through an 1,100-page bill in less than 24 hours.

We need to look at history. Japan, in the 1990s, gave us valuable lessons about not what to do. They spent $6.3 trillion. Unfortunately, they spent it building a lot of bridges to nowhere, roads to nowhere.

We heard we need a lot of infrastructure spending in this country. If this bill had only answered that call. This bill has very little to do with infrastructure. Only a small percentage of this bill actually deals with infrastructure. That is unfortunate. Japan also failed to address the underlying problems in their banking system. Japan created zombie banks. These are banks that should have failed but were not allowed to. Japan also suffered from a bad course of monetary policy. While the parallels may not be exactly the same between Japan and the U.S., we may be headed in the same direction. That is why a lot of us are afraid that this stimulus bill before us today is actually not going to cure our economic woes.

The housing industry is what brought this whole economy down. We understand that. The American people in my State of Nevada know it was the housing crisis that brought the economy down. So if we don't fix housing, how are we going to fix the economy? The underlying problem with the patient here is the housing problem.

I had an amendment that actually would have gone a long way toward fixing housing. My amendment had three components. The first was that Americans would have been able to get a much lower interest rate-- somewhere between 4 to 4.5 percent. About 40 million American households would have qualified for it. It would have given the average American household about $450 per month more for their budget. This was permanent, though, it wasn't just a one-time check. This was a 30-year fixed interest rate. That actually would have helped stimulate the economy.

The second part of the amendment was that we took a provision from Senator Isakson.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

The second part of the amendment would have given a $15,000 tax credit to buy homes. That would have helped to stimulate the housing market. Unfortunately, in this bill, that was dramatically cut down. And the third part was to help those houses underwater.

This spending bill that is before us could have been made so much better if we had sat down in a bipartisan fashion--not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans. I hope we learn from the way this bill was done that it is not the way we need to fix some of the major problems the country will face in the future. I hope we can actually sit down in a bipartisan fashion.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.