Floor Statements

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I understand the Senate is in morning business.

I rise to address the President's plan to withdraw American troops from Iraq that he will announce today in Camp Lejeune, NC, as has been widely reported in the media.

Yesterday afternoon, I participated in a White House briefing with other Members of Congress, during which the President and his national security team described the contours of a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq. As he described it, this plan would aim to remove the bulk of combat troops by August of 2010, approximately 19 months, leaving up to 50,000 troops in place. That is a little over a third of the present troop level in Iraq. Most combat forces would remain in place for the duration of this year, ahead of national elections likely to take place in December. National elections in December are of the utmost importance. To have security and the ability of the Iraqi people to take part in that election is a vital part of the progress Iraq will make toward freedom and democracy. The President noted that he reserves the right to revisit the timeline currently envisioned based on conditions on the ground.

It is encouraging that the dramatic success of the surge strategy has enabled us to move from a discussion about whether the United States could bear the catastrophic consequences of failure in Iraq to planning the way in which to consolidate the success. Thanks to the leadership of GEN David Petraeus, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, GEN Ray Odierno, and the many brave men and women who have served under them, the failing situation in Iraq has been arrested and reversed.

It is important to point out that the President's plan is not without risk. We have not yet completed the mission in Iraq, and the gains we have made there remain fragile. We will need to be cautious as we withdraw troops so as not to jeopardize these achievements and listen closely to commanders on the ground as the administration determines the pace of withdrawals. The greatest risk will be present ahead of the December elections, and conditions could worsen before or even after they take place.

With these factors in mind, I believe the President's withdrawal is a reasonable one. The plan is reasonable. Given the gains in Iraq and the requirements to send additional troops to Afghanistan, together with the significant number of troops who will remain in Iraq and the President's willingness to reassess based on conditions on the ground, I am cautiously optimistic that the plan, as laid out by the President, can lead to success.

The American people should be clear. The President's plan, even after the end of its withdrawal timeline is reached, will leave in place up to 50,000 U.S. troops. All will be in harm's way. Some will continue to conduct combat operations. They will play a vital role in consolidating and extending the remarkable progress our military has made since early 2007. That is why I believe the administration should aim to keep the full complement of 50,000, as briefed by Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, and not succumb to pressures, political or otherwise, to make deeper or faster cuts in our force levels. The President's plan, as briefed yesterday, is one that can keep us on the right path in Iraq.

I worry, however, about statements made by a number of our colleagues indicating that, for reasons wholly apart from the requirement to secure our aims in Iraq, we should aim at a troop presence much lower than 50,000. We have spent enormous amounts of American blood and treasure in Iraq. We all know that. After all the tragic losses of life, after the hundreds of billions of dollars spent, after all the other costs our country has absorbed as a result of the conduct of the war, we are finally on a path to success. Let us have no crisis of confidence now. Instead, let us welcome home our fighting men and women, not only thanking them for serving in Iraq, not just for ending the war in Iraq but thanking them for bringing us victory in Iraq.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, in consultation with the managers, the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from Arizona, I make a constitutional point of order against this bill on the grounds that it violates article I, section 2, of the Constitution, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I understand that now the motion is debatable.

Mr. President, I have a statement on this issue, and I look forward to debating it and a vote at the wishes of the majority and Republican leader on this constitutional point of order.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, through whose committee this legislation is proceeding.

I appreciate the frustration felt by the residents of the District of Columbia at the absence of a vote in Congress. I fully understand and appreciate that. I also believe it is important that we look back at both the Constitution itself and the intention of our Founding Fathers, which was to create the District of Columbia as a base of Government.

According to many experts, the District of Columbia is not a State, so therefore is not entitled to that representation. Also, one has to raise the obvious question: If the District of Columbia is entitled to a Representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, then why isn't it also entitled to two Senators? If the District of Columbia is entitled to a Member of Congress, why isn't Puerto Rico, which would probably entail 9 or 10 Members of Congress? Why are other territories of the United States not entitled to full-fledged Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and, indeed, the U.S. Senate?

After great deliberation and debate, our Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution, 222 years ago, a unique form of government that proposes a distribution of power and checks and balances on each branch. So, too, the Founding Fathers considered and provided for a unique Federal city to serve as our Nation's seat of government. No single Member would represent the interest of the District but all Members of Congress would share responsibility for the city's well- being. I believe that when you look at distribution of tax revenues and when you look at other measurements, the District of Columbia has been well represented by all Members of Congress.

The Framers specifically limited voting representation in the House of Representatives to States. Article I, section 2, of the Constitution provides unequivocally:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members

chosen every second year by the People of the several States.

If they had wanted the District of Columbia to have the representation, they would have designated so in the Constitution. Asked to opine on the meaning of the word ``States'' in the context of House representation, Federal courts have consistently accorded that word its plain meaning, concluding that the word ``States'' does not include territories or possessions or even the District of Columbia.

Again, I express my sympathy for the residents of the District of Columbia. But to now act in direct contravention to the intent and words of our Founding Fathers, I believe, is a violation of the Constitution of the United States. And to somehow work a deal that includes the State of Utah having an additional seat in return for that is an incredible violation. I will talk more about that.

First, I wish to say that it is very clear the Congress simply cannot amend the Constitution by legislation--no matter how noble the cause. Congress has once before pursued an appropriate constitutional resolution to this issue. In 1978, Congress passed a joint resolution proposing to amend the Constitution to provide for the representation for the District of Columbia in Congress. Seven years later, that resolution failed to obtain the required approval of the 38 States necessary for ratification under article V of the Constitution. There is no reason proponents of voting rights for the District can't pursue this process again. There is a process for amending the Constitution of the United States. There is no reason why those residents of the District of Columbia, and other supporters, should not pursue the legitimate process of amending the Constitution of the United States. It should not be done and, in my view, cannot be done. The courts will decide, if we don't decide here, that it is unconstitutional to do so. I welcome such a process, rather than the consideration of this bill, which is clearly unconstitutional--not only in my judgment but in the overwhelming body of legal opinion.

In addition to being unconstitutional, as I said, I am concerned that this bill is more a product of politics than of principle. Look at what this legislation before us does. It doesn't simply grant the District of Columbia a voting seat in the House; it adds another congressional seat for the State of Utah. The obvious question is, Why Utah? Why not Arizona or Nevada or New Jersey? As a representative of the people of the State of Arizona, who, I believe, legitimately and continuously, as one of the fastest growing States, have been deprived of additional seats because of the way the census was conducted--and now we are going to give a seat to the State of Utah on the grounds that the census was not accurate. I don't know of any fast-growing State in America that doesn't believe we were undercounted--and legitimately--in the census.

Now, as I understand it--and maybe the proponents of an additional seat for Utah can more eloquently and convincingly describe it than I can--they are saying it is because they came closest in the census to being eligible for another seat in the Congress. The State of Nevada is the fastest growing State in America. Arizona has been among those that are fast growing. But why Utah? What in the world does an additional seat for Utah have to do with representation for the District of Columbia? It can only be interpreted in one way, and that is an attempt to buy votes. We are talking about the Constitution of the United States here, about representation in the Congress of the United States of America, not some political deal.

I have sympathy for the State of Utah if they think they were undercounted in the census. I have sympathy for all States that were undercounted in the census. What some supporters of the bill argue is that Utah is the next State in line to receive a House seat after the last census in 2000 and reapportionment. Nevada was the fastest growing State from 1986 to 2004, until Arizona overtook Nevada as the fastest growing State in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Nevada, once again, regained this title for its high growth between 2006 and 2007. For the first time in over 25 years, Utah was listed this year as the fastest growing State, as its population climbed 2.5 percent, with Arizona being second, with a population growth of 2.3 percent. Despite this percentage growth, Texas, California, North Carolina, and Georgia added more people than Utah, Nevada, or Arizona between 2007 and 2008. Mr. President, we are getting on a slippery slope here. Do you judge it by percentage of growth, numbers of votes?

It brings us back to a final question: What in the world would awarding an additional seat to another State have to do with voting rights for the District of Columbia?

I have provided those statistics to illustrate there are other States that have experienced far more phenomenal growth than Utah. I love Utah. It is a wonderful State. But the wheels were greased for Utah to receive an additional seat well before it was listed as the fastest growing State this year. And if the State of Utah or any other State was undercounted, that should be taken into consideration; we should fix the census in the year 2010 and make sure any injustice is corrected. But to somehow say we are going to award a State an additional seat not in keeping with the process of how reapportionment is conducted every 10 years is remarkable and certainly unconstitutional.

In 2004, lawmakers began floating an idea of a compromise bill to balance a House seat for the District of Columbia, which obviously we assume would be won by a Democrat, with a seat for a congressional district in Utah, which most assume would be won by a Republican. The May 3, 2005, editorial in the Washington Post called this a ``win-win situation.'' While this may be a win-win situation for Washington, DC, and Utah, it is hardly a win for the millions of Americans who are living in high-growth States.

In fact, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, if the District was considered to be a State during the last apportionment, North Carolina would not have gained a seat. According to a study by the Republican policy committee, if this bill is enacted and the House of Representatives is expanded to 437 seats, then New Jersey would keep a congressional seat it would otherwise lose. Again, this illustrates there are winners and losers in an apportionment, but these districts should be chosen based on concrete data from the census, not by political parties attempting to craft legislation that flies in the face of our Founding Fathers' intentions.

In a February 6, 2009, editorial, the Los Angeles Times states:

This is obviously partisan horse-trading.

The Los Angeles Times is right. Yes, partisan horse trading happens all the time, but this time partisan horse trading would do grave violence to our Constitution.

A commentator wrote in the February 13, 2009, edition of the Washington Times:

. . . the enactment of blatantly unconstitutional legislation

to bypass the constitutional amendment process and give the

District of Columbia a seat in the House of Representatives

in a crass triumph of raw political power over the rule of

law.

I couldn't agree more.

Again, I regret I am unable to support this legislation to provide the residents of the District voting representation in the House of Representatives. However, I took a solemn oath to defend our Constitution as a U.S. Senator. In testifying before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in 2007, Professor Jonathan Turley described this horse trading as ``the most premeditated unconstitutional act by Congress in decades.''

We, as Senators, cannot avoid the constitutional issue. While the Supreme Court may be the final arbiter of constitutionality, Congress, as the first branch of Government, has an independent duty to consider the constitutionality of the bills we pass, especially where, as here, our own independent Congressional Research Service advises that ``although not beyond question, it would appear likely that the Congress does not have authority to grant voting representation in the House of Representatives to the District of Columbia'' as contemplated by this bill.

We really have two aspects of this legislation. First of all, does Congress have the constitutional authority to grant voting rights or an additional seat in the House of Representatives by legislation rather than amending the Constitution of the United States?

As I pointed out earlier in my statement, the fact is, it was tried in 1978 in the proper fashion and did not receive the approval of the 38 States necessary to amend the Constitution. So now we are trying to basically amend the Constitution of the United States by legislation. That is not in keeping with the authority and responsibility of the Congress of the United States of America.

The second is, of course, what in the world does granting voting rights to the District of Columbia have to do with granting another seat to another State? One can only interpret that, as one of the editorials did, as political horse trading. There is no constitutional basis for granting a seat to any State in the United States of America without it being backed up, as laid out by our Founding Fathers, by the results of a census.

I will agree, as I have said before, coming from a State that has been consistently undercounted in our population, the census needs to be fixed to more accurately reflect the true population of every State in America, and that has not happened with the fastest growing States. But to grant a seat to a State because they were ``fastest growing'' and maybe closest to the requirement for an additional seat turns everything on its head.

What kind of a precedent would we be setting by legislation allowing a State to have another seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, with thousands of votes that would be taken?

I also would like to mention, again, if the District of Columbia deserves a voting representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, doesn't the District of Columbia also deserve two U.S. Senators? How intellectually do you make the argument they deserve a vote in the other body, a coequal body--although we certainly do not recognize that very often. But the fact is, it is a coequal body. They are going to have a vote over there, but they are not going to have representation over here.

Finally, I would like to point out that we have territories in which citizens of the United States reside. Those who were born in those territories, according to a U.S. Supreme Court decision, are citizens of the United States. In fact, they are even eligible to run for President of the United States if they are born in a U.S. territory.

What about Puerto Rico? What about the Virgin Islands? What about the Marianas? What about other territories that are part of the United States of America and in which our citizens also reside who then vote for Representatives in the other body, but those Representatives obviously do not have voting power?

I conclude by saying this is a serious issue. It is a serious issue. It has been clouded by the understandable concern that Members of Congress have for the people who reside in the District of Columbia. We see their license plates every day: ``Taxation without Representation.'' But the way to give them those voting rights is through amending the Constitution of the United States, not a legislative act that clearly is not within the constitutional authority granted by our Founding Fathers to the Congress of the United States.

I look forward to a spirited debate on this issue. I think it is an important one. If this DC voting rights bill does pass and this constitutional point of order is rejected by a majority of the Senate, I have very little doubt that the courts of the United States of America will reject this proposal.

Again, I appreciate and admire and respect the manager of this bill, the distinguished chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and the senior ranking member, the Senator from Maine. But I think there is a huge credibility problem when you add on a provision for adding a seat to a State for which there is not any factual or, frankly, rational argument for except that perhaps this measure will gain more support.

I urge my colleagues to take a very close look at what we are doing. The most sacred obligation we have is to respect and preserve the Constitution of the United States of America in everything we do. I have very little doubt this legislation before us violates the Constitution of the United States of America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am aware that the hour has expired. I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds.

Mr. President, I cannot add to the persuasive argument presented by the most respected Member of the Senate on constitutional matters and other matters. I thank Senator Byrd for his opinion. I thank him

for his many years of service. I know all of us, however we vote on this issue, respect and admire his views. Thank you, sir.

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

Mr. President, Hilda Solis has a remarkable story of self-determination as the daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrants who has been nominated by the President to serve as our nation's 25th Secretary of Labor. Congresswoman Solis was the first from her family to graduate from college and then went on to earn a master's degree in public administration from the University of Southern California. In 1992, she began her career in public service when she was elected to the California State Assembly and has represented California's 32nd District in the House of Representatives since 2000.

These are very tough economic times for all Americans. Today, the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, said that he doesn't expect our labor markets to improve until 2011. We will see the end of this recession. However, as businesses fight to get back on their

feet, we need to be preparing and training workers who have lost their jobs so they can continue to succeed in our world economy. I hope that Congresswoman Solis, once confirmed, will make as a top priority the availability of adequate worker training programs for our labor force.

While I know that Congresswoman Solis and I have divergent views on many of the issues she will consider as Labor Secretary, I am proud of her nomination as the first Latina to be considered for the position of Secretary of Labor. I do believe her nomination could have been considered sooner if the Congresswoman had not submitted documents to the Committee and the House of Representatives that included errors and omissions, specifically regarding her position as Treasurer of a not- for-profit lobbying firm. However, I am pleased that the nominee worked with the Committee to correct these errors and omissions and hope this spirit of cooperation continues between Congresswoman Solis and the Congress when she serves as a member of the new administration.

Mr. President, over the last few years, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Levin and I have developed a number of initiatives that reform various aspects of the defense procurement process. Our hope is that, in the aggregate, those initiatives, including those that help control the proliferation of non-essential requirements; have the Department of Defense move towards more fixed price-type contracts while incentivizing performance; and subject major systems to a more evolutionary, knowledge-based procurement process, will have a beneficial effect on the process--as a system. I am under no delusion that a single ``silver bullet'' will remedy a fundamentally broken defense acquisition system.

The Weapon System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, which I am pleased to introduce with Chairman Levin today, is an important next step in efforts to reform the system.

Consensus has emerged that a key to defense acquisition programs' performing successfully is getting things right from the start--with sound systems engineering, cost-estimating, and developmental testing early in the program cycle. Doing so helps the DoD understand and mete out costly technology-and integration-risk out of programs early-- before the DoD makes important go/no-go decisions on the program that effectively out it ``on rails''.

We have learned this lesson the hard way--at great cost to the taxpayer. Typically, major weapons have been procured with insufficient systems engineering knowledge about critical technologies. But, with those weapons programs having, by a certain point, acquired often overwhelming political momentum, Nunn-McCurdy, basically only a reporting requirement, has done very little to bring costs associated with those originally underappreciated risks under control.

We now know that when a program is predictable, that is, when decision milestones are being met; estimated costs are actual costs; and performance to contract specifications and key performance parameters are achieved, the acquisition process can be relied on as providing the joint warfighter with optimal capability at the most reasonable cost to the taxpayer.

The bill that I am introducing with Chairman Levin today appreciates that fact--by focusing on starting programs right. It does so by emphasizing systems engineering; more effective upfront planning and management of technology risk; and growing the acquisition workforce to meet program objectives.

A particularly important feature of the bill includes a provision that puts Nunn-McCurdy ``on dynamite.'' That provision requires, among other things, that programs currently underway, post-Milestone B, experiencing ``critical'' cost growth either be terminated or enter the new defense acquisition system, which the DoD recently and fundamentally restructured to help it manage technology and integration risk. In so doing, Chairman Levin and I hope to transform Nunn-McCurdy from a mere reporting requirement into a tool that can help the DoD manage out-of-control cost growth.

While I am pleased to be introducing this legislation with Chairman Levin, we certainly must, and will, do more. That having been said, the primary responsibility to reform the process falls on the DoD itself. No amount of legislation can substitute for a true commitment to acquisition reform within the Pentagon. I look forward to seeing the White House convey that commitment--through deeds--going forward.

Mr. President, over the last few years, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Levin and I have developed a number of initiatives that reform various aspects of the defense procurement process. Our hope is that, in the aggregate, those initiatives, including those that help control the proliferation of non-essential requirements; have the Department of Defense move towards more fixed price-type contracts while incentivizing performance; and subject major systems to a more evolutionary, knowledge-based procurement process, will have a beneficial effect on the process--as a system. I am under no delusion that a single ``silver bullet'' will remedy a fundamentally broken defense acquisition system.

The Weapon System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, which I am pleased to introduce with Chairman Levin today, is an important next step in efforts to reform the system.

Consensus has emerged that a key to defense acquisition programs' performing successfully is getting things right from the start--with sound systems engineering, cost-estimating, and developmental testing early in the program cycle. Doing so helps the DoD understand and mete out costly technology-and integration-risk out of programs early-- before the DoD makes important go/no-go decisions on the program that effectively out it ``on rails''.

We have learned this lesson the hard way--at great cost to the taxpayer. Typically, major weapons have been procured with insufficient systems engineering knowledge about critical technologies. But, with those weapons programs having, by a certain point, acquired often overwhelming political momentum, Nunn-McCurdy, basically only a reporting requirement, has done very little to bring costs associated with those originally underappreciated risks under control.

We now know that when a program is predictable, that is, when decision milestones are being met; estimated costs are actual costs; and performance to contract specifications and key performance parameters are achieved, the acquisition process can be relied on as providing the joint warfighter with optimal capability at the most reasonable cost to the taxpayer.

The bill that I am introducing with Chairman Levin today appreciates that fact--by focusing on starting programs right. It does so by emphasizing systems engineering; more effective upfront planning and management of technology risk; and growing the acquisition workforce to meet program objectives.

A particularly important feature of the bill includes a provision that puts Nunn-McCurdy ``on dynamite.'' That provision requires, among other things, that programs currently underway, post-Milestone B, experiencing ``critical'' cost growth either be terminated or enter the new defense acquisition system, which the DoD recently and fundamentally restructured to help it manage technology and integration risk. In so doing, Chairman Levin and I hope to transform Nunn-McCurdy from a mere reporting requirement into a tool that can help the DoD manage out-of-control cost growth.

While I am pleased to be introducing this legislation with Chairman Levin, we certainly must, and will, do more. That having been said, the primary responsibility to reform the process falls on the DoD itself. No amount of legislation can substitute for a true commitment to acquisition reform within the Pentagon. I look forward to seeing the White House convey that commitment--through deeds--going forward.

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

Mr. President, while the leaders are on the floor, I would like to mention, I hope we will continue to observe the one side speaking and then the other side that we have been going through in the last few days. I think a lot of people have been able to voice their views on this very important issue before the Senate. I reiterate, if my colleagues who would like to speak on this issue would call the cloakroom and also indicate how long they plan to speak, it would help us arrive at a time for a vote today.

Certainly.

Mr. President, I object to the 10-minute time restraint. This is a very difficult issue. We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus. I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would understand that more than 10 minutes may be required for some statements.

I thank my friend. I ask we keep track of the timing on both sides as both sides talk so we can try to make sure there is parity on timing throughout the day. Obviously, it will be dictated by the number of speakers who want to speak on either side, but we should try to preserve parity throughout the day.

I thank the Senator from Illinois.

I would agree with the Senator from Illinois, but I think it is pretty clear there are going to be more speakers on this side than that side. I would like to have our leader, the Republican leader, agree to that before I could.

I thank the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. President, today the Senate will pass a $789 billion bill, $1.1 trillion with interest added in--and we do, when we calculate the costs of these appropriations bills, count in the interest. It is the so- called stimulus bill, and it is under the guise of a bipartisan compromise.

Let me reiterate what I have so often stated during the past 2 weeks: The Nation needs a stimulus bill. The Nation expects the Congress and the President to act in a truly bipartisan manner to address this crisis. But, unfortunately, this measure is not bipartisan. It contains much that is not stimulative and is nothing short--nothing short--of generational theft.

At times of great challenge, history tells us our Nation will work collectively to remedy the problems we face. Working on this measure together was that opportunity. Republicans offered a good-faith alternative to the measure that is before us. Our alternative provided the American taxpayers with a stimulus bill devoid of porkbarrel projects and excessive spending programs that fail to create jobs.

Our bill was not simply to advocate policies we could not otherwise pass; our bill, in fact, was a real stimulus proposal. Instead, partisan legislation was pushed through.

Sadly, when we could be uniting to assist hurting Americans, we have exacerbated our differences and burdened our children and grandchildren with a debt the proportions of which have never been seen before.

Mr. President, before I go too much further, the bill is 1,071 pages. We got it last night, I believe, at 10:20 p.m. That was the first moment a copy was made available. It was not numbered correctly. At 11 p.m. we received notification it had just become available on the House Web site.

Compare the process that we have been through with the Web site that is from the Obama campaign. The Web site of the Obama campaign stated, and I will quote in a second--this is a quote from the Obama Web site:

End the practice of writing legislation behind closed

doors. As President, Barack Obama will restore the American

people's trust in their Government by making Government more

open and transparent. Obama will work to reform congressional

rules to require all legislative sessions, including

committee markups and conference committees, to be conducted

in public.

What happened in the last few days--law and sausages--it is certainly a long way from the Obama Web site that said:

Reform congressional rules to require all legislative

sessions, including committee markups and conference

committees, to be conducted in public.

All day yesterday the media made different reports about the process that was going on, in which, by the way, there was no Republican leadership anywhere in the vicinity.

I recognize this will be greeted as a victory for the administration and the Democrats today. I recognize that, and it is a victory. But I am not sure it is the right kind of victory. I think words which will haunt us for a long period of time were uttered by the Speaker of the House: ``We won, we write the bill.'' ``We won, we write the bill.''

I think on both sides of the last campaign there was a commitment not to use those words: ``We won, we write the bill.'' That commitment was to sit town together in a bipartisan fashion and work together to come up with solutions to the enormous domestic and foreign policy and national security challenges we face. I understand who won. I think I understand it about as well as anybody in this body. I have often said elections have consequences. This is one of the consequences of my side of the aisle losing. But it was not the promise that was made to the American people.

I understand the other side of the aisle--and many in the media--will say: Well, Republicans are recalcitrant. Republicans are trying to block it. Republicans don't want anything.

We had a provision, we had a proposal of over $420 billion. We had a proposal that got 44 votes for a trigger that, once our economy begins to recover and is in recovery, the spending stops. One thing that Milton Friedman said, among many others I have always appreciated, was: Nothing is so permanent as a temporary Government program. There is nothing more permanent than a temporary Government spending program. So I think we had an opportunity and, hopefully, there will be opportunities in the future, to sit down, Republican and Democrat together--and at the beginning, not the end. If you are not in on the takeoff, then you are certainly not going to be in on the landing.

This bill took off with the Speaker of the House saying: We won, we write the bill. That was repeated on several occasions by the President of the United States.

Now, I want to say again, my side of the aisle, for 8 years, did not include the other side of the aisle. We were guilty. We were guilty of not observing the rights and privileges of the minority party. I do not excuse it, nor do I rationalize it. But I do believe that some Members did work in a bipartisan fashion and that times are different. The times are different. The American people spoke.

So yesterday, not the Republican leadership, not the majority of my colleagues sat by while the bill was finally written, and that is why the final legislation here will have three Republican votes, probably, out of all of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate. It may pick up a couple in the House. But to call this bipartisan is clearly an inaccurate and false description of the legislation that will pass sometime this evening.

So we passed up an opportunity. I hope we will, in the future, since there will be TARP III somewhere--some estimates, $500 billion; some estimates, $1 trillion; no one knows. The Secretary of the Treasury testified the day before yesterday before the Senate. He had no idea. He could give us no clue as to how much the next TARP was going to be. But I hope that will then present us with another opportunity to work together from the beginning, not at the end.

Again, this side of the aisle is not blameless on partisanship. But this was an opportunity for all of us to join together.

USA Today stated in an editorial: Republican opposition seems more like partisan positioning than a sincere effort to reach compromise with the White House at a time of severe economic distress.

I cannot speak for all of my colleagues, but I can, I know, speak for the majority of them. That is a false

statement. That is a false statement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every Senator here wants a reasonable, workable stimulus bill that will help turn our economy around and put people to work. That is why 40 Republican Senators voted for an alternative that sought to fix our housing crisis--remember, it was housing first, and it is housing that is going to restore our economy. The stimulus package has not a lot of it to start with and comes out of the ``conference'' with less-- invest in our Nation's infrastructure through effective and restrained spending; put money immediately back in the hands of all Americans through a payroll tax holiday; allow businesses to keep more of their profits to hire new employees, invest in capital, or expand their businesses; finally begin to focus our attention on entitlement reforms; and then, most importantly, put a halt to the spending once our economy turns around. And the total cost of our alternative proposal was about half the cost of this conference report.

There are a couple of cautionary tales. One was a study by John Taylor of Stanford and the Hoover Institution that showed that the last time we gave Americans a paycheck--and that is one of the big parts of this stimulus package, checks of $400 to $800--it had no effect on the economy. It is also a cautionary tale as to what the Japanese did over the last decade, and I am afraid some of this stimulus package repeats that.

We missed an enormous opportunity to rein in excessive spending despite the support of 44 Senators eager to get our fiscal house in order when our amendment that would have required unobligated funding to be returned to the taxpayer upon two consecutive quarters of economic growth greater than 2 percent of inflation-adjusted GDP was defeated.

We have seen time after time stimulus packages at other times when we were in fiscal difficulty, financial difficulty--not to the degree of this one--but much of the spending has taken place after the economy recovered and contributed enormously to the deficit and consequently putting burdens on future generations of Americans. Why would we not agree that once the economy has recovered, we should proceed on a path to a balanced budget and stop some of these spending programs that are going to be adopted tonight in the way of stimulus? Why wouldn't we bring them to a stop? Could it be that some want these spending programs to be permanent?

I repeat, Milton Friedman said, ``There is nothing so permanent as a temporary Government program,'' and I am sure we will see many of these programs in the stimulus live a long, long life.

In a recent Washington Post op-ed entitled ``$800 billion Mistake,'' Martin Feldstein, an economic professor at Harvard University and president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research, wrote: The fiscal package now before Congress needs to be thoroughly revised. In its current form, it does too little to raise national spending and employment. It would be better for the Senate to delay legislation for a month or even two if that is what it takes to produce a much better bill. We cannot make an $800 billion mistake.

Of course, it is a $1.1 trillion mistake. We cannot make that mistake. By passing this conference report, we are essentially engaging in an act of generational theft. How can anyone ignore the cold hard facts? The current national debt is $10.7 trillion. The 2009 projected deficit is $1.2 trillion. The cost of this stimulus is $1.124 trillion; that is, $789 billion plus interest. The expected omnibus spending bill to fund the Federal Government through September 30, 2009, is $400 billion. The expected supplemental request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the Armed Forces Committee staff estimates at $80 billion. The appropriations bills for 2010 that we will consider this year are untold billions. Tarp I and II are $700 billion, and TARP III is possibly upwards of $1.5 trillion. These numbers are staggering. These numbers are staggering. We have never dealt with numbers such as this, not in the Great Depression, not in any other era in time of our country. Every dollar of spending in this conference report will be added to our national debt, which now stands, as I said, at $10.2 trillion or 70 percent of GDP.

According to the Center for Data Analysis, if Congress borrows the funds for its economic stimulus package--which, of course, it will do-- total debt could grow to $13 trillion in fiscal year 2009 or 92 percent of our gross domestic product. By 2010, the total debt could grow to $14 trillion or 95 percent of our GDP. The center further finds that the stimulus package will add about $30,000 in new Federal debt per American household.

Remarkably, while we are on the brink of saddling our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren with this enormous debt load, the conference report before us does little to actually address the core issue that brought us to the point of needing a stimulus bill in the first place, and that is the housing crisis.

I would remind my colleagues that history shows us that if you run up enough debt, the answer to it is to print more money, which is the basis of the currency, which inevitably leads to inflation, which is the greatest enemy of the middle class in America.

I see my colleague from New York who is going to talk on many things, including the terrible tragedy that has taken place in the crash of the airliner in New York. But I also want to, while he is on the floor, strongly disagree with his comment that the American people do not care about little porky projects. Americans care. I can only speak for my constituents in Arizona, who have flooded my office with calls. They care about little porky projects that are to the tune of millions of their tax dollars.

Just yesterday, the National Association of Realtors reported the largest drop in home prices--12.4 percent--since the Association started gathering such data in 1979. Prices declined in almost 9 out of every 10 cities. Despite the fact that this extremely sobering statistic was released yesterday, this bill cuts almost half of the only significant housing provision in the conference report.

This provision, written by Senator Isakson, a former real estate agent, and approved by all Republicans and Democrats would have allowed any homeowner to take a nonrepayable tax credit of $15,000 or 10 percent of the purchase price of a house used as a principal residence. Senator Isakson argued that such a generous tax credit would help the market recover swiftly. As a real estate agent during the economic crisis of the 1970s, he saw tax credits spur the purchase of many homes, which served to reduce the glut of vacant homes in the market, thereby allowing home values to stabilize, the housing inventory to drop, and the market to recover. We could have achieved a similar result here, I believe. But, instead, it was cut--the only housing provision in the report that was roundly supported by both Republicans and Democrats and millions of potential home buyers. Instead, they decided to cut the tax break to $8 thousand and limit it to only first- time buyers. My belief is that this will not produce any real change to our sagging housing market.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the stimulus bill would create anywhere from 1.3 million to 3.9 million jobs. At $789 billion, 1.3 million jobs would work out to cost $506,923 per job, and for 3.9 million jobs, the cost would be $202,308 per job. If you add the cost of interest to the price tag, it comes to $1 trillion. Every economic estimate I have seen lately falls within the category of 1.3 to 3.9 million jobs. The administration says it could be 4 million or more.

In a new letter from CBO dated February 11 providing a year-by-year analysis of the economic effects of spending of the pending stimulus legislation, CBO finds:

Beyond 2004 the legislation is estimated to reduce GDP by

between 0 and 0.2 percent. The reduction in GDP is therefore

estimated to be reflected in lower wages rather than lower

employment. The increased debt would tend to reduce the stock

of productive private capital. In economic parlance, the debt

would ``crowd out'' private investment. Workers will be less

productive because the capital stock is smaller. The

legislation's long-run impact on output also would depend on

whether permanently changed incentives to work are saved. The

legislation would not have any significant permanent effects

on those incentives.

I know my colleagues are going to say we are going to do other things.

And we need to do other things--reform entitlements. We should have, in this legislation, put ourselves on a path to entitlement reform by setting up commissions for both Social Security and Medicare reform, but we did not, just as we should have had a trigger to stop spending and put us on a path to a balanced budget once our economy recovers.

It is unfortunate that even in these difficult economic times, Members of Congress couldn't resist the temptation to lard up this bill with billions of dollars in unnecessary spending that will do nothing to stimulate the economy. What makes this most disturbing, in order to include these questionable provisions in the final measure, the conferees cut some of the few truly important spending provisions that had been included in the House and Senate bills.

For example, I don't understand how, on the one hand, the conferees can cut close to $3 billion from the Senate bill for Department of Defense and veterans hospital and medical facilities and, on the other hand, add funding above either House- or Senate-passed bills for State Department information technology upgrades, totaling $290 million. Information technology may be worthwhile, but I am dumbfounded as to the conferees' rationale for adding funding for information technology programs that exceeds either Chamber's recommendations and cuts defense and veterans. We all talk about our commitment to veterans. Certainly VA hospital and medical facilities are badly needed, as we found in the scandal of Walter Reed.

Just as egregious, the conference report provides $1 billion for prevention and wellness programs that were previously struck by the Senate and reported to be for smoking cessation programs and STD prevention. Why is this added back in, even though it may be worthy, at the expense of military members, families, and veterans whose funding was cut?

The conference report provides more funding for grants to provide high-speed Internet to Americans, $7.2 billion, than it does for military and veterans affairs construction--again, at the expense of our Nation's bravest and most worthy. The conference report falls short in addressing the needs of our military and veterans who have given so much in support of this country and our democratic values.

Again, these are not tiny, porky amendments. The American people do care what we are talking about. If the American people don't care, then on behalf of the American people, we should take out these little tiny, porky items that will provide questionable stimulative effects.

I have a long list, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Among these are $200 million to consolidate the DHS headquarters in Washington, DC; $15 million for historic preservation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities; $25 million for the Smithsonian; $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts; $5.55 billion for the Federal Buildings Fund, including $750 million for Federal buildings and U.S. courthouses.

The list goes on: $300 million for new energy-efficient vehicles for the Federal Government; $100 million for grants to small shipyards; $7.2 billion to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions. By the way, certainly the Presiding Officer knows we cannot spend within the next year $7.2 billion or anything like it to accelerate broadband deployment because of the nature of the challenge. There is $50 million to upgrade the computer systems at the Farm Service Agency; $50 million for aquaculture producers; $300 million in grants for a diesel emission reduction program; $50 million to build biomass plants; $150 million for USGS stream gauges and volcano monitoring systems; $200 million to repair leaking

underground storage tanks under the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund; $1 billion for the Bureau of the Census. We will be talking more about this issue. We can't have the census taken from the Department of Commerce and put in the White House. We can't politicize the process of the system. We will be talking more about that later on.

There is $230 million for operation, research, and facilities at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. You can make arguments for all these programs as worthwhile. You cannot make arguments that they stimulate the economy in a short period. There is $150 million for aeronautics at NASA; $2.5 billion for the National Science Foundation, of which $300 million is for the Major Research Instrumentation Program and $200 million for academic research facilities modernization; $275 million for the Mississippi River and tributaries; $10 million for program direction funding in fossil energy research and development; $1.6 billion for DOE science program; $2.25 billion to install new windows and furnaces in HUD homes; $8 billion for high-speed rail.

The high-speed rail program is very interesting. It started out at $2 billion and now has been raised to $8 billion, a remarkable increase in funding, when we think about it. There are media reports that state this could probably be used for the Las Vegas-Los Angeles high-speed rail. The list goes on.

The fact is, there are also policy provisions. The conference report still includes the protectionist ``Buy American'' provisions that will damage the ability of U.S. corporations to export and create jobs at home. If passage of this bill triggers retaliatory trade action by foreign countries against the United States, Congress will have succeeded in deepening one of the worst recessions of our time.

There is an article in this week's Economist magazine entitled ``The return of economic nationalism, A specter is rising. To bury it again, Barack Obama needs to take the lead.'' It talks about the ``Buy American'' provisions. At the end it states:

Once again, the task of saving the world economy falls to

America. Mr. Obama must show that he is ready for it. If he

is, he should kill any ``Buy American'' provisions. If he

isn't, America and the rest of the world are in deep trouble.

I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.

Of course, we know about Davis-Bacon that will inflate the construction costs of the bill by $17 billion. Section 604 requires that only domestic apparel and textile products may be procured by the Department of Homeland Security, unless the Secretary of DHS determines the quality and quantity cannot be procured in the United States at market prices, whatever ``market prices'' means. There is a provision which states that within 45 days of enactment, the Governor of each State shall certify that they will request and use taxpayer funds provided in the bill. It goes on to say that if any of the money provided by this bill is not accepted by the Governor, then that State's legislature can simply pass a resolution to bypass the Governor and receive those funds. I have never seen a provision such as that in the Congress.

I repeat, if the Governor of a State says his State doesn't need the money, then the State's legislature can simply pass a resolution to bypass the elected Governor of the State and receive the funds. What does that say about States rights and States electing their Governors to lead. It is remarkable. Every Governor in America should be on notice that we may have established a precedent that if you don't want to take taxpayer money, then you can be bypassed by your legislature. It is unconstitutional and should be challenged in court.

It adds a new far-reaching policy with respect to unemployment compensation entitled ``Unemployment Compensation Modernization''--an interesting description. The new policy would allow a person to collect unemployment insurance for leaving his job to care for an immediate family member's illness, any illness or disability as defined by the Secretary of Labor. This provision stems from legislation introduced in the Senate during the 110th Congress that was not approved. Each State would need to amend their unemployment insurance in order to receive a portion of the $7 billion added to the bill for this additional unemployment compensation program. It provides a total waiver of cost savings related to inland waterways projects; 50 percent of the cost is supposed to be carried by private companies that utilize the waterways.

The report establishes the Federal Coordinating Council for comparative effectiveness research. The bill text does not use the term ``clinical'' when referring to comparative effectiveness research, leading to the possibility that the bill does not protect against the research being used to make coverage decisions based on cost- effectiveness rather than clinical effectiveness.

It includes the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, a massive overhaul of our health IT infrastructure that deserves more consideration.

It is 1,071 pages and a 41-page statement of the managers, a total of 1,492 pages. It was negotiated in a partisan fashion, behind closed doors, in direct contradiction to President Obama's commitments during the campaign. I understand his spokesman yesterday said it was ``an emergency.'' It may have been an emergency, but that was not mentioned during the commitments made by then-candidate Obama.

Among other things, the conference report contains $450 million for Amtrak security grants through the Department of Transportation. It wasn't in the House bill, wasn't in the Senate bill. It duplicates a program that already exists.

I urge my colleagues, when they have a few spare moments, to look at the history of Amtrak, a railroad that was taken over by the Federal Government with the intent to turn it over to the private sector in a short period. We have propped it up with billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, funding that will never become profitable.

A provision recreates the slush fund that was unanimously rejected by both the House and Senate. The slush fund allows agency heads to move money around between programs as they see fit without any real oversight by Congress.

I mentioned high-speed rail. That is $8 billion. The Senate included $2 billion for these programs, and the House didn't include anything. The conference now has added $6 billion. I mentioned earlier the veterans and military construction spending has been cut by over $3 billion below both the House and Senate bills. Of course, the conference report, among many other items, contains $50 million for NEA, a worthwhile endeavor, but I don't see how you can make the argument it creates jobs.

A commitment was made that the spending would be done quickly. The conference agreement drops provisions that require all funds in the bill to be awarded within 30 to 120 days of enactment. Instead, the report allows numerous programs to have 3 years or more to actually begin spending the funding.

I know many of my colleagues, including my friend from Illinois, are here. I don't want to take too much time, as many of my colleagues wish to discuss the legislation. I wish to mention there is $2 billion for a neighborhood stabilization program which could go for money for groups such as ACORN. You could make arguments about whether ACORN should be funded. I do not see how that possibly creates jobs.

I understand this bill will be passed this evening. I hope the next time--maybe with TARP--because there are going to be other issues of enormous consequence that the Congress and the President of the United States will face in the coming weeks and months. I do not believe things are going to get better in the world real soon. We see activities around the world, from the behavior of the Russians to the Iranian testing of a missile, to renewed aggressive rhetoric by North Korea, to others, including developing a strategy for Afghanistan. But there are also enormous economic challenges here at home.

The American people would like us to, and the message they have sent us is, that they want us to sit down and work together. As I said, this bill began with a statement by the Speaker of the House: We won. We write the bill. We need to sit down together before the bill is written, outline the principles, turn those principles we share into concrete legislation, and work together. I hope we never again have a repetition of a bill that has such enormous consequence that would pass through both bodies with literally no Republican support--three Senators out of 178 Members in the House and 40 in the Senate. That is not bipartisanship.

I think we passed up an opportunity this time. I hope the American people will respond again by sending us the message. They want us to address the economic woes we face, but they want us to address them together. This legislation, in my view, is very bad for the economic future of America.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I say to my colleague from New York that all of us join in expressing sympathy and sorrow at the loss of these wonderful Americans. Thank you for your eloquent words. They are deeply appreciated.

Mr. President, I would like to mention to my colleagues that so far we have speaking requests from Senators Coburn, Enzi, Roberts, Bennett, Hutchison, Barrasso, Ensign, Thune, Kyl, Cornyn, Sessions, and then Alexander, Grassley, Brownback, and Graham. So I would urge my colleagues to come over so we can move forward with this process.

How much time remains on both sides?

What is the disposition of the Senator from Illinois?

Would the Senator wish to go now or wait for me?

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, we are, obviously, about to vote affirmatively on the legislation before us. I want to say that I think the debate has been good and respectful. I congratulate the Members on the other side of the aisle and the President for their success in achieving the timetable that they laid out for the passage of this legislation.

I point out that the allegation that this is a bipartisan piece of legislation is simply not accurate. A total of three Republican Members in the entire Congress will be voting for this bill--only three. That is not a bipartisan approach, by any measure.

I think there are some hard facts we should not ignore as we address and dispose of this issue and move on to others. I remind my colleagues that the current national debt is $10.7 trillion. The 2009 projected deficit is another $1.2 trillion. The cost of this legislation before us is $1.124 trillion; that is, $789 billion plus interest. The expected omnibus spending bill, which will be coming shortly, is roughly $400 billion. The expected supplemental request for Afghanistan and Iraq will be an additional $80 billion. We will be addressing appropriations bills for 2010 that will be over a trillion dollars. We are already spending $700 billion on TARP I and II. And estimates, according to the media, are that TARP III will be somewhere around $1.5 trillion.

We are on a spending spree of unprecedented and historic proportions. We are committing what some of us have called generational theft because we are laying this debt on our children and our grandchildren.

My colleagues--and the Senator from Illinois who has been here constantly and has argued his side effectively--will point out that Republicans did the same thing. I agree, and Republicans were punished in the last election for doing so.

What grieves me the most about this process we have been through is that it started out with a phrase by the Speaker of the House that ``we won, we wrote the bill.'' I think I understand the lesson. That is the process that it has been through, without Republican involvement and without Republican negotiations, which I think are necessary to achieve the consensus that is necessary when we are addressing an issue of this magnitude.

This has not been a bipartisan effort. The other side will emerge victorious in a few minutes, but we have to face additional challenges. I mentioned TARP III--$1.5 trillion--and the expected war supplemental request. There are all of these new challenges--not to mention national security challenges and policy challenges.

I think I understand the message from the 2008 election. I think I understand it very well. That message is that the American people don't want business as usual. They do want us to sit down together. We want to be in on the takeoff, so that we can be in on the landing. We want to work together with the other side.

This is not the example that I think the American people want us to exercise as we address the enormous challenges. We need a stimulus package, we need to address the war in Afghanistan, and we need to provide for the much-needed services to Americans as revenues decline with a bad economy.

I end my remarks and yield back the balance of my time by saying again: Congratulations to those who will succeed in passing this legislation. The next time--and it will be soon, because I understand there will be an omnibus appropriations bill, TARP III and others--let us sit down and negotiate and work together. When we come out with a solution and legislation, we can tell the American people that we learned the lesson but, most importantly, we will reflect their wishes that we have worked together to address some of the most difficult challenges of anyone's lifetime.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Madam President, in keeping with the previous unanimous consent agreement, I believe this point of order and final passage are both combined in one vote.

Madam President, pursuant to section 294(a) of the 2008 budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 21, of the 110th Congress, I raise a point of order against the emergency designation in section 5(a) of the conference report.

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

Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to an American patriot, a man of the finest caliber, and a diplomat whose skills and determination have helped alter history's course for the better.

In a few days, Ambassador Ryan Crocker will depart his post as the chief American diplomat in Iraq. His departure will mark the close of a storied career, one of nearly 40 years of distinguished service to our country. In dedicating his career to furthering America's interests and ideals in the far reaches of the globe, and in coupling his dedication with a tremendously adventurous spirit, Ryan Crocker has become known informally as our own ``Lawrence of Arabia.''

As a young man in Walla Walla, WA, Ryan Crocker decided to depart not for the beaches of southern California but, rather, abroad, hitchhiking from western Europe to Southeast Asia. By the time he graduated from Whitman College in 1971, Ambassador Crocker had already visited more of the world than most Americans will throughout their lifetimes. His extensive travel and interest in global politics and culture led him to join the Foreign Service in 1971.

Ambassador Crocker quickly developed a reputation for incredible dedication in the face of challenges. From his early days at the State Department, he was assigned to some of the most difficult posts in the Foreign Service. He worked in Iran, Qatar, Egypt, and in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. He was in the Embassy in Beirut in 1983, when a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed 63 people. Thrown against the wall by the blast, Ambassador Crocker immediately began helping others escape the rubble.

He went on to serve as Ambassador to Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan, and Iraq. During his time in Damascus, demonstrators assaulted his residence and, in 2002, he reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, which had been untouched by Americans since 1989. A newspaper account illustrates the spirit that animates this selfless patriot:

He arrived to find a cobweb-strewn wreck full of 1989

newspapers, broken Wang computers and maps of the old Soviet

Union. U.S. Marines outnumbered diplomats by 3 to 1, and all

100 Americans slept on cots and shared two working toilets.

Yet Crocker was upbeat. ``The men and women of this mission

are extremely proud to be a forward element,'' Crocker told

[Secretary of State] Powell at the time.

Throughout all these assignments, Ryan Crocker has approached his work with resolve, tenacity, and a unique ability to see the broader strategic issues in play. Had he never gone to lead the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, the American people would owe him deep gratitude. Had he not accepted the challenge in Baghdad, he would have nevertheless won the sincere appreciation and admiration of all Senators. Yet it was in his decision to become America's Ambassador to Iraq that Ryan Crocker has left his true mark on history, and we are all the better off for it.

He was sworn in not here in Washington, as is customary, but in Baghdad, and in March 2007, as the surge of troops to Iraq was commencing, GEN David Petraeus had taken over as commander, and our Nation was making its greatest, and possibly final, push to avoid disaster in Iraq. Let us remember that in 2007, as public support for the war plummeted, we in Congress were engaged in a great debate about the way forward in Iraq. Sectarian violence was spiraling out of control, life had become a struggle for survival, and a full-scale civil war seemed almost unavoidable. Al-Qaida in Iraq was on the offensive and entire Iraqi provinces were under the control of extremists. Noting that ``here in Iraq, America faces its most critical foreign policy challenge,'' Ambassador Crocker did not sugarcoat the situation or present an overly rosy scenario. He never does. He stressed just how hard the path ahead would be but stressed also that it was not impossible. As he would later testify before the Armed Services Committee, ``hard does not mean hopeless.''

It was this combination--cold-eyed appraisal of the reality of Iraq combined with hope that things could change for the better--that was so refreshing every time I visited Baghdad. In a true partnership with General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker executed a civil military counterinsurgency plan for Iraq that turned the tide of violence in a timeframe and to a degree that surprised even the optimists. He ensured unprecedented cooperation between the military, the Embassy, and our allies. His decades of experience in the Middle East proved invaluable as he navigated an increasingly complex and contentious regional dynamic. His efforts, in coordination with the brave men and women of the military and State Department, are the reason we find ourselves in a situation many thought was not possible.

Ryan Crocker's determination to succeed in a situation where many would have failed should inspire us all. Yet any who have followed the career of this skilled and extraordinary diplomat shouldn't be surprised. His creative and pragmatic approach to diplomacy has earned respect both at home and abroad. His list of awards and achievements is long and distinguished, including the Presidential Meritorious Service Award, the State Department Distinguished Honor Award, the American Foreign Service Association Rivkin Award, and most recently the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation's highest civilian commendation.

I am immensely grateful for the enormous contributions that Ambassador Crocker has made to the Department of State, to our Nation, and the people of Iraq. As he departs Baghdad, he will be sorely missed. We wish Ambassador Crocker and his family all the best as he enters the next chapter of his life. He has earned the respect and admiration of a grateful nation.

I have had the great honor for many years to travel the world and encounter many of our wonderful Foreign Service personnel and the men and women who serve in posts throughout the world. They serve with dedication and most of the time without the appreciation they deserve. I have been so impressed with the people who have dedicated their lives to serving this Nation all around the world, in many cases in the most difficult of circumstances. I know of no one I have met in my life who epitomizes public service more than Ryan Crocker; a quiet demeanor, modesty, and, frankly, a knowledge of the issues and the complexities which would take many hours to describe that prevail in the Middle East.

Ryan Crocker came at a seminal time to the Embassy in Baghdad, and in partnership with one of our great military leaders, General Petraeus--a true and equal partnership--those two individuals changed the course of history. Many in this body at that time had believed there was no hope for Iraq and that the situation could not be salvaged. Because of Ryan Crocker, David Petraeus, and many others, with their leadership we have just witnessed an election taking place in Iraq that was virtually without incident.

Ambassador Crocker will be the first to tell us there is a long way to go in Iraq. There are many challenges ahead, but we do have an ally, a democratic nation, and the hope of a society free of the oppression and repression that unfortunately has characterized the situation in Iraq for centuries.

So, again, I know in the future young Americans who serve this country will continue to be inspired by the performance and the dedication of Ryan Crocker. We will miss him. We will miss him enormously, but I know he will continue to serve this country in any way possible for as long as he lives. Thank you, Ryan Crocker.

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

Mr. President, I intend to vote in favor of the nomination of Mr. Lynn to be the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Mr. Lynn has an extensive record of public service. He has served as the Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation in the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, and following that he was the Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, from 1997 to 2001. He served as, obviously, the chief financial officer for the Department of Defense.

After his DOD service, Mr. Lynn, as we know, became a registered lobbyist and the Raytheon Company's senior vice president of government operations. In that position he led Raytheon's strategic planning and oversaw all of their Government relations activities.

Mr. Lynn has served as I mentioned, but nowhere, I might point out, does he have in his resume any extensive managerial experience. One of the major functions of the Deputy Secretary of Defense is to make the Pentagon run. Mr. Lynn does not have that executive managerial experience.

Having said that, elections have consequences, as we all know, and this is the selection that the President of the United States made, and the Secretary of Defense also supports his nomination.

I do not view the fact that Mr. Lynn became a lobbyist for Raytheon as, per se, disqualifying. Mr. Lynn has indicated his willingness to comply with the ethical requirements of the executive branch aimed at preventing conflicts of interest, and he has agreed to the additional stock divestment obligations that the Committee on Armed Services has consistently required of nominees.

I have been concerned, however, about the practical problems that would arise from Mr. Lynn's past lobbying activities and the legitimate concerns the American people would have if Mr. Lynn made decisions related to the programs for which he lobbied.

I sent a letter to Mr. Lynn on January 26, with a follow-up letter on January 29, asking him to articulate in detail what specific matters would be affected. Mr. Lynn responded on January 30 indicating that he had worked on the DDG-100 surface combatant, the AMRAAM air-to-air missile, the F-15 airborne radar, the Patriot Pure Fleet Program, the Future Imagery Architecture, and the Multiple Kill Vehicle. He provided me with written assurances that he would refrain from participating in any decisions regarding those programs for 1 year if he is confirmed.

I believe these assurances and with ongoing reviews within DOD that encompass rigorous screening Mr. Lynn will endeavor to perform effectively as the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

I am aware, as I mentioned, that he has the support of Secretary Gates, and I obviously consider that to be an endorsement in Mr. Lynn's favor. President Obama, as we all know, signed an Executive order on January 21, 2009, that established a praiseworthy ``revolving door ban'' that would bar any lobbyist from working for an agency they lobbied within 2 years of an appointment. The Executive order included a provision for granting a public interest waiver, and Mr. Lynn was given a waiver.

It is disappointing that President Obama, who pledged continuously throughout the campaign to change the culture of Washington and the influence of lobbyists, then almost immediately chose to nominate several individuals, including Mr. Lynn, who required a waiver.

So after proudly trumpeting a new change and the new rules and regulations, several individuals--and a couple have had to withdraw their nominations--that Mr. Lynn required a waiver or exemption to that policy. Obviously, the American people were promised one thing but delivered another.

My colleague, Senator Grassley, who will be speaking later, sent a letter on January 29 to OMB Director Peter Orszag asking for a justification for the granting of the waiver. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Orszag's response on February 3 be printed in the Record.

With respect to the waiver, Mr. Orszag stated:

The selection of Mr. Lynn came at the end of an extensive

process that resulted in a consensus opinion that Mr. Lynn

was the best qualified candidate for the job.

He went on to say:

Mr. Lynn's executive branch experience, combined with his

legislative, think tank and private sector experience--

As you note, he did not mention a managerial role that he might have had in his career--

gives him the precise set of skills that are not only

necessary to do the job, but are rare in their breadth and

depth.

I hope Mr. Lynn will be a rare exception to the new rule--you know, one of the things I had hoped would happen because of the deep disapproval the American people have in the way we do business is this kind of cycle of lobbyists to executive branch, to legislative branch, to lobbyists. It goes on in this town with enormous frequency and has led to scandals, indictments, and convictions of former staff members, former Members of Congress, and former members of the executive branch. I had hoped that somewhere in America there would be someone who had the experience and knowledge and background in running what probably, I believe, is the largest organization in the world, the Department of Defense, rather than again having to go inside the beltway.

But as I mentioned, elections have consequences. The President has designated Mr. Lynn and others to positions which are in violation of the much heralded Executive order he made concerning not having lobbyists serve in Government.

So I will give him at least, in my opinion, my vote, the benefit of the doubt, and will vote in favor of Mr. Lynn's nomination.

He responded to, albeit belatedly, the questions I submitted to him. I wish him well. We face enormous challenges both in the way the Department of Defense operates, the acquisition programs--and many of them are completely out of control, with cost overruns that are staggering--to a lack of efficiency in a number of areas.

I not only wish Mr. Lynn well, but I look forward to working with him as we do whatever we can to defend this Nation's vital national security interests as well as manage the functions of a bureaucracy which, in all candor, has defied sound management under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

I know Senator Coburn and Senator Grassley will be over later on. I am confident that Mr. Lynn's nomination will be voted out overwhelmingly by the Senate. I hope Mr. Lynn will do well in his new position of responsibility. I pledge to work with him as much as possible, as I have done with Secretaries of Defense and Deputy Secretaries of Defense in Republican and Democratic administrations.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask the manager, I assume we will continue

the practice we have been pursuing of going back to either side and that any time in quorum call will come off the times of both sides?

I thank the manager.

I would like to say for the benefit of my colleagues on this side of the aisle that----

Madam President, obviously, if we have Members from that side who are waiting and none are on this side, we will adjust that, as we have the last several days. I thank the Senator from Montana for all of his courtesies in making sure we have had balanced debate on this very important issue.

Also, I would like to say to my colleagues on this side of the aisle that speakers from my side, if they would come to the floor, I think there would be time to recognize them. We have signed up Senators Kyl, Enzi, Alexander, Inhofe, Thune, Graham, Chambliss, Bond, Sessions, and Coburn. If others wish to speak, if they would notify the cloakroom.

Madam President, many of my colleagues are claiming that the ``compromise bipartisan bill'' that is before us is a product and result of serious negotiations, and it is neither. It is neither bipartisan nor is it a compromise. It is not bipartisan in that 3 Republican Senators, after not a single Republican Member of the other body, the House of Representatives, plus 11 Democrats voted against this legislation.

Now, there continues to be touted that there were meetings that Republican Senators attended. There are meetings that take place all the time, all the time around here. There are meetings, both informal and conversations about it. But the fact is, we ended up with 3 Republican Members of Congress out of 178 in the House and 40 here in the Senate. So it is not ``bipartisan.'' To say otherwise belies history.

I am proud to have been a member of a number of bipartisan resolutions of issues that have come before this body, whether it be the Gang of 14, on campaign finance reform, or whether it be on other important issues as far as national security and other issues are concerned. That is when Republicans and Democrats have sat down together and came out in equal numbers--roughly equal numbers--to achieve bipartisan agreement.

This is not a bipartisan agreement. This is three Members of the Senate--none on the House side--who have joined Democrats for a partisan agreement. It is unfortunate that has happened because we are now committing an act of generational theft. We are robbing future generations of Americans of their hard-earned dollars because we are laying on them a debt of incredible proportions. We have already amassed over a $10 trillion debt. Apparently, we will pass this legislation, which is another, when you count the interest, about $1.1 trillion dollars.

The House is about to take up a $400 billion Omnibus appropriations bill. It has been put off until tomorrow, probably wisely. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Geithner, is going to recommend somewhere around $\1/2\ trillion to $1 trillion for another TARP package. So we are talking about trillions of dollars.

This morning, one of my colleagues, the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, said: ``Why quibble over $200 million?''

I am not sure the American people would agree.

What has been the result of this compromise? Ten out of hundreds eliminated items: $34 million to renovate the Commerce Department; $100 million for governmentwide supercomputers; $14 million for cyber security; $55 million for historic preservation; $20 million for Bureau of Indian Affairs; $5.8 billion for prevention wellness programs, $870 million for pandemic flu; $16 million for school improvement programs, construction; $3.5 billion for higher education facilities; $2.25 billion for a neighborhood stabilization program. Ten have been eliminated from the hundreds which totals $12.6 billion of the $140 billion being touted as having been cut from the more than $900 billion bill. What we have done is, we have eliminated 10 items, reduced others, which will probably be restored, reaching basically the same level, a ``compromise'' of about $827 billion which is a little more than that passed by the House of Representatives. The total is over a trillion dollars.

Both the distinguished majority leader and the Senator from Montana have emphasized the need for speed, that we have to act quickly, right away. We will, I am sure, because a seminal moment was when the two or three Republican Senators announced they would vote for this package. So it is a matter of time.

Last week, the overseer of TARP I announced there had been $76 billion wasted in paying for assets over their actual value. We acted in speed, with haste, and it cost the taxpayers $76 billion.

Again, this is an unusual circumstance we are in. These circumstances we all appreciate. We appreciate the fact that millions of Americans are without a job, without health insurance, without the ability to educate themselves and their children, and without the ability to stay in their homes. We need to act. We need to act responsibly.

It is being said that every economist says we need to adopt this package. That is not true. I even hear one of my advisers during the campaign, Marty Feldstein's name, being mentioned as being for this package.

I ask unanimous consent that Martin Feldstein's Washington Post op-ed be printed in the Record.

The Washington Post op-ed is entitled ``An $800 Billion Mistake.'' Martin Feldstein and many other economists believe this is an $800 billion mistake. He says:

On the spending side, the stimulus package is full of well-

intended items that, unfortunately, are not likely to do much

for employment. Computerizing the medical records of every

American over the next 5 years is desirable, but it is not a

cost-effective way to create jobs. Has anyone gone through

the long list of proposed appropriations and asked how many

jobs each would create per dollar of increased national debt?

Well, since Mr. Feldstein wrote that column, the Congressional Budget Office did, indeed, go through the list. They found out it would increase between now and the bill then, which has been changed somewhat but basically will end up over a trillion dollars, it says it would increase employment at that point in time by 1.3 million to 3.9 million jobs. At $885 billion, 1.3 million jobs would work out to $680,769 per job. And at 3.9 million jobs, the cost would be $226,923 per job.

Several of my colleagues have celebrated the reduced cost of the compromise from $885 billion to $827 billion. So let's do the math for that amount. It is only $636,154 per job for 1.3 million jobs, and $212,000 for 3.9 million jobs created. If you add the cost of interest to the total for the compromise, we have $1.175 trillion.

There are numerous policy changes which have nothing to do with jobs in this bill. This legislation was delivered to our office at 11 o'clock on Saturday night. My staff has been hard at work scrubbing this bill, 778 pages, I believe, for the changes. One of them that is very interesting, which has been added, is a new, far-reaching policy with respect to unemployment compensation. Specifically, the title is Unemployment Compensation Moderation. It would allow a person to collect unemployment insurance for leaving his or her job to take care of an immediate family member's illness, any illness or disability as defined by the Secretary of Labor. This was originally sponsored legislation in the 110th Congress and did not succeed. Each State would need to amend their unemployment insurance in order to receive $7 billion in funds.

Again, that may be a laudable goal to fundamentally change unemployment compensation. What in the world is it doing on what is supposed to be an economic stimulus package?

I see my friend from Wyoming, Senator Enzi, is here. I will conclude. This is neither bipartisan nor is it a compromise. It is generational theft, because we rejected a proposal on this side to establish a trigger that when our economy improves, we would be on a path to a balanced budget and reducing spending. These spending programs will remain with no way of paying for them. What are we doing to future generations of Americans? We need a stimulus package. We need to create jobs. We certainly don't need to lay a multitrillion dollar debt on future generations of Americans, once our economy has improved.

We found out when we received 44 votes on a triggering mechanism what a lot of this is all about. It is increasing spending, increasing the role of government in a Draconian and unprecedented fashion, and laying a debt on future generations of Americans of many trillions of dollars. I urge colleagues to rethink their position. I still believe if it had not been a process that started with ``we won and we wrote the bill,'' we could have had a truly bipartisan approach which the majority of Americans would not only support but benefit from.

I yield the floor.

I yield such time as he may consume to the Senator from Wyoming.

Madam President, I ask the Senator from Montana, he does not like tax cuts?

Good.

Madam President, I urge my colleagues on both sides who wish to speak to come over and speak.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Reserving the right to object.

Can the Senator make that 5?

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, what would the manager contemplate at 11:30?

And then would it be agreeable to go back to some more debate? There is a number of speakers who want to talk about the entire bill as well.

I do not object.

Mr. President, for the benefit of my colleagues, on this side we have Senators Thune, Graham, Sessions, Coburn, and Alexander waiting to speak. I would imagine that, given that, between now and 11:30, hopefully, we could get most of those in between now and the time for voting, of course observing the protocol of those being recognized on the other side of the aisle.

While we are here in the Chamber discussing this issue, we all know discussions are being held behind closed doors between two or three or four Republicans in order to try to get 60 votes in order to pass this legislation. Obviously, the overwhelming majority of Republican Senators are opposed to the legislation. That same overwhelming majority of Senators are in favor of stimulating our economy and creating jobs.

How did we get here, and where do we go? We got here by the Speaker of the House saying: We won, so we wrote the bill. In the years I have been here, that is not called bipartisanship. Without the votes of 11 Democrats and without the vote of a single Republican, the bill emerged from the other body and came over here. Again, through the Appropriations and Finance Committees, the bill was written without significant input or with negligible input from Senators on this side of the aisle. There is an old saying: If you are not in on the takeoff, you will not be in on the landing.

We are up to approximately $1.2 trillion in the piece of legislation in front of us. The Congressional Budget Office yesterday said that this legislation would increase employment by the end of the fourth quarter of 2010 by 1.3 million to 3.9 million jobs. I did the math. So $1.2 trillion, 3 million jobs, is $923,997 for each job. For 1.3 million jobs, which is the low end determined by the Congressional Budget Office, it is only $307,092 per job.

The American people are figuring out that this is not a stimulus bill. It is a spending bill full of unnecessary spending, unexamined policy changes or policy changes that have been examined and rejected in the past, and, of course, tax cuts which do not stimulate the economy.

I ask to have printed in the Record examples of the House spending provisions and the Senate spending provisions which I find not only questionable but obviously, in the view of any objective observer, unnecessary, unwanted, and, indeed, wasteful.

The distinguished majority leader mentioned that economists like Marty Feldstein said we need a stimulus. He certainly did. He later said this was not the stimulus we need. There are a large number of economists saying that what we are doing is what I know we are doing, and that is to lay an unacceptable multitrillion-dollar debt on future generations. If the purpose of this legislation is to create jobs and get the economy going, why did we reject the trigger amendment yesterday which got 44 votes which said: Once we have two quarters of positive GDP growth, we are required to embark on spending cuts to stop mortgaging our children's futures.

If we keep running up these debts, history shows that we will have debased the currency, printed more money. Hyperinflation takes place, which is, obviously, the greatest enemy of the middle class.

There are provisions such as the ``Buy American'' provision, Davis- Bacon, a number of other provisions in the bill which have nothing to do with jobs, nothing to do with stimulating the economy. In fact, Davis-Bacon and ``Buy American'' mean additional costs to the taxpayer.

The President, last night, speaking to the Democrats, said:

So then you get the argument this is not a stimulus bill.

This is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is?

That's the whole point.

The whole point is to enact tax cuts and spending measures that truly stimulate the economy. There are billions and tens of billions of dollars in this bill which will have no effect within 3, 4, 5 or more years, or ever. We are talking about a lot of money.

I used to come to the floor and object to provisions that were thousands of dollars, then hundreds of thousands of dollars, then millions--$50 million in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. All of us are for the arts. Tell me how that creates any significant number of jobs. An afterschool snack program is probably a good idea. Do we really want to spend $726 million on it?

Here we are. My other colleagues want to speak, and so I will be speaking later on. It is important that others do as well. But here we are. We are in a situation where the overwhelming majority of Republicans--in fact, all--voted for both the trigger amendment and for our alternative, which was $421 billion in spending. There are behind- the-scenes negotiations going on so that they can try to pick off two or three Republicans. You cannot call a bill bipartisan if it has two or three or four or even five Republicans out of 535 Members of Congress. You can call it an agreement, but you cannot call it a bipartisan agreement. That is not what the American people want today. Yes, unemployment is up to 7.6 percent. The American people expect us to sit down together.

I see the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from North Dakota. He probably knows as much about budget issues and spending as anybody. My recommendation is that he and others be appointed by both leaders to sit down in a room so that we can come out with a bipartisan agreement. That means leadership. That means involvement, not just of a couple or three who may be in some respects not reflective of the whole 41 Republican Members of the Senate.

Maybe we have to go back to square one. Maybe we should go back to the beginning because it was flawed when it began, when the authors of this legislation from the House said: We won, so we wrote the bill. That is not bipartisanship.

I urge both Senator McConnell and Senator Reid to appoint a group of Senators to sit down together and hash this out. We share the same goal, the same goal of stimulating this economy and creating jobs. We realize we have to spend money to do it. But we also realize--most of us should realize--that if we mortgage our children's future, they already have a $10 trillion debt; this is another trillion. There is going

to be an Omnibus appropriations bill coming down the pike. There is going to have to be a TARP 3. We are looking at spending as far as we can see for which we do not have revenues.

We can have a modest--I say modest, I take that back. We can have a bill that is $400 or $500 billion. We can have a bill that truly stimulates this economy, with tax cuts that, in the view of economists, do create jobs, not a one-time injection of sending people a check. That didn't work the last time we did it under the previous administration.

I urge colleagues not to send a message to the American people that we have come out with a bill with 3 or 4 Republicans out of 535 Members of Congress. Let's try to sit down one more time, all of us, and come out with something that truly creates jobs, truly stimulates the economy, and restores the faith and confidence and trust of the American people in the Congress, which has badly eroded and is at historic lows. These are tough times. Let's act tough for a change and get something done, rather than have some partisan result which the American people--certainly a significant percentage--will resoundingly reject because it does not have fiscal responsibility.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, if the distinguished manager would agree, for 5 minutes for the Senator from South Carolina, or we will go after the vote.

Reserving the right to object, I wish to thank the manager of the bill for his generosity. I do not object.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Am I correct that, for the benefit of our colleagues, now the votes will be put off until 1?

I thank the manager. I tell my colleagues that if it looks as if we will not vote until 1, there will be time to come over and speak.

If the other side is granted 2 minutes.

How much time do I have?

Mr. President, I wish to return to the Congressional Budget Office report in response to the remarks of the Senator from Montana again to the Congressional Budget Office. It says the legislation would result in a slight decrease in gross domestic product. It said it would increase employment at the end of the fourth quarter of 2010 by 1.3 million to 3.9 million jobs. I urge my colleagues to do the math. This is a $1.2 trillion bill. If it creates 1.3 million jobs, that is $923,000 per job. If it creates 3.9 million jobs, that is $307,000 of taxpayer dollars.

As the President stated last night, this is a spending bill. He is right. I agree with him. It is a spending bill. Most of us were under the impression that what we wanted was a job creation and economic stimulus bill. We can pass spending bills all the time. We do it all the time. We have laid a $10 trillion debt on future generations of Americans. Very interestingly, the report continues:

Senate legislation would reduce output slightly in the long

run, CBO estimates, as would other similar proposals. The

principal channel for this effect is that the legislation

would result in an increase in government debt. To the extent

that people hold their wealth as government bonds rather than

in a form that can be used to finance private investment, an

increased debt would tend to reduce the stock of productive

capital. In economic parlance, the debt would ``crowd out''

private investment. CBO's basic assumption is that in the

long run, each dollar of additional debt crowds out about a

third of a dollar's worth of private domestic capital.

This is something that has been abundantly clear for years and the reason why we don't have socialism in this country, because the Government is less efficient in using dollars than the private enterprise system is. Perhaps more alarming than anything else, the reason why it was so disappointing is we did not pass the trigger. That was an amendment we voted down, actually with a couple of Democratic votes, that provided that once the economy recovers, we have to be on a path to a balanced budget. CBO estimates that by 2019, the Senate legislation would reduce gross domestic product by .1 percent to .3 percent. In other words, we will not grow the economy in the long run unless we get our fiscal house in order.

Why are the American people unhappy? Why is it that my office and others are inundated with phone calls? Because we put in unnecessary and even wasteful and nonproductive programs to the tune of billions and billions of dollars: $300 million dollars for Violence Against Women Act grants to the Department of Justice because ``as job losses loom and the economy worsens, service providers across the country are reporting an increase in calls related to domestic violence.'' I am glad to fund any program that would help address the issue of domestic violence. But it is not creating jobs. We will hear from the other side about how worthwhile this long list of porkbarrel projects is, but the fact is, they don't create jobs. That is what we are supposed to be doing in a ``stimulus'' bill.

I want to comment again: We all know there are negotiations going on now of the called ``Gang of 18.'' I was one of the Gang of 14. That was 7 Republicans, 7 Democrats. That is bipartisan. Now it is 15 Democrats, 3 Republicans. That is not bipartisan. If they come up with an agreement, then it will mean 3 Republicans out of 535 Members of Congress have supported this unnecessary, wasteful bill that could have been so much better.

It started out wrong, when the Speaker of the House said: We won, so we write the bill. And it is ending up wrong because we have not done what we need to do and has been the product of a true bipartisan agreement, and

that is to sit down together, Republican and Democrat.

Mr. President, I want to close by pointing out, again, we want to have legislation that stimulates this economy. But we want it to stimulate the economy and not mortgage the future of our children and our grandchildren by the kind of fiscal profligate spending that is embodied in this legislation to the tune--it goes higher as we speak-- of over $1 trillion.

I am told Monday we are going to have another TARP proposed--another one. How many trillions? We are setting some kind of record, and there is no fiscal discipline.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to consider carefully--consider carefully--this legislation. The American people have figured it out. Let's figure it out.

(Disturbance in the Visitors' Galleries.)

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

Mr. President, how much time remains?

For my side?

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Oklahoma the remaining 2\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. President, the Senator from Nebraska, followed by the Senator from Iowa, will have 5 minutes. If I can ask the distinguished manager, my understanding is that after the 20 minutes, there will then be a period for filing amendments and debate.

I thank the manager.

Mr. President, I would like to remind my colleagues there are a number of Senators waiting to propose amendments, and I think this amendment has been very much debated. I look forward to Senator Bunning and Senator Grassley and other Senators who are waiting to present amendments.

Reserving the right to object, I think 5 minutes on this side and 10 minutes on your side.

Mr. President, I ask the manager, do we have a time agreement on this amendment?

Could the parties agree to a time agreement?

I yield, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I ask, again, is there a time agreement that would be reasonable?

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I probably will not object, if I understand the Senator from Montana, we most likely will have a vote about 5 o'clock.

I have no objection.

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

Mr. President, there are some procedural situations on the other side of the aisle, and I understand that, and I will certainly be patient while those are resolved. I would just like to say we have been following a procedure today that seems to be largely satisfactory to most Members: that we consider a body of amendments that are considered and then voted on en bloc or as a series. I hope we would be able to continue that. There are, I believe, eight pending amendments. We could vote on those and then move on to other amendments. It is a procedure we have been following throughout the day. I hope we continue it and continue to make progress on the bill.

So I note the Senator from Montana is not on the floor, nor is leadership. But I hope the leadership would come out soon and give us an idea as to what the plans are for the remainder of the evening and tomorrow.

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