Floor Statements

Mr. President, late last week the American taxpayer got some very good news, and that was that the administration announced they were not going to move forward with implementing the CLASS Act. It was a stunning end for something many of us have believed is a fiscal timebomb for our country. They acknowledged it is simply not workable. In fact, HHS Secretary Katherine Sebelius said, ``Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time.''

The Washington Post went on to say that ``the Obama administration cut a major planned benefit from the 2010 law on Friday, announcing that a program to offer Americans insurance for long-term care was simply unworkable.''

The Hill reported that ``HHS officials acknowledged that CLASS fell apart simply because it was too flawed to salvage.''

From Politico: `` . . . a stunning end to a financially troubled long-term care insurance program and a major setback to the health care reform law.''

Even the New York Times editorialized that ``it was too costly and would not work.''

This is good news for the American taxpayer. This is something many of us argued was the conclusion that inevitably people would come to, when this was discussed and debated as part of the health care reform bill over a year ago. In fact, on December 4, 2009, I offered an amendment to repeal the CLASS Act.

It was then offered as one of the pay-fors for the President's health care reform bill. At that time, it was said it would generate somewhere on the order of $70 billion in additional revenue that could be used to pay for the health care bill. More recent estimates of that number are somewhere in the order of $86 billion that would be generated in the first 10 years. One of the reasons for that was, of course, people would begin to pay premiums even though they would not start demanding benefits until later. Even at that time, there was tremendous concern that this would run up deficits, blow up deficits in the outyears when you got outside of that 10-year window; that after people were through paying their premiums and started demanding benefits, this would get into sort of a downward death spiral and would never pay for itself. That was a conclusion many people were drawing already, at the time, that there was such a rush to pass health care reform through here and to come up with ways to pay for it, that

this ill-fated program was included. It was interesting because that amendment I offered back in December 2009 actually had pretty broad bipartisan support. At that time, every Republican voted for the amendment and 12 Democrats as well. We had a majority of Senators--51 Senators said in December 2009 that we ought to repeal the CLASS Act from the underlying health care bill simply because it was not workable and it was going to run up deficits in the outyears and everybody knew it. Instead, we proceeded and plowed forward, and the health care bill was going to be passed irrespective of concerns that had been raised by many of us but, more importantly, also by people who really study these things, people in the Congressional Budget Office, the Actuary at the Health and Human Services Department. There were a lot of warnings going forward about this program and what a bad idea it really was.

It is time that we be honest with the American people about this particular budget gimmick. I can't help but think that if we had come to this conclusion a long time ago, we would have saved some money when looking at whether this could be implemented, whether it could actually work. The inevitable conclusion is that it would not.

I want to read for my colleagues something that was stated by the Actuary at the Health and Human Services Department way back in 2009. In fact, this goes back to July 2009, well before the final vote occurred on the health care reform bill, particularly the vote on the amendment that would have stripped this provision from the health care reform bill. The Actuary at the Health and Human Services Department, Mr. Richard Foster, said:

I'm sorry to report that I remain very doubtful that this

proposal is sustainable at the specified premium and benefit

amounts . . . 36 years of actuarial experience lead me to

believe that this program would collapse in short order and

require significant federal subsidies to continue.

That was from the Actuary at the Health and Human Services Department.

Later that year, in the August-September timeframe, he said:

As you know, I continue to be convinced that the CLASS

proposal is not actuarially sound.

I believe these are statements by somebody who had looked closely at this program and had come to the right conclusion way back then--that it flat was not going to work. Yet, because of the mad rush to pass health care reform and to argue to the American people that somehow it was going to be paid for, this particular program was included. It clearly was a colossal mistake. Fortunately, it looks as though the administration has concluded the same. Hopefully we can get this killed once and for all so that it doesn't become a drain on our children and grandchildren, which it, of course, would when the bills started to pile up in those outyears and the deficits started to mount.

If you think about the fact that every American today owns about $48,000 of the Federal debt--I mean, for most Americans the Federal debt is like having a second mortgage or, for that matter, a first mortgage on their homes. They have an enormous amount of debt for which they are responsible. Instead of looking at ways to reduce that debt, reduce the size of government, and get spending under control, Washington, DC, continues to look for ways to expand government and to add to the amount of debt we are passing on to our children and grandchildren.

Last week, when the announcement was made by the administration that this program is simply not workable and they are not going to implement it, it was a huge victory for the American taxpayer and a huge victory for our children and grandchildren--future generations of Americans who would end up having to pay for this. If you think about the fact that we already have somewhere along the lines of $60 trillion in unfunded liabilities in other entitlement programs, piling on yet another one seems to be digging the hole ever deeper than it already is. What you do not want to do when you are in a deep hole is keep digging, and this plan, the CLASS plan, would have kept digging that hole even deeper for our children and grandchildren.

Interestingly enough, this was the analysis that was done by Health and Human Services when they came to the conclusion that it should not be implemented. Now, as you can see, this is a volume that is several inches thick, so obviously they looked very carefully at this. Unfortunately, they came to that conclusion 19 months later than they should have. But this is what they came up with in terms of concluding that the CLASS program would not work. So, having done that analysis, one would think the next logical conclusion would be, let's repeal this piece of legislation. Let's get this off the books. Yet the administration is still talking about and still somehow wedded to the idea that somehow this might work, so they are saying they don't want to see it repealed.

Well, Senator McCain, my colleague from Arizona, was down here earlier today talking about this program and this report, and he is a cosponsor, as I am, of a piece of legislation we put forward to repeal the CLASS Act. We will work as quickly as we can to put together legislation, now that we have this report from HHS, that will actually move forward with the intention to repeal this. But it strikes me that this is something most of my colleagues, given what we know now, should be willing to support, and especially given the fact that there were 12 Democrats who voted with the Republicans back in December 2009, to constitute a majority here in the Senate. There were 51 Senators who voted to repeal the CLASS Act from the health care bill back in December 2009 before all of this analysis came out. So now that we have this analysis in front of us, it seems to me that the logical thing we should do is to move forward with repealing this piece of legislation.

It is interesting; when we were debating in the Senate back in December 2009, many of my colleagues in the Senate said things about the CLASS Act that were very supportive; that they actually, I guess, believed this was going to work. I will not mention names to protect the guilty, but they called it a breakthrough. Some referred to it as a ``win-win.'' Others referred to it as ``critical.'' One of my colleagues said: So we get a lot of bangs for the buck, as one might say, with the CLASS Act that we have in this bill. Another one of my colleagues said: One of the critical pieces of the bill is the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, or the CLASS Act. Another one said: The CLASS plan is a win-win. One went so far as to suggest that certain colleagues on our side of the aisle who argued that the CLASS plan would lead to a financially unstable entitlement program that would rapidly increase the deficit--he went on to say that was simply not accurate.

There are many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who at the time believed wrongly this was going to work. I hope, now that we have this voluminous copy of the analysis done by the Department of Health and Human Services, they will join with us in repealing this really bad piece of legislation and get it off the books once and for all. We have 32 cosponsors on a bill that would do that. I hope that we, at the very first opportunity--and perhaps that will be even sometime this week--in the legislation we are considering now, could have an amendment that would repeal the CLASS Act so we can put this issue to bed once and for all for the American people.

It seems to me, with the kinds of year-over-year deficits we are running--$1.3 trillion, $1.4 trillion deficits--the very least we can do is take something we know is not going to work and focus on those things that actually will work. We ought to be talking right now about that which will reduce government spending, make the Federal Government smaller, expand the private economy, and look at what we can do to create jobs.

I am not suggesting for a minute that the issue of long-term care is not important; it is. There are right ways and wrong ways to deal with that. The CLASS Act represented the very worst way to deal with that; that is, to come up with a program that has been described as a downward death spiral and actually add to the debt we are going to pass on to our children and grandchildren, knowing full well this program would not pay for itself. It is a farce. It was never going to reduce the deficit. We now have that demonstrated in this analysis that has

been done. So I hope my colleagues here in the Senate on both sides of the aisle will come together and recognize that and repeal once and for all this very bad piece of legislation.

It was good news when the administration recognized they couldn't implement it, it was not workable. It would be better news for the American taxpayers and for future generations of Americans if the Congress would repeal this legislation and do it soon.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I, too, rise in strong support of the pending trade agreements with America's allies, Colombia, South Korea, and Panama.

These agreements hold great promise for American farmers, manufacturers, service providers, and American consumers. I would echo my colleague from Oregon, who chairs the Subcommittee on Trade on the Finance Committee; that is, these trade agreements position American businesses to capture more of that supply chain to enable us to create jobs here at home and to grow the economy, to generate economic activity out there that otherwise we would not see happening. At a time when we need to focus our efforts on measures that will promote economic growth and job creation, these agreements are exactly the type of legislation we ought to be considering.

There is broad consensus these agreements are going to benefit our economy. The Obama White House estimates that enactment of these three trade agreements will boost exports by at least $12 billion, supporting over 70,000 American jobs.

The Business Roundtable estimates that passage of these trade agreements will support as many as 250,000 American jobs. These are not only jobs at large businesses but increasingly at smaller companies that are accessing international markets.

As an example of that, more than 35,000 small and mid-sized American businesses export to Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, and these firms now account for more than one-third of U.S. exports to these countries. Passing these three trade agreements will provide export opportunities to American businesses of all sizes, creating good-paying jobs here at home.

The benefits to U.S. agriculture from passing these agreements are especially compelling. These three agreements are estimated to represent $3 billion in new agricultural exports that will support 22,500 U.S. agricultural-related jobs.

My State of South Dakota is a good example if you look at the export potential for U.S. agriculture represented by these agreements. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, these agreements will add $52 million each year to South Dakota's farm economy. South Dakota is projected to gain $22 million from increased beef exports, $25 million from increased exports of wheat, soybeans, and corn, and $5 million from increased pork shipments each year.

America's market is already largely open to imports from many of our trading partners. In fact, almost 99 percent of agricultural products from Colombia and Panama, for example, already enters the United States duty free. Without trade agreements to ensure similar treatment for our exporters, American businesses will continue to face high tariff and nontariff barriers abroad.

Consider just one example, the market for agricultural products in Korea, which is the world's 13th largest economy. Korea's tariffs on imported agricultural goods average 54 percent compared to an average of 9 percent tariff on their imports into the United States. So passage of the Korea Free Trade Agreement will level this playing field. Think about that. Fifty-four percent for our exporters to get into the Korean market, 9 percent tariff for their exports coming here. That is a huge discrepancy that will be rectified by passage of this agreement.

Korea's market for pork products in particular underscores how removing barriers to trade can benefit U.S. farmers and ranchers. U.S. pork exports to South Korea have increased 130 percent from January to July of this year because Korea temporarily lifted its 25 percent duty on pork imports due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Korea.

During this period, the Korean market surpassed Canada to become the third largest export destination for U.S. pork producers after Japan and Mexico. Korea's tariff on pork imports is expected to return but would be permanently eliminated by 2016 under the terms of the United States and South Korea Free Trade Agreement.

We know when we eliminate barriers to U.S. exports, American producers will compete and win in the global marketplace. However, if we fail to act and continue to delay implementation of these agreements, the cost to our

economy will also be substantial. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce study warns that failure to enact the three pending free-trade agreements could threaten as many as 380,000 American jobs and the loss of $40 billion in sales. The cost of inaction on trade is high because today we live in a global economy where American producers rely on access to foreign markets.

Consider that in 1960, exports accounted for only 3.6 percent of our entire GDP. Today exports account for 12.5 percent of our entire GDP. Exports of U.S. goods and services support over 10 million American jobs. When America stands still on trade, the rest of the world does not. Today there are more than 100 new free-trade agreements that are currently under negotiation around the world. Yet the United States is only party to one of those negotiations; that is, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

If we do not aggressively pursue new market-opening agreements on behalf of American workers, we will see new export opportunities go to foreign businesses and foreign workers. Unfortunately, that is exactly what we have experienced under the current administration. The three trade agreements we are considering today were signed over 4 years ago, and this administration had more than 2\1/2\ years to submit them to Congress for consideration but failed to do so.

Instead, the President chose to sit on these agreements and not send them to Congress for nearly now 1,000 days. We cannot quantify precisely the cost of this unfortunate delay, but we know it put American exporters at a competitive disadvantage in the Colombian, Korean, and Panamanian markets. For example, on July 1 the European Union-Korea trade agreement went into effect. In just the first month after this agreement took effect, EU exports to Korea jumped nearly 37 percent, while U.S. exports to Korea rose by only 3 percent.

Let's be clear about what this means. Korean consumers are choosing to buy German, French, and British cars, electronics, and agricultural products rather than American-made products because those European products now have a price advantage. This would have been entirely preventable if we had acted on the U.S-Korea trade agreement sooner. Likewise, the Canada-Colombia agreement went into effect on August 15 of this year. This is resulting in an advantage for Canadian goods such as construction equipment, aircraft, and a range of other industrial and agricultural products. Colombia is now reporting that since the Canada-Colombia trade agreement took effect, there has been an 18.3- percent increase in Colombian imports of Canadian wheat.

Much as with Korea, U.S. businesses are finding themselves disadvantaged because the President waited so long before sending these agreements to Congress. Unfortunately, the negative impact of the Canada-Colombia agreement on U.S. exporters is just a continuation of the lost export opportunities we have seen over the past few years as these trade agreements have lingered.

Just a few years ago, American wheat producers dominated the market in Colombia with a 73-percent market share, as of 2008. Today we are facing a situation where U.S. wheat producers are likely to be completely shut out of the Colombian market if we do not act. Hopefully, by passing this agreement today and by swiftly implementing the U.S.-Colombia trade promotion agreement, our wheat producers will be able to recover much of their lost market share. But they should never have been placed in this position to begin with.

In 2010, for the first time in the history of U.S.-Colombia trade, the U.S. lost to Argentina its position as Colombia's No. 1 agricultural supplier. Now, consider the story of three of the major crops that we grow in South Dakota: soybeans, corn, and wheat. The combined market share in Colombia for these three U.S. agricultural exports has decreased from 78 percent in 2008 to 28 percent as of 2010, a staggering decline of 50 percentage points in our market share.

U.S. corn sales to Colombia fell from 3 million metric tons in 2007 to 700,000 metric tons in 2010. This is the high cost of delay while our trading partners pursue new regional and bilateral trade agreements. There has also been the cost of duties that have been paid on U.S. exports while these agreements are waiting. U.S. companies have paid more than $5 billion in tariffs to Colombia and Panama since the trade agreements with these nations were signed more than 4 years ago.

Let's consider the cost of delay to just one American company, Caterpillar. We all know Caterpillar is a leading producer of large construction and mining equipment and a major U.S. exporter. Caterpillar exports 92 percent of its American-made large mining trucks. Caterpillar's large truck exports to Colombia face a 15-percent duty which adds about $300,000 to the cost of each of these trucks exported to Colombia.

I mean, how does that work? Think about that. Every truck that Caterpillar sends into the Colombian market, it is an additional $300,000 on top of the cost of that piece of equipment for the tariff that has to be paid. Just imagine the advantage that Caterpillar could have had for the last several years over its Japanese and Chinese competitors if the House of Representatives--at the time was controlled by the Democrats back in 2008--had not refused to consider the Colombia agreement when President Bush submitted it or if the current administration had acted sooner, and that is just one example of countless others out there with American businesses.

So I am glad we are here today. I expect all three trade agreements to pass with what I hope is broad bipartisan support. I hope we also have learned an important lesson. We cannot afford to delay when it comes to international competition in trade. I hope the White House has learned an important lesson as well rather than submitting to Congress divisive measures where there are fundamental disagreements, such as new tax increases. This administration should identify measures such as these trade bills that will spur our economy and where there is broad bipartisan agreement.

The President sent his American Jobs Act to Congress exactly 1 month ago today. Yet we only, just last night, voted on whether we should consider this bill--a vote that did not get a single Republican vote, and it did not get every Democratic vote either. Contrast that approach with these free-trade agreements which were submitted to Congress by the President on October 3, just 9 days ago. Within about a week and a half, these trade agreements will have passed the relevant committees in the House and the Senate with large bipartisan votes and will be on the President's desk awaiting his signature.

Clearly, reaching across the aisle on measures where both parties can find agreement is a much more effective approach. So I would urge my colleagues to support these job-creating trade bills based upon their merit. I would also urge my colleagues to support these bills to send a message that when this administration is willing to send us commonsense, progrowth legislation, we are ready and willing to pass it.

We can only hope our votes on these trade agreements will set that precedent. I look forward to voting for these long overdue agreements on behalf of American businesses and consumers. I look forward, hopefully, to being able to act on what are truly progrowth job measures in the coming weeks and months.

We have an economy that continues to struggle with over 9 percent unemployment. Month after month we continue to see a lot of Americans who are without jobs, and this is one example of something we can do to address that concern. But there are lots of other things out there we can be doing as well if we are willing to identify those things on which there is agreement and those types of policies that actually do create jobs that are about getting Americans back to work and not about making some sort of a political statement.

I hope this will set a pattern and a trend that will be replicated in the future and that we can do some things that are good for our American economy and for American jobs.

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

I ask that I be able to speak as if in morning business.

Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about one of the dirty little secrets around here, and that is the ticking time bomb that is right under our noses and that, until recently, had been virtually ignored until some recent activity in Congress and at the Department of Health and Human Services brought the program into the spotlight. That time bomb is the CLASS Act.

It is a long-term care entitlement program created by the health care reform law. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal described the inclusion of the CLASS program in the health care law as the definition of insanity.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the article from the Wall Street Journal.

Madam President, the editorial highlights a point that I have been making since I first offered an amendment to strip the CLASS program from the health care reform bill back in December of 2009. The inclusion of the CLASS program is perhaps one of the most brazen budget tricks used by the majority in the health care reform bill. As the Wall Street Journal says:

CLASS was added to the bill because it was among the budget

gimmicks that Democrats needed to create the illusion that

trillions of dollars of new spending would somehow reduce the

deficit.

Due to the 5-year vesting period required by the CLASS program, premiums will be coming in long before benefits must be paid. That pot of money somehow is simultaneously used to reduce the deficit and pay for other programs within the health care reform law.

When it is clear to Americans that the money is not there to pay benefits to beneficiaries, this administration will be long gone, and taxpayers are going to be left holding the bag. It is, at best, disingenuous the way the Democrats have promised individuals who participate in the CLASS programs that their premiums paid into the CLASS system will be available to pay out future benefits.

When I asked Secretary Sebelius about this program earlier this year in a Senate Finance Committee hearing, she called the program ``totally unsustainable.''

But HHS continued to push forward toward implementation, asserting that they have the authority to make changes in the program.

Given the inherent questions in the fiscal sustainability of the CLASS Act, I cochaired a bicameral group of Senators and Representatives, along with Representative Rehberg and Representative Upton from the House of Representatives, that investigated the behind- the-scenes story of the CLASS Act. We released the findings of our investigation last month in a report entitled ``CLASS' Untold Story: Taxpayers, Employers, and States on the Hook for Flawed Entitlement Program.'' I commend it to my colleagues. This report can be found by visiting my Web site, http://thune.senate.gov. We found astonishing statements from within the Department of Health and Human Services that show the lengths to which the administration Democrats knew this program was on a crash course but proceeded anyway, statements such as, this program is ``a recipe for disaster'' with ``terminal problems.''

The e-mails also show that the independent Chief Actuary for CMS sounded the first warning in May of 2009. The Chief Actuary is a nonpartisan official who estimates the long-term financial effects of current law and proposed legislation. In May 2009, he wrote to other HHS officials, some of whom were working directly with Senate Democrats, saying, ``At first glance this proposal doesn't look workable.'' The Chief Actuary said a back-of-the-envelope analysis showed that the program would have to enroll more than 230 million people--more than the number of working adults in the United States--to be financially feasible.

A few months later, the Chief Actuary was more assertive in his comments. In July of 2009, after reviewing the latest information from Senate Democrats, he wrote HHS officials:

Thirty-six years of actuarial experience lead me to believe

that this program would collapse in short order and require

significant Federal subsidies to continue.

Unfortunately, Democrats here in the Senate needed the political win more than they needed to hear the truth, so they pushed forward and included the CLASS Act based off of illusory savings coming in the form of incoming premiums from the paychecks of hard-working Americans-- incidentally, some of whom may never consent to program participation.

Late last month, there was another interesting development that occurred. The Actuary tasked with designing the CLASS Program announced he was leaving his position at Health and Human Services and that the CLASS office was closing. HHS denied closing the CLASS office and said they are still evaluating this program, but in a blog post on healthcare.gov, HHS announced they will be releasing a report on CLASS sometime this month. I believe this report will indicate that this program does not have the fiscal muster to move forward, but it is possible that HHS may try to hide that information.

If this Congress is truly concerned about long-term deficits, this program should be at the top of the list of programs to repeal. This program may not cost taxpayers money in the short term as the premiums are coming in, but eventually it will require an ongoing bailout from taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars.

I filed an amendment to the current legislation that is before us to repeal the CLASS Act. It probably will not get a vote today, but I hope that sometime in the days ahead the Senate will weigh in and exercise some common sense and do what we should have done a long time ago; that is, strike and eliminate this program so we do not have to deal with this massive timebomb that is ticking out there, waiting for future generations of Americans who are going to be stuck with the huge deficits that will occur when the inevitable happens. It is pretty clear that it is only a matter of time, as I submitted from the statements that were made by the Actuary at HHS

and statements made by the Congressional Budget Office at the time.

There are all kinds of anecdotal evidence out there and all kinds of empirical evidence out there that suggests this is a program which is headed for fiscal disaster. It should not have been included as a pay- for in the health reform bill. That is why it was included, because it showed some short-term revenues. But the long-term costs, like many of the programs we funded here in the past, have a long tail on them, and the American taxpayer is going to be stuck on the hook for a long time into the future.

I hope we will have the good sense here in the Senate to repeal this program before it becomes the fiscal nightmare and fiscal disaster I think everybody has predicted it would be.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Jim and Jean Mulder of Eureka, SD, as my nominees for the 2011 Angels in Adoption Award. Since 1999, the Angels in Adoption program through the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute have honored more than 1,700 individuals, couples, and organizations nationwide for their work in providing children with loving, stable homes.

Fifty-nine foster children have come to know what it means to have loving parents through the compassion of Jim and Jean Mulder. While some parents struggle to find a new identity after their youngest child enrolls in elementary school full time, Jim and Jean decided they just enjoyed being parents too much. So, for the past 20 years, this generous couple has opened their home in north central South Dakota to kids who have only known stability and hot meals to be luxuries. The simple things, such as tossing the baseball around or going fishing, have come to mean the world to the Mulder's because they can see the joy in their foster children's faces and know the impact their love has had. Jim and Jean included their foster children in all family activities with their biological children, and gave their 59 foster children a sense of what it means to be in a loving, stable family.

With children coming in and out of their home, staying anywhere from months to nearly a decade, one can only imagine the range of emotions Jim and Jean have experienced. From laughter to heartbreak, they both count their God-given role as foster parents as nothing shy of a blessing. With that blessing, they have bestowed a gift onto others in an immeasurable way.

With National Adoption Day just around the corner on November 19, 2011, it is important that we recognize the compassionate families who fulfill the roles of foster and adoptive parents. It brings me great pride to be able to honor South Dakotans Jim and Jean Mulder, my nominees for the 2011 Angels in Adoption Award.

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

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 650 to make it pending.

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

Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment, which I filed yesterday afternoon, which deals with what I believe is a very important topic; that is, the high cost of delay when it comes to the pending free-trade agreements. I raised this issue yesterday, and I wish to reemphasize my comments in light of the fact that we will be voting on this amendment this afternoon.

Most of the debate the last few days has been about the merits of trade adjustment assistance. But there is another aspect of trade adjustment assistance renewal we should consider. It is the fact that there has been a real cost to America's economy and to the American businesses as a result of the President's strategy to link passage of the three trade agreements to a renewal of an expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance Program.

This is very unfortunate, especially considering that even the White House acknowledges that passing the trade agreements is one of the best things we could do in the short term to create jobs. According to the Business Roundtable, the passage of the trade agreements will support 250,000 American jobs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that as many as 380,000 U.S. jobs could be in jeopardy if we do not pass the free-trade agreements.

One would think passage of these trade agreements, which were signed in 2006 and 2007, would have been an early priority for the Obama administration. Yet here we are more than 2\1/2\ years into this administration, and the President still has not made a commitment to send us the trade agreements so we can consider them.

Perhaps some might say it takes time to get an agreement implemented after it has been signed. Let's consider some recent trade deals the United States has negotiated. Consider the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement. This agreement with an important ally was signed on May 18, 2004, and entered into force on June 1, 2005, a little over 1 year later.

Consider the U.S.-Chile agreement. This agreement was signed on June 6, 2003, and entered into force on January 1, 2004, only a little over half a year later. Perhaps we should look at the U.S.-Peru agreement. This agreement was signed on April 12, 2006, was passed by the Democratically controlled House in November of 2007, and the Democratically controlled Senate in December of 2007.

Let me repeat. A Democratic House and Democratic Senate took up and passed an agreement, negotiated and signed by a Republican President, just over a year and a half after it was signed. So we know that even when the President and the majority in Congress come from different parties, we have still been able to implement our trade agreements expeditiously for the good of the country.

My point is not simply that the three pending free-trade agreements are long overdue. The point is, our process for considering trade agreements did not envision such long delays between signing and implementation. Nevertheless, we need to respond to this unfortunate reality, and my amendment helps us to do so.

It is very simple. Under current trade promotion authority procedures, the International Trade Commission must prepare a report that is submitted to the Congress no later than 90 days after a trade agreement is signed. However, there is currently no requirement that the ITC conduct a study to assess the negative impact on U.S. businesses when we delay implementation of an agreement, as we have for more than 4 years with Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

My amendment would simply require the ITC to assess the negative impact to U.S. businesses if a trade agreement is signed but has not been considered by Congress within 2 years. The ITC study would focus on lost U.S. export opportunities, how the delay has impacted U.S. trade objectives as set out under trade promotion authority, as well as how the delay impacts the protection of U.S. intellectual property overseas.

The study would also estimate the impact on U.S. employment if the trade agreement in question continues to languish. Finally, the ITC would be required to update their study in every subsequent year that the trade agreement is not considered by Congress or if it is still not entered into force.

My amendment follows a very basic principle. If the President believes a trade agreement is in America's national and economic interests, he needs to submit it to Congress. If he does not submit it to Congress, we need to have better information as to what the costs are of that delay. If we think these trade agreements are important-- and the President spent much of the month of August talking about the need to pass them, so clearly he believes they are important--then we need to be able to more effectively weigh the disadvantages imposed upon American businesses and consumers as a result of not implementing them.

I wish to emphasize this is not a partisan amendment. It will apply to any future President who delays implementation of a trade agreement, Democratic or Republican. Why is this so important? Because the global economy in which American businesses compete is not static. It is dynamic, fast moving, and ever changing. As we stand here today, there are more than 100 new free-trade agreements currently under negotiation around the world. Yet the United States is a party to only one of those negotiations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

I have with me the ITC report on the U.S.-Colombia agreement issued shortly after it was signed. The date on this report is December 2006, over 4\1/2\ years ago. Would it not be helpful to have a recent report that would take into consideration the impact to U.S. businesses from the Canada-Colombia trade agreement that recently went into effect or the EU-Colombia Free Trade Agreement that will go into effect next year?

Let's consider the cost of delay to just one U.S. company, Caterpillar. As we all know, Caterpillar is a leading producer of large construction and mining equipment and a major U.S. exporter. Caterpillar exports 92 percent of its American-made large mining trucks. Caterpillar's large truck exports to Colombia face a 15-percent duty, which adds about $300,000 to the cost of each of those trucks exported to Colombia.

Just imagine the advantage Caterpillar could have had for the last several years over its Japanese and Chinese competitors if the Democratic House in 2008 had not refused to consider the Colombia agreement when President Bush submitted it or if President Obama had submitted it promptly upon taking office.

But the Caterpillar example is just one company. We did an unbiased, objective, and expert study on the cost to all U.S. businesses of delay. My amendment would accomplish this.

Consider that U.S. companies have paid more than $5 billion in tariffs to Colombia and Panama since the trade

agreements with these nations were signed more than 4 years ago. More importantly, U.S. businesses have lost countless business opportunities in Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

Consider another example, the market for agricultural products in Korea, which is the world's 13th largest economy. Korea's tariffs on imported agricultural goods average 54 percent, compared to an average 9-percent tariff on these imparts into the United States. Passage of the Korea Free Trade Agreement will level the playing field. Yet this administration continues to delay sending these agreements to Congress.

At a time of near-record unemployment and slow economic growth, this delay is unacceptable. This ongoing delay is having a real impact on American businesses, and it will only get worse as the EU-Korea agreement has now entered into force and European companies are getting the benefits of lower tariffs and market access.

The Colombian market for agricultural products is another good example of the high cost of delay. In 2010, for the first time in the history of U.S.-Colombia trade, the United States lost to Argentina its position as Colombia's No. 1 agricultural supplier.

Consider the story of the three main crops we grow in South Dakota: corn, wheat, and soybeans. The combined market share in Colombia for these three U.S. agricultural exports has decreased from 78 percent in 2008 to 28 percent in 2010, a staggering decline of 50 percentage points. This situation will only get worse now that the Canada-Colombia agreement has taken effect as of August 15 of this year.

As Gordon Stoner, a wheat grower from Outlook, MT, testified before the Finance Committee earlier this year: ``Our share of the Colombia wheat market has declined from 73 percent in 2008 to 43 percent in 2010, and industry representatives in Colombia indicate we could lose our entire market share following implementation of the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement.''

We are living in a global economy where America cannot afford to stand still on trade. There is another cost to the delay in submitting these free-trade agreements to Congress that we should consider. This is the loss of trust we may experience and be creating with new potential trade agreement partners. Consider, if a country is an emerging economy today and they have the opportunity to negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement with either the European Union or the United States, what message is our delay sending to those potential trading partners?

Unfortunately, the message appears to be that if they negotiate with the EU, they will get the benefits of an agreement much sooner than if they spend the time and effort to negotiate an agreement with the United States. This is best exemplified by the negotiations with South Korea, a large economy, a major market for agricultural goods, as I mention, and manufactured goods as well as services.

The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement was signed in June of 2007. Korea's trade agreement with the EU was launched in May of 2007, just 1 month earlier. We had basically finished the entire negotiation process and wrapped up our agreement with Korea by the time the EU was just launching the beginning of their negotiations with Korea. As I mentioned earlier, the EU-Korea agreement has now taken effect, and the President has not even yet submitted our agreement with Korea to Congress for consideration.

Again, we are not creating a favorable impression for any future trade agreement partners. As emerging economies mature, millions of new middle-class consumers enter the global marketplace. This is an impression we simply cannot afford to let persist. American businesses and exporters need acces to fast-developing markets.

Imagine if American business operated the way Washington, DC operates. What if American companies, such as Apple or IBM, waited 4 or 5 years to develop their next product? Would they continue to outinnovate their foreign competition? Of course not. Just as U.S. businesses cannot afford to stand still, the U.S. Government cannot afford to stand still as we have on trade for these past several years.

In 1960, exports accounted for only 3.6 percent of U.S. GDP.

Today, exports account for 12.5 percent of our GDP. Exports of U.S. goods and services support over 10 million American jobs. It is long past time that we get back in the game by passing the three pending trade agreements.

My amendment will ensure that if we delay, if we fail to act, we will have a better assessment of the cost to American businesses and consumers of that delay. Hopefully, that information will make us more likely to act with a sense of urgency.

My amendment should not be controversial. It doesn't change the underlying bill or change trade adjustment assistance. It should not be something that would affect the ability of this legislation to pass the House. It is a forward-looking amendment that will improve the process under which we consider future trade agreements.

It is important that we get this done. The year 2006 is the last time we had an assessment of the impact of not acting on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Earlier today, Senator Baucus made some remarks about my amendment and referred to it as a ``backward-looking'' amendment. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not about casting blame or looking back; it is about improving trade by giving Congress better, more comprehensive information on the impact of delay.

Senator Baucus said earlier that nobody disputes the harm from delaying agreements. But has the U.S. Government quantified the harm of the delay in a comprehensive fashion so that we know exactly the cost the delays are imposing on U.S. businesses and individuals and impact on U.S. employment or on the protection of U.S. intellectual property in foreign markets? The answer is no. As a result, it is more difficult than it should be to balance the benefits of this delay on the one hand, which would be any benefits from renewal of the expanded TAA, with the cost on the other hand. This is 9 months away. I certainly hope the Colombia, Korea, and Panama Free Trade Agreements will pass soon and go into effect long before next June.

This amendment is forward looking, as it applies to future trade agreements, if they are not submitted to Congress or considered by Congress or not entered into force within 2 years of being signed. This will apply to a trade agreement by a future Republican President just as much as by a Democratic President. If there is a substantial delay in implementing a trade agreement the United States signed in good faith with another nation, whatever the reason for the delay, maybe we in Congress should have better information as to the specific impact on U.S. businesses of this delay. That is all this amendment would do. It doesn't affect GSP or TAA. It would not imperil this bill in the House. There is no good reason to oppose this amendment. I hope we can adopt it today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to emphasize one final time, as we get closer to votes on these amendments, the importance of getting the free-trade agreements passed and put into force, but also the importance of understanding that, as we move into the future, we not make the mistakes we have made with respect to these agreements, and that is to let them languish literally years, and at the same time be losing market share, be losing jobs for Americans, and be losing market opportunities for American businesses.

Again, I wish to point out just a couple things I think personalize this; one, as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, we have a company such as Caterpillar, which makes large mining trucks and exports 92 percent of them. They pay a $300,000-per-truck tariff to get into the Colombian market. Think of a country such as South Korea, with the 13th largest economy in the world. They are a big importer of American agricultural goods, with 54 percent right now being the average tariff on goods that are exported from the United States--agricultural products exported from here to Korea, but 9 percent is the average tariff on their goods coming into this country. That 54-to-9 ratio is an incredible disadvantage, putting American businesses at a tremendous disadvantage relative to the countries around the world with whom they have to compete.

At the same time these trade agreements have been languishing here for over 4 years, other countries have stepped in--the European Union, Australia, and Canada--and filled the vacuum we have left. As a consequence, American businesses have been hurt and hurt profoundly. More importantly, as we sit in this economy we are in and talk about the importance of job creation, there isn't anything we could do that would probably create jobs more quickly than to get these trade agreements enacted. It means thousands of jobs for Americans, it means business opportunities for American businesses overseas, and it means market share we should be maintaining or perhaps even acquiring and that we are losing as a result of not having these agreements entered in force after they have been negotiated these many years ago.

So my amendment looks prospectively into the future. It requires that we know specifically--quantitatively--what are the impacts of delay when it comes to getting these free-trade agreements not only ratified by the Congress but entered into force with these other countries. I think it is critical information we need to know. We need to know what harm, what economic consequences are the result of these trade agreements being delayed.

I hope we will get bipartisan support for this amendment today. It doesn't do anything to alter TAA. It doesn't do anything to alter GSP. It doesn't do anything to affect the passage of this agreement in the House. But it will, as we look into the future, make it much more clear to us what these economic impacts are with regard to these trade agreements and our delay in getting them implemented.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, my amendment simply requires a study by the International Trade Commission when a trade agreement has been signed but the implementing legislation has not been taken up by Congress within 2 years. The study will examine the impact of lost export opportunities, the impact on U.S. jobs, and the impact on and the protection of U.S. intellectual property resulting from the delay.

Today we have anecdotal evidence, but there isn't a comprehensive government report on what delay means for U.S. businesses in our economy. I wish we did not need this amendment, but we have seen with the Korea, with the Colombia, and with the Panama agreements we cannot assume an agreement will be implemented swiftly after it is signed.

This amendment is not about casting blame. The study will apply to trade agreements whether negotiated by a Democratic or a Republican President. It is not about the past. It is just the fact that Congress deserves better information about the impact when we delay these trade agreements. This does not affect TAA, it does not affect the underlying bill, and it does not affect passage in the House. It is a commonsense amendment.

I hope my colleagues will support it.

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

Madam President, I also believe profoundly that increasing our exports, improving our trading opportunities for businesses in this country can do a lot to get Americans back to work. It employs a lot of people across this country today, and it is important we get these trade agreements done. I couldn't agree more with what my colleague from Oregon had to say about that in terms of its impact on the economy.

What is unfortunate, in my view, is the fact we have had to wait so long to get where we are. We have had trade agreements now that have been teed up, literally signed back in December of 2006 for Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, in 2007, and it strikes me that at the least we have lost a tremendous amount of opportunity and a tremendous amount of market share as a result of the delay.

I would have hoped yesterday we would have passed trade promotion authority, because that allows us at least to be at the table to negotiate trade agreements in the future. We have been basically locked out of that since trade promotion authority lapsed back in 2007. This is a global economy, and the world is passing us by. Every single day we are not engaged, that we are not out there negotiating trade agreements with countries around the world somebody else is, and every single day we are losing opportunities for American business to export and to grow our economy and to create jobs here at home.

What I want to speak to today is an amendment I filed earlier this afternoon that deals with what I believe is a very important topic, and that is the high cost of delay when it comes to the pending free-trade agreements. Much attention has been paid in this debate to the pros and cons of trade adjustment assistance, and that is certainly

a debate we ought to have. But we should not overlook the fact there has been a real cost to America's economy and American business associated with the President's strategy to link passage of the free- trade agreements to the renewal of an expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance Program--very unfortunate, especially considering what even the White House acknowledges, which is that passing the trade agreements is one of the best things we can do in the short term to create jobs.

According to the Business Roundtable, the passage of the trade agreements will support 250,000 American jobs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates this figure could be as high as 380,000 U.S. jobs. You would think passage of these trade agreements, which were signed in 2006 and 2007, would have been a priority, and an early priority, for the Obama administration. Yet here we are, more than 2\1/2\ years into this administration, and the President still has not made a commitment to sending us the trade agreements so we can consider them.

I hope what we are doing today puts in place a process whereby that will happen. But as of right now, we have yet to see those trade agreements, notwithstanding the President's assertions he is committed to growing trade and to getting these trade agreements passed. That can't happen until they are submitted to the Congress for ratification. I am hopeful the trade bill before us now will allow us to get to a full and fair debate on the trade adjustment assistance and, in so doing, we will finally get to where we have removed what I hope is the last obstacle blocking passage of the three free-trade agreements.

My amendment is very simple. Under the current trade promotion authority procedures, the International Trade Commission must prepare a report that is submitted to Congress no later than 90 days after a trade agreement is signed. However, there is currently no requirement the ITC conduct a study to assess the negative impact on U.S. businesses when we delay implementation of an agreement, as we have with Korea, Colombia, and Panama. My amendment would simply require that the International Trade Commission assess the negative impact to U.S. businesses if a trade agreement is signed but has not been considered by Congress within 2 years.

The ITC study would focus on lost U.S. exports, how the delay has impacted U.S. trade objectives, as set forth under TPA, as well as how the delay impacts the protection of U.S. intellectual property overseas. The study would also estimate the impact on U.S. employment if the trade agreement in question continues to languish. And, finally, the ITC would be required to update this study in every year subsequent that the trade agreement is not considered by Congress or if it is not entered into force.

My amendment follows a basic principle: If the President believes a trade agreement is in America's national and economic interest, he needs to submit it to Congress. The three pending trade agreements, which hopefully will be considered soon, are a good case in point. Consider that U.S. companies have paid more than $5 billion in tariffs to Colombia and Panama since the trade agreements with these nations were signed more than 4 years ago. That is $5 billion American companies have had to put out in the form of tariffs to these countries because these trade agreements--which were signed more than 4 years ago--haven't entered into force.

More importantly, U.S. businesses have lost countless business opportunities in Korea, Colombia, and Panama. Without trade agreements to ensure similar treatment for our exporters, American businesses will continue to face high tariff and nontariff barriers abroad. Consider just one example: the market for agricultural products in Korea, which is the world's 13th largest economy. Korea's tariffs on imported agricultural goods average 54 percent compared to an average 9-percent tariff on these imports into the United States. Passage of the Korea Free Trade Agreement will level this playing field. Yet the administration continues to delay sending these agreements to Congress.

At a time of near record unemployment and slow economic growth, this delay is unacceptable. This ongoing delay is having a real impact on American businesses and it will only get worse. The Colombian market for agricultural products is another good example of the high cost of delay. In 2010, for the first time in the history of U.S.-Colombia trade, the United States lost to Argentina its position as Colombia's No. 1 agricultural supplier.

Consider the story of the three main crops we grow in South Dakota-- soybeans, corn, and wheat. The combined market share in Colombia for these three U.S. agricultural exports has decreased from 78 percent in 2008 to 28 percent in 2010--a decline of 50 percentage points.

We are living in a global economy. America cannot afford to stand still and to stay on the sidelines when it comes to trade. In 1960, exports accounted for only 3.6 percent of our entire GDP. Today, exports account for 12.5 percent of our GDP. Exports of U.S. goods and services support over 10 million American jobs. It is long past time for us to get back in the game by passing the three pending trade agreements and then to work aggressively to make sure our administration is in a position, with trade promotion authority, to negotiate new agreements that will open new market opportunities for American business. America's manufacturers, America's farmers, and America's service providers cannot afford to wait any longer.

What this amendment does, very simply, is require us to weigh and to evaluate and analyze the impact of delay when it comes to implementing these free-trade agreements. We have seen in these examples of Colombia and Panama and South Korea with great clarity the economic impact--the loss of market share--that has occurred to many of our exporters as a result of this delay. It is important we know, that American business know, that the American people know what we are losing when we delay these agreements, as has happened here with these three particular agreements.

It is a straightforward amendment, and I offer it to raise what I think is an important issue, which is that when we get signed agreements, we need to take action on those. They need to be submitted, to be ratified and enacted by the Congress, or we are going to continue to lose out on critically important opportunities for American exporters.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I just want to say I thank the Senator from Oregon. He and I have worked together on a number of issues, not the least of which is some of these trade issues, and I look forward to continuing that collaboration. I do believe the Senator from Oregon is someone who really understands the value of opening export opportunities for American businesses and has worked and advocated on their behalf in his time in the Senate.

I think the Senator would also understand the frustration some of us have expressed, and perhaps is felt even by him and others, that these things have languished for so long. I understand the issue of trade adjustment assistance is very important to him and many other Members on his side of the aisle, as well as some on our side, but it strikes me at least that we could have been at this a lot sooner and not have relinquished and given up so many of the lost market opportunities I mentioned in my remarks. It certainly impacts an agricultural State such as mine and many other Members who represent agricultural areas of this country.

If you look at the loss of market share that has occurred in just these last few years since we have sort of been locked out and other countries have moved in to fill that vacuum, it is very frustrating to many of us to have witnessed that. That is why this amendment sort of gets at the idea that we need to know what the economic impacts are when these trade agreements don't get dealt with. One way or the other, these agreements need to get dealt with, and here we are, almost 5 years later with regard to Colombia and over 4 years later with regard to Panama and South Korea. That is way too long for us to be out of the game, so to speak, and it has cost us mightly. So I hope we can get these done.

He is right, we have a process in place that I hope will enable us to finally accomplish this. But we ought to make sure that doesn't happen again in the future.

Mr. President, today I recognize Presentation College in Aberdeen, SD, as it celebrates its 60th anniversary on September 23 and 24.

Presentation College is an independent Catholic educational institution that has been sponsored by the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary since 1951. The school, which is located on a scenic 100-acre campus in northern Aberdeen, originally started with female-only nursing and health sciences programs. In 1968, the institution became co-educational. Presentation College encourages its students to develop an understanding of life at all stages. The Christian environment of the school focuses on the principles and teachings of the church, while welcoming students from all faiths.

This small but proud school is also a division III member of NCAA athletics, and 2011 is an exciting year for the school as it marks the inaugural season for the first football team in the school's history. In both its athletic programs as well as with the general student population, Presentation College places a strong emphasis on developing their students into capable, active leaders who have the ability to affect positive change throughout the world.

Presentation College has experienced a number of changes over the years. From its inception as a nursing school to the community force it has become today, the school has built an impressive reputation over the last 60 years. As it celebrates this landmark event, I commend Presentation College on its commitment to improving the community of Aberdeen, providing academic excellence to students across the country, and standing as a pillar for the State of South Dakota.

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

Mr. President, in a few minutes we are going to be voting on a bill that has been put on the floor that would address many of the emergency disaster needs that have come our way this last year.

In my State of South Dakota, it has been a year for the record books. We have had historically cold winters the last couple of winters. We had a historically wet spring and, if you look at the Missouri River basin, unprecedented amounts of runoff, to the point where we had flooding on the Missouri River throughout the entire basin, up and down. My State of South Dakota, of course, was impacted dramatically by that, as were many of the States in the basin, and I think, like a lot of parts of the country this year that have experienced weather-related disasters, there are a lot of people who have been hurt by that. In my State of South Dakota, we have a lot of homeowners in the Pierre and Fort Pierre area and the Dakota Dunes area and the Yankton area. We have had tremendous wet weather in northeastern South Dakota, and there are a lot of people who have been flooded up there.

We have people in these areas of my State who literally have lost everything--their homes. It was not one of those situations where you get an event that comes through, it is gone quickly, and you can go in and clean up and recover. In this case, they were floods that persisted over long periods of time--in this case months. I remember touring some of those areas in my State and in some cases having to go out there literally in a boat to see homes and having to walk into a home in waders because the water in the living room was literally up to my waist.

And the water was there literally for weeks. There were a lot of black mold problems, of course, just a tremendous amount of damage.

As I said, in many cases these are people who for various reasons did not have flood insurance, in most cases because they were told they didn't need it, they were not in the flood plain. These were homeowners who, when the Missouri River dams were built, thought, at least, that they were protected by those dams and as a consequence, perhaps, did not purchase flood insurance, with rare exceptions. Of course, in all of these cases too there are homeowners who, if they did not have flood insurance, have in some cases lost everything. I am not talking about just homeowners who have resources and means, I am talking about people--I met with retired schoolteachers who put everything they had into these homes along the Missouri River, and now they have literally lost everything. So I can appreciate how important it is that we do everything we can to respond to this enormous weather-related disaster that has come our way.

I have great sympathy for those other areas of the country that have been impacted this year as well. I know that on the east coast, we had flooding from the hurricane, and we have had tornadoes this summer that have wiped out parts of entire communities.

It has been a very difficult weather year, and as we approach this issue of how to deal with that, I think it is important that we bear in mind--that we do everything possible to address the needs these homeowners have and try to help them rebuild their lives and put things back together.

So as we get into this debate, certainly I recognize the importance of us having a response. I think that one way or the other, Congress will respond, whether it happens today or in the form of some relief that may be coming over from the House of Representatives. But I believe it is important that we do that. It is also important, given the budgetary circumstances in which we find ourselves, that we pay for it. I think there are a couple of amendments we are going to vote on this afternoon that would accomplish just that.

The Senator from Oklahoma has proposed an amendment which many of us have voted for in the past. I think it got 64 votes here in the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats supporting it. It would do away with some of the duplication we have in our Federal Government.

The Government Accountability Office has identified lots of areas of duplication. In fact, I think the Senator from Oklahoma has already gone through some of those, but I have been here on the floor and addressed some of these as well: 56, or thereabouts, programs spread across 10 or so agencies that deal with financial literacy; 82 programs that deal with the issue of teacher training. I think you have to argue that there is plenty of waste and duplication and redundancy in our Federal Government, and we ought to be doing everything we can to eliminate that, particularly if we are looking at prioritizing where we spend our tax dollars.

In a case such as this, we have people across our country who have been hurt by these natural disasters who need our assistance. It strikes me, at least, that if we are serious about priorities--and I think all budgets are about priorities--we ought to be able to find some savings in these programs and agencies that have been identified by the GAO that would enable us to find the funds that are necessary to cover the disaster effort.

So I would come down here and speak in support of the Coburn amendment.

I think the Paul amendment as well seeks to use unobligated balances from USAID, the State Department. Of course, we are getting to the end of the year, and if there are funds that have not been obligated, that have not been used, that strikes me as well as a way in which we can find some resources that would help us prioritize and put them where they are really needed right now; that is, to deal with these impacted communities, these impacted families, these impacted homeowners, and helping them rebuild their lives.

But fundamentally, when you have a $1.3, $1.4 trillion annual deficit and when you are already at $14 trillion in debt and it is growing at the rate it is, when you have a debt-to-GDP which is literally about 1 to 1, about 100 percent--you have to go back to the end of World War II to find a time in our Nation's history when we have seen that kind of debt. These deficits to GDP, debt to GDP, spending to GDP are at historic highs. It strikes me that even for important matters such as disaster relief, we have to be as responsible as we possibly can and make sure we are doing justice to the American taxpayer and not spending money we do not have.

I think the House of Representatives--and what they intend to do is address this through the continuing resolution which will be coming our way sometime next week. Their approach is to put some additional money, supplemental money, into FEMA, into the Corps of Engineers--those agencies that are kind of on the front lines in responding to many of these disasters. I hope we have an opportunity to vote on that legislation. That will be paid for. That will be within the budget. That will not be deficit spending or borrowing from our children and grandchildren, adding more to the debt. So I think it is a responsible and reasonable way to deal with this, and maybe in the end that is where this ends up.

But the debate we are having today is whether we are going to appropriate $6.9 billion, around $7 billion for disaster relief. I don't think we have a full grasp yet of what some of these damages are. The assessments are still coming in. But I think it is important that we be responsible in how we distribute disaster relief, that we know as much as possible about the full scale and the dimensions of the problem and what those damages are and then, secondly, that we do everything we can to find areas in the budget in which we can offset that disaster relief.

So I hope we can support the amendments that are before us today. As I said before, the Coburn amendment is not something new to the Senate. The Coburn amendment is an amendment many of us have supported in the past. Sixty-four Senators--that is a very large bipartisan majority here in the Senate--have supported this amendment to do away with these duplicative programs and to try to gain some efficiency and some savings in our Federal Government.

It strikes me, at least, that when we are dealing with an issue as important as disaster relief is to so many Americans, we certainly ought to be able to prioritize and take some of those duplicative programs and some of those redundant programs we have in the Federal Government that have been identified by the Government Accountability Office--ask the OMB to identify $7 billion in savings in order to offset the costs of what we are doing here with regard to disaster relief.

So I am certainly going to support these amendments--and I hope my colleagues will--for a lot of reasons. Again, we need to respond when we have a natural disaster such as this, but we need to do it in a responsible way. And when we are running these massive annual deficits we are running today, we need to do everything we possibly can to see that we are paying the Nation's bills, that we are not adding it to the credit card, not handing the bill to our children and grandchildren, not spending money we do not have, but doing everything we can to live within our means. It is the responsible way to go about this. In my view, it is a reasonable way to go about this. I think it is the right way to deal with the Nation's business; that is, to pay your bills. The Coburn amendment does that. His amendment, I guess of the two, specifically directs the $7 billion. I am not sure whether the Paul amendment has a specific score on it. But either would be an important, in my view, message to the American people that we are serious about getting our fiscal house in order. So I hope we will have both Republicans and Democrats here in the Senate that would support both of those amendments.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I wish to echo the comments made by my colleague from Wyoming regarding regulations. That is something I hear from small businesses all across South Dakota, traveling my State during the month of August. I toured businesses, and I visited with farmers and ranchers and small businesspeople. That was a recurring theme, one thing people continued to bring up unsolicited. When you asked them questions about what can be done to help create jobs, to get them investing and putting their capital to work, that was the overwhelming response. It came back literally every single time, that businesses are concerned about the overreaching regulations coming out of Washington, DC, and the economic uncertainty that it creates. Part of it just has to do with the predictability that businesses need to make long-term investment decisions. If they do not know what is going to happen next in Washington, DC, it makes it awfully hard for them to plan. So as a consequence of that, we see billions of dollars, trillions of dollars, sitting on the sidelines right now that could be invested and could be put to work, could be getting people back to work in this country.

Last week we all listened with great interest as the President came out to a joint session of Congress and made a speech about a jobs plan. He talked about passing this jobs plan. He has been traveling around the country making that same argument. What was interesting to me about that proposal--and, of course, the speech itself was sufficiently vague. It was very difficult to know exactly what was in that proposal, where more of those details now are coming to light. It sounded eerily similar to the very same proposal we voted on a couple of years ago in the Senate. It ultimately became law. It was called the stimulus bill. It had a pricetag of nearly $1 trillion.

The assertions made at the time were along the lines that if we passed this it would keep unemployment below 8 percent. We know employment is over 9 percent, and since that stimulus bill was passed we have lost 1.7 million jobs in our economy. There are 1.7 million fewer Americans employed today than there were when the stimulus bill passed a couple of years ago. So the question, then, is, Why would we want to go down that same path?

In many respects this proposal is like that one because it consists of more spending and more taxing and more borrowing--all the things we believe are detrimental to the economy in the long run. They do nothing to address the concern that was raised to me by the small businesses across South Dakota and the issue to which the Senator from Wyoming was just speaking; that is, the issue of overregulation that we keep hearing from our businesses across this country, the job creators in our economy.

It strikes me, if the President is serious about actually doing something that would create jobs in this country, it ought to involve putting policies in place that will be conducive toward long-term economic growth to provide the economic certainty these small businesses are asking for.

Right now there is uncertainty with regard to taxes. Tax rates are at least locked in now until the end of 2012, but beyond that it is anybody's guess. There is a concern, of course, that any proposal coming out of Washington right now that deals with deficit reduction might include higher taxes. That certainly is something the President put on the table yet again yesterday as a proposed way to pay for his new stimulus bill.

There is this repeated and consistent assault upon small businesses in the form of more regulations. The President backed off of the ozone regulations, which is something that everybody reacted very favorably toward in the business community and people I

talked to. But there are so many other regulations that are out there: the CO2 emission regulation, appropriated dust regulation, the change in the classification for coal ash. There are all kinds of regulations--particularly out of the EPA, but not exclusively the EPA-- coming out of agencies of this government that are creating greater uncertainty and making it more difficult and more costly for small businesses to create jobs. So why not focus on that issue? Why not focus on getting the free-trade agreements?

There were three free-trade agreements essentially negotiated in the previous administration. They are languishing because they have not been submitted to Congress for ratification. The President talks about free trade and creating jobs through exports. We had three free-trade agreements in 2006 and 2007. Colombia was 2006. Panama and Korea were June of 2007. The President said: I want Congress to approve these free-trade agreements.

We cannot do that until he submits them to the Congress. We would love to approve those free-trade agreements. It would mean thousands of jobs in this economy. We know that. It is low-hanging fruit. It is something we could do today that is something positive to actually create jobs in this country.

Just as an example, in my State of South Dakota in 2008, the top three crops were corn, wheat, and soybeans. In those three commodities we had 81 percent of the market in the country of Colombia. In 2010 that had dropped off to 19 percent. It is a major collapse in our market share in that country simply because we have not ratified this free-trade agreement, and in the interim we have had other countries that have moved in and filled the vacuum.

Most recently the Canadians, on August 15, I think, had their own bilateral trade agreement with Colombia. We may go down to zero market share if we do not act quickly to get the free-trade agreements approved. It is not a function of us wanting to do it; it is a function of the President submitting those agreements to Congress for ratification. We cannot vote on and ratify those trade agreements, put them into effect, and get them implemented absent the President of the United States sending them to Capitol Hill. That is something on which Republicans would love to work with the President.

We would also love to work with the President on a moratorium on regulations. I think it would make perfect sense, given what we know about what small businesses are telling us in terms of creating jobs and hiring people and investing capital, that regulation is a huge impediment to that. So why not--at least for the foreseeable future, until such time as we start getting this unemployment rate down and get people back to work--put a moratorium on all these crazy regulations coming out of Washington, DC?

There are literally millions of jobs that are impacted by these various regulations according to estimates that have been put forward by organizations such as the chamber of commerce and others. There are millions of jobs in this country impacted by the issue of regulation. I would think it would make perfect sense for this President to say to us, as part of his jobs package, his jobs plan: We want to work with you to put a moratorium on regulations for a 2-year period, until the end of his term in office--whatever that period is--but at least some amount of time so businesses know with some certainty that if they invest their dollars, they are not going to be slapped with some new regulation coming out of Washington, DC.

There was a story just this morning about 500 jobs lost in the State of Texas over a new EPA regulation. We have seen examples of that in my State of South Dakota. We have had coal-fired powerplants that have been nixed simply because of this uncertainty that has been created by regulations coming from Washington, DC. That is something that Republicans on Capitol Hill--if the President wants to be proactive in terms of job creation and actually having a forward-looking proposal and plan for job creation, he would certainly get cooperation from lots of folks on our side of the aisle when it comes to the issue of regulations.

Another thing we would be more than happy to work with the President on is broad-based and comprehensive tax reform. We all talk about it, and nobody seems to be willing, at least from the President's perspective, to put forward a proposal that would actually broaden the tax base in this country, lower the rates on businesses and individuals. I think it would lead to an enormous amount of economic growth. Most people and businesses I talk to suggest that right now in America the complexity in the Tax Code, the rates in our Tax Code, make us anticompetitive.

We lose jobs every single day to other countries around the world that have lower tax rates. Businesses are taking their capital and investing it overseas, creating jobs overseas, and are opposed to putting it in our country because our rates are not competitive. Our corporate tax rate at 35 percent is the second highest in the world. We are second only to Japan, and they were going to lower theirs prior to the tsunami.

The fact is, we have tax rates in America today that are making it very difficult for our businesses to compete and to keep those jobs and keep that investment in this country.

What can we do about that? Well, if we had broad-based tax reductions on individuals and small businesses in this country, lowered taxes on investment, I think we would see an explosion of economic growth and get these businesses--provided that there is enough certainty associated with that. In other words, we don't do it for a short period of time, we do it for a long period of time. If we do that, we will see businesses pick up on that signal from Washington, DC, and begin to invest again and get a rate structure that is competitive with other countries around the world.

Tax reform regulations, regulatory reform, a moratorium on regulations, trade, those are all issues that we are more than willing to work with this President on if he is willing to work with us because those are policies proven over time that actually will create jobs. Again, they are the things we consistently hear.

I dare to say that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are hearing the same thing I am hearing. I hear it from colleagues on my side who are repeatedly visited by small businesses in their travels in their individual States, and when they go to make contact with their small businesses they hear this over and over. These are the issues the American business communities are saying we need to address to get people back to work in this country.

I am certainly hopeful the President will change directions away from what he is proposing to do now, which is a very similar path to what was done 2 years ago, which we all know has been unsuccessful. If we look at it based upon the metrics--and, again, I am talking about job creation. If we look at it based upon the employment rate, the unemployment rate has gone up. The number of jobs lost has gone up. The amount of our debt has gone up by $4 trillion. We have borrowed more, we are spending more, and we are getting nothing in return--in fact, the very opposite of what we hope to get; that is, job creation. That approach has not worked.

Let's not double down on that and go back and try the same failed policies again. Let's change direction. Let's go in a different direction for this country, and I would hope the President would do that.

The other thing that I think is particularly troubling about his proposal--not to mention some of the things that he put out in his speech last week that give me a good amount of heartburn in terms of the direction he is headed--is how he proposes to pay for that. It was indicated yesterday that 90 percent of the cost of this stimulus bill would be paid for by allowing or preventing people from taking deductions--the two top income tax rates in this country and the people who are in those income tax brackets, to be able to claim deductions on their tax returns.

Well, that impacts millions of Americans and millions of job creators, millions of small businesses, not to mention a lot of charities. Many of the people who contribute to charities today don't do it simply because of the tax consequence, but the amount they contribute to a charity is affected by the Tax Code, and reducing the amount they can deduct is going to make it more difficult for many of our charitable organizations that rely upon the

generosity of people. In many cases these are high-income people in this country.

That being said, raising taxes, in my view, is not the way to pay for a new stimulus, a stimulus 2.0, an approach that has been tried and failed. It is something we should not be moving toward, but moving away from, and moving in a different direction.

Again, we have no greater priority in America today than getting this economy growing, creating jobs, getting people back to work. That helps bring in more revenue in the Federal Government and helps deal with our issue of the deficit and the debt. There are two ways we can deal with that: We can reduce spending, and we can grow the economy. We have to do both.

Certainly, those are not unrelated. When we reduce spending, that is essential to growing the economy. We also have to put policies in place that will grow the economy and create jobs. Raising taxes is not the way to do that, and so the President's proposal to pay for his new stimulus bill which raises taxes on people is a wrongheaded approach that has not worked in the past. It will not work in the future. We need to try a different direction.

Republicans are willing, ready, and able to work with this President on passing trade agreements that have been languishing around here, literally, for 4 to 5 years; on reducing the overreaching regulations, which are creating economic uncertainty for our small businesses across this country; and on tax reform that would lower rates and broaden the tax base and bring in an incredible explosion of economic growth and jobs.

Those are the types of things we ought to be looking at--long-term policies that will affect in a positive way the environment, the atmosphere for our job creators, not doing another Washington-directed spending program that has already demonstrated that it doesn't work.

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

Mr. President, today I join the Rapid City Police Department in honoring Officer Tim Doyle.

Officer Doyle was serving temporarily on the Street Crimes Unit, before resuming his work as a school liaison officer. The Street Crimes Unit was specially designed to handle public nuisance issues and has made noticeable improvements to the quality of life in Rapid City neighborhoods. During what seemed to be a typical stop on August 2, 2011, Officer Doyle was one of three officers shot while on duty. Officer Doyle was shot in the face, and two of his fellow officers, Officer Ryan McCandless and Officer Nick Armstrong, later died from their injuries.

Officer Doyle left the hospital 1 week after the shooting and then returned to work in less than 3 weeks. He assumed his newly assigned position as a Central High School liaison officer in time for the first week of school, with his jaw still wired shut and a bullet lodged in his chest.

Officer Tim Doyle is a four-year veteran of the Rapid City Police Department, and a certain hero. Tim joined the Rapid City Police Department on July 30, 2007. He was hired as a police officer assigned to the Field Services Division. In August 2010, he was assigned as the school liaison officer for Southwest Middle School in Rapid City, SD.

Originally from Minnesota, he received his bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City. He worked as an engineer in Minnesota for more than a decade before returning to Rapid City to pursue a career in law enforcement.

Officer Doyle continues to recover quickly, due to his remarkable courage and the incredible support of his family, friends, fellow officers, and the Rapid City community.

On September 14, 2011, Officer Tim Doyle will be honored with two awards from the Rapid City Police Department. He will receive the Distinguished Service Cross, which is bestowed upon members who distinguish themselves by demonstrating exceptional bravery, despite an imminent risk of serious bodily injury or death. Officer Doyle will also receive the Purple Heart medal, awarded for a serious physical injury received in the line of duty.

So today I wish to honor this extraordinary public servant. I extend my thoughts, prayers and best wishes to Officer Doyle, his family, friends, his fellow public servants in the Rapid City Police Department, as well as the community at large who have shown outstanding support.

Mr. President, today I recognize Larry Gerlach. Larry Gerlach was born October 6, 1946, in Britton, SD. In 1967, he married Susan O'Connor, and they made their home in Aberdeen. Larry quickly made himself known throughout the community for his love of the area and his resolve to see it grow and prosper.

Larry became a member of the Brown County Fair Board in the 1980s and served on the board for 6 years. He became the president in 1989, and in January 1992, Larry was named the Brown County Fair manager. His ambition and driven attitude helped develop the Brown County Fair into one of the largest fairs in the region. He was able to book some of the biggest names in country music to perform at the grandstand that is being named in his honor. His friends, family, and coworkers all remember him as having an upbeat and positive attitude, and he was regarded by all as a joy to be around.

Larry received many prestigious awards in his life, among them was the 1996 People's Choice ABBY Award from the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce. In addition, he served as the president of the South Dakota Association of Fairs from 1997-2001, and in 2003, Larry was inducted into the South Dakota Fairman's Hall of Fame.

Unfortunately, Larry passed away in February of 2011. Although we are saddened by this loss, Larry's memory will live on through his loved ones and those who were fortunate to work closely with him. Larry's sense of determination, ambition, and positive attitude helped make the Brown County Fair the tremendous success it is today, as well as made him a greatly respected man within the Brown County community and the entire state. He will be greatly missed by all.

Mr. President, today I recognize Bo Bruinsma, an intern in my Sioux Falls, SD, office, for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several weeks.

Bo is a graduate of Elk Point-Jefferson High School in South Dakota. Currently he is attending the University of South Dakota, where he is majoring in political science and mass communications with a Spanish minor. He is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Bo for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize Erin Duffy, an intern in my Washington, DC office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past couple months.

Erin is a graduate of St. Thomas More High School in Rapid City, SD. Currently, she is attending Stanford University, where she is majoring in international relations and economics. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Erin for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize Lauren Haahr, an intern in my Washington, DC office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past couple months.

Lauren is a graduate of Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls, SD. Currently, she is attending the University of Iowa, where she is majoring in economics and ethics & public policy. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Lauren for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize Philip Henzlik, an intern in my Rapid City, SD office, for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past couple months.

Philip is a graduate of Stevens High School in Rapid City and recently of Wyoming State University in Laramie, WY. He will be attending Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR, majoring in dentistry. He is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Philip for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.