Floor Statements

Mr. President, the American credit card is maxed out. We continue to add about $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion to that credit card every single year to where it is now at $14 trillion. The amazing thing is, right now it is about noon, and between now and midnight tonight when this continuing resolution expires, if nothing is done the government would shut down. We will add more than $2 billion to that debt. In a 12-hour time period between noon and midnight tonight, we will add another more than $2 billion to that $14 trillion debt that is growing by the hour.

We have a crisis in this country. We have had experts tell us, such as the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, that there is a 50-percent probability that we will see a debt crisis in the next 2 to 3 years.

Interestingly enough, there was a story in the Wall Street Journal this morning that says:

Europe's central bank became the first monetary authority

in a major developed economy to raise interest rates since

the global financial crisis struck, a sign that an era of

cheap credit is coming to a close.

It goes on to say the ECB increased its benchmark by a quarter point to 1.25 percent.

Now, if we started to see an upward tick in interest rates, it would have a profound impact on the deficit and on the debt because the experts also tell us--the Congressional Budget Office and others--that for every 1 percentage point increase in interest rates, it would cost about $140 billion every single year.

To put that into perspective, the interest on the debt in the year 2015--if we stay on our current trajectory, will exceed the amount we spend for defense. So we will be spending more on interest on the debt than we actually spend defending this country in 2015. That is assuming we did not see any kind of an increase in interest rates. If we were to see, as I said earlier, as much as a 1-percent increase in interest rates, that adds $140 billion every single year in interest costs to finance the debt. This is a serious situation which requires serious action.

We have in front of us a continuing resolution to fund the government because we did not get the work done last year. The Democratic majorities in the last year did not pass a budget, did not pass a single appropriations bill. So we are doing the unfinished work of last year. We are in the now sixth continuing resolution which, as I said, expires tonight at midnight. If nothing is done, the government would shut down, but there is an alternative. Of course, the best alternative would be to pass legislation that passed the House of Representatives earlier this year--it was voted on in the Senate and was defeated--that cut $61 billion from discretionary spending and would take us back to 2008 levels.

Just to remind my colleagues, in the last 2 years discretionary spending has increased 24 percent. That is if we do not include stimulus money. If we add stimulus money, it was 84 percent. We have seen discretionary spending increase in the last 2 years by 24 percent at a time when inflation in this country was 2 percent. So we were spending at a rate that was literally more than 10 times the rate of inflation.

I do not think the American people would think it is unreasonable-- when we are running $1.5 trillion deficits every year, when we have a $14 trillion debt--that we ought to be able to go back to 2008 spending levels. That is what the House bill did that failed in the Senate. So that triggered a negotiation, which is ongoing.

My point very simply is, there is a solution in front of us now that would prevent, at midnight tonight, the government from shutting down, and it would also fund our troops through the end of this fiscal year, which ends on September 30. So all we have to do in the Senate is--the majority leader, all he has to do is call up that House-passed bill, we move that, and it would fund the government for another week until the negotiators can come to a final conclusion on a longer term funding resolution that would take us through to the end of the fiscal year.

There is a very simple answer to all this. So there is a big debate about that particular short-term funding resolution. They say, well, maybe it cuts too deeply. All the cuts that are in that short-term funding resolution are cuts that have been agreed upon largely by both sides, by both Democrats and Republicans, and it is to the tune of about $12 billion, which is significantly less than the number both sides have agreed we ought to cut from the budget this year.

As I said, it also would fund the military. It is important we fund our troops, that we not put our military at risk of not having the funding that is necessary for them to conduct their very important duties when we are trying to fight two wars, and perhaps three. So it would fund the military through the end of this fiscal year.

So why will it not be picked up and passed by the majority leader in the Senate? Well, according to our colleagues on the other side, it is because of these ideological riders, this rigid partisanship, this insisting upon things that just absolutely do not have any support in the Congress.

Well, I want to point out something. In 2009 the other side was singing a very different tune because at that time they were passing a big spending bill, and at that time President Obama and then-Speaker Pelosi loaded such riders onto a government funding bill similar to the one now being negotiated. A senior Democratic aide is saying: Well, they are not comparable. Well, many of the same provisions--in fact, one of them was an abortion provision that was included in that particular spending bill. It goes on to say--and this is quoting a Democratic aide later on:

There is a difference between including riders on a bill

when they are supported by a majority of the Senate and just

need a vehicle and including riders on a bill because a

minority is trying to ram through something that would not

have support on its own.

Well, just to point out, the rider that was added by the House Republicans on the short-term spending bill is a ban on taxpayer funding of abortions in Washington, DC. It would affect one city in the country. Interestingly enough, it is a position that has been supported repeatedly by the leadership on the other side. The majority leader, Senator Reid, has voted for this very ban 10 times since 1995. The majority whip, Senator Durbin, has voted for this very ban 9 times since 1995. Believe it or not, the President of the United States, when he was a member of the Senate, voted for that ban twice, and he, as President, signed legislation that includes that ban.

So to suggest this is something that lacks majority support just does not pass the smell test. You cannot make an argument that it is about ideological riders that do not have majority support when you have people on both sides, by large majorities, voting for these particular riders. I think you cannot argue that this is an ideological battle because these are things that have been passed before right here in the Senate.

I think most of these--a lot of legislative things, a lot of things that get funded in government are an expression of someone's ideology. Now, there are some of us who happen to believe the taxpayers in this country should not be supporting abortion; that taxpayer funds should not be going to support abortions.

The broader debate about funding for Planned Parenthood is not just ideological, it is a funding issue because they have received somewhere on the order of over $300 million a year in taxpayer funds. So when you are looking at ways to trim government, you are looking at every area of the government. You are by definition making decisions that in some cases may be based on someone's ideology. The fact is, you cannot argue with a straight face on the floor of the Senate that

this short-term funding resolution ought to be held up over a couple of riders that have broad support by Members on both sides and have countless previous votes in support of those.

So I would suggest to my colleagues in the Senate that a shutdown at midnight tonight can be avoided very simply. All it requires is for the majority leader to pick up the bill that passed the House of Representatives yesterday; a bill that, as I said, funds the government for another week until our negotiators can come to that final conclusion, that funds the military through the end of the fiscal year, and that includes a couple of provisions that have been supported numerous times by Members on both sides in the Senate.

A shutdown is totally avoidable, but it is completely up to the majority to pick up that legislation and pass it. We cannot afford to wait to deal with out-of-control spending and debt for the reasons I just mentioned. Over 40 cents of every dollar we spend at the Federal level is borrowed. As I said before, we have seen discretionary spending increase by 24 percent over the past 2 years. What the House Republicans have proposed in terms of spending reductions, I think by any definition--I think the American people would find it to be very reasonable. It represents literally less than 2 percent of total Federal spending.

At a time when most Americans are tightening their belts, most small businesses are tightening their belts, families are having to make hard budget decisions, at least in Washington we ought to be making decisions in the best interest of getting this country back on track so we do not spend money we do not have and we are living within our means and not saddling future generations with an enormous debt, which is not fair to them and which, by the way, also has a profound impact on the economy.

Everybody makes the argument up here that somehow if we reduce Federal spending it is going to hurt the economy. Well, I would argue the opposite. If we do not get Federal spending under control, it is going to hurt the economy because you are going to see these kinds of impacts. You are going to see interest rates start going up. You are going to see inflation start going up. You are going to have people not making decisions about hiring out there in our economy because they do not believe Washington, DC, has gotten the message about getting spending and debt under control.

So I would argue to my colleagues that we have a solution, a very simple solution in front of us. It certainly does not necessitate at midnight tonight the government shutting down. I do not think that is in anybody's best interests. I do not know of anyone on this side of the aisle who wants to see that happen. All we are saying is, it is high time this government started to live within its means, started to stop spending money it does not have, started putting us on a fiscal path that will ensure that this country is around for future generations of Americans, and that we do not have young people in the future carrying around an $88,000 debt, which is what their debt will be in a few short years if we do not take steps to get Federal spending and Federal debt under control.

So I urge my colleagues--the Senator from New York got up and said: Please, Republicans, don't shut the government down. I would say to my colleagues on the other side: It is very simple. If the majority leader just picks up the House-passed bill, passes it, this crisis is averted. The negotiators can continue their discussions on a longer term solution which it sounds like they are very close to coming to a conclusion on. That is all it would require. It is a very simple solution.

I hope my colleagues will do it, and we can make sure the government continues to function, but that we start to get spending and debt under control.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, tomorrow night at midnight, unless steps are taken, we will be facing a government shutdown. When I say steps are taken, steps are taken to avoid that. That can happen one of two ways: That could be an agreement that funds the government through the end of the fiscal year, which would be September 30 of this year, and there are negotiations that continue on dealing with that issue, or there could be a short-term continuing resolution that would take us through the next week that would enable those who are negotiating a longer term agreement to continue their discussions and hopefully to conclude a successful outcome to those discussions.

I want to remind my colleagues--and I believe I have been on the Senate floor a number of times speaking to this issue, but I think it bears repeating--why we are here, why we are in the middle of the sixth continuing resolution. This is the sixth short-term continuing funding resolution that we have had to live with since the end of the fiscal year, which was September 30 of last year.

The reason we are here is because last year the Democratic majority in Congress failed to pass a budget and failed to pass a single appropriations bill. They didn't fulfill the most fundamental responsibility that we have to the American taxpayers; that is, put together a budget that funds their government. So we have funded the government through these successive continuing resolutions. As I said before, we are now in the middle of the sixth short-term funding resolution which expires tomorrow night at midnight.

My colleagues on the other side have been coming to the floor and attacking the Republicans for wanting to shut down the government. I would say to my colleagues that nothing could be further from the truth. I think everybody here recognizes that no one benefits from a government shutdown. Frankly, the effort has been made in the House of Representatives to pass a long-term funding resolution that would take us through the end of the fiscal year, through September 30 of this year, but that failed in the Senate. We had a vote on that. It failed and there has not been, since that time, any meaningful effort made on the part

of the Democrats in the Senate to put forward a proposal that might, in fact, be able to pass the Senate and ultimately pass in the House of Representatives.

So we triggered these discussions between the White House and the leadership in the House of Representatives and the leader of the Democrats in the Senate. My understanding is those discussions continue. I hope they will reach a conclusion, a successful conclusion, but until that time happens we need to do something to make sure the government stays open beyond tomorrow night at midnight. So we will receive from the House of Representatives a piece of legislation that they passed earlier today, a continuing resolution that actually reduces government spending by about $13 billion, discretionary spending, all cuts that have been agreed to by both parties, and also extends funding for the military through the end of the fiscal year.

There has been a lot of discussion about we need to provide some certainty for our military so they can plan. I agree with that absolutely. I met with members of our military, with our military leadership. It is important that we take care of the funding needs that they have through the end of this fiscal year.

So what did the House of Representatives do? They took a series of spending reductions which had been agreed upon, as I said, by both parties; they funded the military through the end of the fiscal year, through September 30; and they added a couple of provisions to that legislation that had been widely supported by both parties in the Congress.

There is a ban on abortion funding in the District of Columbia which has been supported by the Democratic leader, the Democratic whip on countless occasions. They included a provision that would prevent funding being used to bring detainees here and try them in the United States instead of at Guantanamo Bay. That is something widely supported. In fact the last time it was supported was when the Defense authorization passed late last year in December, and it passed by unanimous consent. So many of my Democratic colleagues are on record supporting all the elements that are in this continuing resolution that will be coming over to us from the House of Representatives.

The question then becomes, Who is it that is trying to trigger a government shutdown?

I am not here this evening to play the blame game. I do not think that serves anybody's interest, nor do I believe a government shutdown serves anybody's interests very well. I think the American people expect us to find solutions. They expect us to work out our differences but eventually to agree. I think that has certainly happened in the form of this continuing resolution that is coming over from the House of Representatives.

In fact, it passed the House today with 247 votes, including a number of Democrats. There were a number of Democrats who voted with the majority of Republicans in the House to pass a continuing resolution that takes on the issue of out-of-control Washington spending, which has been very clearly documented. We need to get spending under control.

We are adding to the Federal debt at a rate of $4 billion every single day, which means by tomorrow night at 6:30--it is 6:30 tonight-- tomorrow night 6:30 on Friday, we will have added another $4 billion to the debt. That is the debt meter we are running. Every single day we add $4 billion to the Federal debt that we pass on to future generations.

We are borrowing over 40 cents out of every single dollar the Federal Government spends. We cannot continue to do that. We will take in $2.2 trillion this year, spend $3.7 trillion. That is $1.5 trillion in deficits in a single year. Add that up year after year after year and we end up with a $14 trillion debt, which is where we are today. It is growing at $1.5 trillion every single year.

So we have to get spending under control. I understand there is not a lot of appetite on the other side of the aisle for taking on Federal spending. In fact, many of my colleagues on the other side thought it was an ambitious proposal when they put forward an alternative to the Republican-passed bill that cut discretionary spending by $61 billion. They put forward an alternative that cut $4.7 billion.

That is the equivalent of the Federal debt we will add in the next 24 hours. That was their, I guess, idea about a serious effort to meaningfully address deficit spending and debts. The fact is, we have to deal with the issue of out-of-control spending.

Clearly, the continuing resolution, the short-term continuing resolution that passed the House, is coming to the Senate, takes on that issue, but does it in a way that cuts spending--spending cuts that, as I said, both sides have agreed to. It is a mystery to me as to why our colleagues on the other side would reject a proposal that includes spending cuts that have been agreed upon by both sides.

Frankly, if, in fact, it is true, in the reports I have read, that Democrats would accept somewhere on the order of $43 billion in cuts for the balance of the fiscal year, this represents about $12 or $13 billion. So we are still considerably under what they have agreed to in terms of a total number, but with regard to the actual cuts that are suggested by the House-passed legislation, they are, by and large, cuts the Democrats have agreed with.

So we have agreement on these reductions in spending, we have a general agreement that we ought to fund the troops through the end of the year, and we have an agreement on the so-called riders--at least there has been agreement in the past, broad bipartisan support. I would argue that the two particular provisions on this bill are provisions that are supported by probably 70 percent of people across this country.

So we have a piece of legislation that has broad bipartisan support, that has come over to us from the House of Representatives, and that would prevent a government shutdown at midnight tomorrow night. It is a great mystery as to why our Democratic colleagues would not accept that and do what I think is in the best interests of the American people; that is, at least get us into next week, where a final negotiation on the longer term continuing resolution can be concluded.

We have a problem in this country. We have a government that is spending way beyond its means. We have to start living within our means. We cannot continue to spend money we do not have. The efforts that are being made to reduce spending are long overdue. I hope they can conclude a successful agreement on a longer term resolution that would get us through the end of this fiscal year.

But I think it is important to point out, right here right now, that we have an opportunity to prevent a government shutdown, to fund our troops through the end of the fiscal year, and to reduce, in a meaningful way, spending, with spending cuts that have been agreed to by both sides in the form of this continuing resolution that was passed in the House this afternoon, with a large number, not a large number but a significant number of Democrats supporting it.

I would suggest to my colleagues on the other side, and I hope they will work with us to make sure we avoid a government shutdown, that we fund our troops and that we make a meaningful dent in out-of-control Washington spending. I would, again, as we approach that time tomorrow night at midnight, hope the leadership on the other side will take up that legislation that was passed by the House of Representatives, give us an opportunity to vote on it. I will submit there will be a large bipartisan vote in the Senate. If we do not have a large bipartisan vote, it will suggest that there are a lot of people who have changed their positions on the issues that are included in this piece of legislation because they are all things that many of us on both sides have supported and I suspect continue to support.

That will avoid that witching hour tomorrow night at midnight, where the government shuts down. They have given us an opportunity to vote on legislation that would do that. I hope we will take them up on that.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in a couple of hours from now the Senate will vote on the Inhofe-McConnell amendment which would prevent the EPA from moving forward with dangerous--I said ``dangerous,'' but certainly harmful to business and certainly costly--greenhouse gas regulations. I would hope my colleagues in the Senate will support that amendment for a number of reasons because it bears heavily on one of the great debates we are having in the country today. I think the American people must find it confusing--I certainly do--when you get all these mixed signals coming from the elected leaders in Washington, DC.

The American people must be incredibly confused because the President has said--rhetorically, at least, he has talked about the need to reduce our dependence, our dangerous dependence, upon foreign energy. He talked recently about getting the number of barrels of oil we import every day down by one-third at the end of this decade. The fact is, we do spend $1 billion every single day on foreign oil. There is $1

billion we export from this country because of the addiction we have to foreign sources of energy.

The problem is, everything this administration is doing is contrary to that goal. If we look at policies that are coming out of Washington, DC, right now, today, they completely contradict this idea that we ought to be moving toward energy independence and getting away from this dangerous dependence we have on foreign sources of energy.

I will make a couple of points.

We have, of course, in the Gulf of Mexico the so-called permitorium. We have not been issuing permits to explore, to continue the work that is being done down there in terms of energy exploration. The Outer Continental Shelf has been put off limits by this administration, and many Federal lands where there are abundant energy resources have also been placed off limits. In fact, there were some areas that had been developed or where there were going to be permits issued for exploration in some of the States in the West where we know we have abundant energy resources that have now been repealed or pulled back by the administration--just recently, 77 in the State of Utah, 1 in the State of Montana. We have enormous resources right here in our own country we could be developing that would get us away from sending this $1 billion a day, every single day, to countries around the world because of our addiction to energy.

The other thing tried in the Congress last year was a cap-and-trade bill. It passed the House of Representatives. It passed narrowly. It was never voted upon in the Senate because there wasn't political support for it. That legislation would have also dramatically increased the cost of energy in this country, making it more expensive for our small businesses to run their operations, and imposed dramatically higher electricity and fuel costs on American consumers. That was a given. I think everybody conceded that was the case. But because there wasn't political support for it on Capitol Hill, it ended up not becoming law.

What we have now coming out of the EPA is essentially a cap-and-trade bill through the back door. The EPA has decided they will do by regulation what they could not get done--the administration could not get done--through the political process in Congress.

The point I wish to make about that is the cap-and-trade bill, which was widely debated and discussed at the time, would have driven up energy costs for people in this country. This proposal by the EPA would have the exact same impact and effect. In fact, if one is concerned about economic growth and job creation, which we all should be--Lord knows, when we have almost 9 percent unemployment and lots of people in this country looking for work, that ought to be our No. 1 priority--the fact that we would be putting policies in place that would be counter to creating jobs and getting capital deployed out there in our economy probably defies explanation, at least for most Americans.

In fact, the American Council for Capital Formation projects that the uncertainty created by the EPA's climate change regulations would increase the risk premium of capital by 30 to 40 percent.

The additional uncertainty is projected to reduce U.S. capital investment by as much as $400 billion per year.

So I would argue that if we are serious about creating jobs, if we are serious about growing the economy, why would we want to sideline hundreds of billions of dollars of capital every single year because of these onerous and costly regulations?

This is a major reason why there is $2 trillion today sitting on the sidelines. It is talked about a lot, but nobody seems to be concerned about changing that. What I hear repeatedly from those who are able to invest and have capital to put to work is, they don't like the economic uncertainty coming out of Washington. In most cases, if not in every case, it is focused on these regulations, on regulatory agencies, particularly the EPA, that continue to come up with new proposals to drive up the cost of doing business in this country.

There was a Charles River Associates study which projected the EPA's cap-and-trade regulations could increase wholesale electricity costs by 35 to 45 percent and reduce average worker compensation by $700 per year.

What is unfortunate about this whole situation is that the regulations will drive up energy and gasoline prices the most for middle- and low-income families. That is where the impact is going to be most felt.

Roger Bezdek, who is the former Director of the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the U.S. Department of Commerce, concluded recently that EPA's regulations:

. . . will impact low income groups, the elderly, and

minorities disproportionately, both because they have lower

incomes to begin with, but also because they have to spend

proportionately more of their income on energy, and rising

energy costs inflict great harm on these groups.

I would go on to point out that perhaps the greatest burden of increased energy costs resulting from these new greenhouse gas regulations will fall upon the elderly Social Security recipients who represent 20 percent of all households in this country and who depend primarily on fixed incomes. They have limited opportunity to increase their earnings from employment. They get hit the hardest. What these regulations are going to do is target and hit the people who can least afford to deal with them.

So we have an opportunity to do something about that. I think what we are seeing with the EPA and many of these government agencies is an example of overreach, which is a function, in my view, of bureaucracies that have gotten too big. We all talk about government. There is going to be, I think--I hope, at least--a great debate over the next couple years as we address this issue of spending and debt, about the size of government and how much government intervention we ought to have, and I think most Americans have concluded that government has gotten too big and it has grown too fast. Perhaps the greatest example is these Federal agencies that have this tremendous propensity to want to regulate everything they can out there, to the detriment of many of our small businesses and those who are trying to create jobs.

As an example of how much our government has grown, the historical average for this country and what we spend on the Federal Government as a percentage of our total economy, as a percentage of our GDP, is about 20.6 percent. This year, it is over 25 percent. So the government continues to expand, continues to grow relative to the economy. The private economy continues, by virtue of comparison, to shrink. We ought to be looking at what we can do to grow the private economy, what we can do to create jobs, what we can do to create economic growth in this country as opposed to the things that are being done to expand government.

The solution we have put forward today, the Inhofe-McConnell amendment, is--there has been a lot of discussion about what it would or wouldn't do, but I wish to point out for my colleagues some things it would not do because it does get at the heart of this issue, which is preventing the EPA from moving forward with these costly and burdensome regulations.

There are a number of things it does not do. It does not prohibit States from regulating greenhouse gases and addressing climate change. The amendment expressly allows States to keep existing policies in place and allows States to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as they see fit. The bill also makes clear that any changes States have adopted in their State implementation programs and title V operating permit programs pertaining to greenhouse gases are not federally enforceable.

The McConnell amendment does not overturn the agreement between the White House, California, the automakers, the EPA, and the Department of Transportation on greenhouse gas emissions from cars. A lot has been made out of that issue. That is something the McConnell amendment does not do. In fact, the amendment expressly preserves the auto agreement and the most recently enacted fuel efficiency standards.

In 2017 and beyond, the amendment ensures that any future national auto regulations concerning greenhouse gases will be decided by Congress, which, frankly, is where it should be

decided, which is why this overreach is such an example of big government gone bad.

The McConnell amendment does not overturn clean air and public health protections under the Clean Air Act. The amendment maintains all the Clean Air Act's provisions to protect the public from harmful pollution. Thousands of Clean Air Act regulations would remain untouched by this amendment. Certainly, this amendment does not, as has been suggested, gut the Clean Air Act. In fact, it is the contrary.

The amendment does, however, clarify that Congress never gave the EPA the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases for climate change purposes. That responsibility, as I said before, lies and should lie with the Congress.

Finally, the McConnell amendment does not stop the U.S. Government from taking any action to address climate change. The amendment puts Congress in charge of U.S. climate and energy policy. Also, the bill expressly preserves Federal research development and demonstration programs addressing climate change.

So if Democrats in Congress want to enact climate change regulations, I would encourage them to bring a climate change bill to the floor. This is where it should be debated, by the people's representatives, not decided by bureaucrats in some Federal agency, which is what the EPA regulations would, in effect, do.

There are a number of amendments that have been offered by our Democratic colleagues which I would describe as political cover amendments. They are hearing the same thing we are from their small businesses, from agricultural groups, and from consumers across this country about what these regulations would do and how they would adversely impact electricity and fuel costs in this country. So they are trying to give themselves some cover to be able to vote for something.

I wish to point out that all these other amendments being offered by our Democratic colleagues as alternatives to the Inhofe-McConnell amendment don't get the job done. We talked a little bit and we heard a little bit earlier today about the Rockefeller amendment, which has the 2-year delay in it. But, again, there is a very limited scope to that amendment. The temporary nature of the amendment is going to provide very little relief for businesses and consumers across this country. If it is enacted, permits for new projects and the jobs associated with those projects could be stalled until after the 2-year period. There is no assurance that any of these permits would be issued during this 2- year period when this amendment would be in effect.

The Rockefeller amendment would not stop or delay other EPA methods for increasing energy prices, such as the national ambient air quality standard for CO2. The Rockefeller amendment does not prevent climate change nuisance suits sponsored by environmental activist groups hostile to energy development.

I can say the same thing essentially about some of the other proposals out there. The Stabenow amendment also has a 2-year delay, but it allows EPA to continue moving forward with rulemaking. It just wouldn't allow them to finalize those rules until the end of the 2-year period. If the amendment is enacted, permits for new projects and the jobs associated with those projects could again be stalled until the end of that 2-year period.

There are a number of flaws in all these amendments, none of which are designed to do the job. If we are serious about doing something to address what the consumer groups, the farm organizations, and the business organizations are asking us to do; that is, to prevent the EPA from moving forward with something they don't have the statutory authority to do and should be reserved for the Congress, but they are going to move forward with it anyway--if we are serious about addressing that issue, the only alternative is to support the Inhofe- McConnell amendment. It is that simple. It is that straightforward. All these political cover amendments that are being offered by our Democratic colleagues are simply that. They are cover amendments and they don't get at the heart of the issue.

I would again go back to where I started; that is, to say we ought to, in this country, be seriously debating policies that will move us away from the dangerous dependence we have on foreign energy. As I said earlier, every policy coming out of Washington, in my view, is designed to make it more difficult to develop the very energy sources that will create a domestic energy supply in this country that would release us from this grip that foreign countries have on us with regard to energy.

I hope the Inhofe-McConnell amendment will pass today and will have bipartisan support. It has already been talked about that perhaps none of these will reach the 60-vote threshold. What I would say to my colleagues is, again, if we are serious about trying to solve this issue, if we are serious about trying to make sure electricity and fuel costs don't go up dramatically for our constituents, then this is the amendment we need to be for. The other amendments don't get at the issue. They are political cover amendments.

I think it is pretty straightforward when we look at the number of groups that have come out opposed to those amendments and in favor of the Inhofe-McConnell amendment. I will just mention briefly, again, the American Farm Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce and other small business organizations that have come out in support of the Inhofe- McConnell amendment and opposed to the amendments offered by our colleagues.

I wish to read a quote from one of those letters:

Congress, not the EPA, should be guiding America's energy

policy. Without action by lawmakers, EPA's regulations will

make it difficult to attract new manufacturing capacity and

jobs in the United States, let alone double U.S. exports in 5

years, which is what our goal has been, as President Obama

has pledged.

This letter is signed by a number of organizations, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Association of Wholesaler Distributors, the National Association of Independent Business, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As I said before, I have other letters from major farm organizations, including the American Farm Bureau, in support of the Inhofe-McConnell amendment and opposed to the other political cover amendments that are being offered by our Democratic colleagues.

Let's get this done right. Let's send a message to the EPA and to the administration that this is the job for the Congress to deal with. This is something the people's representatives should be dealing with, not unelected bureaucrats and Federal agencies that clearly have an agenda but an agenda that is completely contrary to capital formation, to competitiveness, to job creation, and to economic growth. That is what this Congress should be focused on, and that is why a vote in support of the Inhofe-McConnell amendment is so important.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this Friday we run out of the current-- which is now the sixth continuing resolution--short-term continuing resolution which we have been operating under since the end of the fiscal year, which was September 30 of last year. We started a new fiscal year October 1. Judging by some of the rhetoric we have been hearing around here, one would think somehow it is these big, bad, evil Republicans who are trying to shut the government down by trying to get a bill passed that actually would reduce spending for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends on September 30.

I remind my colleagues--and I know sometimes it gets a bit redundant--it is a fact that the reason we are here is because last year the Democrats in the Congress failed to pass a budget and did not pass a single appropriations bill. There was no budget passed last year for this fiscal year and not a single appropriations bill passed before the fiscal year ended September 30. Beyond that, we had a lameduck session where we were here, we were here after November's election until the Christmas holiday, and never did we have a budget considered on the floor, nor did we consider a single appropriations bill. The reason we are here is to finish the unfinished business of last year. This is last year's mess we are now cleaning up.

We think the voters in the election spoke pretty clearly and sent an imperative to the Congress: We want you to reduce spending.

We have been trying, as we have attempted to fund the government through the end of this fiscal year--September 30--to achieve some level of spending reductions. It started in the House of Representatives. They passed a bill that reduced spending by $61 billion over the previous year. It came over to the Senate. We had a vote on that bill to reduce and trim $61 billion, and it failed. The Democrats put a bill on the floor which would trim $4.7 billion from last year's spending level and which seemed to be completely divorced from reality as to how to seriously and meaningfully address the issue of spending and the debt and how to address the concern the American people have voiced this year over the $1.5 trillion deficits we are seeing and now we are going to see even longer since the President submitted his 2012 budget.

The reason we are here is to do last year's unfinished business; that is, getting runaway spending in Washington

under control, starting to live within our means--something every family in America has to do, something every small business in America has to do.

Here we are again coming up against this Friday deadline because there is resistance to reducing by $61 billion the amount Congress spent the previous year. The $61 billion, if one looks at the total budget, represents a little under 10 percent. Even if one looks at it in terms of discretionary spending, that amount we are actually appropriating annually that is the smaller part of the budget in Washington, it is a small percentage. We are not talking about, relatively speaking, a lot of money. I think it is reasonable. I think the American people believe it is reasonable. Yet we are having this huge meltdown around here because we do not have the political courage to do what the American people have asked us to do.

Frankly, if we were to reduce spending by the amount the Democrats propose and we had a vote in the Senate, it would be about the equivalent of 1 day of the debt. In other words, in this year, the amount of debt we are going to rack up--the amount they were talking about trimming from the budget was the equivalent of 1 single day of the Federal debt--a little over $4 billion. It was not serious. Nobody can take it seriously by any objective measurement.

To put it in perspective, in the last 2 years, spending has increased by about 24 percent. This is non-national security discretionary spending. It increased 24 percent at a time when inflation was only 2 percent in this country. Discretionary spending was growing at more than 10 times the rate of inflation. It seems reasonable that we could go back to those 2008 levels, indexed for inflation, which is what the proposal passed by the House that was defeated in the Senate would do.

We have had lots of testimony from the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, who said he expected we could face a debt crisis in the next 2 to 3 years. He said there is a 50-percent probability of that, in his opinion. We had the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, say that the biggest threat to America's national security is our national debt, which I think is a stunning statement coming from the highest ranking military official in this country. We have people saying there is the potential for a debt crisis, a 50-percent probability. We have this national security issue that is impacted by the level of spending and the level of debt. Then we have what I think, too, is an even more compelling argument because everybody talks about the need to grow the economy and create jobs, and yet this amount of spending and debt, according to most of the research that has been done, suggests we are costing ourselves as an economy about 1 percentage point of economic growth every year, which translates into about 1 million lost jobs. That is a significant, as I said, body of research that has been done that studied economies over the past half century or so and concluded there is a correlation between debt and economic growth when your debt-to-GDP ratio reaches 90 percent. We are there in the United States. We are well past 90 percent, and it is going to grow significantly more under the President's budget.

We cannot wait until tomorrow to do this. We have to attack this problem at every opportunity. Getting a vote on a continuing resolution that funds the government through the end of the year but does it at a reduced level of spending makes a lot of sense.

I do not know anybody who wants to see a government shutdown. We are here because there is unfinished business from last year. We have to get this budget passed, and we ought to do it in a way that is meaningful and serious and, I might add, reduces spending.

The President's budget, which he came out with a couple months ago and which starts the 2012 budget discussion, failed on every level to address the major challenges facing the country. Not only does he not deal with this issue of discretionary spending--and, frankly, he has been missing in action in that debate entirely--we have not heard from the administration about this issue. More important, his budget does nothing to address the big part of the budget--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--which constitutes today 55 percent of the Federal budget and will grow dramatically over time as the 80,000 baby boomers begin to retire. What he proposed in his budget is increased spending, increases in taxes, and about a $12 trillion increase in the Federal debt over the next 10 years. Nothing serious is done in terms of addressing spending, debt, or taxes.

It is a colossal failure of leadership not to take on what is the most compelling and profound issue that faces this country right now; that is, this huge cloud of debt that hangs over our economy and over our children's future. The President said recently he did not want to take a machete to this; he thought we needed to use a scalpel. What he is talking about doing I suggest does not even constitute using a toothpick. There is not anything in here that does anything to reduce spending or get serious about trimming the size of the Federal Government.

What happened today? The House Republicans came out with a budget. Lo and behold, it is a budget that actually reduces spending by $6.2 trillion over what the President's budget proposed or $5.8 trillion over what the Congressional Budget Office baseline suggests we spend over the next decade. It reduces debt by $4.4 trillion below the President's number, and it does it without raising taxes.

The first argument we heard from people coming to the floor of the Senate--and I heard some of my colleagues earlier talking about, oh, this is going to be so awful; just think of the senior citizens. I say to my colleagues, according to the House budget proposal, senior citizens are not impacted. Senior citizens are protected from any changes in Social Security or Medicare, as are people age 55 and older. If you are a senior citizen today or you are someone nearing retirement age, you are not impacted by this budget. What it does is it makes reforms in these programs so that future generations of Americans will have those programs available to them when it comes time for them to retire. The fact is--we all know this--if we do not deal with these parts of the Federal budget, we are not serious about dealing with the future.

This is a serious issue, it requires a serious solution, and it requires serious leadership. We have seen none of the above from the President or his administration or the Democratic leadership in Congress. So far, the only effort that has been made to address the issue of spending and debt and jobs and the economy is being done by the Republicans in the Congress.

Considering the fact there is only one body of the Congress that is controlled by the Republicans--the House of Representatives; the Democrats control the Senate and set the agenda, and we have a Democratic administration, a Democratic White House--one would think that to do something of this consequence and magnitude, it would take a bipartisan effort. One would assume this would be a bilateral discussion that would be occurring between the White House and the Congress and not just the Democrats in Congress but the Republicans. But none of that seems to be occurring, and there does not seem to be any interest on the part of the President in stepping forward and putting a plan forward that actually does reduce spending, that actually does deal with this massive debt, and that actually gets serious about putting people back to work, growing the economy, and creating jobs. His budget, as I said, increases spending by $400 billion, increases taxes by $1.5 trillion, and adds somewhere on the order of over $12 trillion to the Federal debt. That is the President's budget.

The Republican budget that was put forward today--and I am sure we are not going to agree with every aspect of it, but at lease it is a serious, meaningful effort--reduces spending by $6.2 trillion over the President's number and $5.8 trillion below what the Congressional Budget Office says it will spend over the next decade. It reduces debt $4.4 trillion more than what the President has put forward, and it actually gets government spending as a percentage of our gross domestic product under 20 percent, which is where our historical average has been for the last 40 years. That is what we have been looking at. It takes on these issues.

Whether one likes the approach or not, please at least let's have a discussion about it. Let's have a debate and

let's have a proposal put forward so that we have something we can actually have a discussion about because so far all we have is a one- sided discussion. The Republicans have led the debate about how to deal with the discretionary part of the budget we are dealing with in this continuing resolution, and the Republicans have the only proposal that has been put forward that deals with the long-term issues of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and tax reform, which, by the way, is an important issue to our competitiveness and our ability to grow the economy and create jobs. All those issues are addressed in the budget put forward by the House.

What has been put forth by the administration is not serious. These are serious times that require serious leadership and serious solutions by the President of this country, and we are not getting that out of the White House, nor are we getting it out of the Democratic leadership in the Senate. I hope that will change. I hope my colleagues here in the Senate will recognize and the President will recognize we can't afford to wait any longer.

We have added over $3 trillion to the Federal debt in the first 2 years of this President's administration, and that number, as I said, will grow by about $12 trillion over the next decade. The interest alone that we will pay by the year 2015 will exceed what we spend on national security. We will spend more on interest on the debt than we actually spend on the defense of this country. That is the trajectory we are on. We cannot afford for the future of our children and grandchildren to stay on that trajectory. We have to change the direction we are headed in this country and it starts now.

So I give great credit to our House colleagues. I hope we will be able to get to a meaningful discussion here in the Senate about how to get spending and debt under control, how to grow the economy and create jobs, and how to rein in the size of the Federal Government. It seems that, here at least, a lot of my colleagues must be very comfortable with spending over 25 percent of our GDP on the Federal Government because that is where we are today. As I said before, the 40-year average is down in the 20- to 21-percent range, which is where the House Republican budget would take us. I think it is a good starting point. It should trigger, I hope, a discussion in this country.

But I certainly hope as well that the other side, the Democrats here in the Congress and White House, would engage the debate, would enter this discussion. Please, put forward an alternative, instead of coming out here and attacking, and particularly attacking in a way that is misleading and misinforming. Senior citizens are not impacted by this proposal that was put forward today. If you are 55 years or older, you are not affected by this. You keep the programs you have today. What this does, in a meaningful way, is to reform those programs so that they are available to future generations of Americans. We have a moral obligation to them to take the steps necessary to provide a future that doesn't saddle them with a mountain of debt.

By the way, that debt has grown from about $1,900 per person in 1970 to $44,000 per person today. Under the President's budget, 10 years from now, it will be $88,000 per person. That is what we are doing to the future of our children and grandchildren unless we take steps to change our direction.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the recently deceased Brigadier General (Ret.) Henry A. Smith, Jr., a WWII veteran, for all of his service during and after WWII to South Dakota and the United States.

General Smith served both in the European Theater and in the Far East Command. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and was honored with the Bronze Star with one Oak Leaf Cluster. After the war, General Smith continued to serve his country in the South Dakota National Guard. He served as executive officer of the 196th Regimental Combat Team and was ordered to active duty in 1950, spending time in both Colorado and Alaska. When his unit returned, General Smith became commander of the 196th Regimental Combat Team, SDNG. He was appointed assistant adjutant general, SDNG in 1964. General Smith was transferred to the Retired Reserves in 1970, and continued serving his country in that capacity for the remainder of his life.

I would like to express my sincere appreciation of General Smith's service to both South Dakota and the United States and to extend my condolences to his family.

Mr. President, today I recognize Augustana College of Sioux Falls, SD. Founded in 1861, Augustana celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.

Augustana College is located in Minnehaha County and upholds Christian values that inspire excellence in students and service in the community. This institution is a profound example of quality higher education in South Dakota. After moving to several different locations, Augustana found permanent residence in Sioux Falls, SD, in 1918. Augustana College has much to be proud of, and I am confident that Augustana's success will continue well into the future.

Success is fostered from Augustana's core values of Christianity, integrity, community, and service. These values are intertwined into a liberal arts education and prepare students for the challenges and triumphs they will face after graduation.

Augustana will commemorate the sesquicentennial of its founding with celebrations on April 16, featuring historic galleries, speakers, and entertainment. I would like to offer my congratulations to the students, parents, faculty, and alumni of this institution on this milestone anniversary and wish them continued prosperity in the years to come.

Mr. President, I rise also to speak to the issue of the health care reform bill, which my colleague from Arizona has pointed out is now seeing its 1-year anniversary. I think it is good to put in perspective the issues most Americans care about.

As I travel my State of South Dakota and elsewhere in this country, I hear repeatedly what most Americans think we ought to be focused on right now in Washington, DC; that is, the economy, job creation, spending, and debt. They believe those are the issues that are most important. I think the public

opinion polls reflect that. If we look at any public opinion poll today, generally, they are in that order: It will be jobs, the economy, spending, and debt.

As I look at what this health care bill has done--and use the metric of jobs and the economy and spending and debt and look at it on the 1- year anniversary--I think we would have to say this has been a major failure in terms of speaking to or addressing the issues the American people care the most about.

On the issue of jobs and the economy, there were lots of statements made about this when it was passed; that it was going to create lots of jobs. The former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said, in its life, the health care bill will create 4 million jobs; 400,000 jobs almost immediately. Yet we have the CBO Director recently testifying that the new law will reduce employment over the next decade by 800,000 jobs.

So we have a piece of legislation that is going to, according to the CBO, cost us jobs in the economy. Couple that with the fact that it will raise taxes, and raise taxes dramatically on the economy, by $\1/ 2\ trillion in the first 10 years, $1 trillion dollars when it is fully implemented, and we see that businesses will pass those costs on to the people in this country who buy things--consumers--and, obviously, it leads to higher costs for a lot of these items.

It leads to higher health care costs because most of those taxes were imposed upon health insurance companies, on pharmaceutical companies and on medical device manufacturers and many of those costs are being passed on. One would have to argue very hard to suggest that any kind of a tax increase is going to create more jobs. In fact, historically, it is very clear that any time we raise taxes, it actually costs the economy jobs.

So we have the CBO Director talking about the loss of jobs, we have the fact that we have some massive tax increases in this legislation that will cost us jobs, and we also drive up the cost of doing business in this country because we are increasing the cost of health care for a lot of small businesses that are trying to provide coverage to their employees.

What we have seen consistently is an argument from the other side that this was going to drive down the cost of health care. Yet, again, the facts tell an entirely different story.

There was a statement made by the President: Reform will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government. Again, the Chief Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates the law will increase costs by $311 billion in the first 10 years alone, over and above normal inflation. CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, estimates the new law will increase health care spending by the Federal Government by $464 billion over the next decade. CBO estimates when it is fully implemented, the law will increase insurance premiums on a family policy by an average of $2,100 per year--increased costs of health insurance for employers and employees, which is going to cost the economy jobs. It drives up the cost of doing business in this country. All these factors in this health care legislation contribute to a loss of jobs because they make it more expensive for small businesses in this country.

If you use the metric of job creation and how this legislation impacts the economy, I think you would have to describe it as a major failure. The American people determine what is important. They have decided, and rightly so, when you have as high unemployment as we have in this country today, job creation should be the No. 1 priority of their policymakers in Washington, DC. In fact, we should be looking at policies that will be conducive to job creation, not policies that will inhibit job creation. The massive health care law that was passed last year will have exactly the opposite effect we should be striving for when it comes to jobs. We ought to be looking for policies that will create jobs. This actually will cost the economy jobs. You have the metric of job creation. If you measure the health care bill against that a year later, I think you would have to say it was a complete failure.

The issues I mentioned that also bear on what is important to Americans today, spending and debt--how does health care legislation stack up against those criteria? First, with regard to spending, we all know by now that when it is fully implemented this new health care legislation will cost $2.6 trillion, a $2.6 trillion expansion of government--literally the largest expansion of the Federal Government in the last half century. You would have to go back to the 1960s to find a time that you see the government expand at the rate we have seen in the last 2 years alone, and that is reflected in the debt and deficit figures over the last 2 years.

Since President Obama took office, the debt in this country has grown by over $3 trillion. In fact, if the budget he presented is implemented, that total debt will double by the end of the next decade. If you take a $14 trillion gross debt, almost $14 trillion--which is where it is today--if the President's budget is implemented you would see that debt double over the course of the next decade to over $26 trillion.

You have massive amounts of borrowing, massive amounts of debt, massive amounts of new spending and tax increases, all of which create an environment in which it is going to be very difficult for our economy and for the job creators to create jobs. But you have grown significantly the size of government.

How about the issue, as I said earlier, of debt? We talk a lot about the $14 trillion gross debt we have today. We have a lot of research out there that suggests when you are carrying that kind of debt load, if you sustain it over any amount of time it is going to cost you a significant amount of economic growth. In fact, there is a good body of research out there that suggests when you have a gross debt-to-GDP ratio of 90 percent or higher, which is where we are today, it costs you about 1 percent a year.

The President's former economic advisor, Christina Romer, said anytime you lose a percentage point of economic growth it costs you a million jobs. If we are losing, because of this high level of debt, a percentage point of economic growth every year, we are losing a million jobs every year as a result of that as well.

How does the whole health care debate bear on this issue of debt in the long term? I think it is important, again, to point out that many of the things that were put into this bill, that were designed to be used as offsets to pay for the bill, end up in the outyears adding massively to the deficit. I will use a good example of that, the CLASS Act, a new long-term care entitlement program which was put into this bill. At the time it was being debated it was actually described by the chairman of the Budget Committee, the Democratic chairman, as a Ponzi scheme of the highest order, something Bernie Madoff would be proud of. That is how the CLASS Act was described. That particular act, and its creation, was used as a $70 billion offset to pay for the new massive health care entitlement program.

What is going to happen, and we are finding out now more and more about this, is that particular program, although it generates some revenue in the early years, runs huge deficits when you get into the outyears because of the way the program is structured, because of adverse selection. Because of the way the program was designed in the first place you start adding massively to deficits in the outyears. Secretary Sebelius, at the Department of Health and Human Services, admitted to me in answer to a question at the Senate Finance Committee, that the CLASS Act program is ``totally unsustainable.''

During yesterday's Finance Committee hearing I asked the question about whether there was actuarial modeling done prior to the law's passage so that Democrats and Health and Human Services would have known how bad this program is, and she would not respond to or answer that question.

I asked Chairman Conrad, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, for a hearing to look at these actuarial models that Health and Human Services has developed to analyze the CLASS Act. Why has she come to the conclusion that it is totally unsustainable when many of us knew that in advance? In fact, that is what CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, was saying in advance.

We have created these new entitlement programs that are going to lead

massively to higher deficits and more debt well into the future, the CLASS Act being one example of that. I suggest as well that when you create a $2.6 trillion new entitlement program, if history is any indication, that would dramatically understate what the true costs are. We have seen that historically, that whatever the estimates are about some of these new government programs, they are significantly less than what was estimated when they were created in the first place.

I would argue on the issue of how the new health care bill on its first anniversary impacts the issue of debt, we are not going to know probably for some time but I think we can get a pretty clear idea that this is going to lead to much higher deficits and much higher debt in the outyears because of the statement the Congressional Budget Office and the CMS Actuary and even now the Secretary of Health and Human Services are saying with regard to programs such as the CLASS Act-- which was created under this bill.

I think the other reason you are going to see the debt and deficit explode is because of the gimmicks that were used by the Democrats to finance the health care bill. I mentioned the CLASS Act was one of those, but there were a number of other gimmicks that were used as well. There was the Medicare payroll tax increases, the Medicare cuts that are supposed to occur under this to pay for the new health care entitlement program. It was also indicated at that time they were going to extend the lifespan of Medicare. Essentially, what happened is the same revenues were spent twice; they were double counted. In other words, there was new revenue going to come into the Medicare trust fund because of increased payroll taxes and because of the reductions in spending in those Medicare accounts that allegedly would create a credit for the Medicare trust fund. Unfortunately, all those new revenues are going to be used to finance this new health care entitlement program.

Somewhere down the road, when the time comes to pay the bills of Medicare, you are going to have to borrow money to do that because of the way these gimmicks were used and the way the double counting was used, not only to credit the Medicare trust fund but also to use it as an offset for the new health care entitlement program.

If you look at the actual numbers it is somewhere on the order of $400 billion that was double counted in the Medicare trust fund and about $30 billion, I believe, was the number on the Social Security trust fund. For these gimmicks, the chickens are going to come home to roost at some point in the future and it is going to lead to significantly larger deficits and a much higher debt than we are looking at today, than what was contemplated when the legislation was passed in the first place.

Whether it is the gimmicks that were used, whether it is these new entitlement programs such as the CLASS Act, whether it is the actual cost--even estimated cost of $2.6 trillion in new expansion of government, whether it is the loss of jobs associated with the higher taxes, the higher health care premiums in this legislation, if you are going to evaluate it based upon the issues that are most important to the American people--and that is the economy, jobs, spending, and debt--on the first anniversary of this health care reform legislation, this has been already a huge failure by any objective measurement. My guess is before this is all said and done we are going to continue to see more and more of our employers having to drop their coverage, perhaps pay the penalty rather than continue to provide coverage for their employees, and push them into the government program.

I think you are going to see more and more government control, more and more influence and intervention of the Federal Government, more and more cost to taxpayers, and higher and higher health care costs for small businesses and for families and for individuals in this country. On the first year anniversary of this legislation, I think the best thing Congress could do would be to repeal it and start over with commonsense health care reforms that will actually reduce the cost of health care, that will be fiscally responsible, that will not break the bank, and that will help get us on a path where we can create jobs and get the economy growing again rather than inhibiting that.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, today I recognize India Aderhold, an intern in my Aberdeen, SD, office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months.

India is a native of Bath, SD. Currently, she is taking classes from Thomas Edison State College, where she is pursuing a major in English. She is a very 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 India for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Madam President, I rise to talk about our Nation's security and what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, recently said is the greatest threat to America's future. He mentioned not too long ago that the greatest threat to America's national security is our national debt, not al-Qaida or the Iranian nuclear threat or instability in the Middle East or Russian spies but our national debt.

That is a stunning statement, but I think it is backed up by the numbers. We are more than $14 trillion in debt.

It took 220 years of American history, up to the beginning of 2009 and with 43 American Presidents, to pile up $6.3 trillion in publicly held debt. Under the Obama administration's latest budget, we will double that in another 2 years and triple it in 10. That budget calls for a sizable annual deficit every single year for the next 10 years. The smallest budget deficit we would face would be $607 billion in the year 2015, and then our deficits would start rising again.

That is what the White House calls a balanced budget. I would call it a joke, but it is no laughing matter. We just learned China holds even more of our debt than the Treasury had previously thought--26 percent of total U.S. debt held by foreigners. The President's budget inevitably would add to that.

That crushing debt burden we are imposing on future generations will seriously limit their ability to live the American dream. For generations in this country, parents have sacrificed so their children could have a better life, but today we are standing that tradition on its head. Excessive spending and debt threaten to make the next generation the first in our history to have a lower standard of living than the one that came before. That was not what my parents did. My father fought in World War II. He worked hard as a teacher, a coach, he drove the schoolbus, ran a motel in my hometown, and basically did any job he could and made whatever sacrifices he needed to make in order to keep our family fed, clothed, and sheltered. His father before him, my grandfather, traveled to this country from Norway and worked doing hard labor laying the railroad across the Plains. He started his own hardware store and ran it through the Depression and war until he couldn't work anymore. He knew what it meant to sacrifice to take care of his family.

But today, Washington seems to be saying the generations to follow us will have to sacrifice so we will not have to make the tough choices. We don't want to do the hard work of living within our means, so our children and our grandchildren will just have to get by on less. Every one of us in this Congress should be ashamed of that prospect.

But more than shame for what we are doing to future generations, we should be alarmed about what we are doing to our economy today. That skyrocketing debt means a burden of uncertainty on our businesses, small and large alike. When businesses and people are uncertain if there will be a fiscal crisis, they limit their investment. Added to the stifling amount of overregulation coming out of Congress and the administration these past 2 years, it means businesses have one more reason to worry about whether they can afford to add another person to the payroll. That means fewer jobs.

One influential study, endorsed by none other than Treasury Secretary Geithner, found that countries with very high debt burdens suffer from lower economic growth rates. Median growth rates for countries with public debt above roughly the 90 percent of GDP threshold are about 1 percent lower than otherwise. The reasons for this are simple: Government borrowing crowds out private investment. The less productive public sector takes resources that could and would be better used by the more productive private sector.

We have already crossed the dangerous 90 percent threshold--gross debt was 93 percent of GDP at the end of last fiscal year and will top the 100 percent barrier by the end of this fiscal year. Under the President's budget, the debt will continue to grow rapidly, eventually reaching 107 percent of GDP--and that is even with the gimmicks and questionable assumptions the White House budget proposal contains, including what I believe are very unrealistic economic growth assumptions.

President Obama's own economic advisers have estimated that a 1- percent increase in GDP translates into 1 million more jobs. Many more people would have jobs today if it weren't for this crushing debt burden.

We did finally have some good news last Friday about private sector job creation. Nobody was happier than I to see that. But the fact remains that the labor force participation rate in the latest unemployment figures was unchanged at 64.2 percent, the lowest level it has been since the early 1980s. A lot of workers have been so discouraged with the lack of jobs they have simply stopped looking.

Let us not forget our recovery so far has lagged far behind past recessions. At this point after the 1981-1982 recession, the economy had already expanded to 10 percent. But the current recovery has only expanded the economy by .14 percent. That is not good enough. We all know if we don't act soon to get control of Federal spending and our soaring debt, any good news will be short-lived.

For 2 years, the Pied Pipers of big government told us they could spend their way out of financial troubles; that the money was free and it would lead to jobs, jobs, jobs. Well, they were wrong, and 2 years of their policies have left us dramatically worse off. It is simple: Too much government spending means too much government debt. That means a weaker economy and fewer jobs.

I think we are finally at the point where most people, even here in Washington, are willing to concede we need to get a handle on our spending. Even the Obama administration--the biggest spending White House in history--has finally come around to the realization that just maybe we should let the credit card cool off a bit.

There is no better time in America's history to change course regarding Federal spending. We are at a moment when we are about to get hit by a succession of three budgetary waves. First, the end of the 2- week continuing resolution on March 18. Then we will have to address the debt limit sometime this spring. After we have dealt with those two matters, we need to take up the budget for fiscal year 2012 because the new fiscal year is only 6 months away.

None of those is a mystery. None of them snuck up on us. We have seen them all coming. We have had plenty of warning. We have no excuse for being unprepared. I am confident we can come together and solve all three of those issues. We showed we can do it with the 2-week CR, finding $4 billion of spending that we could agree was not our most important national priority right now and could be cut. Thanks to the great work of our friend and colleague, Dr. Coburn, the GAO has confirmed there are hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and duplication we can begin to scrub out of our Federal budget.

That is our short-term situation--those three challenges. But there has also been talk of a balanced budget amendment, and I am a cosponsor of two balanced budget amendments. That is not a short-term fix. That is a long-term issue. So that is the short term and the long term.

In the midterm, we need to come up with additional solutions to get us off what I call Federal fiscal irresponsibility, budgetary brinksmanship, and deficits as far as the eye can see. We need to get back on the path of prosperity, and that path cannot be built on borrowed money and reckless spending. Getting back on the right path will require us to fix our broken budget process.

To that end, I am proud to reintroduce a bill I introduced last year that would establish commonsense reforms to improve transparency and efficiency in our budgeting process. I am proud Senators Chambliss, Crapo, Inhofe, Johanns, Kirk, Portman, and Wicker have joined me in cosponsoring S. 439, the Deficit Reduction and Budget Reform Act of 2011.

If we don't do something to fix this broken system and soon, we are going to keep getting hit by these budget waves, and sooner or later they are going to sink us.

My proposal has three main parts. The first is budget reforms. I propose we start by reforming pay-go rules to prevent the double- counting gimmicks that too often are used around here, particularly with regard to our trust funds. We saw that double counting occur during the health care debate last year, when hundreds of billions of dollars were doubled counted--essentially spent twice--during the health care debate.

My proposal would make the Federal budget a binding joint resolution signed into law by the President. Today, it is a nonbinding resolution and routinely gets waived.

My proposal calls for a biannual budget timeline. There is more time

for oversight and to see what is working doing a budget every other year--during the odd-numbered years--and then during the even-numbered years doing oversight. So instead of looking for ways to spend taxpayer dollars, we look for ways to save taxpayer dollars.

My proposal also calls for a legislative line-item veto. Governors have it; the President should too.

My proposal would prevent the abuse of emergency spending designations, which, again, have become all too routine and all too frequent around here, to get around spending caps.

My proposal calls for the creation of a new CLASS Act trigger, if that new entitlement program is not solvent over a 75-year timeframe.

I would also modify the Medicare cost containment trigger to have honest accounting with respect to revenues and savings in the new health care bill.

My proposal also would update the Credit Reform Act to score the purchases of debt, stock, equity, and capital using a discount rate that incorporates market risk rather than the procedure that has been used in the past which, in my view, completely understates the cost of many of these programs.

I call for a new standing joint committee of Congress for budget deficit reduction. If you can believe this, there are 26 committees or subcommittees that spend tax dollars and not one that saves tax dollars. That joint committee would be responsible for producing a bill to cut the deficit by at least 10 percent every budget cycle without raising taxes. This bill would get expedited consideration in both Chambers of Congress and use only spending reductions, not tax increases. Tax increases would be off the table. A standing committee-- not just issuing one report and closing up shop--its recommendations would get an up-or-down vote in Congress.

There is a precedent for doing this. I see the Senator from West Virginia on the floor. Back in the 1940s, there was a Senator from West Virginia named Harry Byrd. As they were debating whether to raise taxes to fund World War II, he came up with an idea and said: Before we do that, we ought to look at savings we can find in our Federal budget. So he proposed a joint committee called the Joint Committee on the Reduction of Nonessential Federal Expenditures. They went about the process of scrubbing the Federal budget to see if there might be savings that could be achieved that would prevent having to raise taxes to fund the war effort. In the process of doing that, that committee achieved a great many things. It was in existence for about 30 years.

What this would do is draw on that precedent and create a joint standing committee in the Congress that would be bicameral--10 House Members, 10 Senate Members--bipartisan--10 Republicans and 10 Democrats--and would have a statutory requirement each budget cycle for coming up with a specified amount of savings in deficit reductions through spending reductions.

What would we do in the short term? This proposal would freeze and cap spending. It would propose a 10-year spending freeze at 2008 levels adjusted for inflation. After all, nondefense discretionary spending has increased at an alarming rate since 2008--a 22-percent increase, when inflation has been roughly 2 percent. In other words, nondefense discretionary spending has grown in the last 2 years at 10 times the rate of inflation.

As I said, this is not a quick fix. No plan is going to solve our problems overnight, and I hope we do not take seriously anyone who claims to have a plan that will. But just the same, I do not think we should take seriously any plan that claims that an annual deficit of $607 billion is the same as a balanced budget. It is not the same, and it is not good enough. The only thing that is good enough for our children and for the future prosperity of this great country is for us to get our fiscal house in order and to embrace responsible budgeting. We cannot continue to spend money we do not have. We have to learn. Like the American people have learned to live within their means, we have to learn how to tighten our belts.

I wish to close with a couple of statements.

I mentioned earlier the statement by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, with regard to the greatest threat to our national security being our national debt, but I also want to quote what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the unexpected $1.3 trillion U.S. deficit. She referred to it as a ``message of weakness internationally,'' and she went on to say:

It poses a national security threat in two ways: it

undermines our capacity to act in our own interest, and it

does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable.

That is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with regard to these year- over-year massive deficits we continue to run.

Just today, we heard that PIMCO, one of the largest mutual funds in the country, has decided to dump government debt--its government debt. In that story that came out today that was discussing that particular move on their part, there was a quote from a gentleman, Jim Rogers, who is the cofounder of the Quantum Fund. He said:

U.S. Government bonds are not a safe haven. I cannot

conceive of lending money to the U.S. Government for 30

years.

Think about that--the United States of America is being viewed increasingly as an unsafe investment because of this massive debt we are running and what it could mean to the future with regard to inflation and interest rates and the health of our economy and its attractiveness to people not only here at home but around the world as a place for investment.

We have a major problem. These are serious times. These are serious problems. These are serious challenges. They require serious solutions and serious leadership. I hope here in the Senate we are up to that.

As I said before, it starts on several levels. In the near term, we need to get the spending under control. We are trying to do that with the discretionary spending bill that is in front of us. We need to deal with the longer term issue. I hope we can pass a balanced budget amendment. We have had votes on that in the past here in Congress, unsuccessfully, narrowly. But we need to put in place what so many States have that require them on an annual basis to balance their budgets. Then we need to put in place budget process reforms that, in my view, will put more of a straitjacket on the Congress and force us to make more of these hard decisions.

I think, frankly, because we do this every year, this budget every year, we get very occupied with 12 appropriations bills in the budget-- although last year we did not even pass a budget, nor did we pass a single appropriations bill, which is a major failure of this Congress when you are running a $3.7 trillion enterprise called the Federal Government. But in our annual schedule, we need to provide time to do oversight, time to look at what we can be doing not to spend more money but to save money.

If we had a biennial budget process where we are spending money in odd-numbered years and doing the appropriations bills in those years, and then in the even-numbered years, when people go home to run for election, instead of looking for ways to spend money, we are actually looking for ways to save money, I think these reforms are long overdue.

I hope my colleagues will take seriously this issue of budget process reform. I know it is not glamorous subject. In fact, most people's eyes glaze over when we talk about budget process reform. But, in my view, there is not anything we could do that would more fundamentally change the way Washington works than reforming this budget process because it drives everything else. If we do not start there, we are never going to get this issue of spending and debt under control in the long term.

I thank my colleagues who have cosponsored this bill. I hope there will be more colleagues who will join on this bill--if not this one, something like it--that will once and for all change the way Washington works by undertaking reforms in our budget process that will lead us to greater fiscal responsibility and greater prosperity for future generations.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want us to remember why we are here. The reason we are here right now debating this issue is because last year the Democratic majority failed to pass a budget. They did not pass a budget and did not pass a single appropriations bill. This is a $3.7 trillion enterprise called the Federal Government. Last year, we did not pass a budget. We did not pass a single appropriations bill. So this is cleaning up the unfinished business of last year.

It was always said that we could not do this before the election. So when the election was over with, instead of dealing with these important budget issues, we did a START treaty, which, of course, was important to debate; don't ask, don't tell; the DREAM Act; all kinds of other things but never the budget. We did not deal with the budget. So here we are dealing with last year's unfinished business.

So when my colleagues come in here and make all these arguments about how terrible it is that we are having to do this and the House Republicans have sent us this budget that shaves $60 billion from last year's spending levels, the reason we are having to go through this exercise in the first place is because last year the Democratic majority did not even pass a budget.

Where does that leave us today? Well, we all know we have a $14 trillion debt--$14 trillion. I think that has sunk in with the American people. To put that into perspective, historically, this last month-- the month of February--our debt was $223 billion. Our deficit, in other words--what we added to the debt--was $223 billion in 1 month--the largest single monthly total ever. We added more to the debt last month than we did from the founding of our country until 1945--in just 1 month.

The projected deficit for this entire year is $1.65 trillion--the largest ever in nominal terms. And OMB predicts it to be the largest as a share of our economy since World War II. That is as much debt as we ran up from the founding of our country until 1985. This is the dimension of the problem we are dealing with.

There is an old saying that if you are in a hole, stop digging. Well, we continue to dig the hole deeper and deeper and deeper. So we are going to have votes today on a couple of alternatives.

One is the alternative that was sent over from the House of Representatives which shaves $60 billion off of last year's spending level. So there are lots of people coming down here, and there is all kinds of gnashing of teeth and statements of how Draconian these various cuts are going to be. Mr. President, $60 billion, remember, in a $3.7 trillion budget is less than 2 percent. Now, to the average American, if they were like we are at the Federal level and out of every dollar they spent, they were borrowing over 40 cents and running $1.5 trillion and $1.6 trillion deficits year over year over year, I think they would figure out a way to tighten their belts a little bit and be able to absorb a 1.5-percent cut over last year's spending level.

Now, couple that with the fact that since 2008 spending has increased by 22 percent. Nondefense discretionary spending, which is what we are talking about here, has gone up 22 percent--10 times the rate of inflation. All we are talking about here is going back to 2008 levels. This is not Draconian. I think the American people think this is reasonable.

So what does the other side put forward? The other side said: Well, we think this is Draconian, and so we are going to put forward a proposal that cuts $4.7 billion--$4.7 billion compared to $60 billion. Mr. President, $4.7 billion is what the other side puts on the table in terms of spending reduction in trying to do something about our runaway Federal debt. Well, if you look at the clock today, it is 2:45 p.m. By this time tomorrow--2:45 p.m. tomorrow--we will have added over $4 billion to the debt--almost as much as they are proposing to save for the balance of this entire year. So they are laying forward savings of $4.7 billion for the rest of the fiscal year, when between now and this time tomorrow we will add over $4 billion to the Federal debt. That is the dimension of what we are talking about.

It is so bad that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said recently that he views the probability or the possibility of a debt crisis occurring in the next 2 to 3 years to be 50 percent--debt crisis. If that is not enough, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking military official in this country, ADM Mike Mullen, said a few months back that the greatest threat to America's national security is our national debt. How much more do we have to hear? It is not just a threat to our future and to future generations; it is a threat to our national security, and it is a threat to our economy.

We have all kinds of evidence out there that this level of spending and this amount of debt costs jobs in our economy. Everybody says the most important thing we want to focus on is the economy and job creation. I agree with that. One of the best ways to do that is to start getting spending and debt under control. There is a great variety of research out there that studied the last eight centuries of governments and concluded that when your gross debt reaches the 90- percent level of your total economy--in other words, gross debt to GDP equals 90 percent--that it costs you about 1 percentage point of economic growth every year. According to Christina Romer, the

former economic adviser to the President, every time you lose 1 percentage point of economic growth, you lose 1 million jobs. So if we continue to sustain this level of debt, it is costing us economic growth, which is costing us literally jobs every single day.

A couple of weeks ago the Government Accountability Office issued a report and in it they looked at the government and the various agencies of government and how much it costs and looked for duplication and redundancy and inefficiency. What did they conclude? They concluded that there are 82 programs in this country across 10 different agencies and departments of government that are designed to improve teacher quality; granted, a very noble goal, but does it take 82 Federal programs and 10 agencies or departments to administer programs improving teacher quality? There are 56 Federal programs out there which teach people how to manage their finances. When you are running a $14 trillion debt, arguably this is probably the last place that ought to be advising people about managing their finances. But 56 Federal programs? The American people have to be looking at this, and it is incomprehensible to them, I think, to see what their Federal Government wastes money on.

What we are talking about here is a fairly reasonable reduction in nondefense, nonnational security discretionary spending. I hope today we will take a step forward and demonstrate we are serious. What the Democrats put forward, $4.7 billion, isn't serious. It completely ignores and appears to be in denial of the dimensions of this problem, which I think are wholly grasped by the American people. In fact, we had testimony yesterday in front of the Senate Budget Committee from Erskine Bowles and Senator Al Simpson who headed the debt commission and said this is the most predictable crisis we have ever had. We see it coming. We know it is coming. We can do something about it, and we are trying to today.

It is about jobs. People have gotten up on the other side and said, Well, it is going to cut this or cut that. The majority leader said yesterday we can't do this because it would cut funding at the Cowboy Poetry Festival. When you are out of every dollar you are spending, borrowing more than 40 cents; when you are running a $14 trillion debt--there are priorities, arguably, that are important in terms of Federal priorities. I don't think that probably counts as one of them and I don't think the American people would think so either.

The Senator from Montana said this is going to cut people from Medicare Advantage. What about the health care reform bill last year? That cut $2 billion in Medicare Advantage and would leave literally a quarter of those people who get benefits under Medicare Advantage without that coverage today. That wasn't a big talking point for the other side when we were doing health care reform last year. Yet, today, again, we hear typical rhetorical scare tactics. But what I want to remind my colleagues of and remind the American people of is that over the last 2 years, nondefense discretionary spending has increased 22 percent.

All we are talking about is going back to 2008 levels. Since that time, it has increased 10 times the rate of inflation. We need to start living within our means. We cannot continue to spend money we don't have.

I hope my colleagues will support H.R. 1 and let the American people know we are serious about getting our fiscal house in order.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the formation of the Dakota Territory. It was on February 26, 1861, that the Senate passed the legislation creating the territory. In the year of the 150th anniversary, I would like to honor the dedication of those who made this status a reality.

Dr. J.M. Staples of Dubuque, IA, paved the way to develop the Dakota region, leading the new settlers to desire territorial status.

When Minnesota became a State on May 23, 1857, the Dakota area was left without a form of government. Therefore, the settlers unprecedentedly created a provisional government in October of 1858, including electing Henry Masters as Governor and in the autumn of 1859 nominating the Honorable J.P. Kidder as delegate to Congress.

Congress continued to thwart desired territorial status as U.S. Senator Fitch in December 1858, Senator James I. Green on January 29, 1859, and House Representative Alexander II Stevens on February 4, 1859, assertively introduced bills, all of which failed.

Senator Green would not be deterred and continued to push for the creation of the territory, introducing another bill on February 14, 1861. His persistence resulted in the passage of the act. This bill successfully passed in the Senate on February 26, the House on March 1, and President James Buchanan signed it into law less than 48 hours before his term ended on March 2.

After taking office, President Abraham Lincoln had the honor of appointing the first Governor to the territory, Dr. William Jayne of Springfield, IL, a personal friend of his. General J.B.S. Todd, a relative of Mrs. Lincoln, became the first officially recognized territorial delegate to Congress.

I would like to posthumously recognize the efforts of those who worked to secure the designation of the Dakota Territory. For it is through their labor that eventually on November 2, 1889, the Dakota Territory became, in part, the State of South Dakota of which I am proud to be a citizen.

Mr. President, I rise to join with my colleagues. I appreciate what the Senator from Tennessee had to say about our former President, as we look upon his 100th birthday coming up this weekend and all of us pay tribute to the legacy he gave this country and the tremendous contributions he made during his time in office.

We all have different remembrances of his Presidency. I was a sophomore in college when he was elected to his first term as President. It was the first election in which I had the opportunity to

vote. I guess I could say I was sort of coming of age at the time he was coming on the national political stage. He had run for President 4 years earlier.

I remember, as a young person, beginning to pay a little bit of attention to politics, at the time being so impressed with the attributes that characterized him personally and were primarily responsible for his tremendous success as President and for the great legacy he left behind.

I was someone who grew up in a small town in South Dakota, and my father and mother had both come through the Great Depression. They were similar in terms of their remembrances of that period and could identify in many respects with some of the things President Reagan talked about.

But he was a person of strong convictions. I think he had a strength of conviction that was really appealing to a lot of Americans. He was someone who believed in American exceptionalism. He understood that the greatness of this country was not in its government institutions but in its peoples and its ideals.

He was someone who was willing to confront the threats we faced around the world. The way he took on the threat of communism and promoted freedom and democracy around the globe is something for which he will always be remembered, not only here at home but by other countries around the world.

I think he possessed, in many respects, a lot of the qualities we value in the Midwest. He was a very humble person. I think his humility is something that really stood out. He was always referred to as ``Dutch Reagan'' in his growing up, his formative years. I think the impact he had on this country was because he saw himself as just an ordinary American like every other American, and he was able to connect and identify with the challenges and the opportunities that were facing Americans across this country at the time.

I think he also possessed, although he was the Governor of California, a midwestern sensibility that never left. He had, in many respects, values that, as I said before, many of us in the Midwest find really important--his belief that you ought to live within your means. His sort of midwestern bedrock values of individual responsibility were things he always touched upon, themes he referenced in his remarks. I think those were the types of qualities that really differentiated him on the national stage.

I remember, too, as a young person being impressed with his sense of humor. Often today there are serious matters we deal with, matters of great gravity and great weight, and they need to be taken with the right level of seriousness. But he also was able to see the best in people and to use his sense of humor to connect with people about what was really distinctive and really unique about America.

I remember the story that was told while we were fighting the Cold War about the guy in the Soviet Union who went in to buy a car, and he said: I want to buy a car.

The guy at the transportation bureau said: Well, you can have your black sedan and you can pick it up 10 years from today.

The guy thought about it for a minute, and he said: Will that be in the morning or in the afternoon?

The guy at the transportation bureau said: What difference does it make? It is 10 years from now.

And the guy said: Well, because I have the plumber coming in the morning.

Ronald Reagan had a way of putting into very simple and understandable and sometimes humorous terms what was so distinctive and unique about the American experience. I think that is something that also really set him apart.

When it came to the big issues of the day, he had a statement he made that I quote. He said: There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. I think oftentimes we face these complex problems, and we overanalyze a little bit. And the truth is, in a lot of the challenges we face today, not unlike the times when he was President, there are not easy answers, but I believe there are simple answers. Those very basic, core principles and those values that helped shape his Presidency and the things he never lost sight of are what made him an effective President. I believe that is a lesson we can apply today. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers.

When we believe in the greatness of America, when we look at the foundation of this country--personal freedom, personal liberty, coupled with individual responsibility--he believed profoundly that you achieve peace through strength. He was willing to confront communism at a point in this Nation's history when it posed a great threat to freedom-loving countries around the world. I think those are the types of qualities for which President Reagan will be remembered.

As, again, someone who was very impressionable at that time, he was a great inspiration to public service. I think he represented the very best of public service. He got into it for all the right reasons. He understood the importance of what he was doing, the issues with which he was dealing, but always had an eye toward making a difference and providing a better future for the next generation. That is a lesson that I think all of us need to remember: that sometimes we have a tendency to believe it is about us, it is about today. We always have to keep an eye on tomorrow, on the future, and what we are doing to build a better and brighter and more prosperous and stronger nation for future generations.

When I think about and remember President Reagan as we come upon his 100th birthday, those are the types of things that strike me as really standing out--his humility, his sense of humor, his belief in American exceptionalism. Those are what history has already written about him, but they certainly are permanently impressed upon my mind, my experience, in my time in public life--just the types of qualities I want to apply and bring to the work we do in the U.S. Senate.

So I rise along with many of my colleagues today to pay tribute to our 40th President and to his family. Of course, we thank them for their great service and sacrifice too, because anybody who has been in this arena knows the sacrifice that comes with public service. But we are indeed grateful for his great service to our country, for the way he impacted so many, both here at home and around the world, and for the way he continues through his legacy to impact generations of Americans today.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wish to add to the comments made by my colleague from Wyoming, who in his former life was a physician, and so he understands this issue probably better than any of us here in the Chamber. I think he very eloquently pointed out why this amendment we are hopefully going to be voting on, which will repeal the health care law, is so important.

Obviously, there is a big debate that has been raging in the country over the past year about this legislation as it was being considered here in the Congress, and I think the one thing that is clear about the public's view of this is that they think it was a bad idea. And that hasn't changed. That was true a year ago, that was true 6 months ago, and that is still true today.

I think the administration had tried to argue they had merely done a poor job of communicating to the American people how great this health care reform idea was. But that excuse misses the point entirely. The American people are not clueless. They know a bad idea when they see one, and they understand that the Democratic health care plan was a bad idea. So despite the administration's full court PR press in trying to reverse the public opinion, the health spending law remains unpopular in the polls.

In fact, as was quoted by my colleague from Wyoming, there was a poll that came out today where 58 percent of likely voters in a recent Rasmussen poll favor repeal. In fact, if you drill down a little further into that survey, it says 47 percent strongly favor repeal, 38 percent oppose repeal, and 29 percent strongly oppose repeal. But you have a decisive majority in this country--58 percent of the population--saying they wish to see this repealed, and nearly half are strongly committed to that position.

So notwithstanding efforts by the administration to reverse the public's view, the American people still get it. I think the administration had hoped this would get behind them, that people would, once they were educated about the benefits, come to a different conclusion, but I think they see clearly now that hasn't happened. That hasn't been the case.

This whole health care law has failed the test of being something the American people think is important and something they want to see done. I don't doubt for a minute they want to see the issue of health care addressed in this country--health care reform. Unfortunately, this particular proposal didn't do anything to reform health care. It expanded health care dramatically and expanded the cost most people are going to bear when it comes to paying for their health insurance premiums. So it failed the test of public support of the people in this country who have been following this debate very carefully, because it affects them in a very personal and profound way. Health care is something every American understands. It is something they get, and it is regrettable we passed it. I think the American people have turned a thumbs down on it, and that should speak to the importance of this amendment and our trying to go back and do this the right way.

The other test it failed--which everybody here talks about, and there is a great deal of lip service and a great deal of rhetoric paid to it--is the issue of jobs. Honestly, I think if there was a message coming out of November's election it was this: The American people want us focused on three things. They want us focused on jobs, they want us focused on spending, and they want us focused on the debt.

On the issue of jobs, this also fails the test. Why? Because it raises taxes so dramatically. If you look at the tax increases in the bill--$569 billion in taxes on virtually every sector of the American economy. For instance, the measure penalizes employers for hiring more workers by raising the Medicare payroll tax by $210 billion, levying new taxes on many small businesses that will serve as the engine of economic growth and job creation.

If we want to get this economy recovering again and creating jobs, the one thing you don't want to do is to impose new mandates, new burdens, new taxes, new regulations on the economic engine, the job creators in America today, and that is our small businesses. So if we are serious about the issue of jobs, this certainly didn't do anything to create jobs.

I think the American people made it plain, and it is clear, they want us focused on jobs. They want us exclusively focused on getting this economy back on track, creating jobs and getting the American people back to work. So it failed on that test.

How about on the test of spending? I think the American people understand that very basic sort of adage--if you want to call it that-- which says when you are in a hole, you don't keep digging. What we have done is we have dramatically expanded the size of government at a time when we are running year-over-year trillion-dollar deficits. So what did this do? When it is fully implemented, it will increase spending by $2.6 trillion. That is the 10-year score between 2014 and 2023. That is a massive expansion--the most dramatic

expansion we have seen in government, literally, since the 1960s.

So this doesn't do anything to address the issue that the American people spoke loudly about, and that is getting Washington spending under control.

Arguably, as I said before, I think they care deeply about the issue of health care and getting health care costs under control. As I will get to in a minute, this does little, if anything, to address health care costs. But it certainly increases Federal spending and increases the role and the size of government at a time when most Americans are saying we want the government reined in. We want less government. We want the government to start living within its means. Instead, we have increased and expanded the size of government dramatically.

How about the issue of debt? A lot has been made by our colleagues on the other side that if we were to repeal this, it is going to add to the deficit. Let's go back to the reason why they can make that argument. The reason they can make that argument is because of all the gimmicks, all the phony accounting that was included when this bill was passed in the first place.

We have all referenced and talked about the double counting of Medicare savings, to the tune of about $400 billion, new payroll taxes, savings that are supposed to be achieved by reductions in Medicare spending double counted, counted both as a ``paid for,'' an offset to pay for the new health care entitlement program, and as a credit to the Medicare trust fund. You cannot double count. You cannot score these things in a way that dips into the same revenues twice. That was one of the great ironies of this legislation, when it was being debated here, that issue did not become more fully discussed, the way this thing was accounted for and the way in which the trust funds were credited with saving or extending the lifespan of Medicare at the same time the same dollars were being used to pay for this new health care entitlement. You cannot spend the same money twice and that is exactly what happened.

The American people get that. I cannot feature any other place in America where you could get away with what happened here during the health care debate. So you had the $400 billion--$398 billion, to be exact--that was double counted on Medicare. You also had $29 billion in Social Security revenues that was double counted as well. The Social Security trust fund was credited with $29 billion at the same time the revenue that was coming in from higher Social Security payroll taxes because some changes that were made in the legislation were counted to pay for the new health care entitlement. So you had Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes that were double counted, that were essentially scored twice, to credit the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund, at the same time they were being used to finance the new health care entitlement.

Add in the $70 billion that was listed as revenues to pay for this from yet another new entitlement program called the CLASS Act, which is a long-term care entitlement program. As was described by my colleague from Wyoming, even the Senate Budget Committee chairman, the Senator from North Dakota, described the CLASS Act as a Ponzi scheme of the highest order, something Bernie Madoff would be proud of. Yet $70 billion was scored as being a revenue raiser to pay for the new health care entitlement program, knowing that full well, at some point in the future, the people who paid premiums into this new program were going to demand some sort of payment when it came time to stake a claim against that, against that trust fund, those benefits were going to have to be paid out. So in the outyears it dramatically expands and explodes the deficit, even though in the near term it was counted as revenue that was used to shield the true cost of the health care bill.

If you add in the cost of implementation, which turned out to be $115 billion, something that was not discussed nor included in the debate nor was it included in the initial CBO score, you have about a $208 billion cost to do the doctors fix, to take care of the physician fee issue, which will be coming to us, which was left out of this bill to understate the true cost of this bill to put it into balance, my point simply is, by any objective measure, if you look at the games that were played, the gimmicks that were used, the phony accounting that was used to claim that somehow this was going to be a positive impact on the deficit, it does not pass the smell test. No rational American would look at this and say this makes any sense at all.

In fact, if you add up everything I just said, if you take all these accounting gimmicks, all the phony accounting that was used, and you offset that against what is claimed as a budget savings, you actually get not a $143 billion savings, you get about a $700 billion deficit. That is what we would be looking at over the 10 years.

Remember also that you have the 6 years of spending in this bill in the first 10-year window, which is what the CBO used to score this, and about 10 years of revenues. So the tax increases start right away, the revenues are counted immediately, but the spending doesn't come until later. You front-load the revenue, you back-end load the spending in that decade and try to claim that somehow this thing balances out. Again, the American people see through this. They get it, which is why they have taken the position they have on the health care bill in the first place. On the test of debt, on the test of how does this impact the deficit, how does this impact America's long-term fiscal standing, this bill is a failure.

One other point I would like to make--I wanted to come back to it earlier--I think a lot of Americans were hoping that when Congress took on this issue of health care, it actually would be with an eye toward reducing the cost of health care insurance premiums for most Americans. What we are seeing is the contrary. Actually, what we predicted would happen is coming true. Many of us who were involved in that debate said, at the time, this was going to lead to higher health care costs for most Americans, and it is actually true. Actually, the CBO said the same thing. They said the individual health insurance premiums would increase by about $2,100 per family as a result of the new law and that some consumers would face total premium increases of more than 20 percent. Those are things we are seeing come to fruition now. A lot of people are seeing their health insurance premiums go up. That is a fact. It is a reality. It is a complete contradiction of what was promised when this bill was being debated.

You have not only higher taxes on small businesses that are costing us jobs, that are destroying jobs, you have this massive expansion of spending, you have the debt and the deficit which, in the outyears, are going to explode because of all these accounting gimmicks, and then when all is said and done, you still have not done anything that lowers health care costs for most Americans. I believe, for most Americans, that is what they wanted to see come out of the health care debate in the Congress. They wanted to see reforms passed that put downward pressure on health care costs to them and their families rather than increase it. In fact, what we have seen is the opposite. It has not decreased cost; it has increased costs. I think we are going to continue to see costs go up because as these tax increases kick in, a lot of businesses around the country obviously are going to pass these costs on to the American consumer. So it fails the test of doing anything to lower costs for most Americans.

Finally, it is also now failing the legality test, as we are seeing these courts coming out and determining that this whole exercise was unconstitutional. That triggers a whole other debate in this country, a debate that I think we are going to watch probably for a while, but I hope, as this moves through the courts, it does engage the American public about what is the role of the government and how intrusive should it be and what kind of mandates can it impose on the American people. There was a very well-reasoned decision that came out of the Florida court yesterday which says this legislation is unconstitutional. Again, that makes the argument that many of us were making as this was being debated last year.

The bottom line is, we are in a position to do something about it. This is not the end. This should not be the end

of the debate. We should look at this as an opportunity. If the amendment that was offered by the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, actually were to pass and we were to repeal this, we could start over. We could go about this in a way that actually does reform health care in this country in a way that lowers costs rather than raises costs for most Americans. I think that would be a welcome thing for the American people.

The other side is going to argue we do not need to do this. We do not need to repeal this. We just need to ``repair'' it. We can make these little modifications to it. But the fundamental fact is, this was a mistake in the first place and we should acknowledge it. I think, again, the fact that it passed last year on a total party-line vote, a total partisan vote--there was not a single Republican in the Senate who voted for this. Usually, when you are doing big, bold things, when you look historically in the country, it is done in a bipartisan way. It is done in a way that incorporates the best thoughts, best ideas, best inputs from both sides, and you generally get a bipartisan vote in support of something such as that. This was passed on a party-line vote. It is now facing a challenge--and I think a very direct challenge--in the courts, which is going to play out in the course of the next several months. But we in the Senate could do something by repealing this law and starting over and going about this the right way. That is not to say for a moment there are not issues that need to be addressed with regard to health care in this country. Many of them have been touched upon by speakers who have come down here before me. But there is a better way to do it. There is a way to do this that does not dramatically expand, increase the size of our Federal Government, that does not add and explode the debt in the outyears, that does not raise taxes on our small businesses when we are asking them to create jobs, that actually does lower the cost of health care insurance for most people in this country rather than increasing it and is done in a way consistent with what our Framers intended, in terms of the basic parameters that are allowed by our Constitution.

I hope the McConnell amendment will be voted on. I think it is important for all of us, obviously, to be on record. But I hope my colleagues on the other side may reconsider the position they took when this was voted last year and conclude with many of us that this was a failure and that starting over is the very best solution for the American people, if we are serious about giving them a health care system in this country that is affordable, that delivers the high quality they expect, and enables them to have the maximum amount of choice and decisionmaking authority when it comes to something that is so personal and so important to them; that is, their health.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, today I recognize Chad Miller, 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.

Chad is a graduate of Washington High School in Sioux Falls. Currently he is attending the University of Saint Thomas, where he is majoring in psychology and political science. 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 Chad for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Madam President, I rise to speak about the issues that I think are most important to the American public. I appreciated the opportunity I had last evening, along with the Presiding Officer, to sit and listen to the

President's State of the Union Address, which is an annual rite of passage where the President lays out his blueprint and his vision for the next year. In those remarks he did, as he did last year, touch on a number of themes that I think speak to issues that are important for the country to face.

Certainly, there were statements in that speech I agree with, in terms of the things he said we need to be focused on. There are some statements with which I did not agree. But in terms of the broader agenda, what strikes me about the speech is he talked about the need for tax reform, which is something I agree with. I think it is an issue of competitiveness. He talked about medical malpractice reform, which is something many of us have been trying to get to be part of the health care debate in this country for a long time. Unfortunately, that got left on the cutting room floor last year. He talked about strengthening Social Security and entitlement reform, also a critical priority if we are serious about getting spending and debt under control. He also talked about regulatory reform, looking at government reform and the types of actions we might be able to take to streamline or shrink or make more efficient the Federal Government. He also talked about the importance of enacting trade agreements, and I could not agree more. I think trade is a critical part of our economy. Export opportunities for businesses in this country would create economic growth. It would create jobs. Unfortunately, again, those are trade agreements that have been stalled out here for some time in the Congress.

What strikes me about the speech is this. Last year, we heard a lot of the same themes. The President this year, I forgot to mention, talked about a 5-year freeze on spending. Last year, he talked about a 3-year freeze on spending. He talked about trade agreements 1 year ago. Many of those same themes were struck 1 year ago. Yet we have not seen the results of the rhetoric. What I would argue to the American people and to all my colleagues is, it is important that we judge people not by their rhetoric but by their actions. Don't watch what we say, watch what we do. I think that is true of anyone in public life. We all need to be judged by what we do and whether we are following through with what we say we are going to do.

So when the President talks about those priorities, I could not agree more. But, frankly, in order for any of those things to happen, it is going to take Presidential leadership. If we are going to do something on tax reform, if we are going to do something on entitlement reform, if we are going to do something about spending and debt, the President is going to have to step forward with bold proposals in order to accomplish that because bold things, big things, need to be done on a bipartisan basis.

The opposite example of that we saw a year ago, when the health care reform bill was being debated on the floor of the Senate. This is something that impacts literally one-sixth of the American economy. Yet you had a bill that passed the Senate without a single Republican vote. In fact, in most cases Republicans were not included, were not consulted, did not have input into that legislation. So you had a bill that literally impacts one-sixth of the American economy pass out of this Chamber on a party-line vote. That is historic. Because in most cases, if you look throughout our Nation's history, when this country needs to do big things, there is a bipartisan effort to try to get a bill that can attract broad bipartisan support.

So as much as I support many of the things the President said last night, I would argue that the proof is in the pudding. We are going to wait and see now whether his actions comport with his words because the talk about spending and debt rings hollow if, in fact, you are not willing to take on spending in this country, spending in our government, and willing to take on the issue of entitlement reform. In fact, notwithstanding the President's talk last year about a 3-year freeze on spending, we saw the largest buildup, the most massive expansion of government we have seen literally since the 1960s.

The health care bill is a $2\1/2\ trillion new expenditure for the Federal Government when it is fully implemented, at a cost, I believe, to be much larger than that over time when you start seeing these costs pile up and more and more people shifted over into the government program.

Hopefully, we are going to have a vote here in the Senate. I believe we will have a vote. Our leader has indicated that we will get a vote on repealing health care reform. In my view, before this begins to get implemented, it would make sense to throw it overboard and start over and do this right and do it in a way that attracts bipartisan support and actually does something to drive down the cost of health care rather than increasing it because what we have seen already is what we predicted would happen; that is, insurance rates are going up, not down. The massive taxes on that bill, of course, get passed on, so consumers end up paying more for their health care, not less. I would argue that we are going to see some disastrous results from some of the pay-fors in the bill.

The so-called CLASS Act, which is another new entitlement program, is something that even the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, a Democratic chairman, a year ago when this was being debated, said is a Ponzi scheme of the highest order, something Bernie Madoff would be proud of. It has a tail on it that is going to create deficits in the outyears and make the financial fiscal picture we face even worse.

There are so many things about this bill that argue for us starting over and doing it right. But I want to say this morning, because I want to focus specifically on this issue of spending and debt, that much has been made of the fact that we are going to have a vote coming up. On March 4, the continuing resolution expires, at which point we will have to decide what we are going to do in terms of funding the government. I hope that debate or the lead-up to that vote sparks a debate about spending because if we don't start getting spending under control, this problem we have continues to snowball. We have a $14.3 trillion debt.

The other point I would make is there is another big vote looming sometime between late March and early May--in the April timeframe most likely--where we are going to have to raise the debt limit. We are already $14.3 trillion in debt as a nation, and we are going to have to extend the nation's borrowing authority above that so that we can finance the government. We have maxed out the credit card. We cannot do this any longer. We don't have the luxury of time. When we are facing a $14.3 trillion debt, much of which we owe to other countries around the world, we put ourselves at great peril. We put our economy at great peril.

I would argue it is a national security issue, and I am not the only one saying that. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, said a few months back that the greatest threat to America's national security is our national debt. That is the top ranking military official in this country saying it is not the--when we talk about the greatest threat to America's national security, he could have talked about al-Qaida, he could have talked about the Iranian nuclear program, he could have talked about China, he could have talked about North Korea. But what did he say? The greatest threat to America's national security is our national debt. That speaks volumes about what we need to be focused on and what we as public officials here in the Senate need to devote our energies to.

So when we think about that, there are a couple of things that, obviously, we can do. I have advocated, as have others, that we go back to the 2008 spending levels because in the last 2 years, we have seen spending on the non-national security discretionary part of the budget increase by 21 percent, at a time when inflation in the overall economy is 2 percent. So the government has grown at 10 times the rate of inflation in the last 2 years.

When the President talks about freezing spending this year, he is, in my view, dealing with an issue that really--the only analogy I can use--is like closing the barn door after the horse has already gotten out. We have a major problem. We had a dramatic runup in spending in the last 2 years, and freezing it now will enshrine and

lock in to the baseline that massive increase in spending.

If we go back to the 2008 levels, it will be painful, but we don't have the luxury of not dealing with this now. It is going to be painful, but it is going to be necessary if we are serious about providing a better future for our children and grandchildren. The alternative is that we continue to run up these trillion-dollar, $1.5 trillion deficits year over year over year, adding significantly more to that debt and putting ourselves on a trajectory when I think our economy is in great peril in the future.

That is one aspect of it. We talk about the non-national security discretionary part of the budget. Of course, the national security part of the budget is already being scrutinized and scrubbed. The Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, has made it clear that they are going to try to find savings and efficiencies in there to the tune--in fact, I think they have already determined they can save somewhere on the order of $150 to $170 billion in the defense budget over the next 5 years. But then you have this other part of the budget, the entitlement programs-- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--which, of course, Medicare and Medicaid are driven by health care costs, and until we figure out what we are going to do on health care to rein that in, to get that cost under control, it is going to be complicated to try to fix. But that being said, I think that is what argues for actually putting remedies in place that will put downward pressure on health care costs, on utilization, so we can bring health care costs back under control.

There are a number of good ideas out there about how to do that. The debt commission made some recommendations, although most in the area of Medicare and Medicaid were largely cosmetic because they couldn't come to an agreement about how to fix health care. Social Security, on the other hand, is available. It can be fixed. I think the debt commission made a series of recommendations that I hope the President and his team will take seriously and come to the Congress. I think Republicans here in Congress are willing to work with him because that is something we can put on a sustainable path. We ought to do it, and we ought to do it now because the longer we wait, the worse the problem becomes.

So you have the entitlement issues, you have the non-national security discretionary spending--things that can be done, that this President, if he is willing to put his rhetoric into action and take leadership, can actually put up as a record of accomplishment for the American people. The alternative is that we continue to add to the $14.3 trillion debt.

I am not going to sit here and say for a moment that we are not all responsible for this. Obviously, there were previous administrations and previous Congresses. We have gotten where we are today because we did not make the hard choices when he should have, and now the choices become much harder.

I would also say that in the last 2 years, that debt has grown by over $3 trillion, largely because of a trillion-dollar stimulus bill that we borrowed from our children and grandchildren, which didn't do anything to create jobs but did add $1 trillion to the debt, and the health care bill, which, again, many of the costs of that we are going to see into the future, but it has a profound impact on the fiscal picture the country is going to be considering.

What does it mean to finance a $14.3 trillion debt? Well, it means this: We spend so much on interest that next year the amount we spend on interest will equal the amount we spend on national security. Think about that. The entire security budget to defend this country, that amount of money will be equalled by the amount we spend on interest to finance the debt, and that continues to explode in the years ahead. If for some reason we were to have a runup in interest rates, if something happened in the economy, which, with inflation starting to take off a little bit, generally interest rates would follow that--and at some point in the not too distant future, we could see interest rates tick up. Well, we have been able to manage our debt by the way we financed it and the short-term borrowing. If you saw interest rates reset and go up, it would have an even more profound impact on the amount we pay to finance that debt and the amount we make in interest payments.

Every child in America today under the age of 18 owes $114,000 because of that debt, and 6 years from now it will be $196,000. What are we doing to future generations when we saddle them with this enormous debt and put them in a position where they are going to be faced with a lower standard of living and a lower quality of life than what we have experienced simply because we did not have the courage to make the hard decisions that were necessary to get this situation under control.

So I would suggest to my colleagues and to the President after his speech last night that this is not about talk. It is not about rhetoric. It is about action. It is about what the American people asked us to come here and do. I think there were three messages coming out of the election last fall: The American people want us focused on jobs and the economy, they want us focused on spending, and they want us focused on debt.

We are going to have an opportunity in the next few months, when the continuing resolution expires and we look at the issue of funding the government into the future, to deal with the issue of spending When we get to the debt limit vote that will come up sometime this spring, we will have an opportunity to talk about the debt. But it ought to generate and spark a serious effort here in the Congress, not a cosmetic one, not a superficial one, not one where we provide lipservice but where we are serious about reining in spending--not just non-national security spending but also looking at the long-term issues that are going to affect this country's balance sheet well into the future, and those are our entitlement programs. It is going to be tough stuff. It is not easy to do this.

I can't help but think that if we had made some of these hard decisions a few years ago, we wouldn't be in the situation we are today. I came here as a freshman Congressman back in 1997. One of the first votes we had--big votes, I should say, on the floor of the House of Representatives at the time--was a vote on a balanced budget amendment, something that I think 38 States have. Our State of South Dakota has a balanced budget amendment, which means our legislature and Governor can't go home until they balance the budget. That vote passed. It takes two-thirds majorities in both the House and the Senate and 38 States to ratify to get a constitutional amendment approved. We got a big, larger than two-thirds vote in the House of Representatives at that time. It came to the Senate, and it failed by one vote. Now, 67 votes here is the magic number to get the two-thirds threshold. It got 66 votes in the Senate 14 years ago.

I can't help but think how much better out financial picture would be today had we taken that step back in 1997 and put a balanced budget amendment--enshrined that into our Constitution and imposed a discipline on the Congress that hasn't existed. Clearly, for politicians here in Washington, it is too easy, when it comes down to making hard choices, to take the easy way, to hand the bill to our children and grandchildren. It is time to stop. We cannot afford this any longer. We are at $14.3 trillion and adding $1 trillion every single year.

So this is going to require tough decisions, hard decisions. But I believe this is a great country with great people. We have met big challenges before. I think the American people are ready to step forward and deal with this challenge. I think they are looking for political leadership to do that, to join them in that quest. As I said before, Presidential leadership is critical. It is going to take leadership here in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

We cannot afford to kick the can down the road any farther, to punt the ball to the next generation. It is not fair to them. For generations in this country, we have had a sort of guiding principle; that is, one generation sacrifices so the next generation can have a better life. We may be the first generation that turns that ethic on its ear and asks the next generation to sacrifice because we have not been willing to live within our means.

So I hope we can muster the courage that is necessary, and I am going to do everything I can to continue to shine a

light on this issue when we get into these budget debates. I, frankly, have a series of budget reforms. I think that, absent a constitutional amendment, we ought to be putting some statutory reforms in place that would force downward pressure on spending.

I have a bill that calls for a 2-year or biennial budget where we budget in one year, in the odd-numbered year, and in the even-numbered year we do more oversight. So when people here are running for reelection, instead of worrying about how to spend more money to curry favor with a particular constituency, we will be doing oversight and looking at how we can save money for the next generation. So I would like to get a debate on that. I think we ought to make the budget resolution we pass here binding and give it the teeth and the force of law which it does not have today. I think there are a series of prescriptions that would be worthwhile for us to not only entertain but hopefully implement to really take seriously the challenge that is before us.

I thank the chair for the time, and I look forward to engaging in a debate about spending and about debt and how to better create jobs in this economy for the American people, which is what I think they want us focused on. I hope it will be not just rhetoric but action that follows.

I yield the floor.