Floor Statements

Mr. President, my colleagues have described it well, but we all should remember what this is. This is still an $827 billion debt we are handing off to future generations. This is the largest intergenerational transfer of debt in human history, and we spent 3 days now--4 days, I guess, if you count today--debating it. I think the managers of the bill have been patient in allowing us to offer some of our amendments, but to suggest for a minute that the Republicans are slowing this down or that we have had way more than enough time to debate this misses the point.

A trillion dollars--a trillion dollars--is something I think most of us have a hard time grasping. In fact, the borrowing amount that is included in this bill does represent the equivalent of what America as a nation borrowed between the time of the Revolutionary War and the Presidency of Jimmy Carter. We borrowed $800 billion between the Revolutionary War and the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, and we are going to borrow that amount of money in one fell swoop from future generations with this bill.

Much has been said about the discussions in the last few days and how this is going to be a ``bipartisan compromise,'' they are going to reduce the size of the bill. The irony in all this is that the bill as it came over from the House, as has already been noted by my colleagues, was about $820 billion. The bill that we now have in front of us, the so-called compromise, is $827 billion. So it has not gotten smaller coming from the House, it has gotten larger.

A lot of people have gotten up in the Chamber and complained about the House bill and its dimensions and its size, and I think the American people have picked up on that theme because everywhere you go, they talk about this pork-laden bill that came out of the House, and surely the Senate will do something to improve upon it to shrink it in size and get rid of some of the wasteful spending, and yet here we are. We have a so-called compromise, an agreement that is actually larger in size and scope than the bill that came over from the House.

So make no mistake about it, we are borrowing this money from future generations. It is a larger amount of borrowing than was included in the bill that left the House of Representatives. Frankly, we do not know--because we have not seen it yet--about many of the provisions that were included. Many of us have reacted and I think the American public has reacted negatively to much of the wasteful spending that is included in the bill. We have all highlighted the things we think are extraneous and wasteful and do not stimulate the economy, do not grow the economy, do not create jobs.

So we will have an opportunity, hopefully over the weekend, to take a look at it and digest it a little bit. But I think it is fair to say, if at least you are talking about the overall macronumber, that this thing has not gotten any smaller; it has gotten bigger. I would bet by the time we have analyzed this legislation closely, many of the new programs that were created in the bill that was passed by the House and the bill we were debating earlier in the week are continued, and a lot of the new programs that create

mandatory spending--not one-time spending--that are allegedly designed to stimulate the economy on a short-term, temporary basis but will have spending that is going to go on and on and on and is going to be a liability for generations to come.

So as we move toward perhaps a final vote on this at some time this weekend--and I suspect the votes are there--the other point I would make--and make no mistake about this either--you cannot call this a bipartisan effort without redefining the word ``bipartisan.'' This came out of the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. In fact, 11 Democrats in the House voted against it. And here in the Senate, there will be two, perhaps at most three, Republicans who will vote for this. So out of 535 Members of Congress and some 220 or thereabouts Republicans in the Congress, to have 2 hardly qualifies this particular effort as a bipartisan effort.

It went through the House quickly. Republicans were not given an opportunity over there to have impact or have amendments considered. We have had some amendments here. Most of the amendments we have offered that have tried to reduce the size of this thing and change some of the substance of it so it is more targeted, more focused, more focused on job creation--most of those amendments have been defeated. We are faced today with a bill that is actually larger than where we started when this whole initiative got underway in the House of Representatives last week.

So, Mr. President, I hope the American people, as they tune in to the debate, will look very closely at this so-called compromise and give consideration to how this is going to impact them and their family budgets. We all know the statistics. We all know there are people who are hurting in this country, people who have lost their jobs. The people who are going to be hurting the most, however, are the children and grandchildren whom we are going to be handing this debt to--a trillion dollars in debt that we will be handing to our children and our grandchildren--and adding to already what has become a historic high level of debt for this country, so historic that it exceeds by almost two times the average deficit to GDP of many of our allies in the European Union. We are talking about enormous amounts of debt, enormous amounts of borrowing.

As my colleague from Arizona noted, the CBO estimates on job creation as few as 1.3 million jobs for over $800 billion in borrowing. What does that come down to on a per-job basis? Hundreds of thousands of dollars per job.

We can do this better. We can do it in a way that is responsible to the next generation of Americans. I hope when this comes up for a final vote we will be able to defeat it. The American people will get engaged in this effort and let their Senators know how they feel. I believe when that happens, you will start seeing people change their minds about the effort that is in front of us this evening.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, there are two ways to stimulate the economy with a trillion dollars. One is to have the Government do it. The other is to have the American people do it. We are going to spend $1 trillion. Seventy percent of our gross domestic product is in the form of consumer spending. What better way than to give consumers' dollars back into their hands and allow them to stimulate the economy. If we are going to borrow a trillion dollars from our children and grandchildren, let's at least do it in a way that helps American families.

Under my amendment, if you are someone who makes under $250,000 a year, you are going to be eligible for a check in the amount of $5,143. If you are a married couple filing jointly, you are going to be eligible for a check for $10,286. Anybody who files a tax return is going to be eligible for a rebate in that amount. I think this is a way to provide real stimulus to the American economy, and I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I would ask to waive the applicable point of order, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the McCain amendment. Before I speak a little bit to the amendment itself, I want to remind my colleagues why this debate is so important and why the McCain amendment is so important to this debate.

Again, we are talking about a $1 trillion bill--$800 billion, up now into $900 billion. When you add in interest, it is $1.2 trillion and change. It seems as if every amendment that has been offered--we have had a lot of Republican amendments that have attempted to cut out some of the wasteful spending, eliminate some of what I think is probably most egregious about the bill, none of which has been accepted, ironically. Ironically, the only amendments that have been accepted so far have not decreased the size of the bill. They have added to the size of the bill. This bill has gotten bigger.

I remind my colleagues--and I think it is important for the American people to tune in because we throw numbers around here in Washington in an abstract way: millions, billions, trillions of dollars--exactly what the dimensions are of what we are talking about.

A trillion dollars: If you took one-hundred-dollar bills and lined them end to end, you could literally go around the Equator almost 39 times; 969,000 miles of one-hundred-dollar bills lined end to end, going around the entire Earth right at the Equator almost 39 times. That is what we are talking about when we talk about the dimensions of $1 trillion. I might also add that if we look at where this is coming from, we are borrowing. Let's be honest with the American people. We are borrowing this money from future generations. A lot has been said on the floor about who is going to get hurt if we don't do this, and I agree there are a lot of people hurting. Unemployment is high. Frankly, let's think about the people who are going to be hurting the most, and that is the next generation of Americans who are going to inherit this enormous debt we are passing on to them.

To put it into perspective, between the Revolutionary War and Jimmy Carter's Presidency, the United States of America borrowed $800 billion. From the entire time of the Revolutionary War to the Carter Presidency, there was $800 billion worth of borrowing. We are borrowing more than $800 billion for this one piece of legislation, not to mention what comes next. We know we have a $1 trillion catchall spending bill coming at us which is the first time that the discretionary appropriations bill is going to exceed $1 trillion. We know we are going to have a request for additional moneys coming from Secretary Geithner to stabilize the financial markets to the tune of several hundred billion dollars. We know there is going to be a supplemental spending bill request for the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ironically, according to CBO, the bill that was passed previously on SCHIP actually leads to $41 billion of deficit spending.

So all this spending we are doing, all this borrowing we are doing is being passed on to the next generation, and they are the people who are going to feel the brunt and the impact and hurt the most if we don't do the responsible thing here today.

I think it is important that this particular amendment Senator McCain has put forward and a number of us are cosponsoring be heard and fair consideration be given because I think there are several things about it that differentiate and distinguish it from the bill we are debating, the Democratic proposal that is on the floor.

One of the most important distinctions--and Senator McCain already mentioned it--is it comes in at less than half the cost: $421 billion. So we are talking about borrowing over $800 billion--all the time from the Revolutionary War to the Carter Presidency is the equivalent of what we are doing here--versus a much smaller approach and, in my view, much more fiscally responsible approach and, frankly, much more targeted. Because the criteria that has been laid out at the beginning of this debate for what makes sense in terms of a stimulus is it should be targeted, temporary, and timely. What we have before us is none of the above. It is slow, it is unfocused, and it is unending. Mr. President, $140 billion of this bill is going to be very difficult to shut off because it adds to the baseline as a lot of mandatory spending is included.

I wish to also show my colleagues what the President's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, said. He said this in the Financial Times on January 6 of this year: ``Poorly provided fiscal stimulus can have worse side effects than the disease that is to be cured.''

Now, we have all talked about what is in this bill, and all the spending in it, including the $600 million for cars for Federal employees, the money that goes into the seven-point-whatever-billion- dollars it is here that goes into Federal buildings--all good things. Senator McCain talked about smoking cessation. That is something we all support and believe in. But that ought to be handled in regular order. Those are not stimulus. Those are things that do nothing to contribute in the short term to creating jobs and helping get our economy back on track. In fact, the CBO said that 12 percent of the total amount in the bill we have before us would be spent in this year--2009--and less than half in 2009 and 2010, so much of what we are talking about is going to be pushed off into the future when it is not going to do anything to stimulate the economy.

It does create some jobs--most of them are jobs here in Washington, DC--at great cost. For example, there are some jobs created at the State Department. The average cost per job created at the State Department according to this is over $1 million. On average, you take $900 billion and you divide it by about 3 million jobs, which is the estimate of what this would create, and we are talking about $300,000 per job.

Now, I might add that the average annual salary in my State of South Dakota is under $30,000. Imagine how difficult it is to explain to my constituents that we are going to borrow $1 trillion from their children and grandchildren to create jobs at a cost of $300,000 per job. That is an awfully difficult sell, particularly when they look at how a lot of this money is spent. We have some requests from mayors and city officials around the country, and these are all good things. I am not downplaying at all the importance of many of these projects, but there are requests here for 42 swimming pools, water slides, golf courses, all sorts of things that you can't argue we ought to be borrowing $1 trillion from our children and grandchildren to fund and to support. So it is important we have something we can be for and that does, in fact, create jobs; that does, in fact, add to the economic recovery, and that is fiscally responsible.

I wish to point out, as Senator McCain mentioned in his opening remarks, some of the things that are in his bill. It is appropriately focused on housing because we believe--and I think rightly so--that housing got us into this recession and housing is going to lead us out of this recession. It is focused on getting dollars into the hands of the American taxpayers. The debate about whether you want to have government spend the money or the American people spend the money is a very simple one. I happen to believe if you allow the American people to spend the money, you get a much better return. When we get money back into the hands of Americans, they will help grow the economy. Two- thirds of our gross domestic product is in the form of consumer spending. You provide incentives for small businesses which create two- thirds or three-fourths of the jobs in our economy and that helps get the economy back on track. That is in this bill.

Reducing marginal income tax rates from 15 down to 10, 10 down to 5, cutting the payroll tax in half for a year for employees gets money back into the hands of the American people so they can go out and help stimulate the economy and create jobs.

It also, as was noted earlier, makes some changes with regard to the underlying bill where defense is concerned. We have some very serious needs. Senator McCain mentioned this in his remarks and he talked about the defense spending in his bill. There is some, frankly, defense money in the Democratic proposal--about $10 billion--mostly for military construction projects, but there is no money for reset. We have serious needs out there. Senator McCain's amendment adds $7 billion for reset, to repair military equipment and replace direct battle losses, including $6.5 billion for the Army, $600 million for the Marines, $62 million for the Navy, and $83 million for the Air Force, which adds money for direct repair of military infrastructure and facilities. These are things that need to be done and can be done quickly that will put money to good use, that do create jobs and serve an important national purpose.

Now, the other thing his bill does is it puts money in for infrastructure. Infrastructure arguably is something that does create jobs out there, if they are shovel-ready projects that you can actually get going quickly. I think that is a good use in a reasonable way, not adding all kinds of projects that you are not going to do for many years to come. But if you are getting money out there that actually can help fund projects that can get done in the short term, that is a good thing.

Unfortunately, much of the money in the Democratic proposal, as I said earlier, isn't going to get spent out for years. I offered an amendment last night not to fund new programs, assuming it was going to take new programs a long time to get implemented and up and running. That amendment was defeated. The point of all this is to

do things that in the short term create jobs. So there is $45 billion in the McCain proposal for infrastructure.

The other thing I will say, which I think is critical--critical--in this debate, because I said earlier that if we don't put some restraints or some safeguards in here, this is going to get--the spending is going to go on forever. Senator McCain's proposal includes a hard trigger so that when we recognize two consecutive quarters of economic growth, positive GDP, this funding terminates. It is a fiscally responsible approach. He offered a freestanding amendment last night that received 44 votes. I haven't seen any evidence in this Chamber yet that anybody here is serious about adding any measure of fiscal responsibility or sanity to spending $1 trillion of our children's and grandchildren's money.

I think it is important that this amendment get a vote. I urge my colleagues on both sides to support this amendment, to try and do something that is fiscally responsible, that reduces the overall size of this, that addresses substantively the things in the bill--the shortcomings in the Democratic proposal--and do some things that actually will help stimulate the economy and create jobs. Senator McCain's proposal represents a much better direction in which to head. It costs a lot less, it does a lot more, so I hope my colleagues will be able to support it.

One of my colleagues on the Democratic side got up a little earlier and said, Well, if it costs a little bit of money this year to do this or that, there isn't anything in this bill that costs a little bit of money. Everything in this bill costs a lot of money, and the people who are going to get hurt the most are the next generation who are going to be handed the bill.

I hope my colleagues will, in fact, support the McCain amendment, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I guess my understanding is--and it wasn't locked in, in the form of a unanimous consent request--that we were going to ping-pong back and forth with speakers. I have an amendment I wish to speak to, if that is okay with the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. President, I rise to speak today in support of my substitute amendment, which is No. 197. This amendment has been modeled after the substitute amendment that was offered by the Republicans in the House of Representatives.

I think the big question we have to ask, and the question before the House is, if we are serious about doing something for this economy to recover and to create jobs, what is the best and most effective way to do that? We have in front of us a proposal that emphasizes more heavily government spending and doing it through government programs. What I have chosen to offer to my colleagues here in the Senate is an opportunity to vote on something that does it in a different way. It allows the American people to spend the money that we use to infuse the economy with dollars that hopefully will grow the economy and create jobs.

Our Nation has lost millions of jobs over the last several months. Families are hurting and businesses are struggling to survive. As our Nation weathers this turbulent economic time, we do have this decision to make: Should the Congress take hundreds of billions of tax dollars and invest them in an expanded Federal Government or, on the other hand, should Congress return tax dollars directly into the economy in the form of tax relief, which will create jobs and economic opportunity?

The response the Democratic majority has put in front of us is to put more money into Federal agencies, to renovate Federal buildings, and buy new cars for Federal employees. I believe we ought to follow a different path and let the people of this country keep more of their hard-earned dollars and let them decide how best to spend, save, invest, and to turn this economy around.

People know better how to spend their money than unelected bureaucrats here in Washington, DC. And tax relief, not government spending--reductions in taxes for the American people--will create jobs and get us out of this recession. This is what President Kennedy knew, this is what President Reagan knew, this is what I believe the American public, with their lackluster response to the $1 trillion spending program in front of us, knows as well.

This substitute amendment does several things. It shifts, as I said, the focus from government spending to meaningful tax relief in four ways: First, it provides tax relief for individuals and families; second, tax relief for small businesses--the job creators in our economy; thirdly, it provides housing assistance; and, finally, it provides temporary assistance to those who are dealing with the current recession.

Now, first, the bill provides meaningful tax relief for working taxpaying families. Under the ``Making Work Pay Credit,'' the tax provision in the bill--the majority bill--7 million households are going to receive a check from the government that is larger than both their payroll tax and their income tax liability. In other words, rather than a one-time credit, what my amendment would do is reduce the lowest two marginal income tax rates for years 2009 and 2010. Essentially, the 10-percent rate would go down to 5 percent and the 5 percent rate will go down to 10 percent. This is a real tax reduction and will benefit all income taxpayers in this country.

In total, there are 100 million taxpayers who would receive, on average, tax relief of $1,250 per filer each year. Married couples could receive up to $3,400 in lower taxes each year.

Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of our gross domestic product. As consumer spending declined for a record 6 months in 2008, it is no surprise that our economy contracted over the same period of time. If we want to spur consumer spending, we should not implement single shot policies like a one-time credit, and we certainly should not pour hundreds of billions of dollars into Government programs. Instead, the best way to stimulate consumer spending is an immediate meaningful reduction of marginal income tax rates.

With respect to small businesses, the second part of this bill focuses on small business tax relief. Small businesses, as I said, create up to 80 percent of all new jobs and represent 99 percent of the 27 million businesses in the United States. If we want to create new jobs, we should start with helping small business, not expanding Federal bureaucracies. This amendment expands small business bonus depreciation and expensing to encourage investment in this current year, which is when we need it the most. The amendment expands the net operating loss carryback period, permitting businesses to carry back their operating loss deductions for 5 years rather than 2.

Several of these provisions, granted, are included in the underlying bill. This amendment, however, provides an additional $47 billion of small business tax relief. My amendment includes a new provision that would allow small businesses to deduct 20 percent of their business income. This provision significantly reduces the tax burden on small businesses which would allow them to continue to hire and retain hard- working Americans. This provision would also allow small businesses to maximize their earnings and increase in value, which will also give them better access to credit markets and another critical component to a recovery.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and, unbelievably, only 2 percent of the total in this bill, the underlying bill, the majority bill, is dedicated to tax relief for small businesses. The lack of small business incentives in this bill, in my judgment, is a serious flaw, and my amendment seeks to improve it substantially.

I also understand people are hurting on account of the economic downturn. Across America we have hard-working men and women who are being layed off because of no fault of their own. Today they are sitting at the kitchen table wondering how to make ends meet.

Earlier this year, Congress acted to extend unemployment insurance to provide a safety net for those who are in need. My amendment would extend the expanded unemployment insurance provisions through the end of this year. Additionally, the amendment would eliminate the income tax on unemployment insurance. This is an automatic increase in the real benefit of unemployment insurance to those who derive it. It never made sense to me that individuals would pay taxes to the Government to fund unemployment insurance and, once they are unemployed, receive the benefits and then have to pay taxes on the benefit as well. This amendment would correct that. It would also make health care more affordable for the self-employed and other families without employer- provided health insurance because, for the first time, this amendment would provide an above-the-line deduction for health insurance costs.

Finally, with respect to the housing market, this amendment addresses our housing market prices. The housing market is what led us into this recession. In fixing the housing market, we will help lead us out. My amendment would extend the $7,500 home buyer tax credit through December 31, 2009, while expanding the benefit to all primary residences. This amendment would eliminate the complicated recapture rules which currently require home buyers to pay the Government back if they claim this credit. In the end, this provision would help stimulate the faltering housing market and encourage responsible home ownership.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, there are some real issues associated with the decision we make about whether to stimulate the economy with Federal spending, with Government spending or with tax relief. I wish to read for you a couple things the CBO has said:

Reductions in Federal taxes [would] have most of their

effects . . . in 2009 and 2010.

That is the very period we are targeting to provide the greatest economic stimulus and hope of job creation.

They also stated: ``Purchases of goods and services, either directly or in the form of grants to States and local government, would take years to complete.''

They go on, it will be ``difficult to properly manage and oversee a rapid expansion of existing programs.''

Finally, they say: ``[M]any of the larger projects initiated would take up to 5 to 7 years to complete.''

If we want to approach this problem with a solution that delivers assistance quickly, that is quick hitting, that gets money into the economy quickly, that creates jobs quickly, the way to go about doing that is not to have the Government spend the money, to have it come out of Washington, send our money to Washington, have the Government take more money out of the economy, and then decide how to spend it here. It is to get money into the hands of hard-working Americans and small businesses, where the real power for job creation exists.

Interestingly enough, this legislation, the amendment I offer, was run through an analysis that was used--it is a methodology that was developed by the President's chair of the Counsel of Economic Advisers. Her name is Dr. Christina Romer and Dr. Jared Bernstein, the adviser to the Vice President. This was a methodology they used back in 2007, that considers the multiplier effect of various policy decisions and fiscal decisions that are made by the Congress. What they suggested in that analysis is, if you reduce taxes on the American public, you get a 2.2 multiplier in terms of GDP. My amendment reduces taxes as a percentage of our gross domestic product by 2.8 percent. If you take that by their multiplier 2.2, you get 6.1 percent in GDP growth as a result of cutting taxes.

If you go on further, they suggest that for every 1 percent increase in GDP, you get three-quarters of a percentage change in jobs. So if you take the 6.1-percent growth in GDP and multiply it by .75 you get a 4.6-percent increase in the number of jobs. You take the full size of our workforce today, about 133,876,000 employees, and you plug in that 4.6-percent increase and you get a job growth increase--a job increase over the course of the next 2 years, as a result of making these changes in tax policy, of almost a 6.2-percent increase in jobs.

The proposal we have before us suggests they could get up to another 3 million jobs, perhaps, from this. But I suggest, if we can create double that amount, 6 million jobs, as a result of reducing taxes, it is a much better solution for our country to get our economy back on track and is also done at a lot less cost. The overall cost, according to CBO, of my amendment, is about $440 billion, compared to the $900 billion it will cost for the proposal the Democratic majority has in front of us; twice the jobs at half the cost. That sounds like a solution that makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense to the American people, who understand clearly you do not send your money to Washington and hope the Government can spend it to create jobs. The way to create jobs is to get money back in the hands of the American people, back in the hands of small businesses. That is what will lead us to that growth in gross domestic product, the expanding economy and the job creation associated with that. Twice the jobs for half the cost. I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. It is a much better approach to dealing with what is a very serious economic crisis for this country. I think the American people believe that. I hope my colleagues in the Senate will support it as well.

Let me say, the cosponsors on this amendment are Senators Kyl, DeMint, Johanns, and Hatch. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, with my amendment we get more with less, more job creation at less cost. What this amendment would do is substitute the underlying bill with an amendment that consists primarily of tax relief for families and small businesses. Specifically the legislation would provide $444 billion of tax relief, more than the tax relief contained in the Senate stimulus bill. It provides $34 billion in spending which is $598 billion less than the underlying bill. According to the economic models developed by the President's economic advisers, this proposal would create twice as many jobs for half the cost. It would create 6.2 million new jobs at $480 billion, compared to the 3 million or so which, with the latest from CBO, may be a lot less than that under the Democratic proposal. I urge support for the amendment.

Mr. President, I move to waive the applicable provisions under the Budget Act with respect to my amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I wish to speak to an amendment that I introduced and filed and was made pending at the desk earlier today. What that amendment will do is eliminate new Government programs that are created by the proposed $1 trillion stimulus legislation that is before the Senate today.

Earlier yesterday, I presented some information about the size and scope of this legislation and tried to put in very visual terms the immense amount of money we are talking about when you start looking at $1 trillion. It is $900 billion, but when you add interest on top of this--$340 billion, $350 billion in interest--you have $1.2 trillion in new spending included in the stimulus bill. I say that because I think it is important to point out that is not the end; it is, frankly, the beginning.

We know for a fact the Omnibus appropriations bill--the sort of catchall appropriations bill we didn't complete last year--is going to be coming before the Congress, before the House first and then before the Senate. For the first time ever, that is going to exceed $1 trillion. So we have $1 trillion in the catchall appropriations bill. We expect at least a request from the administration for additional TARP authority--emergency funding to provide stabilization to the financial markets--to the tune of several hundred billion dollars. We don't know exactly what it will be, but we know it will be in the multiples with respect to hundreds of billions of dollars. We also have a supplemental appropriations bill that will be coming shortly after that to fund the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

My point simply is this: This is trillions of dollars of spending. This is a spending spree that is unprecedented even in this city, which is known for spending lots of money on lots of programs. What this amendment attempts to do is to put a little bit of restraint on some of that spending in the stimulus bill. Granted, many of us believe there are some things we should be doing, some steps we should be taking that would help the economy to recover, that would stimulate the economy and create jobs. Regrettably, the stimulus bill that is in front of us goes way beyond that.

The President's top economic adviser suggested when this whole debate began that whatever we do in terms of stimulus, it should be temporary, it should be targeted, and it should be timely. Much of what is included in this bill is none of the above. In fact, it is slow and unfocused and unending. So I am attempting, with this amendment, to say that new programs that are created in this bill have to have been authorized by February 1 of this year. In other words, earlier this week. So if there is not an authorization for this new program--and we would ask OMB to make that determination--that spending would be knocked out of the bill, essentially.

The whole purpose of the amendment is, again, to say that if we are going to do something that is meaningful in terms of stimulating the economy, it should be temporary and it should be targeted and it should be focused. Much of the spending that is in this bill is anything but that. History has shown, time and again, when you put new programs on the books, you almost always take a long time to get those programs off the ground. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has examined this issue and they offered this insight:

Brand new programs pose additional challenges. Developing

procedures and criteria, issuing the necessary regulations,

and reviewing plans and proposals would make distributing

money quickly even more difficult--as can be seen, for

example, in the lack of any disbursements to date under loan

programs established for automakers last summer to invest in

producing energy-efficient vehicles. Throughout the Federal

Government, spending for new programs has frequently been

slower than expected and rarely been faster.

Again, that is the Congressional Budget Office. Given the current state of the economy, we simply can't afford to enact costly new programs that have little hope of making any real meaningful impact now, when the American people need it the most.

There may be programs in this proposed legislation that are worthy of support--I am not arguing that point--but surely not under the guise of economic stimulus. There are new programs that are created that will add to the size of this, and many of us have reacted to the size of it. As I have said already, we know for a fact there is going to be a lot of additional spending coming down the pike that we are going to be asked to consider. But adding to that $1 trillion for something that arguably does not create economic stimulus, does not create jobs, seems to me to be the wrong direction in which to head.

My amendment would simply prevent any new funding under the economic stimulus plan from going toward new programs that were not authorized before February 1 of this year--2009. As I said before, the amendment calls on the Office of Management and Budget to determine if a program was authorized before February of 2009. If the program fails to meet that standard, the program will not receive funding from the economic stimulus proposal.

Now, I would argue that this is a very commonsense proposal that protects the taxpayer and ensures funds are spent in a timely and effective manner. That isn't to say--and I will repeat myself--as I said earlier, that many of these programs are not worthwhile and, frankly, we ought to consider them. But we ought to do it under the regular order and procedures that we have in the Senate. We ought to have committee action, we ought to have hearings, we ought to have the necessary oversight, and we ought to be able to put these things on the floor where they can be debated. We have a process for doing that.

There are lots of programs that are included in the stimulus bill which, I would argue, don't meet that criteria. They aren't stimulus because they are not targeted, they are not timely, and they are not temporary. They are, in fact, creating new programs which, as I said earlier, the Congressional Budget Office has told us sometimes take a very long time to roll out. I think any of us can speak from experience on that point; that whenever we create any sort of a new Federal program, we have agencies that have to interpret it, regulations have to be promulgated, in many cases we are setting up new bureaucracies and people have to be hired and it makes no sense to me whatsoever for us to, in the context of an economic stimulus bill, start talking about new programs.

I would also say the whole purpose of this exercise, in my opinion at least, is job creation. It is to get the economy back on track and recovering and creating jobs. We have been losing jobs. The economy is hemorrhaging and a lot of people are hurting throughout the country. What they don't need is more spending on Government programs in Washington, DC. What we ought to be doing, on the other hand, is getting more money into the hands of the American people so they can spend it--more incentives for small businesses to begin to invest and create jobs because that is what they do best. In fact, two-thirds to three-fourths of all the jobs created in our economy are created by small businesses.

Now, $900 billion, the principal amount--and with interest it is over $1

trillion in new spending--is proposed in the stimulus legislation. If you divide that by the number of jobs that are proposed to be created-- somewhere around 3 million--that comes out to $300,000 per job. The average annual wage in my State of South Dakota is under $30,000 a year. It is very difficult to explain to a constituent of mine in South Dakota how the Federal Government proposes to spend $300,000 of their tax dollars to create one job at a time when we are handing the largest burden of debt to the next generation in American history.

Many of these jobs that are proposed are Government jobs. The Government can create Government jobs, and many of the spending programs in this bill do put money into Federal agencies which create Government jobs but at an enormous cost. I will use the example of the State Department, where it is over $1 million--I think $1.3 million, something to that effect--per job created. That doesn't seem to be a very good use of taxpayer dollars, and it doesn't get us the bang for the buck everybody has been coming to the floor and talking about.

As I said, it is a straightforward amendment. All it simply says is: No new Government programs created in the stimulus. If that program was not authorized by February 1 of this year, then any funding for it in the economic stimulus proposal would be denied. It is a commonsense proposal that does protect the taxpayers, ensures the funds will be spent in a timely and effective way, and that we focus on keeping jobs out there in the economy, putting people back to work. It is not spending on new Government programs in Washington DC which, however well intended, needs to go through a normal regular order process where Members of the Senate have an opportunity to evaluate those at the committee level and go through all the appropriate oversight that we normally include when it comes to create a new Government program.

Frankly, I do not think creating new Government programs, in the first place, is the way to do this, but at least this amendment brings some semblance of sanity to a bill which, as I said, is sort of a shotgun approach. It throws money at all kinds of different programs in hopes it will do something to stimulate the economy--knowing full well, I believe, that many of these are not going to be stimulative but on the other hand are creating new programs that people have wanted for a long time but have never had the opportunity.

That is not what this is about. This economic stimulus debate ought to be focused on creating jobs and getting the economy on the pathway to recovery.

That is the amendment. I encourage my colleagues to support it. I think it is very straightforward, very commonsensical, and, hopefully, it will meet with the approval of the majority of the Members of the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, what my amendment very simply says is that any of the funding in this bill that was not authorized as of February 1 of this year could not be funded under the bill. The point very simply is that, in order for a stimulus to be effective, it has to be timely, it has to be targeted, it has to be temporary. Funding in this or programs in this that are created that are new programs are going to be none of the above. It is going to take a long time, as we all know, to get regulations in place and create the bureaucracies. All these programs that are new programs included in this legislation are going to take a very long time to implement and, therefore, I do not believe ought to be considered stimulus and they ought not be funded as a part of this stimulus bill.

My amendment simply says any program that was not authorized as of February 1 of this year will not be funded under the stimulus bill. It is a way of trimming the cost of this bill back and doing something that actually I think eliminates a lot of the extraneous spending that is included in the bill. I urge my colleagues to support it.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Reserving the right to object, can I clarify exactly then what the UC is? The Senator from Hawaii would have an opportunity to respond and offer a unanimous consent request, and then the Senator from California would have how much time?

I was hoping I would have an opportunity to make some remarks before the vote. The vote is going to occur at 12:20. Very good.

Mr. President, this is a very important debate for the American people. We have an economy that is struggling, we have a lot of people who are hurting, and I think in the context of that debate, it is very important that we remember these dollars we are spending are the American people's dollars. Yes, we want to be able to respond to the economic crisis the country is experiencing in a way that allows people to spend more money, that gets more money back into the hands of the American people, that will help grow the economy and create jobs, and provide the necessary incentives for small businesses to invest, but I think it is important at the outset of the debate that we give serious consideration and thought to what we are doing here and what we are talking about in terms of the dimensions and the scale of what we are talking about.

When we throw around numbers here in Washington, DC, when we talk in millions and we talk in billions, and in this case a trillion dollars, we treat it as if it is something abstract. I think it is sometimes important to boil it down so that we put in perspective the dimension, the scale, the scope, and the size of what is being talked about this week on the floor of the Senate.

I want to put up a chart that illustrates that very point. Imagine thinking about a trillion dollars, and putting it back to back or if you put a bunch of hundred dollar bills back to back on top of each other and asking people around the country how high that stack would go.

I am sure you would get a lot of varying answers. You would probably have some people say it might go 300 yards into the air. Some people might say: Well, it might go 5 miles into the air. But the reality is, if you took hundred-dollar bills and stacked them on top of each other, you would have a stack that goes 689 miles high, back to back to back. That is hundred-dollar bills. We are not talking about dollar bills, we are talking about hundred-dollar bills.

I would say to the Senator, through the Chair, the Senator from California just had an opportunity. I would like to finish my remarks. Then I would be happy to yield.

The point I am making is, you have to sometimes illustrate this in a sometimes very graphic way to help us understand what we are talking about. So I would make my point simply again: Hundred-dollar bills stacked back to back to back, if you stacked them on top of each other, would equal 689 miles.

Now, another way of looking at this is, if you took hundred-dollar bills and wrapped them around the Earth at the Equator, in other words, you took hundred-dollar bills, not stack them on top of each other but wrap them side by side all the way around the Earth, if you can believe this, it would go around the Earth almost 39 times. That is 969,000 miles of hundred-dollar bills that would go around the Earth if you took a trillion dollars and broke it down that way.

That very simply puts into perspective what it is we are talking about. Someone else has described it this way: If you started spending a million dollars a day on the day Christ was born, and you spent a million dollars every single day up until today, you still would not have spent a trillion. That is the dimension of what we are talking about.

I remember when I was in business school, we had our little business analyst calculators that we used to do financial calculations. You could not even get to this. You could not even get to a trillion dollars on calculators back at that time. I hope, today, for purposes of doing economic calculations, because of the scale we are talking about, these calculators go that far.

But my point is, this is an enormous amount of money, an enormous amount of money. We are talking about $1.26 trillion of our children's and grandchildren's money over the next 10 years. I think there is a basic principle that all Members of the Senate should consider when we are spending our fellow citizens' hard-earned dollars. That principle is this: We should not spend money we do not have on things we do not need. Let me say that again. We should not spend money we do not have on things we do not need.

Families and business owners understand this principle. Unfortunately, it is a principle that has been lost and escaped our colleagues on the other side who have drafted this 700-page, trillion- dollar spending bill, which is filled with lots of Government spending that I think most Americans would characterize as wasteful. I am not saying all Government spending is bad. Government spending, if it is properly focused and highly scrutinized, may have some countercyclical impact. One example of that would be infrastructure spending that we use to improve our roads and bridges and provide access to clean drinking water, that can provide jobs in the short term, and can create economic opportunity in the long term.

The problem we have is this bill is laden with unfocused, unnecessary, and wasteful spending. Now, the stated goal of a stimulus proposal, as stated by, I think, Larry Summers earlier this year, was it should be timely, temporary, and targeted. I may not be saying these in the right order but basically timely, temporary, and targeted, basically three criteria, three metrics by which we would measure a stimulus proposal and whether it is effective and whether it works.

I would argue this particular bill is none of the above. It is slow, it is unfocused, and it is unending. It makes commitments way beyond the 1-year, 2-year window that we are talking about if we want to have an impact and create jobs with stimulus.

So even with a price tag that is greater than any previous stimulus package in the history of our country, the majority of the spending in this bill is not focused on job creation and fails to meet the job creation goals our President called for and I think the American public expects.

With record deficits in the near term, this bill, as drafted, is a mistake that I do not believe we can afford to make. According to the Congressional Budget Office, we have a $1.2 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2009, before any financial stabilization or stimulus measures are passed by this Congress.

Now, again, we are going to spend $1 trillion. I would point out what $1 trillion means. If you took hundred-dollar bills, you put them side by side, 969,000 miles, and that is the amount we are talking about spending. It is also the amount of the deficit in this particular fiscal year, fiscal year 2009. That is before, as I said before, any financial stabilization or stimulus measures are passed by this Congress. Frankly, we expect other requests to come forward in the area of financial stabilization.

To put the $1.2 trillion deficit into perspective, that is roughly triple the previous record of $455 billion that the deficit came to in fiscal year 2008. So it is important to note that already this deficit in fiscal year 2009 will exceed by almost three times the deficit in the year 2008. It is going to be over $1 trillion before we do any of these other things.

It is also important to note that the Congress, not the executive branch, has the constitutional authority to raise

and to spend revenue; that is, the power of the purse, by our Constitution, falls to Congress. So if we are looking for a scapegoat in this whole fiscal imbalance, we need to look no further than the Halls of Congress.

In fact, in the last couple years--the Democrats regained the Congress back in 2007, the Federal deficit has ballooned from $160 billion or 1.2 percent of our gross domestic product in 2007 to over $1 trillion or 8.3 percent of our gross domestic product this year, in fiscal year 2009.

Now, if we include just the additional spending for this proposal before us, the 2009 projected deficit, I am talking about now stimulus and the deficit as I mentioned earlier that is already projected for 2009, it would increase to $1.43 trillion, almost $1.5 trillion, in deficits or, put another way, about 10 percent of our gross domestic product.

I have to remind my colleagues that we are still very early in the year. We have almost 9 months left in this fiscal year to spend even more of our children's and grandchildren's tax dollars. The Congress is soon going to consider an omnibus spending bill for the remainder of 2009.

We also will have to consider a war supplemental bill and the potential of additional bailouts for the financial sector and we are told that request may be coming as early as next week.

Without a question, we are going to end 2009 in perhaps the worst financial condition the Nation has ever seen. In fact, the last time we had a single-year deficit that the GDP ratio was over 8 percent was the year 1945, during the height of World War II.

Now, for comparative purposes, the European Union, the Federal deficit there that we have this year of 10 percent, if you add the stimulus in, would not even be good enough to get into the European Union. According to European Union rules, member nations have to have a budget deficit of 3 percent or less. Our Federal deficit this year will be three times higher than the maximum threshold to get into the European Union.

Of course, European countries are also dealing with the same contractionary forces that we are dealing with in this country, which are driving up their collective deficit to GDP ratios to record highs. But even with those factors and influences in those economies, the Euro zone's collected deficits will only reach 4.7 percent in 2009. That is 4.7 percent of their gross domestic product, which will be less than half the U.S. total.

When you talk about being faced with such unsustainable deficits, Congress, I would argue, has to carefully analyze any and all deficit spending. Any additional Government programs that are financed with more deficit spending need to meet the highest standards of job creation and return on taxpayer investment.

Unfortunately, the spending bill we have before us contains a long list of Government programs that fail to meet that standard. I can start to go down the list--I will not go through the entire list because it would take too long--$1 billion for the Census; $20 billion for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers; $400 million for STD prevention; $25 million to rehabilitate ATV or recreational vehicle trails; $34 million to remodel the Department of Commerce headquarters in Washington, DC; $70 million to support supercomputer activities for climate research; $208 million for disconnected youth; $1.2 billion for summer employment; $246 million in tax breaks for Hollywood filmmakers; $6 billion so bureaucrats in Washington can enjoy the benefits of green technology.

I happen to be one who supports green technology. I think we ought to be moving in that direction. But we also have many opportunities, energy bills we have made on a regular basis around here, in order to engage in how we invest to be moving our country in a green direction.

These programs do not create jobs. They hardly justify a $1.2 trillion debt on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren.

So I would encourage my colleagues, as we go through the debate this week to scrutinize every line item in this 700-page bill and ask themselves if these provisions will create jobs and justify making record deficits even worse. We should not spend money we do not have on things we do not need.

Over the next few days, several amendments are going to be offered to strike or replace wasteful spending items in this bill. I would call on my colleagues to consider these amendments with an open mind and a clear understanding of the dangerous consequences of a trillion-dollar mistake. A trillion dollars is a terrible thing to waste.

What we are talking about, as I mentioned in terms of the dimensions of this, if you look at hundred-dollar bills side by side, 38.9 times it goes around the Earth at the Equator. That is what I am talking about.

I would say I am not sure I know the answer, but I am sure I am going to hear it.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from California for her question. I think we can all talk about what has come before, what has happened in the past. Frankly, there are lots of reasons why we are in the situation we are in.

But I would remind my colleague from California that the President of the United States does not appropriate a single penny; that is done by the Congress. That is done by the Congress. We in the Congress have created this problem. Now, arguably it has happened under Republican Congresses, it has happened under Democratic Congresses. But the point is, we are here talking about spending an additional trillion dollars on the top of a historic amount of debt that we have in the country and deficits that this year are going to be $1.2 trillion. That is without adding in the stimulus. That is without talking about the financial stabilization request that is going to come later. That is without the omnibus spending bill, which is for the first time, I might add, going to be over $1 trillion, and that is without the supplemental bill that will be coming our way later this year.

This Congress is talking about going on a spending spree that is unprecedented in American history. Yes, we can all point to the mistakes that were made in the past, but I am here to talk about today my concern for the future and what we are doing in the future, to future generations and our children and grandchildren, when we impose this kind of burden on them.

Mr. President, I wish to recognize the University of Sioux Falls Cougars men's football team for winning the 2008 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, NAIA, National Championship and for finishing at the top of the NAIA Coaches' Top 25 Postseason Poll. This was USFs third consecutive trip to the National Championship and second championship victory in that time.

The University of Sioux Falls men's football team has a long history of success, including 3 National Championships from 1996 to 2008 and 16 Great Plains Athletic Conference titles. This season proved to be yet another outstanding performance by the Cougars, as they finished with a perfect record of 14 to 0 and defeated Carroll College, 23 to 7, in the NAIA National Championship game. Their excellent performance throughout the season was awarded by receiving all 18 possible first place votes in the NAIA Coaches' Top 25 Postseason Poll.

The 2008 Cougars were led to the championship thanks to the combination of a powerful offense and a dominating defense. The Cougars averaged nearly 37 points per game while giving up only 6. The defense ranked first in the Nation in numerous statistical categories, including scoring defense and total defense. The team effort displayed each week by this group of men is a tribute to the countless hours of training and preparation that preceded this great accomplishment.

Certainly this season would not have been possible without the coaches and players themselves. The coaching staff, in alphabetical order, is as follows: Ross Cimpl, Al Christensen, Kalen DeBoer, Jeff Fitzgerald, Ryan Grubb, Al Hansen, Eric Inama, Dan Moe, and Kurtiss Riggs.

The team, in alphabetical order, is as follows: Blake Andersen, Brandon Andersen, Alex Anderson, Drew Anderson, Eric Anderson, Anthony Baldassari, Jeremy Barnes, Bret Beachner, Travis Beaver, Nick Benedetto, Tony Benedetto, Dustin Bergmeier, Quintin Biermann, Brandon Boe, Lorenzo Brown, Tyson Brown, Doug Carlson, Jordan Carlson, Cody Cavender, Erik Cimpl, Jacob Crowl, Kyle Cummings, Drew DeGroot, Josh Dorr, Dane Driscoll, Trevor Engelson, Nathan Everett, Eric Fjeldheim, Shawn Flanagan, Dylan Fritz, Stanley Green, Jake Hahne, Adam Halseth, Mike Hartley, Brad Hartzler, Michael Hill, Trevor Holleman, Lavell Jackson, Eric James, Maxon Keating, Taylor Klein, Brandon Koolstra, Kyle Lancaster, Jade Larson, Scott LeBrun, Landon Leveranz, Matt Lindgren, Marlon Lobban, Adam Lopez, Ryan Lowmiller, Mitch Lupkes, Brad Maag, Justin Meidinger, Joe Moen, Tyler Mousel, Tyler Newman, Eric Page, Mike Patterson, Tony Pedri, Casey Peters, Kristian Porter, Nick Ramstad, Jim Rawhouser, Jared Redding, T.J. Ross, Jon Ryan, Spencer Sailors, Sean Santiago, Mark Sayler, Mark Schaffer, Dan Schmeichel, Shawn Schnabel, Andrew Schoenfelder, Ryan Schuler, Ismael Small, Eric Smith, Kyle Staudt, Dominic Studzinski, Rene Velasquez, Jared Vlotho, Tim Voegeli, Demetrius Washington, Kyle Wasson, and T.J. Wendt.

While the Cougars' success was truly a team effort, I would like to recognize the team's head coach Kalen DeBoer for being honored as the 2008 American Football Coaches Association NAIA Coach of the Year. This is the second time that he has received this honor since taking the helm for the Cougars in 2005. In only 4 years of Cougar leadership, Coach DeBoer has amassed a daunting record of 52 to 3. He has led the Cougars to the NAIA Championship game three times. The Cougars' continued success is a testament to Coach DeBoer's ability to motivate his players to perform and succeed at a high level of competition.

The coaching staff and student-athletes of the University of Sioux Falls men's football team should be very proud of all of their accomplishments this season. On behalf of the Sioux Falls community and the State of South Dakota, I am pleased to say congratulations to the Cougars on another remarkable season. You have made us all very proud.

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

I thank my colleague from Oklahoma for yielding. What is the present business before the Senate?

Thank you. That is the subject on which I wish to speak. I would start by saying our country is going through some very hard economic times. When you are going through hard economic times, you need several things to get through. You need the resolve and the resilience of the American people. You need the skill, the talents, and the creativity of America's best and brightest thinkers when it comes to solutions. You need wisdom from your political leaders. You also need one other thing from your political leaders: you need the presence of character. You need leaders who will lead by example.

Unfortunately, the hard times in which we find ourselves were borne of excess. We spent too much, we borrowed too much, and we saved too little.

Corporate CEOs saw fit to pay themselves huge bonuses while running their companies into the ground. Some very clever people found ways to create new financial instruments, such as credit default swaps, making enormous amounts of money for themselves on every transaction while exposing their companies and their shareholders to trillions of dollars in liabilities.

At the same time, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were running amok, making risky home loans that helped cause this economic crisis in which we now find ourselves. It is because of the excesses of the few that all of the American people are left holding the bag and are being called upon to clean up the mess.

Today we vote on whether to confirm a very smart, able, and skilled business leader to help lead America out of the mess we are in. No one questions Tim Geithner's intellect, his knowledge of financial markets, or his skill in managing complex business problems. He has, as many have said, the type of experience that is necessary to navigate the turbulent waters that lie ahead. I believe he is smart. I believe he is talented. I believe he is experienced. But, as I said earlier, that is not enough.

There are lots of smart, talented, and experienced people who got us into this economic mess. It will take more than smarts, talent, and experience to get us out. It will take leaders who have the trust of the American people because they are willing to lead by example.

I don't know Mr. Geithner's state of mind when he made the mistake of not paying his payroll taxes between 2001 and 2004. He said it was ``careless mistakes, avoidable mistakes.'' Perhaps so. But the one thing I do know is he should have known better, not just because he is a highly educated businessman who had prior service as a top-ranking official at the Treasury Department but because he was notified several times of his tax liability by his employer at the time and even signed documents acknowledging that he owed the taxes. Again, he should have known better. I don't judge Mr. Geithner as a person. None of us is perfect; we all make mistakes. We all need redemption. But as a Senator, I have a responsibility to vote. I have to vote on whether I believe Tim Geithner should serve as our next Treasury Secretary. As a Senator, I am concerned about the message Mr. Geithner's confirmation will send to the people. As Treasury Secretary, he will oversee the IRS and, therefore, be tasked with enforcing our Nation's tax laws. Yet for 4 years he failed to pay his lawful taxes after being informed of his obligation to do so. If I were to support this nomination, I don't know how I would explain such a vote to my fellow South Dakotans who work hard and pay their taxes every year, on time and in full.

As many of my colleagues have pointed out, these are extraordinary times, and they call for extraordinary leadership. I couldn't agree more. But leadership is about more than smarts; it is about more than skill. By all accounts, Mr. Geithner is a good man. I respect his willingness to serve. I expect he will be confirmed. And when he is, he faces a daunting challenge in stabilizing our financial markets and strengthening our economy. Once he is confirmed, I look forward to working with him to meet this challenge. I hope he is successful and we as a country are successful. But for the reasons I have stated, I cannot add my support to his nomination.

I ask unanimous consent that the following be the speakers on the Republican side--that no Republican Senator be recognized for more than 10 minutes, and that any remaining time be allocated to Senator Vitter: Senators DeMint, Sessions, Corker, Enzi for up to 5 minutes, Brownback, Inhofe, Gregg, Kyl, Shelby, Bond for up to 5 minutes, and Hutchison for up to 2 minutes.

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

Mr. President, today I recognize Don Meyer, men's basketball coach at Northern State University, in Aberdeen, SD, for his 903rd career coaching victory. The historic win occurred January 10, 2009, as his NSU Wolves defeated the University of Mary by a score of 82-62. That victory placed Coach Meyer atop the NCAA men's all-time wins list, one victory ahead of legendary coach Bob Knight.

Since their arrival in 1999, Coach Meyer and his wife Carmen have been incredible assets to the Aberdeen community and Northern State University. The Meyers participate in countless civic events, displaying great community pride. As his players, assistants, coaching colleagues, participants, and fans can attest, Coach Meyer is a world- class basketball instructor. More importantly, however, he is a world- class teacher and mentor on the fundamentals of everyday life. He is able to not only mold his athletes into great basketball players, but also into outstanding young adults equipped to have positive impacts on the world around them.

Coach Meyer's courageous journey is made even more remarkable due to the fact he was involved in a near fatal automobile accident in September of 2008 on the way to an annual team retreat. Coach Meyer credits his team with saving his life, as players and assistant coaches rushed to his aid while waiting for help to arrive. Throughout his hospitalization, Coach Meyer maintained his selfless nature and admirable character by always looking for the positive and keeping his faith steadily intact. His strong spirit, optimistic attitude, and unprecedented determination remained constant even amidst the amputation of his lower left leg and the pronouncement of an unexpected cancer diagnosis. This amazing man was at his team's 5 a.m. practice immediately following his hospital dismissal, ready to use his life experiences as a tool to enrich the lives of others. Those who know him appreciate his wealth of knowledge, distinctive outlook on life and his unique sense of humor.

Coach Meyer began his college basketball career as a standout player at the University of Northern Colorado, earning NCAA All-American status. Upon graduation, he served as an assistant coach at Western State College of Colorado and the University of Utah. He landed his first head coaching position at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN, in 1972. After 3 years with Hamline, which included a 1975 trip to the NCAA Division III Elite Eight, Coach Meyer traveled to Nashville, TN, to become the head coach for Lipscomb University.

During his tenure at Lipscomb, Coach Meyer amassed 665 wins. His teams qualified for 13 national tournaments and won the 1986 NAIA National Championship. He was named NAIA Coach of Year in both 1989 and 1990. He coached 22 All-Americans and 3 National Players of the Year while in Nashville. In 1993, Coach Meyer was elected to the NAIA Hall of Fame. After 24 successful seasons, he left Lipscomb to become head coach for Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD.

Under Coach Meyer's tutelage, Northern State has reached the NCAA postseason-play four of the past five seasons. Included in this postseason run are two appearances in the North Central Region Championship game in 2006 and 2008. His NSU teams have surpassed the 20-win mark in seven consecutive seasons and captured four Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference regular season and conference tournament championships. Currently, his Wolves squad holds a 12-2 record and is ranked 11th in the Nation in NCAA Division II.

It is my great privilege to congratulate one of the most amazing, admirable, well-respected coaches of all time, Coach Don Meyer. He is a humble man of great integrity--a true inspiration and moral icon. It has been a true pleasure to have the opportunity to know him personally and an honor to call him my friend. On behalf of the city of Aberdeen, the State of South Dakota, and our great Nation, I am pleased to say congratulations, Coach Meyer. You have made us all incredibly proud. Your legacy will flourish throughout the lives that you have so profoundly touched. Congratulations and best wishes, Coach, and may God bless you.

lilly ledbetter fair pay act

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kyl), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. President, today I rise in tribute to the senior Senator from Virginia, the honorable John Warner. Senator Warner is without a doubt one of the finest Senators this chamber has ever had, and the Senate will be a lesser place without him.

Senator Warner is truly a great American--a patriot who has devoted 45 years of his life in service to his country. One of America's Greatest Generation, he served his country honorably during World War Two, enlisting before he was 18 years old. When war in Korea broke out, he again answered his country's call to arms. After earning his law degree, he served as the Under Secretary and later the Secretary of the Navy, again serving with great distinction and integrity.

In 1979, Senator Warner came to the Senate to begin his 30 year Senate career. As in every one of his endeavors

before, he immediately made an impact, eventually serving with distinction as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It is in this capacity that I have had the great privilege of working with him and getting to know him over the last 4 years.

Senator Warner's leadership on the Armed Services Committee has been invaluable. There is no doubt that when he speaks, all are wise to listen. He provides unwavering, courageous leadership that all lean upon. There is never any doubt to his motives. His only motive is to look out for our men and women in uniform and ensure our Nation's defense. His first priority is his country.

Senator Warner has never failed to lead courageously. At times, some of the positions he has taken have been politically unpopular, but his latest reelection--with over 82 percent of the vote--attests that his constituents know he is only dedicated to doing one thing--the right thing. In times of crisis, there is no doubt that Senator Warner becomes a rock that we all lean upon when we face the most challenging issues of our time. He was one of the leaders that worked on the Military Commissions Act and the incredibly difficult and contentious issue of detainees. Once again, just this year, he led again, this time by becoming one of the Gang of 20, trying to provide bipartisan solutions to American's energy issues. And, of course, it took his leadership to bring about passage of the Defense authorization bill this year, a bill that by tradition is passed each year, but which was looking extremely doubtful of passage for the first time in decades.

I have only one regret regarding my service with Senator Warner, and that is I did not have the opportunity to serve with him longer. One of the finest statesmen of his time, I am proud to call him my friend. I aspire to his example and his name belongs in the pantheon of the Senate's greatest figures.

Last, I would like to tell him thank you. Thank you for your great service to our great Republic. Thank you for the untold sacrifices you and your family have made along the way in your 45 years of public service. Thank you for your integrity, patriotism, leadership, and honor.

As I noted before, the Senate will be a lesser place when he leaves, but I wish Senator Warner a fond farewell and Godspeed.

Mr. President, today, out of a sense of pride and gratitude, I wish to recognize the remarkable yet unheralded work of a group of women who quite literally saved innumerable lives and made a notable contribution to the Allied victory during World War II. One might wonder what has taken us so long to honor a group of women whose efforts date back over 65 years. The reason is that the nature of their work was so secret, the women were warned that they could be shot for treason if they ever revealed their activities. And so they didn't. As a result, they never received the recognition they deserved.

I am speaking of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service), who played an instrumental role in cracking the complex codes that the Germans used to radio instructions from German headquarters to the submarines that were sinking Allied ships. And when I said I was speaking out of a sense of pride, it is because Alvina Elizabeth Schwab Pettigrew from my home State of South Dakota was among this determined group of heroes.

Alvina was born in 1919 on a farm near Mina, SD. She completed grades 1-8 in a one-room schoolhouse and graduated from Mina High School. She received a scholarship to Grand Island Business College in Nebraska in 1936. But in 1942, this everyday American embarked on a journey that would call her to do extraordinary things in the service of our Nation.

Alvina enlisted in the WAVES in October 1942 and was sent to Stillwater, OK, for 3 months of training. Following graduation, orders arrived for her to report to the Naval Communications Annex in Washington, DC. In nondescript buildings now housing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, more than 600 WAVES labored secretly in support of the war effort. German U-boats had been sinking Allied ships at alarming rates. Between January and March 1942, the Germans sank 216 ships off the east coast alone. But the Americans, improving on cryptological breakthroughs by the Poles and the British, finally cracked the German codes. The WAVES were the ones who actually operated the machines that deciphered the codes. They had the German U-boat fleet fighting for its life. The WAVES ran the machines around the clock. The noise was head-splitting, the summer heat sweltering. But they forged ahead, knowing that American lives were at stake.

Although one could argue that the honor does not begin to match the magnitude of the achievement, Alvina and the other WAVES are being recognized through a public arts project in the Cathedral Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC. A turn-of-the-century ``call box'' that once housed fire emergency equipment will contain a portrait of Alvina Schwab Pettigrew and a description of what the WAVES did in the Navy Annex just 200 yards away. It is a lasting tribute to the women who turned the tide on the Germans and helped the Allied forces win the war. I am proud that a South Dakotan is being honored in this way and that I am able to convey to Alvina and the WAVES a belated thank-you from a most grateful Nation.

Mr. President, we are at a place, in terms of the legislative calendar, where there are lots of things piled up and not much time to get them done. I am reminded of something someone once said: In the legislative process, you can't allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good, in a place where you are lucky if the adequate even survives.

That is where we find ourselves right now with regard to the issue of the tax extender legislation. We have a bill that impacts a broad range of Americans; 24 million Americans will be subject to the alternative minimum tax if Congress does not act. We have energy tax extenders that put in jeopardy lots of investment in renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. We have students who are affected because of a student loan provision, teachers who are affected by a teacher deduction that is allowed for expenses. We have the rural schools' fix included. All these things will be impacted if Congress fails to act.

Where we are with regard to that is, the Senate has passed a bill with 93 votes that we have sent to the House. The House is now trying to send that back, broken up in different ways and with different sorts of offsets.

The point is, we have to get it done. We have to look at what the traffic will bear. We have done everything we can in the Senate. When I was a Member of the House, I used to gripe about the Senate and its rules. Why can't we send things over there and get them done in a timely way?

The reality is, to get anything comprehensive done and anything consequential, it takes 60 votes. Already it is clear we will not be able to get 60 votes. We voted on this issue numerous times in the Senate. We voted on it repeatedly, the very provisions the House is trying to get us to adopt, without success.

In fact, last week we voted. We only got 53 votes in the Senate out of the 60 that are necessary. So it seems, to me at least, we are at a point where we flat have to get this done. It is no substitute for a comprehensive energy bill, but it is the least we can do. If the least we can do is the best we can do, we ought to do at least the best we can do, which is to pass these energy tax extenders and get some of this investment in energy technologies that would help us toward our goal of energy independence and reducing carbon emissions.

I urge our colleagues on the House side to accept this bill. It is a signable bill. It is very clear we have done everything we can in the Senate with repeated votes. The proposal the House has put forward is not going to move in the Senate, and we have a very short clock to work with here in order to get something done. It should not be a question of the political winners and losers. It ought to be about the American economy and the American people. We need to do something that is a winner for them, and that ought to be moving this piece of legislation in the House. It has 93 votes in the Senate. It is there. It is awaiting action.

It is absolutely clear the proposal they have sent here cannot secure the necessary votes to move. That bill that is over there will be signed by the President. It moves us in a direction of energy independence and puts some energy policy in place that is important to the future of this country, as well as all the other tax provisions I mentioned, including preventing 24 million American families from being hit by the alternative minimum tax at the end of the year. So I hope, again, this legislation will pass. I urge my colleagues on the House side to take it up and pass the Senate bill.

Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Madam President, today I rise to recognize Ashley Brost, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months.

Ashley is a graduate of Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls, SD, and of Augustana College, where she majored in sociology. Currently, she is attending the University of South Dakota. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience.

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

Madam President, today I rise to recognize Jennifer Fierro, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months.

Jennifer was home schooled in Santa Ana, CA, and graduated from the University of South Dakota, where she majored in Spanish. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience.

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

Madam President, today I rise to recognize Jessie Milstead, an intern in my Washington, DC office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several months.

Jessie is a graduate of West Central High School in Hartford, SD, and in the spring, she will attend Northwestern College in Minnesota. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience.

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