Floor Statements

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 138.

Mr. President, this is an Isakson-Shaheen budget amendment that creates a deficit-neutral fund for the purpose of converting our appropriations and budget process to a 2-year process where we budget and appropriate in odd-numbered years.

We would budget and appropriate in odd-numbered years and do oversight for efficiencies, finding abuses and finding those programs that are not working in even-numbered years. This is a process asked for by every President, from Ronald Reagan to our current President, and endorsed by Democrats and Republicans in this body. The person who knows the most about it is Ms. Jeanne Shaheen, former Governor of New Hampshire and a Senator, who is my partner.

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

Mr. President, I appreciate the recognition, and I ask unanimous consent--I was going to ask that Senator Shaheen be allowed to follow me. She is on the floor now and so she will.

I am pleased to stand and talk about amendment No. 138, sponsored by Senator Shaheen of New Hampshire and myself. It is a solution to a problem we have in this country and we have in this body. The problem is we have not been able to appropriate; we have not been able to budget. Our debts and deficits have grown, and it has turned into a situation where we do not function as well as we should over the most important responsibility of government; that is, spending money.

For one second I wish to talk about my side. Then I will defer to a lady who has been there and done that, because the State of New Hampshire is a biennial budgeting State.

We have a process problem. We budget every year, we spend money every year, but we never do oversight, we never look for cost-benefit savings, and we never look at analysis. This biennial budgeting amendment does the following things:

No. 1, it amends the Budget Act to require the Congress to do a 2- year budget, not a 1-year budget; No. 2, and followed by that, it requires them to do 2-year appropriations bills, not 1-year appropriations.

The appropriations bills and the budget are passed in the first year of a Congress, which means the odd-number year. In the even-number year, it is dedicated to oversight, efficiency, and cost-benefit analysis, something we do far too little of in this body and far too little of in this country.

Wouldn't it be nice to have elections every even-numbered year where Members of Congress were running for office based on the savings they are going to find, the efficiency they will create, and the accountability they will have in appropriations, rather than talking about how much more bacon they are going to bring home or how much more money they will spend.

This legislation creates a new majority point of order against any amendment that is not confined and coordinated with the 2-year budget process and the 2-year appropriations process.

I have been in Washington 15 years, and we have gotten into the business of when we do appropriations bills, they are omnibus; and when we do budgets, which we haven't done in 3 years, they end up being more of an argument over political philosophy than a practical roadmap for the American people.

The biennial budgeting process, which has been adopted by 20 of the 50 States in this country, is a process that will work and will force us to do what we know our job is--to appropriate, to budget, and then to conduct oversight to make sure the money we are spending is efficient.

One side note before I yield to Senator Shaheen. The State of Israel, 3 years ago--4 years ago--was having difficulty with deficits and debt. They went to the World Bank for advice and consultation and they recommended--the World Bank did--that they adopt a biennial budget process and a biennial appropriations process. In the 3 years since that time, while operating under those principles, they have gone from deficits to surpluses, and they have gone from debt to a lower debt. In other words, it has worked in Israel, it worked in a democracy, it works in 20 of our 50 States, and it can work in the United States of America.

Every President since Ronald Reagan has endorsed the biennial budget. Members of the Cabinet of the President who were nominated and have been confirmed have endorsed a biennial budget. Pete Domenici started this process 15 years ago, and we want to bring it to a conclusion this year. So I urge my colleagues to support and adopt amendment No. 138, creating a biennial budget process and accountability for our appropriations.

I yield the floor now to the Senator from New Hampshire, who has been there and done this in her State, and she is a great partner with me in this bipartisan amendment for success in this Congress.

Mr. President, I just to want to thank the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire for what she has done in supporting this, and I thank my other colleagues who are supporting it. This is an idea whose time has come. I urge every Member of the Senate tonight to vote for this amendment so we can begin a new process and a new day in this Congress.

I yield back.

Mr. President, I am proud to honor on the floor of the Senate, Mr. Preston ``Pres'' Henne, for his

44-year career in the aerospace industry as he prepares for his retirement from Gulfstream Aerospace on March 31, 2013, as senior vice president for Programs, Engineering and Test.

During Pres' 19 years with Gulfstream, he was responsible for leading the teams that designed, developed, tested and certified the Gulfstream V and G550 aircraft. This earned him the Robert J. Collier trophies from the National Aeronautics Association in 1997 and 2003, respectively, which are awarded annually for the greatest achievement in aeronautics and astronautics in North America.

Under Pres' direction, Gulfstream developed and certified six new aircraft, the G650, G550, GV, G450, G280 and G150. In conjunction with these new products, Pres was also responsible for launching a number of industry-leading product enhancements, including the Gulfstream Enhanced Vision System and Synthetic Vision-Primary Flight Display.

Most recently, Pres oversaw the development of the company's much- anticipated G650, one of the world's most sophisticated business-jet aircraft. The G650, which entered service in 2012, was designed with technological advances such as a digital fly-by-wire system, triplex flight management systems, auto emergency descent and enhanced and synthetic vision systems. Pres also supervised the design and development of the G280, an aircraft that has been noted for its best- in-class performance, cabin comfort and technology.

From my conversations with Gulfstream officials and my knowledge of Pres' tremendous accomplishments, I know that the loss will be great. However, with the team Pres has led and his strong vision, I have no doubt the future of Gulfstream is as bright as Pres' own future beyond Gulfstream. Congratulations to Pres on taking the next steps in life.

Madam President, I rise today, in this year of 2013, on the tenth anniversary of the State of the Union Address given by President George W. Bush when he introduced a program known as PEPFAR-- the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief--a program that has had remarkable success in the last decade.

A lot of that success has taken place on the continent of Africa, where I just returned from my seventh trip in the last decade. This was a trip where remarkable things were observed happening all over the continent in terms of AIDS infection being reduced, mother-to-child transmission being in fact eliminated in many cases, and seeing that the biggest challenge today for those who fall victim to AIDS is not that they will die soon but that they will have the continuum of care necessary to see to it they live a normal lifestyle with the antiretrovirals provided by PEPFAR.

It is important that the American taxpayers, the American people, those of us in Congress recognize what has been achieved in the last decade, for our taxpayers have invested billions of dollars on the continent of Africa to begin the process of trying to eliminate AIDS. We cannot yet declare victory, but we can declare great victories in battles along the way, and we are making more and more of them along the way. Males are getting tested, females are getting tested, as they should, and mothers are getting the care they need with antiretrovirals during their pregnancies to prevent the transmission to their babies, and we are seeing a continuation of the progress of the great program started 10 years ago by this Congress, by President Bush, and by the American people.

We are beginning to send the message, and we need to let the African countries know, that we will be scaling down our investment and raising their participation at the government level. It is important to see to it that PEPFAR remains a viable program. In our visit of the past 7, 8, now 9 days, I guess it was, we visited the Congo, we visited Mali, Senegal, Morocco, and we visited South Africa. In each and every country they are beginning the process of having more and more of their health professionals taking more and more of the responsibility of caring for people, testing people, and distributing the antiretrovirals, which lessens the pressure on the budget of the United States of America. But I think it is important to recognize that a disease we feared was going to take much of the population of that continent--and ours, for that matter--10 years ago is now a disease that is being managed and being reduced, and over time, we hope, we will have a generation free of HIV/AIDS not only in America but around the world.

There is a troubling event happening on the continent of Africa and in Asia, and that is there are those who are taking the volunteers who come from our country and other organizations and actually stopping them from giving inoculations and vaccinations to the people. Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria are the last three countries on Earth where polio still exists. A few weeks ago, in the Congo, in Nigeria, nine workers were killed trying to give vaccinations to children in Nigeria because Islamic leaders in those countries had tried to tell them that in order to reduce the Arab population American donations of polio vaccine would in fact cause them to be impotent when they grew up. That is the farthest thing from the truth, but it is a wives' tale being told to eliminate or keep vaccinations from getting to the people who need them. In the country of Pakistan, since December 12, there have been five attacks on workers distributing vaccines trying to eliminate polio in Pakistan.

So as we celebrate the victories in terms of HIV/AIDS, polio, malaria, and other diseases, we have to also recognize there is still ignorance in some parts of the world that is prohibiting people who will ultimately get sick and die from getting the vaccines necessary to keep from contracting these difficult diseases. So I come to the floor today to recognize the great achievement of the American people in the war against AIDS on the continent of Africa, and the creation of PEPFAR by George W. Bush, but also to send out a warning to those trying to prohibit the vaccinations and the antiretrovirals from getting to the people who need them in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Because one day we want a generation free of HIV/AIDS and disease not just on the continent of North America or the continent of Africa but around the world.

It is a tribute to the American medical community, the researchers and developers, the American people, and this Congress that the war on AIDS is still being engaged, and we are declaring victory after victory on the battlefield. One day we hope we will have a generation free of AIDS not just in America but around the world.

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

Mr. President, yesterday the Senate overwhelmingly confirmed the nomination of John Kerry to be the next Secretary of State of the United States of America. I was away from the Capitol during the 2 hours allocated for that debate, and I wanted to add my comments and my commendations to now Secretary Kerry on his confirmation to be Secretary of State of our country.

For the last 4 years, I had the privilege of serving on the Foreign Relations Committee with Senator Kerry as chairman. During that period of time, I got to watch him as a diplomat, as an American, as a Member of the Senate, and as one committed to peace and security around the world. I watched him carefully in the Middle East as he negotiated and worked hard to see to it that we had peace but that we had peace through strength and we had peace through our partnership with the great State of Israel. I watched him on the comprehensive peace agreement in the Sudan to help shepherd across the creation of the newest nation, South Sudan, and a bloodless election that caused that to take place. I watched him in many other cases dealing with diplomats from Africa, to Europe, to the Middle East, representing the United States of America in all of its best interests. I watched him work hand in hand with

Secretary of State Clinton to ensure that there was no division between the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the policies of this country. But most importantly of all, in those tough, tough issues, like the ratification of the New START treaty, now Secretary Kerry, then Chairman Kerry, made sure that every member of the committee in the entire markup and hearing process had their questions answered, their concerns answered, and was a part of the process. He never tried to ramrod anything through the committee nor through the Congress but, rather, did his job in an exemplary way.

It is a privilege for me to rise tonight to pay tribute to John Kerry, the next Secretary of State of the United States of America, and commend him on his confirmation to that job.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as I walked to the Capitol, I had not intended to speak. But when I came in and started listening to Senator Pryor and Senator Levin, and I listened earlier today to Senator McCain and now Senator Alexander, it made me want to come to the floor and thank them for the effort they have made to hopefully make us a better working body in the next 2 years than we would have been otherwise preceding this agreement.

When Senator Alexander made the remarks about our predecessor, Richard Russell, and when he came home to Georgia after a rigorous debate, an arduous debate, that took place on civil rights, it made me recognize the appreciation and respect our predecessors had for the result of the debating process.

As I listened to Senator Pryor, I had a flashback to 2 weeks ago when a number of us attended the movie ``Lincoln.'' It was a screening of the movie downstairs, and Steven Spielberg was there. I thought about those great scenes in the movie ``Lincoln'' where the U.S. Congress debated slavery and whether we were going to abolish it. We came to a decision, we had a vote, we debated it, and the abolition of slavery took place, all because the Congress functioned, all because politicians took the issues to the floor. They challenged one another. They worked hard for what they thought was best for the country. I think tonight when we vote on the changes that will be adopted, we preserve the interests of the minority. We preserve the best heritage of this body. We put ourselves in a state where we will debate on the floor of the Senate and make decisions for the American people, and the result will be a better country and a better product by the U.S. Senate.

So I thank, Senator Alexander, Senator Pryor, Senator McCain, wherever you might be, and Senator Carl Levin, for a job well done.

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

Mr. President. I would like to honor in the Record Ms. Sue Everhart of Marietta, GA. Sue is a dear friend of mine who is one of the hardest working individuals in Georgia politics. In fact, Sue was elected chairman of the Georgia Republican Party in 2008 and re-elected in 2009 and again in 2011, making her the first chairman to serve three consecutive terms. In 2009, Sue was also chosen as one of ten women in the United States to be honored as a Woman of Achievement by the Republican National Committee.

Sue is an effective leader who has worked tirelessly to elect Republicans in the State of Georgia. In 2010, her efforts over the years came to a crescendo when Republicans swept the State, winning every statewide contest. In fact, Sue has been instrumental in my political campaigns, and I am forever grateful for her support throughout the years.

Although Sue will be ending her successful run as chairman of the Georgia Republican Party in May of this year, I am sure that this will not be the end of her involvement in Georgia politics. Our party will be forever better because of Sue, and I wish her the best in her future endeavors.

Mr. President, would the Senator from Arizona yield?

I rise for a moment to associate myself with the Senator from Tennessee, the Senator from Arizona, and the Senator from South Carolina. I want to tell a personal story somewhat like the Senator from South Carolina.

I made my living my entire life before I got here for 33 years selling houses, causing two people to come together and agree on price, agree on terms, sign and shake on a deal, and walk away from a closing table feeling like both of them won.

I have also been elected to every legislative body I could be elected to in my State, and I have served in legislatures for 34 years. I have negotiated deals and been on conference committees, and I never once found myself making a deal by intimidating or insulting the other side.

What the President did this afternoon set us back in civility and in leadership and in dealmaking, and I am a big enough guy to know I am not going to take it personally. If the desire was to offend me, the speech did. But if the desire was to deter me, it did not.

It is time we all found ways to come together as Americans and solve our problems, not just in the short run but in the long run; not fill our room with partisan supporters, but, instead, cause everybody to sit together around the table and find a way to make a deal.

This is the greatest country on the face of this Earth, and it will continue to be unless we forget what got us here. What got us here are the American people, not the American politicians. The American businessman, the American entrepreneur, the American worker, the American laborer, and the American leaders--people who, through their sweat, their blood, and their toil built businesses, built factories, built companies, and made this great enterprise known as the United States of America work.

If we want to raise our revenue--sure, you can raise by percentage your revenue by raising your assessment, but if you lower your base your revenue goes down. What we need to do is empower our base by raising the prosperity of the American businessman, the American employee, and the American worker. As their prosperity rises, taxes will go up not because we are charging them more by rate, but because they are making more. The rate and what they pay goes up because they are more prosperous.

You will never raise the revenue you need by insulting the American people or taking away the incentives to work, make a living, maybe take a risk and be an entrepreneur. So while we had a speech today--the intention of which I don't know, but it probably protracted and delayed what we are trying to do here today, and that is find a way to come back and fight another day.

I agree with Senator Graham. The big battle is yet to come, and it is over the debt ceiling. It is going to be a big battle, and I share every comment and every sentiment that Senator Graham said because that is the one where we have to find a way to make a deal. The President is not going to make a deal by poking us in the eye and by charging one side against the other to try and have a win-win proposition. I never made a deal if it wasn't a win-win proposition. I always lost a deal when I made it a win-lose proposition.

I am at the table. I will continue to negotiate. I want to make this country work, but let's work together. Let's find common ground. In the eleventh hour and in the twelfth hour, let's do what is right for the American people.

I want to thank Senator Graham, Senator Corker, and Senator McCain for their remarks. I associate myself with them, and I yield the floor.

Happy New Year, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the nominee for Commissioner of FHA, Carol Galante. I opposed her nomination earlier in the year because of some concerns about what the FHA may or may not do; however, I had no concern whatsoever about her qualifications or ability. She is coming up in the second vote today, and I want to put on the record my wholehearted support for the Senate reaching the 60 votes necessary to confirm her appointment, and I want to explain why.

There are some people in the Chamber who justifiably have concerns about the FHA, its liability on insurance and the fact that it is bearing so much of the burden on housing finance. But that is not the FHA's fault, that is the fault of Dodd-Frank. The restrictions on lenders would have forced FHA to be the lender of last resort--or most resort--for most American people. That is something we in the Senate have the ability to fix, but we should not punish a talented, experienced, well-qualified, and highly recognized individual who knows housing, both multi and single family, from being Commissioner of the

Mr. President, on behalf of the people of Georgia, the United States of America, and the 99 Members of the Senate, I want to pause to pay tribute to the family of Dan Inouye. When a great football coach passes away and players are interviewed and asked what kind of coach he was, they will say he was a player's coach. When great generals are lost and the people who go to the funeral ask what kind of general he was, they say he was a soldier's general.

I am here to pay tribute to a Senator's Senator. He was a great role model for me. He came here when Hawaii first became a State, and he was here ever since. He influenced the lives of not a few but of many.

I got an e-mail from Mike Mattingly, a U.S. Senator who was elected in 1980.

He said: Please remember when you are on the floor of the U.S. Senate to express the love and affection my wife Leslie and I have for a great American, Dan Inouye.

I share that same affection. I know I owe a lot of whatever success I have had in the Senate to learning from his patience, guidance, temperament, and also his determination. Yesterday, I was told his last word was aloha, but we have to remember that was always the first word we heard from Dan Inouye as well because he meant it in a welcoming, friendly way.

I want to follow up on what Senator Alexander said earlier. I too was at the Prayer Breakfast when Dan Inouye was there. It was the largest crowd we ever had, and it was not because invitations went out but because Dan Inouye was going to be there. Everybody there was mesmerized by his candor, by his life, and by his commitment. We don't discuss what goes on inside those rooms, and I will not here, except to say that when Dan Inouye opened his heart, it was as big and rich a heart as the one we have all seen in the Senate.

To his loved ones, the State of Hawaii, and the people of America, we have lost a great man. We have all been better off for knowing him, loving him, and serving with him. I pay tribute to the life and times of a great American hero, Dan Inouye.

I yield the floor.

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

I defer to the lovely lady from Maryland.

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

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise to make four separate statements in commendation to my fellow colleagues in the Senate and one back in Georgia.

Jon Kyl

Mr. President, December of every even-numbered year is a sad time. Because of election outcomes or because of age and longevity, time takes over and some of our Members go and new Members come. I think it is important that we take the time to recognize those who served so long and served so well and served each of us--individuals such as Jon Kyl of Arizona, the whip for the Republican minority in the Senate. He is a great American, a great Arizonan, a man who carries a tremendous burden--two, as a matter of fact. One is trying to herd cats, known as the Republican conference, and the other is being the junior Senator to John McCain. Both of those are challenges that anybody would have a problem meeting, but Jon Kyl does it the right way. He has the temperament of a leader. I have been in 38 different legislative years, from the Georgia Legislature to the U.S. Congress. I have known a lot of whips. I have known a lot of them who cracked the whip, I have known a lot of them who were ineffective, and I have known a very few who were effective. And Jon Kyl is the most effective whip I have ever worked with and ever seen. He knows the issues and has the ability to communicate them. He knows how to put the party ahead of individual priorities but keep the country first no matter what it is.

I will give you one good example. We were debating the START treaty 2 years ago, which is a very important treaty for the United States. The Presiding Officer was on the Foreign Relations Committee when we had that debate. He might remember there were a lot of people who were concerned about the modernization of our nuclear arsenal while we were renewing the START treaty and what we would do in the prospective years ahead while we made a new treaty with Russia in terms of our modernization. It was Jon Kyl's leadership, working with Senator Kerry as the chairman of the committee, Secretary of State Clinton as our Secretary of State, and interests on both sides who carved out the agreement that ensured for the American people that we would have the modernized nuclear force we need to meet whatever challenge might come our way. That treaty passed in large measure because he gained the assurances from the administration and from those who were opposed that without modernization and the commitment for the money for it, it would not take place. That is not just a whip, that is a leader. That is a man who found a problem, found a solution, married the two, and we ratified a treaty. America is a safer country because of it, and our nuclear arsenal is being modernized.

That is the kind of man you look for in a legislator. Jon Kyl is a great legislator, a great whip, and a great friend of mine. I pay tribute to him for his service to the U.S. Senate, for his service to the people of America, and for his service to the people of his State of Arizona.

Richard Lugar

I would like to turn to Richard Lugar from Indiana. Richard Lugar is one of those rare people who are referred to as an institution, and he is truly an institution: Six terms in 36 years in the Senate, a candidate for President of the United States in the Republican primary a number of years ago, a bipartisan man who worked with then-chairman of the Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn to put together the Nunn-Lugar agreement, which is allowing us to tear apart nuclear warheads, reprocess those nuclear warheads, tear down nuclear missiles and ballistic missile launchers, and have a safer world. The reason there is not a terrorist attack using nuclear fission materials today so far is probably more because of Dick Lugar and Sam Nunn than any two individuals in the United States.

Dick Lugar is a man I admire greatly. When I came here, I hoped one day I could work on the Foreign Relations Committee so I would have the opportunity to work with Dick Lugar. That opportunity took place, and the Presiding Officer and I have served together with Dick Lugar for 4 years. I watched Dick Lugar during tough times, during happy times, during good times, and during challenging times. He is always even. He has always got an even keel. His rudder is in the water. He knows where he wants to take the committee, but he doesn't drive it, he leads it.

One of the great negotiators of our time, one of the great men of our time in terms of foreign relations, Dick Lugar is the man who has meant more to our country than anybody I can possibly think of today, and he has a legacy of supporting the State of Indiana in any way he possibly could, from the school board, to mayor of Indianapolis, to U.S. Senator, to a great lecturer and leader on the national and international stage. We will miss Dick Lugar very much, and I am sure Dick Lugar will miss us, but I hope all of us will remember and learn from that he taught us about a steady hand, good diplomacy, and the importance of diplomacy over guns any day of the week.

Kent Conrad

I wish to turn to another individual, a member of the Democratic conference and a dear friend of mine, Kent Conrad from North Dakota.

When I came to the Senate, the first thing I noticed about Kent Conrad was how he dressed. The second thing I noticed was his dog Dakota. You will see Dakota in the evening walking through the Halls of Congress, a smart little dog and his pet that he loves very much. His wife Lucy is a great lady and great leader in her own right in terms of Major League Baseball.

Kent Conrad is a unique Member of the Senate. He has truly taken a bipartisan approach to the toughest problems we face in terms of spending, deficits, and debt. It was Kent Conrad who was willing to help support the Simpson-Bowles proposal when it passed the Senate, and then it was Kent Conrad who agreed to serve on Simpson-Bowles and came up with the recommendations they brought to us. It was Kent Conrad who went on the Gang of 6 and tried to work out a tough compromise on the tough issues before us, and it is Kent Conrad who has served as chairman of the Budget Committee of the Senate for the last 6 years. Along with Senator Sessions, he has done a great job, and along with his predecessor, Judd Gregg, they did an even greater job to see to it that we brought forward budgets and principles of spending money to help us not go into deficit or debt. Kent is one of those rare leaders who find the sweet spot. He looks for the place where people can find common ground. He understands that the importance of our job is the future for our children and our grandchildren.

Whether North Dakota or Georgia, California or New York, Pennsylvania or Ohio, Kent Conrad is a Senator for all America. He has done a tremendous job for the United States. I wish him and Lucy and Dakota the very best.

Tribute to Bill Curry

I wish to turn to football coaches, which might seem to be a quick turn when you are talking about Senators, but in Georgia we are having a retirement that was just announced, the retiring of Bill Curry, the head coach of the Georgia State Panthers. Bill Curry is a legend in our State, not only of his time but in all time in terms of football. He played football in College Park and went on to Georgia Tech when they were in the Southeastern Conference. He was a small, 200-pound center on the Georgia Tech football team. He went from Georgia Tech to the Green Bay Packers and played in the first Super Bowl game as a starting center and was traded to the Baltimore Colts and played in the famous game when Joe Namath promised a victory and delivered it against the Colts. He went on to play for other NFL teams until he was hurt in a game with the Los Angeles Rams with an injury caused by Merlin Olsen, who then later went on to be a great pro bowler. But he didn't quit when his career ended in terms of playing football; he went into coaching. He went back to his home alma mater, Georgia Tech, and coached as an assistant. He then took Pepper Rogers' place and became the head coach at Georgia Tech, took them to the bowl games, took them to conference championships, and was a true leader.

From there he was sought out by the University of Alabama--a pretty big job in the South when it comes to football. He came after Bear Bryant had passed away and two successive coaches had failed to meet the Alabama standard. Bill Curry came and went to Alabama, and he scored. He won an SEC championship, 26 out of 36 games, and had a great career at Alabama.

He went from there to the University of Kentucky, which had not had a winning record in 9 years when Bill Curry showed up. He molded somebody else's recruits into a winning team with a winning record and a trip to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, GA. He went from there to take on an interesting challenge. Georgia State University called and said: Bill Curry, we are going to start an NCAA division football program. We would like you to start from scratch. We don't have a field, we don't even have a football, but we have a desire.

Bill Curry took on that challenge and in 4 years built a great program which he will turn over to a new coach very shortly in Atlanta, a program where his first year, with a first-time football team that had never been together before, he won 6 out of 11 games and went on to have a great career and turn it over to another coach as he retires.

But his legacy is not the SEC championship. It is not playing in the first Super Bowl or playing in the famous bowl that Joe Namath called and guaranteed. It is not his attendance at Georgia Tech. It is not what he did at Georgia State. It is the fact that everywhere he went, Bill Curry's legacy was men who played football to learn the game of life because he was always a disciplinarian. He told people how to do things the right way. He set standards for his men that lasted not just through the football season but through a lifetime. There are men playing football, running banks, running insurance companies, and teaching today all over America who learned from Bill Curry.

On the occasion of his retirement at the age of 69 and the great success he has had throughout his career, I wanted to pause for a moment in the Senate and recognize not just his contribution to football but his contribution to the lives of young men and the people he has shaped to make this country and the State of Georgia a better State and a better country.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island for his hard work. I rise to talk for 1 minute about this lameduck session today. We are in the second day of a lameduck session following the elections of a week and a half ago.

We face an impending fiscal cliff. We face the end of the year. We face a day of calling, a day of reckoning. I think I have an obligation as one Member of the Senate, and I think everybody has the same obligation, to come to this floor and talk about the solutions and resolutions, not problems and what we can and cannot do.

We are in a very dangerous position. I have been in this body one other time when we faced a fiscal cliff. It was in September of 2008. I will never forget it. The markets had been collapsing. The subprime securities had been collapsing. The world was in difficult financial times. The President of the United States, at that time a Republican, brought forward a plan to solve that problem or at least to forestall the collapse of the markets and give us a chance to come back over time.

The House of Representatives rejected it and then the markets went down over 800 points in 1 day. Two days later, the Senate came back and adopted a plan to move us forward. The markets stabilized, but they were already at the bottom. They had fallen by 50 percent.

Now here we are almost 5 years later, still recovering from the depths of the drop of the market at that particular period of time. If we do not address the fiscal cliff and take the first step in this lameduck session to move forward in terms of sanity on taxation, sanity on spending, and sanity on entitlements, then we are going to put ourselves in the same position again.

I happen to think one of the best lines in President Obama's speeches in his first campaign, and he reiterated it in the last one, was when he talked about we are a country not of the red States of America or the blue States of American but of the United States of America.

My predecessor, Zell Miller, former Governor of Georgia, once said: We do not find most Georgians on the very far right or the very far left. We find them in Walmart. They want a fair deal and a fair price and a good deal and they want to be treated right. The American people want to be treated right. They do not want to see their taxes go up at the end of the year. They do not want Congress to turn its back on cutting its spending where it can. They want us to get entitlements so they are fixed for the long run, not in danger of expiring in the short term.

We are this close to being able to find common ground, if we will only take the first step by sitting down at the table. In the last 2 weeks I have heard the first step from both sides of the Democratic and Republican Party. John Boehner, 1 week ago, acknowledged that revenues could be a part of the solution. He acknowledged he wanted to do it through tax reform. President Obama has reiterated, as he did today in his press conference, that he wanted to raise rates on those in the upper income. But when pointed to and when asked by a reporter: Mr. President, that means there is no line in the sand? That means it has to be that tax increase or nothing at all, the President refused to take the bait. He said: I will listen to other ideas. He said: I will sit at the table. He said: But it has to be meaningful common ground. It has to be plans to truly deal with our fiscal cliff, deal with our spending and deal with entitlements and deal with our taxes.

Let me just for a second, if I can, opine on what all of us know: It is a three-part problem, our debt and our deficit. It is spending. It is revenues. It is entitlements. It is not that we do not know what the answers or the solutions are. They are all on the table. They have been visited by the Gang of 6, by Simpson-Bowles, by a lot of the brilliant people in this Chamber, Senator Conrad from North Dakota, who is unfortunately leaving us, has talked about it time and again; Senator Coburn from Oklahoma. Why don't we put those things on the table, sit down around the table and figure out a formula for success to keep us from going off the fiscal cliff?

It is one thing to gain the confidence of the world and investors and the world body politic; it is quite another to lose it. If we ever lose that confidence, if we ever go off that cliff and people no longer think this is still the greatest place on the face of the Earth to invest their money, then America has a harder struggle to come back than it would ever have by facing our problems now.

So for a brief couple minutes, I wish to talk specifically about those things that can be done. First of all, in terms of spending, we can cut discretionary spending. But we all know discretionary spending and our deficit are about equal and have been for about the last 5 years, which means if we cut all Federal discretionary spending, cancel the government for 1 year, all we are doing is balancing the budget; we are not saving any money. We all know we cannot do it totally by cutting spending, but we do know we should, which means we should bring appropriations bills to the floor, we should debate those bills on the floor, we should hold our agencies accountable, and manage things on a cost-benefit analysis--do what Jeanne Shaheen and I have talked about in terms of a biennial budget. Have 1 year dedicated to spending, the other year dedicated to oversight. We can find savings and we can find revenue to reduce our deficit, but that will not do all of it.

Entitlements. We have to look at entitlements. But that does not mean we take away anyone's Social Security or anybody's Medicare because I do not consider them entitlements in the first place. The Presiding Officer paid 1.35 percent of his income every day of his working life for his Medicare and he deserves to get it.

The Presiding Officer paid 6.2 percent of his income for his payroll deduction for his Social Security and he deserves to get it. But we all know those programs were started in 1968 and the 1930s and eligibility should be reformed. We should find a way to make eligibility be actuarially sound, as they did in 1983, when Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill raised the eligibility for me so I could not get Social Security at age 65, I had to wait until age 66.

Did I miss it? No, I did not think I would live that long in the first place. But when I did get there, I appreciated the fact that they saved Social Security for me in 1983. We need to save it for our children and our grandchildren today, and we can do it by looking at eligibility in the formula. We do not have to raise the tax or lower the benefit. We might means test the COLA in terms of Social Security, but we can

fix it if we just sit around the table and talk about it and not take away anybody's eligibility.

Medicare is tougher. We can means test benefits in terms of copayments. We can take plans such as Paul Ryan's and give people options. Whatever we do, we can sit down around the table and find a way for the future, find a way to save the Medicare the American people have paid for.

In terms of the safety net, nobody wants to do away with the safety net. But it is time we looked at the safety net and the cost-benefit analysis and the eligibility for the benefit programs so we manage them appropriately such as you would any other expenditure of government.

Then we go to the Tax Code. That is where we are today. That is the stumbling block, seeing where we are going to move forward on taxes. Time is running out. I will be the first person to admit it would be hard to come up with a comprehensive reform in 7 weeks to fix the Tax Code.

But it would not be hard to come up with a comprehensive agreement this month, now in this session, to do it early next year and put off pushing us off the fiscal cliff. Get a new speed bump next year. Give us the time to sit down around the table and find common ground. Maybe it is means testing deductions, which raises revenues without raising rates. In fact, there is a great argument, and the argument comes from 1986, when Reagan and O'Neill again lowered the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent and raised revenues in the same taxable year, all because we raised the base upon which the levy was charged.

We raised more revenue which, in the end, is the name of the game. My main point is this: We should not be sitting around twiddling our thumbs. The clock is running. We face a fiscal cliff. There are some in this Chamber who have said: Oh, we just need to go off it. We will pay the price. Then we will finally sit down and do what is right. I would, with all due respect, say that is pretty stupid. We have gone off a cliff once before in 2008. We are still reeling from it today because we did not deal fast enough with the decisions we had to make as a Congress to address the problems of the people who elected us to come and manage their affairs.

I would submit to you that it is about time the American Government did what every American family has had to do in the last 5 years: sit around our kitchen table like they have sat around theirs, talk about our income like they have talked about theirs, cut their budgets and spending where they have had to because they have had to tighten their belts. Don't you think the government ought to at least ask of itself what it has required every American family to do?

So instead of talking about what we can't find agreement on, why don't we start talking about what we can find agreement on? We don't have to just penalize one taxable class of Americans and declare a political victory but not solve our problem any more than we have some obfuscation in terms of tax reform that really is ``now you see it and now you don't.'' We can do meaningful reform that accomplishes the raising of revenues and more equity in the Tax Code, we can cut discretionary spending where appropriate, and we can reform our entitlements. Over time we can get our fiscal house in order.

The great thing about our problem is that it is not a problem that has to be solved in one fell swoop, but we have to make a commitment to begin to reduce deficits and, in turn, eliminate them so we will reduce debt. We need a game plan over the next decade that causes us to do that. When we do, we will return to the greatness America has always known. But if we don't, it will not be a good place to invest people's money, our rates will go up on our debt service, and America will have a hard time returning to the preeminence it has known.

So my message today is this: The President, in his press conference, said all issues were open on the table. John Boehner, in his leadership remarks, said the same thing in terms of revenues a week ago. Let's sit down at that table and let's start talking about those solutions. Let's start giving ourselves meaningful goals and not just use the threat of destroying our economy and our investment in our country as a threat to cause us to do nothing. Let's do something. Let's do the people's business. Let's face the music and make it a symphony.

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