Floor Statements

Mr. President, I wish to address the Senate as if in morning business for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate for the fifth time in the last 3 years to discuss this administration's relentless pursuit to modify and change the labor laws of this country that have served us well for in excess of 70 years. A particular instance that is going to take place tomorrow causes me to come one more time to discuss this subject.

A few days before Thanksgiving last week, the National Labor Relations Board posted a notice that they would meet at 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning to discuss passing a rule that will change a 75-year precedent in labor law, a rule that will reduce the time period between the filing of a petition for a union organization and a vote to as little as 10 days.

Historically, in our country, it has been an average of 38 days from the filing of the petition to the vote as to whether to organize. For no cause or reason, other than unleveling the playing field, NLRB has decided to rush this rule through in an ambush-type of event. If we pull the facts back and look, it is quite easy to see what they are trying to do.

Craig Becker, who is on the National Labor Relations Board as a recess appointment of the President of the United States, was denied approval in the confirmation process in the Senate. The President chose to appoint him in a recess appointment which expires at the end of this December. Therefore, in the waning hours of his service on the Board, at a time in which the majority has a 2-to-1 vote, they are going to rush through a change in an amendment to the labor laws in the United States of America that have served us for 70 years. It is not right. It is not fair. At a time of high unemployment and distress in our economy, the worst thing to do is change the rules of the game that have served the country so well.

I will fire a warning shot also. I think there is something else that will probably happen before the end of the year, and that is there will probably be a posting of a rule to make microunionization possible. It has already been discussed by the NLRB. It is a process whereby we could take separate departments in the same company and let them unionize one at a time. Take a Home Depot, for example, or a Kroger grocery store. Let the butchers unionize and then let the bakers unionize and then let the detergent salesmen unionize and then let the janitors unionize and let the shop end up having 15, 20, 25 different union organizations in the same store. That has never been able to be possible and it is not right. It should be across the board within the company.

So I come to the floor to let everybody know at NLRB that I know what is going to happen tomorrow morning. I know it is a rush to judgment and it is a bad judgment and it is a mistake. We have great labor laws in this country. In fact, if we take this petition and change it down to 10 days, we are not recognizing the fact that of all the elections that have taken place in the last couple years, the unions have won 67 percent of the time. There is no problem with the organization laws, and there is no reason to compress the time from the filing of the petition to the vote. Fair is fair. A company that has an organization petition filed against it ought to have a reasonable period of time to assess the grievances that are advertised against them rather than compressing the vote period and having a rush to judgment.

I hope tomorrow the NLRB will recognize that a rush to judgment is wrong. It is not good for the country, it is not good for our economy, and it is not good for the American people. I will oppose it and do oppose it today, as I will oppose microunionization should they attempt to do the same before this year is out.

I yield back my time and notice the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, tomorrow I will join with what I hope will be every American in paying tribute to our veterans who have served us over 200 years to protect the liberty, the freedom, and the peace that all of us enjoy--our veterans from the Revolutionary War, veterans who created this great Republic, to our veterans who serve today in Afghanistan and the war on terror.

In the history of our country, every generation has been called at a time of trouble, and in America's good fortune every generation has responded. There are significant dates in the history of our country that remind us of the great military victories that we have had and the great sacrifices our soldiers have made: December 7, 1941, the terrible attack on Pearl Harbor; June 6, 1944, when Americans bravely stormed Omaha Beach and began the invasion of Europe which ran out Nazi Germany. We all remember, with horror and with terror, 9/11/2001 when New York, Washington, and all of America and all peace-loving people were attacked by al-Qaida, and just a few days later, September 20, when we began and initiated our effort to go after al-Qaida wherever it was, and now recognizing, a little over 10 years later, terrorists have been disrupted, bin Laden has been killed, and America and the world are a safer place.

In the financial and economic history of our country, there have also been significant dates which we should remember and significant responses which we also should recognize: the tragedy of October 1929 when the market crashed and the Great Depression began, the difficulty of Black Friday in 1987 when the markets had a terrible crash. Those were all memorable times, and we hated to see our financial and economic stability upset.

Well, there is another critical day coming in America's history, and it is coming 13 days from today on November 23, 2011, when the select committee we in this Senate and the Members of the House created to address our troubles economically in this country, which are rooted in our spending, rooted in our tax system, and rooted in our entitlement system--the select committee is to come back with at least $1.2 trillion in cuts, revenue increases, or reform of entitlements over a 10-year period of time, to be matched with the $900 billion that we cut in August to, hopefully, get us on some type of a track that will be a sustainable recovery in getting our balance back in line. But there is fear that a deal will not be reached, and that is a failure that is not an option, in my judgment.

Yesterday, there was an offer put on the table that involved revenues, involved the reform of entitlements, and involved spending cuts put on the table to begin the discussion to find common ground to have $1.2 trillion or more in cuts. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the conversation ended, and they are not back at the table yet, and there are 13 days left to go.

As just one Member of the Senate, but as the father of three and grandfather to nine, someone who has lived in this country almost 67 years, I implore my colleagues on the select committee, and all of us in the Senate, to be supportive of their effort to get back to the table, to put all issues back on the table, and understand that failure is not an option.

Today in Greece, in Italy, in Spain, and in the European Union there is great fear. There is a search for leadership in those that can control their debt, control their entitlements, and control their spending.

America, as it led on D-day on June 6, 1944, as it led in the battle against al-Qaida and terrorists, must lead economically at this time more than ever. It is time for us to put forward a plan that gives us a chance to recover our economy over time, lower our debt and our deficit over time, and reduce our spending over time. It is not an instant, 1- day cure that we seek, but it is an amortization of our liabilities to get our leverage down and our hopes and our prosperity up.

So as one Member of the Senate, I implore our members of the select committee to come back to the table, to put every issue on the table, to forthrightly discuss them, and understand that November 23, 2011, is going to be a historic day in this country--historic because we found a solution and began a process or historic because we as Americans for the first time looked the other way.

As one Member of the Senate, I don't want to look the other way. I want to look my constituents square in the eye and say that I was willing to look at spending; I was willing to look at entitlement reform; I was willing to look at revenues.

I am willing to find a path forward so America can remain in the future what it always has been; that is, a beacon of economic security in a troubled world.

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

Mr. President, today, I highlight yet another assault on private-sector employers by this administration and its appointees. Rather than empowering businesses to help bring us out of this economic downturn, the White House continues to tilt the scales in favor of its allies--the labor unions. Nowhere is this more evident than the recent actions of the National Labor Relations Board, NLRB.

For the past 77 years, the NLRB has recognized a bargaining unit as all the employees of the employer, a facility, a department, or a craft. A bargaining unit had to be a sufficient size to warrant separate group identification for the purposes of collective bargaining. This standard was developed through years of careful consideration and congressional guidance.

On August 26, 2011, the NLRB decided to recklessly disregard this longstanding precedent. In its ``Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Mobile'' decision, the NLRB decided that unions can now handpick a small group of employees doing the same job in the same location for organization purposes. For instance, cashiers at a grocery store could form one small union separate from the baggers, produce stockers, or deli butchers. Unions have found it much easier to organize three employees rather than 30. Employers, especially retail chains, fear that this could create several dozen unions all within the same store location--making it easier for unions to gain access to employees and nearly impossible to manage such fragmentation of the workforce.

Let me be clear: I do not oppose efforts by employees to unionize if they choose to do so. I do, however, oppose the government interfering in the principles of a democratic workplace and

tipping the scales in favor of one party over the other.

I am proud to stand up today, along with 28 of my Republican colleagues, to introduce the Representation Fairness Restoration Act. This bill will reinstate the traditional standard for determining which employees will constitute appropriate bargaining units. The NLRB's actions are yet another clear example of how President Obama's appointees at this ``independent'' agency are clearly playing favorites at the expense of the American worker and our economy. We need to send a message to the administration that the NLRB's decisions are only adding to the pressure and uncertainty facing businesses today. This runaway agency must be reined in and I stand by private-sector employers by helping restore fairness to the workplace.

Mr. President, today, I highlight yet another assault on private-sector employers by this administration and its appointees. Rather than empowering businesses to help bring us out of this economic downturn, the White House continues to tilt the scales in favor of its allies--the labor unions. Nowhere is this more evident than the recent actions of the National Labor Relations Board, NLRB.

For the past 77 years, the NLRB has recognized a bargaining unit as all the employees of the employer, a facility, a department, or a craft. A bargaining unit had to be a sufficient size to warrant separate group identification for the purposes of collective bargaining. This standard was developed through years of careful consideration and congressional guidance.

On August 26, 2011, the NLRB decided to recklessly disregard this longstanding precedent. In its ``Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Mobile'' decision, the NLRB decided that unions can now handpick a small group of employees doing the same job in the same location for organization purposes. For instance, cashiers at a grocery store could form one small union separate from the baggers, produce stockers, or deli butchers. Unions have found it much easier to organize three employees rather than 30. Employers, especially retail chains, fear that this could create several dozen unions all within the same store location--making it easier for unions to gain access to employees and nearly impossible to manage such fragmentation of the workforce.

Let me be clear: I do not oppose efforts by employees to unionize if they choose to do so. I do, however, oppose the government interfering in the principles of a democratic workplace and

tipping the scales in favor of one party over the other.

I am proud to stand up today, along with 28 of my Republican colleagues, to introduce the Representation Fairness Restoration Act. This bill will reinstate the traditional standard for determining which employees will constitute appropriate bargaining units. The NLRB's actions are yet another clear example of how President Obama's appointees at this ``independent'' agency are clearly playing favorites at the expense of the American worker and our economy. We need to send a message to the administration that the NLRB's decisions are only adding to the pressure and uncertainty facing businesses today. This runaway agency must be reined in and I stand by private-sector employers by helping restore fairness to the workplace.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

It is going to be tough, but let me say there is a 15- basis point fee on every loan that closes on this that goes into the credit that is issued by Fannie, Freddie or FHA; it makes the taxpayer whole, plus $11 million. It is right for the housing market. It takes us back to where we were. It doesn't add any additional liability.

I thank the distinguished Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, for his leadership on this issue.

I ask to be recognized.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Let me try to dispel what concern there may be and the concern I heard right before we adjourned in August as to why not to extend the loan limits. People were afraid--and I understand the fear--that it might cause some additional liability in cost to the government and the taxpayers.

Let me make something crystal clear: We are going through a terrible foreclosure problem right now in this country, not because of loan limits but because of underwriting. Underwriting today, because of the ramifications of

the real estate collapse, is the most pristine underwriting I have ever seen.

I was in the business for 33 years--since 1966. I have seen a lot of housing recessions go by. I have seen a lot of difficulties. This one is the worst I have ever seen, but it was not caused by the amount of loans made. It was caused by underwriting.

As Senator Menendez has said, this will pay the government back because of the fee associated with the loan, in the first place. In the second place, it will answer the big objective we need to start applying in this country, and that is doing no more harm. A lot of the problems that have been manifested in the real estate industry have been manifested by our doing the harm, either in what we imposed on Freddie and Fannie or what we did not allow to have happen.

The restrictions now on mortgage underwriting under Dodd-Frank and the requirements that are now true in all of our underwriting agencies are so strict that the underwriting of loans is so pristine that only the best of the best is being made. The unintended consequence of not extending these increases in August caused a number of real estate transactions that were made to never close. Because the limit went down, therefore, the loan went down.

No one in this body should confuse the amount of a loan with its ability to be repaid. They need to understand, it is the underwriting of the loan that ensures the repayment.

This, as the Senator said, will add an income to the U.S. Government. It will not add additional pressure on the U.S. taxpayers. It will at least give us breathing room in a housing industry that is still struggling terribly.

So I would ask any of our Members who were objecting back in August to these loan limits being restored, please come see me. I do not know a lot about many things. I know a whole lot about this because I made my living in this all of my life. I have no interest anymore, so there is no self-interest, except to know we are in deep trouble in our economy.

You are never going to get 9 percent unemployment down until you bring construction back. You are never going to get the American consumer to have more confidence until they feel as though the value of their homes is secured. Those things are not going to happen if a reluctant Congress continues to pass suppressing legislation or keep these loan limits down rather than doing things that will do no harm and help the housing market.

So I lend my full support to Senator Menendez and what he has done. I ask for favorable consideration by our colleagues in the Senate.

Mr. President, I wish to, first of all, kind of tag on to the remarks of the leader for just a second. One of the things I wish we would do in this body is get out of the business of demonizing certain segments of our population. Both sides are guilty of it, from time to time. But I wish to particularly talk about the major employer of the United States--small business--and the leader's reference to the 5.6-percent surtax.

Documents show that 392,000 American small businesses would be impacted by a 5.6-percent surtax in order to pay for the President's jobs bill. Records show that 72 percent of the American people are employed by small business.

We have to ask ourselves this question: If we are interested in creating jobs, why would we target the job creator that creates three- fourths of the jobs in America and put a surtax on them? It does not make any sense. If there were sincerity in that offer, those people would first and foremost be carved out on any punitive surtax and we probably would have more employment.

I wanted to make that point. I will join anytime, anyplace, anywhere with the leader to work on creating jobs because that is job one for the United States of America.

I was a small businessman for 33 years, ran a small business for 22 years.

I understand the heart and soul of small business. Today I come to the floor to talk about two small businesses in Georgia and the effect of regulation on those small businesses and the decisions they have made this year that impact employment and the economy.

One is a lovely lady named Susan Kolowich. Susan is a dear friend of my wife's. My wife worked for her for 13 years, has not worked for her in the last 5 or 6 years. She opened a shop in East Cobb County, in Marietta, GA, 23 years ago called C'est Moi--``It is I.'' She loves France. She would go to France every year and buy, and she would bring back gifts which she sold in her gift shop.

It was a successful small business for 23 years, so successful that her husband Jim, who had been a Subway sandwich shop owner, decided to open a restaurant called Cafe de Paris and join it with her C'est Moi shop so people could come and shop and eat and get a flavor of France. For 10 years he ran the restaurant and for 23 years she ran the store successfully. It was difficult in the last 3 or 4 years because of the economy, but they stayed in business. But finally she threw in the towel and sold the company. She sold her shop, and Jim, her husband, sold his restaurant. They sold them because they were up to here with the oppressive regulation of our government and the continued threat of things exactly like the surtax on their small business at a time in which sales are very difficult. That is not an abstract story, that is the truth. I am sure it is happening in Mississippi, and I am sure it is happening in Wyoming.

Let me talk about a little bit larger small business, Hennessy Jaguar and Hennessy Land Rover over in Atlanta, GA. One of the principals in it is a guy named Steve Hennessy. Steve is a good friend of mine.

On January 3 of this year, I went to the OK Cafe in Atlanta to join a couple for a meeting about some legislation. It is kind of the watering hole for breakfast in Atlanta. Everybody who is anybody kind of goes there. It is a great place to eat. When I walked in the door and walked past the cash register, where you can see out into the cafe, to see if my guests I was going to meet with were there, Steve spotted me. I was not going to meet with him. He jumped up and said: Johnny, I need to talk to you now. He ran across the restaurant. I thought he was going to give me a bear hug, he looked so excited. He got up close, and he put his index finger right on my chin. He said: I just fired a salesman and hired two compliance officers to comply with the credit requirements of Dodd-Frank.

So regulation did create two jobs. It created two compliance officers, but it cost a salesman. Well, if you are punishing the salesman and rewarding the compliance officer, the economy is going to go straight down because you are punishing productivity, you are punishing job creation for the sake of regulatory compliance.

Now, some regulation is good. I believe our job as legislators is to see to it that we mitigate risks for the American people. But this administration appears to think its job is to eliminate risk. Well, if you eliminate risk, you stay in bed--when you wake up in the morning, you stay there until night, you do not do anything because you do not take a risk. Capitalism is about risk. Risk and reward are about our economy.

So when people talk about regulatory oppression, those are two stories in Atlanta, GA, where regulation has actually caused two businesses to be sold and jobs to be lost and another business to hire two people to comply with government regulation and fire someone who was in sales. It is backward at best, and it is wrong.

So I say to the leader, who did make an acknowledgement that he wanted to mitigate regulation, let's sit down and let's find out what we need to do. Let's call a timeout. Let's do what Senator Collins from Maine said. Let's take a timeout for a year. Let's try to digest and absorb the regulations we have passed without continuing to put more threatening regulations on top of businesses at a time when we have 9.1 percent unemployment in America, and in my State we have 10.2. It is time for us to be proactive on taking the shackles off American small businesses, not threaten them with surtaxes and not oppress them with regulation. Instead, let's work to empower small businesses to help us come out of this recession.

I think my dear friend Senator Barrasso, the physician from the great State of Wyoming, wants to address precisely the same subject I am.

The Senator from Mississippi jogged my memory, and I want to jog his. He was in the House of Representatives in 1994, if I am not mistaken. I got here in 1999. But I remember the first year of the Clinton administration, when they put a luxury tax on yachts, yacht construction went out of business and thousands of jobs were lost. I don't know if Trinity is a sub S, an LLC, or a sole proprietorship, but it is probably one of those three types of corporations, and I am sure it is a small business. They are going to have a 5.6-percent surtax on their income because of what is in the proposal of the President, which is, allegedly, to pay for a jobs bill. So this is deja vu all over again. The administration is imposing more taxes to pay for government jobs that take money out of the pockets of small business that creates the jobs in America.

Trinity Yachts--and I will do some research to find out if that is true, because I don't know the company--I will bet is one of the ones that pays their taxes as if they were an individual, and they would be affected by the tax the President is proposing, just like the yacht industry that was put out of business in 1993 because of the Clinton tax. So the Republicans took over in 1994 and reformed the Tax Code and cut Federal spending.

I thank the Senator from Mississippi for his stories, which are true and to the point. My story was about two small businesses. And I thank the Senator physician from the great State of Wyoming, and I would ask if he has any additional remarks.

Well, I want to conclude, unless the Senator from Mississippi has anything to add.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Mississippi, and I will close by simply saying you have heard three Republicans this morning talking about differences we might have on regulation and on tax policy, but you have also heard the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, the physician Senator from Wyoming, and myself, from the State of Georgia, say we are ready, we are willing, and we are hopeful that we can sit down together as a Congress--not as a partisan Congress but as a bipartisan Congress--and find solutions to the regulatory problems, find incentives for businesses to invest, and find ways we can create jobs in the private sector, because in the end that is where job creation takes place.

I will end with where Senator Reid started in his remarks. Yesterday was a landmark day. Republicans and Democrats came together and passed three free-trade agreements which will create jobs in the United States of America. Our problem is we waited almost a thousand days to do it. Let's start accelerating those decisions that must be made to bring us together. Let's find ways to cut our spending, empower our businesses, and find ways to regulate in a positive way, not in a suppressive and oppressive way on American small businesses.

Senator Wicker, Senator Isakson, and Senator Barrasso are three who stand ready to join in doing that, anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

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

I ask that all time be yielded back.

Yes, that is correct. Peace Corps volunteers need contact information for 24 hour access to the Office of Victim Advocacy, and this is what we intend by a hotline.

Yes, that is the intent.

Yes, that is correct.

I agree with the Senator.

Yes, that is what we expect.

The Senator is correct.

Mr. President, I thank the great Senator from the State of Tennessee for his recognition and whose own record in education is quite distinguished, including his tenure as a university president at the University of Tennessee, to his leadership on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and, obviously, his service as Secretary of Education for the United States of America.

I appreciate the reference to 10 years ago when we wrote No Child Left Behind. There were nine of us, five Republicans and four Democrats, who locked ourselves up in the House Education Committee offices for about 6 weeks writing the document that became the law of the land, and it has served the country well for 20 years.

A title I provision of that is the free and reduced lunch provision, which is the main title of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and it is the main title that delivers educational entitlements, requirements, and regulations under No Child Left Behind.

The reason I am the principal sponsor of the removal--not the removal but the reform--of title I is because No Child Left Behind requirements under title 1 have worked and it is time to go to the next step. I wish to be very specific about saying it has worked.

As everyone knows, adequate yearly progress, or AYP, is the goal of title I, to see to it that every child every year is making adequate yearly progress toward improvements in reading comprehension and mathematics. When we started AYP, we knew when we wrote it that if the bill worked, it would become harder and harder and harder to reach AYP because the baseline was being built every single year.

The reason Senator Alexander talked about so many schools falling into ``needs improvement'' is because we pushed the achievement level so high that meeting AYP on a continuing and improving basis is difficult. So it is time to terminate AYP as a requirement of the bill, but it is not time to throw out the system that made it work.

Disaggregation of students, first of all, was critically important. Public education in the United States prior to the No Child Left Behind law exhibited school systems and schools that basically hid behind mean average scores or an ITBS mean average score. This comparison of ITBS test scores to other States in the Nation is an aggregation of all students' performance and an averaging of that performance. It took the eye off the ball and the individual student.

So what No Child Left Behind says is, test every student and disaggregate them by sex, race, disability, by non-English-speaking, and rate each disaggregated group by AYP. If only one school fails to make adequate progress, then the whole school goes to ``needs improvement.'' So we have a lot of schools labeled ``needs improvement'' while making the best improvement they have ever made. So it is time to end AYP, but it is not time to end disaggregation or the test scores.

The greatest accountability measure--and all of us as politicians know it--is transparency. This bill will require the transparency of all the test scores of each individual child and the transparency of each individual in each individual disaggregated group to ensure we continue to know how our kids are doing and compare them on a year-to- year basis. But we do away with ``needs improvement'' because it has served its purpose.

Now, on disaggregated groups there is one other thing the title I change does that I want to particularly emphasize on the Senate floor today. The biggest disaggregated group in terms of causing schools or systems to fall under ``needs improvement'' is those special needs children considered under IDEA or the Individuals With Disabilities Act. They are all individuals who have an individual disability that affects their academic achievement or their ability to learn.

When we passed IDEA in 1978, if I remember correctly, through Public Law 94-192, we dictated that we would give special emphasis and training to those special needs kids and try and identify their special needs and meet them within the public education system. When No Child Left Behind disaggregated them into a single group and tested them, we tested 98 percent of them with the same paper and pencil test. These are kids with a plethora of disabilities that one single test could not possibly meet. We gave a 2 percent cognitive waiver, disability waiver, so they could have an alternative assessment for up to 2 percent of the students, but 98 percent had to take the same test.

This reform of the IDEA portion of title I of No Child Left Behind simply says this: Every year, at the beginning of the school year, when the parent and the teacher and the school meet to put out the individual education plan, the IAP for that student, the parent, the teacher, and the school will determine what the assessment vehicle is that best measures the assessment of that child--not a single, one- size-fits-all, paper-and-pencil test. That is going to ensure that IDEA students get the individual attention they deserve and the measurement against the individual disabilities they have that is appropriate as approved by their parents, their teacher, and their school, and it will make a remarkable difference for IDEA kids.

I am very proud of that provision and the flexibility it gives to the system to assess appropriately rather than force a one-size-fits-all test against 98 percent of our children with disabilities.

So to repeat what I said at the beginning----

It is a good time for me to repeat what I said at the beginning. I am proud to be building on the success of No Child Left Behind, and I am proud that Senator Alexander has taken leadership on this committee to move forward on this reauthorization of IDEA and No Child Left Behind.

I thank Senator Blunt.

I thank Senator Johanns for organizing this colloquy.

I represent a State that is home to the second largest port on the eastern seaboard in the United States of America. The port is Savannah. We are talking about creating jobs in America. The port of Savannah directly employs 300,000 people in the southeastern United States. Can you think of what an impact this is going to have to increase that employment if we get these free trade agreements?

Let me give you an example that is amazing. South Korea surpassed Japan in 2010 as the second largest Northeast Asian destination for South Atlantic exports behind only China--second largest in all of Asia behind only China--most of that going out of the port of Savannah, most of that being agricultural products from your State and from your State and from mine.

Senator Portman talked about pork. In Georgia it is all about chickens and cattle. We are No. 1 in poultry, and South Korea is a huge importer of our poultry. They would be a lot bigger with a free trade agreement.

Let me give another number that is chilling. South Korea's imports from South Korea into the United States went up by 26 percent last year. Our exports to them went up by 15 percent. That is an 11-percent negative in the trade deficit, which causes us tremendous problems.

Madam President, I ask for unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes to close.

So my point is very simply this: We can help to balance our trade deficit. We can help to increase employment in the southeastern United States. We can help poultry, we can help pork, and we can help beef. It has been 968 days since the President could have sent us these free trade agreements, and he has not. My point in this debate is very simple. There is

one person in the United States of America standing between us and more job creation, and it is the resident of the White House, President Obama.

I wish to turn it over to the organizer of this event, Senator Johanns.

Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Connecticut on his remarks and, particularly, his closing. I associate myself with what he said. I will support this bill when it comes to the floor at 12 o'clock today.

On Saturday, I came to the floor at 2 o'clock out of frustration and made a speech critical of the negotiators as we were letting the clock run and had no deal. I was critical because we had pretty much had an agreement we were going to cut. We pretty much had an agreement we were going to establish a select committee to do the cutting. But we had not agreed to a balanced budget amendment. We had not agreed to an enforcement mechanism on the committee to make sure they did the cutting. Probably most importantly of all, we had not agreed to triggers on the debt ceiling increase for accountability.

I come to the floor today not frustrated but feeling somewhat rewarded because on the three solutions negotiated to those three component parts of this particular piece of legislation, the genie is out of the bottle, and history is about to be made.

No. 1, on the debt ceiling increase, when the trigger was finally established, it means from now on whenever this debt ceiling increase is asked for by a Republican or Democratic President, it will be demanded that there be spending cuts commensurate with any increase. That is historic. That is the first step in the right direction of sanity, accountability, and fiscal responsibility.

Secondly, they finally came together and agreed there would be a balanced

budget amendment vote in the House and the Senate before this year end, with incentives for us to vote for that balanced budget amendment. For the first time since 1995--the first time in 16 years--the Congress of the United States will be debating, forcing itself to do what every American family has to do. There is not a family within the sound of my voice who has not had to sit down in the last 3 years in this country-- because of our recession and our economy and because of spending--and reprioritize how they spend their money to balance their budget, to live within their means. It is about time the Congress of the United States asked of itself what it imposes on every family in America.

As far as the select committee, there was a fear among many that it would only be a paper tiger; that it would not have the claws or the teeth to actually do what it needs to do on the cuts. While I would have done a different type of sequestration, I commend those who negotiated this sequestration on putting one in that has enough teeth and enough fear to force this select committee to do what it needs to do.

Today, when I vote in favor of this agreement, I will be voting for us to cut spending where we need to--not as much as I would have liked but a lot more than we have ever seen before--but, most importantly, voting for the assurance that never again will a debt ceiling go up without a debate for commensurate cuts in spending. That is important. I will be voting for this because we will have a balanced budget amendment on the floor of the Senate and on the floor of the House of Representatives that we have long needed since the last one failed 16 years ago. And we finally have a sequestration mechanism or an enforcement mechanism to enforce the select committee to do what it is charged to do in this particular legislation.

My frustration I expressed on Saturday is gone. My pride in the Senate is restored, and I look forward to casting my vote in favor of this agreement at 12 o'clock today.

I yield back.

Mr. President, as I understand it, we are allocated 30 minutes each. But I have no objection to the Senator having 5 additional minutes as long as 5 additional minutes are added to the Republican side.

Mr. President, today when the Chaplain opened the Senate, he prayed for divine guidance to end

the paralysis of analysis in Congress. I thought it was an excellent point. When I heard the two leaders speak today I realized where that paralysis was. We were paralyzed by analyzing our differences and failing to look at what we have reached common ground on already.

I have been worried about a default on our debt for some time, but right now I am worried about Congress defaulting on our country. Failure should not be an option for us in this case and it is time we started finding common ground. So for the purpose of discussion, I want to put forward some thoughts about where we agree, some identification of where we do not but where we could be.

We have already agreed, in one form or another--whether it was the Vice President's group or the Speaker's group or whoever--that we ought to have a $1 trillion downpayment in initial cuts to bring about deficit reduction.

There is common agreement between both sides in the Senate and I think in the House as well that we need a short-term committee, equally divided in a partisan way, to come up with at least another $1.8 trillion that results in reductions in debt and in deficit. We have agreed on those two things.

Third, we have agreed we do not want to default on our debt. There may be a handful of people around here who think that is a good idea, but with all due respect it is not a good idea and the ramifications of default are already showing themselves in small measures in the market but will show themselves a lot greater next Wednesday if we fail.

Where do we differ? We do not differ on raising the debt ceiling, we just differ on when we raise it, how we raise it, and how long we raise it. The President favors raising it past the election in November 2012. There are others who want to have votes every 6 months or 10 months. Frankly, there is something to be said for waiting until after the November election of 2012 so we have 18 months of stability and predictability in the United States of America; there is not the uncertainty of us coming back.

There are a lot of differences on the other side about whether we have a constitutional amendment on the balanced budget vote. Frankly, I cannot understand why in the end anybody would reject both bodies being able to have a vote in regular order on a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. We are supposed to vote. We are supposed to confront those decisions. I think an agreement could be reached between those two differences that would ensure us moving closer to an agreement on the entire package.

Third, and probably toughest, we do not disagree on the committee that is appointed to find the $1.8 trillion or better in savings or cuts, but we disagree on the mechanism with which that is enforced. I want to talk about that for a minute. There is a fear--and a lot of it is justified because of the way we are acting right now--that if you had a committee of 12, 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans, charged with finding $1.8 trillion or more in reductions, they would never agree; therefore, they would be gridlocked; therefore, those reductions would not take place. I understand that fear and agree with the concern for that fear. So we need a mechanism where there is a risk for them to do that.

One of the discussions that has been floating around--last night it was in a discussion I had with the officer presiding right now--is you should allow the Congress itself to create a committee with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans of some accountable number, such as 10 or 20, to come together. If the committee fails to make its recommendations and make alternative recommendations, that must by requirement of the law be voted on on the floor of the House and Senate. If for some unbelievable circumstance that did not happen, there has to be an absolute fail-safe to ensure that failure is not an option. I have suggested automatic sequestration. I know that causes heartburn with some. But somewhere there is a silver bullet. The Lone Ranger had it. Tonto had it. Wyatt Earp had it. Why can't the Congress find it? Why can't we find the majority bullet that is the enforcement mechanism that ensures we come together on the $1.8 trillion or more? If we do those things, we have an agreement. We have already agreed in principle on most of them and we understand our differences on the ones we have not agreed on. We ought to be spending the next 24 hours finding out where our differences are and coming to find common ground because we are not that far apart.

I want to go back to the prayer of Barry C. Black this morning. I listen to his prayer just about every morning because it is very insightful. In fact, there is a clear message in it and he is usually talking to all of us because he watches all of us and he is concerned and I am concerned.

I have three children and nine grandchildren. I said in my campaigns the rest of my life is about leaving them a country as prosperous, free, and great as the country my parents left me. If we blink on this issue before us, that is not going to be the case. There is irreparable harm that can come from a failure to act. It doesn't harm me as a politician, it harms my kids and my grandkids. It harms those people I know on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, and it harms those standing right now on a firing line somewhere in Afghanistan, realizing today could be their last day on this Earth so America could live to see another day. That is how serious the consequences are.

I suggest instead of being paralyzed by our analysis of where we differ, let's come to an analysis of where we find common ground. We do on raising the debt ceiling; we know we should raise it. We know we could find $2.8 trillion and hopefully more in cuts in the deficit and spending over time. We know we have to extend the debt ceiling to some point in time, and if it is past the Presidential election of 2012, let's ensure that each body in regular order can vote on a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, which leaves us with one difference, and that difference is what is the enforcement mechanism on the $1.8 trillion cut that the joint committee, equally divided, is supposed to come up with.

I submit we can find the common ground to find the silver bullet that causes that to happen and I encourage all of us to forget now where we differ and recognize where we agree and then work on building a bridge on those differences so the United States of America does not default on its debt and the Congress of the United States does not default on its obligation to the people of the greatest country on the face of this Earth, the United States of America.

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

Madam President, I associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from South Dakota. Before coming to the floor this morning, I returned 2 phone calls I received yesterday out of 2,000 that came into the office. I picked those two because they were people I have known for a long time but haven't talked to in a long time, and they have never called me in my capacity as a Senator. Both of them are businesspeople, both are neighbors, and both had the same message: the uncertainty that Congress and this administration is now causing in terms of our inability to meet the day of reckoning next Tuesday, when we must do so, is beginning to impact their business, their philosophy, their investments, and their country.

What we are doing as we almost dilly-dally around, putting off a final decision, agreeing to not agree on anything is we are making the situation worse. I think the reports in a couple months will show economic activity in July will show America is slowing down, economic activity is slowing down. That is because Congress and this President cannot get their act together.

History and facts are stubborn. I wish to go over a 2-year history of this debt ceiling crisis because, for years, we have known it was coming. For 2 years, we have talked about it. In fact, a little over 18 months ago on the floor of the Senate, Republicans and Democrats passed a deficit commission amendment, which made it successfully through Congress, was signed by the President, and that deficit commission was created. It was charged with coming up with a solution for our rising spending problems, reduction of the deficit and debt over time, better management of our fiscal policy, and getting Congress's act together, where it could vote up or down on a proposal. That became known as the Simpson-Bowles proposal. It would cut $4 trillion in spending over one decade, reform our tax policy, and weed out a lot of bad things that have been in there for a long time.

What happened is, when it came out in December, the President rejected it out of hand. I am not being partisan, because a bipartisan group of people offered that proposal. I was one of the five Republicans who voted for it on the floor. I thought it was a conscientious way to address the debt and deficit and the problem we faced. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, the President rejected it out of hand. All he had to do was send it to the Senate for an up-or- down vote, and we would at least have begun the process of dealing with the debt and deficit. Instead, he rejected it out of hand.

In the months preceding this debate today and this coming Tuesday when we run up against the debt ceiling, we have had other legislation come to the floor or from the House that has been rejected out of hand. The cut, cap, and balance legislation, which I voted not to table last week, the majority leader decided to not even discuss but to make a motion to table it. But that was a conscientious way to deal with our deficit and debt over time. It was a disciplined process that said we need to make cuts now and begin the process--$51 billion--and watch our spending in the future based on historical spending averages, and we ought to give the American people a chance to say: Does America need a balanced budget?

Instead, the Senate tabled it, when we had a chance to say just say yes to solving our problems, and we just said no.

Last night, Speaker Boehner's bill, which was to be voted on today, was pulled off because of a revenue estimate produced by CBO. I hope that will get worked out and will pass the House and will come back to the Senate. It is about time for us to say just say yes to something instead of just saying no.

I wish to talk about the consequences of just saying no for a second. The longer we say no, the longer we send uncertainty into the world markets and our own markets, the worse our problem will be.

Our tax system is based on Americans being prosperous. As America prospers, as we have better economic activity, our revenues go up--not because we raise taxes but because we raise expectations. We are now lowering expectations in America.

The two businesspeople I talked to this morning said they do not know what to do. Quite frankly, I didn't know what to advise them. I ran a company for 22 years, and I know the worst thing about running a business is to have uncertainty in terms of which way to go.

So it is my sincere hope everybody will come together and realize no is not an option. We need to say yes. If the President has a plan, bring it. If the House passes their plan, let's vote for it on the Senate floor. But let's move forward because the price and the cost of uncertainty is destroying what little economic vibrance the United States of America has today.

Let's raise the expectations of our people. Let's raise the productivity of the Senate and the Congress and this President. Let's sit down at the bigger table of common sense and find a solution, and let's find it now.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

While the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee and my dear friend from West Virginia is on the floor, I wanted to illuminate a little bit of the difficulty on the FAA reauthorization.

I share concern with the chairman, as he knows, because we talked in the well last night about our desire for a reauthorization of FAA and how important it is to our economy. But the difficulty between the House and the Senate, in part, has been over the House version as it treated the National Mediation Board versus the Senate's unwillingness to consider any change in current status with the NMB.

I have been the negotiator or the runner, or whatever you want to call it, between the two bodies, Mr. Mica and Mr. Rockefeller. As the chairman knows, about 1 month ago I delivered Leader Reid a comprehensive list of requests the House had asked for in the reauthorization. Senator Reid and his staff, after pondering it for a few days, responded that they would not agree to any of the changes that were requested.

I then went back and said, well, let me see what I can do to try to find some common ground, and came back with a recommendation I gave to Chairman Rockefeller that said give judicial review to the airlines, which the unions already have under the National Labor Relations Act, to have a balanced treatment in terms of a response in terms of NMB regulation. As it turns out, that was an unsatisfactory offer.

The House I think still insists that some provision addressing the National Mediation Board should be included in the authorization, and that--and if I am incorrect in any way, please, Mr. Chairman, correct me--I think that is the primary difficulty in getting to a final conclusion.

From my standpoint, I want everybody to understand clearly, I agree with the chairman that we need a reauthorization. But I also think we need a balanced playing field with NMB, and I continue to work to try and find some common ground to see to it that the aviation industry can have judicial review, just as the unions already have, with regard to NMB regulations and NMB rulings.

I wanted that to be documented in the Record. I thank the chairman for letting me have a little time.

I yield the floor.