Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise in support of H.R. 2560, the Cut, Cap and Balance Act.

I have been watching the debate on my TV back in the office this afternoon, listening to the arguments made pro and con, and thinking to myself that back home in Georgia there are a lot of folks who live around me who are scratching their heads wondering why cut, cap, and balance is such a bad idea because they have also had to cut, cap, and balance.

The call I left before I came here to speak on the Senate floor was from a minister and his wife whom I know. They are retired. Both of their daughters are married and live away from Georgia. Both of them have been in financial difficulty, and both are on the brink of losing their homes. Through the counseling of the minister and their support, they counseled and showed them where to cap, cut, and balance so they could make their mortgage payments and not lose their homes. Americans have had to do that all over the country. The present economic situation mandates that. There are no excuses with the IRS or bill collectors or people with whom you may do business. If you don't pay, there are consequences.

America as a country must ask of itself what we impose and ask of every citizen in our country. I think also there are probably a lot of members of the Georgia Legislature who are watching this debate and scratching their heads. In my State, in the last 4 years we cut $5 billion--from a $22 billion budget to a $17 billion budget. Do you know why? It is because our Constitution says we have to have a balanced budget. We can't borrow to pay for everyday operations, and we must live within our means. We have had to cut, and a lot of those cuts have been painful.

Many States are coming back now. There was an article the other day about States that are coming back and showing future months of growth in revenues and in their income, and even looking to surpluses that will come in the years to come. Why? Because when they had to do it, they balanced their budgets and capped their expenditures, and they did what their Constitution requires.

This proposal tells us, first of all, to make cuts that would materialize early of about $51 billion. It would be a downpayment on the process to continue the cutting process to reduce our deficit and our debt. It has a formula for capping expenditures in the future, going from 21.7 percent of GDP to 19.9 percent of GDP which, by the way, falls within the realm of the last 40-year average, until the last few years when we have gone from 20, 22, 24, to 24.6 percent of GDP.

It is not unreasonable to ask us to impose upon ourselves a cap consistent with the averages of our past. Remember this: As we get our arms around our spending and live within our means, business will prosper, revenues will go up to companies, taxes will go up, and that percentage of GDP will give us a broader margin. It is only when we are in a declining economy, a recessionary environment, where revenues go down, that caps are hurting a lot because we are not empowering business, profits go down, and revenues go down for the country.

On the balanced budget amendment, this provision leaves room for negotiation between the bodies as to what the caps will be in the balanced budget amendment, whether it would be a supermajority of 60 or 67 to raise taxes. It is a realistic approach to cause us to sit around the table in Congress and negotiate what is wrong for the country. If it is right for almost every State in our Union to have to balance their budgets, to cap their spending, and to limit their borrowing, it should be right for us.

This proposal is right for America. It is basically what we require of our citizens. It is now time we required it of ourselves. I am proud to join my fellow members of the Republican Conference of the Senate to vote for a new discipline for America that cuts excessive spending, caps wasteful spending, and, over time, allows us a roadmap to have a balanced budget and a GDP ratio to expenditures that is doable, workable, and historically justifiable.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I commend the Budget Committee chairman on his contribution to this debate and his contribution to our country. I enjoy listening to his remarks and appreciate many of the ideas he has offered today.

I rise to talk about an anniversary today--no, it is not my anniversary or his but the anniversary of Dodd-Frank, which passed a year ago today.

This morning at a press conference, Barney Frank, then-chairman of the House Banking Committee and the Frank portion of the Dodd-Frank legislation, gave a speech before the National Press Club. In it he made some comments that are very important, and I wanted to share my agreement and support for some of the things Chairman Frank said.

I did not vote for Dodd-Frank when it passed 1 year ago, but I did, along with Senator Hagan and Senator Landrieu, offer an amendment which was adopted by the Senate and ultimately agreed to by the House in the conference committee. It was an amendment known as QRM, qualifying residential mortgage, an amendment to carve out an exemption from risk retention for a well-underwritten mortgage loan.

The Dodd-Frank bill, as many in this room will remember, originally called for a total 5-percent risk retention on every residential mortgage made, which would have eliminated many people from making any residential mortgages at all. Ranking Member Frank today in his comments said: Well, we had a 100-risk retention prior to 1994.

He is right. That is when savings and loans made loans, and that is when the Federal Government insured the others, and savings and loans had preferential interest rate treatment so they could make preferential payments to people to save in their institution versus the bank. But the Federal Government took away the one-quarter percent differential that savings and loans had and the banks became competitive with savings and loans for short-term and long-term deposits of savings and all the savings money flowed to the banks that offered other products. So savings and loans went out of business. When they did, there was no residential mortgage money, at least no conventional money, available in America.

So what happened? The securitized market began. Freddie and Fannie began to play a significant role in providing conventional residential mortgage money. Until the collapse, which began in 2006 and culminated in 2009 and we still are suffering from today--until that collapse, securitization was a very reasonable and safe way of raising capital for mortgages.

What happened in the mortgage collapse was not a failure of equity or skin in the game by the borrower; it was the collapse of underwriting. Mortgage lenders got into loosey-goosey underwriting--subprime credit. They made loans to people who were higher risk in order to price it at a higher rate, and they blurred qualifying requirements to where, all of a sudden, if you walked in and fogged up a mirror with your breath, you could probably get a mortgage loan and they could probably securitize it.

Dodd-Frank was designed to see to it that didn't happen again, and I commend them for it. But as government often does, sometimes it goes too far when the pendulum swings back the other way.

Thus is the dilemma we are in today, as the rule being proposed by the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, Comptroller of the Currency on the QRM rule is going to require, in addition to quality underwriting, a minimum 20-percent downpayment.

For years in this country we have had 90 percent and 95 percent conventional financing or, in terms of FHA, 3.5 percent downpayment and VA none at all. There have been various varieties of downpayments that have been allowed based on the loan and its insurance. But with this rule of requiring risk retention on any loan with a downpayment of less than 20 percent, except for an FHA or VA loan, it is going to literally destroy what is left of the residential housing market because it will extract what is probably 40 to 45, maybe 50 percent, of the current market today.

Senator Landrieu, Senator Hagan, and myself in QRM proposed that people have a qualifying ratio of debt to income that is sufficient to amortize the debt, a third-party verification they have a job, a credit score that indicates they are willing to pay their payments, an appraisal that indicates the house is worth what they are paying for, and a downpayment with mortgage insurance required if the downpayment was less than 20 percent.

Today, I wish to quote Ranking Member Frank. When talking about risk retention, he said: I am troubled because there is an assault now on risk retention--Barney Frank--adding that even though he believes the 20 percent requirement in the QRM rule being circulated is too high. When asked further what would be a good downpayment, he said at least 4 or 5, something above FHA.

I wish to commend the ranking member because he is precisely right. Although he in his original intent with Dodd-Frank did not want to bifurcate residential qualifying mortgages by some having risk retention and some not, he recognized the importance of doing some of that bifurcation and having some exception to risk retention. They would have realized that anyway, if you recognize they exempted Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and FHA from the requirements of Dodd-Frank and left them solely on the conventional market.

So I wish to thank Congressman Frank today for his comments as they

related to QRM and his identifying the downpayment requirement currently being circulated is entirely too high. It is entirely too high, and it is very important that we get the final rule, which will be published on August 1, to have a reasonable downpayment of 5 percent or more, rather than 20 percent or more. Five percent or more will ensure there is skin in the game; and with the other qualifying and underwriting provisions in QRM, it will ensure that quality residential mortgages are being made.

I am not one to offer advice often to the President. He is the President. He can do as he wishes. But today in Politico there is an article about the President is now returning to revisit the residential housing market because he understands employment is not coming back until housing comes back; he understands the American dream is, for some people, now the American nightmare; and he understands what has been done so far has not been working.

I wish to suggest to the President that if he thinks what is happening now is a nightmare, you just wait until this QRM rule that is being circulated now actually goes into effect. Without it being changed and a continued requirement of a 20-percent downpayment, you will have a further lack of demand in the housing market, which already is almost at least anemic, if not feeble, because most Americans who want to buy a home can afford 5 percent or maybe 10 percent down, but they can't afford 20, and that is middle America. If you pull them out of what is already an anemic housing market, you would have no housing market at all.

So as this Dodd-Frank rule is being circulated in the next 2\1/2\ to 3 weeks before it is finalized, I hope we can all keep up the drumbeat for the regulators to be reasonable in their approach--understand risk retention is important but also understand home ownership is important and understand we had a collapse that was not downpayment related. We had a collapse that was underwriting related.

So if you have strong underwriting and minimal skin in the game of at least 5 percent, you have a qualified residential mortgage that does not have to have risk retention; therefore, you will have enough capital raised in the mortgage markets to fund a housing demand which hopefully is going to continue to grow.

In the absence of securitization, in the absence of an exemption of risk retention for a qualified residential mortgage, there will be no housing market in the United States of America.

FHA is already under so much stress and duress, it is awful and it is frightful. The Veterans' Administration is a privileged loan for those who have served and made the ultimate sacrifice for our country, and they deserve it. Freddie and Fannie are exempted because we have them in conservatorship. But they are not going to be a source of money for long. Something will have to replace them, a new entity, probably something with securitization. But if the QRM rule being circulated now does, in fact, go into place as it is written, with a minimum 20- percent downpayment, it will be the last nail in the coffin of the American housing market. The unintended consequence of reaching too far to react to the terrible crisis which we had will put the death knell of the housing market squarely on the shoulders of this Congress, this administration, and these regulators who are currently carrying out those rules.

I wish to commend Ranking Member Frank on his comments today, his recognition that the QRM rule being circulated asks too much, recognizing that a 5-percent or greater downpayment is a reasonable approach and recognizing that underwriting is the important key to see to it that we have a housing market.

I commend the gentleman from Massachusetts. I thank him for adding that comment today to the National Press Club. I hope the regulators, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Treasury heard it too. If they didn't hear it and they remain silent and continue with 20 percent, they will be doing exactly the opposite of what the President of the United States stated he wants to do; that is, bring the housing market back in America.

I yield back.

Madam President, I rise this morning to talk about the meeting tomorrow the President has called at the White House--a summit, I think it has been referred to, one for which I have great hope. I hope it will be a summit where both sides leave their weapons at the door, sit across the table from one another, and begin talking about a comprehensive solution to a comprehensive problem. The solution to that problem, though, does not lie in creating villains and enemies. In the last 2 weeks, we have heard a lot of rhetoric coming from the White House demonizing people who have corporate jets or demonizing people who make over $1 million.

I was reminded in this debate about millionaires in the debate in 1969 in America. It was one of the first debates I ever watched. I had returned home from the service, I had begun my business, and a report came out in the newspaper that 155 Americans who made over $1 million paid zero taxes. I personally was astounded. Everybody else was astounded. Congress went to work to close the loophole, and they did it by creating something known as the alternative minimum tax--something to make sure someone who paid no tax at least paid ``their fair share,'' and I put that in quotes.

Today, it is not 155 millionaires who are paying the alternative minimum tax; 34,200,000 Americans are, because oftentimes when Congress goes to target one person, they catch everybody in a bigger loop.

I do not think we need to demonize those who employ Americans, those who create the jobs, those who make our economy run, any more than we should villainize people who want to try to save Social Security or Medicare.

The President in his two speeches last week targeted millionaires, he targeted job creators, he created villains, and he created enemies. None of that will help us to solve a problem.

Now, the President is not the only one playing that game. A little bit of criticism can go to both sides.

As we look at this chart that has been on the floor in the last 2 weeks about what has happened in the last 30 months since the President was elected as to critical things, unemployment is up by 1.9 million people--17 percent in terms of the rate--gas prices are almost double, and the Federal debt is up 35 percent. But, remember, it was $10 trillion when the President was elected, so it is not just the President's fault, but he is making it worse. Debt per person is now up by $11,258, and health insurance premiums are up by almost 20 percent. In fact, the only thing that is down in the last 30 months is the expectations of the American people--expectations of what our future is going to be like.

So for a moment I would like to offer some historical suggestions as to what both sides can do tomorrow at the White House, when they leave the weapons at the door, sit at the table, and really begin to negotiate.

One is to look back in history when we have had big problems and we came up with big solutions. The 1980s is a particular time. I was in the State legislature then. I followed what was happening in Washington. In fact, when I was 39 years old in 1983, Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill had a meeting at the White House. I was not there, but allegedly it went something like this:

The President said: Well, Social Security is going broke in about 20 years. We just got that report. We need to fix it.

O'Neill said: I agree.

The President said: I am willing to work on it, but I am not willing to raise the tax.

O'Neill said: Well, I am willing to work on it, but I don't want to cut the benefit.

They looked at the Actuary and said: What do we do?

The Actuary said: Well, you push the eligibility out, and you get the system back in actuarial soundness.

I was 39 in 1983. I would have been collecting Social Security at the age of 65 in 2010. But because Reagan and O'Neill got together, they pushed my eligibility out by 1 year to age 66, not age 65, and now incrementally it goes up 2 months a year to age 67 in a few years. That put the system in actuarial soundness for 67 years. The reason it is now all of a sudden in trouble again is the protracted economy, and these difficulties have caused people--baby boomers--to now go to the bank of Social Security and collect early Social Security at age 62. So we have had a rush to Social Security because of the unemployment and the uncertainty in our economy. But Reagan and O'Neill fixed Social Security by pushing the eligibility out. They did not raise the tax, but they did raise the ceiling upon which it was levied.

I think it is interesting politically--I note the President should understand

and all of us should recognize--the next year was 1984, and President Reagan won 49 of 50 States, a year after he fixed Social Security.

So I do not think we ought to demonize people for trying to solve the bigger problems of our debt and deficit. Everybody in this room knows you could cut every discretionary dollar out and you would still owe $300 billion in the deficit. The only way we are going to fix Social Security and Medicare is if we are going to fix the debt and deficit.

On Medicare, I was disappointed that when Paul Ryan in the House came up with a forthright plan, he was immediately demonized. In fact, he was invited to the White House and criticized face to face at a conference the President had. That was just for trying.

It is about time all of us start trying, we start trying to find common ground, we start to look at our solutions in a comprehensive way. It is a time where we stop calling names and instead we start calling numbers, we start looking at what it is we can do within our control to put our spending back in line, amortize our debt over time to a reasonable amount, and reduce our deficit over time. It is not going to be fixed with one stroke of a pen or one single piece of legislation, but it is going to begin to be fixed when both sides sit down at the table and understand that this is the fourth quarter of the ``major super bowl'' of the future of the United States of America. Continuing to shoot each other and throw bricks and bats and create victims and create enemies and not talk about the real problems is just making it worse for all of us. It is time we made it better for the American people.

I spent the weekend with the American people who live in the State of Georgia celebrating our independence on the Fourth of July and spending some time with five of my nine grandchildren. I remember Saturday night watching my grandchildren play in the den, looking down at them. They were not looking at me. I was just watching them play, and I thought about their future. I thought about what their future was going to be like in a country that ran unlimited debt and deficits, that inflated its dollar, lowered its expectations, and was not the America I had been fortunate enough to live, work, and be born in.

Recognizing my age and my time, I know my future--the years I have left--is all about those children and those grandchildren. I want to be a part of the solution for the problem today but a part of their expectations for the future. I do not want them to look back and say: Granddad made it worse. I want them to look back and say: Granddad made it better.

Tomorrow is an opportunity for the President of the United States to lead. He has templates with which he can lead. He can either choose to take isolated enemies and isolated arrows and shoot them at people or he can, instead, look back at his deficit commission. His deficit commission, which I voted for, by the way--I was one of the Republicans who voted for the creation of the deficit commission--came back in December with a comprehensive recommendation that should have come to the floor for debate. It dealt with Social Security. It did not deal with Medicare. It dealt with the Tax Code. It dealt with spending. It dealt with expenditures. It lowered tax rates and raised opportunity. The President did not even let it come to the floor of the Congress of the United States. He looked the other way.

It is time we look straight in each other's eyes and say there are solutions out there that good people of good will can find a way to do, just as Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did. But I do not want to be a part of making it worse. I want to be a part of making it better.

I hope those at the conference tomorrow sit down with that type of attitude--we do not create enemies and villains, we do not make it worse, but we begin a platform and a template where in the next 3 to 4 weeks we can begin to amortize our debt over time, reduce our deficit over time, raise the expectations of the American people, and cause a brighter future for our children and for our grandchildren.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise for a moment during this time of morning business to talk about what everybody is talking about--the crisis with our debt ceiling, the approaching deadline, and what we should do. Last night, as I thought about what I would say this morning, I thought back to that horrible month of September and October of 2008, when the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression hit the United States. I was a Member of the Senate, and I was here the night the TARP vote came before us to try to salvage and save the financial system of the United States. That was probably the toughest vote I ever took. It was the right vote, because we stabilized the financial system. At that time, we were reacting to a crisis we were not in control of.

Today, we have a crisis we are totally in control of. It is ironic to me that 30 or 35 days before the deadline of August 2, we are fiddling around arguing with each other, when we should be talking to each other, looking at those things we can do to avert a crisis and move forward. I see that our leader has come to the floor. I will shorten my remarks so he can have his full time. This is a crisis of which we are in control, unlike 2008. We can make a difference.

The balanced budget amendment proposed by the Republican conference of the Senate is the straitjacket and the discipline we all need. When I was a State legislator for 17 years, we had a program on drug abuse that said ``just say no.'' We taught kids not to use drugs. We need a way for Congress to ``just say no'' to spending, and have the discipline to have a constitutional restriction on our ability to have runaway spending without any accountability. It is the kind of discipline almost every State imposes upon itself.

In Georgia, we cannot deficit spend because our constitution won't let us. We cannot borrow more than 10 percent of our entire budget because the constitution will not let us. Those are the types of disciplines the Congress needs.

Before I yield to the leader, I will end the way I began. When the financial crisis hit in September 2008, we were dealing with issues over which we had no control. Today, we are dealing with an issue upon which we have total control. It is time to put on the straitjacket--the procedure and process to balance the budget and run our country as every American family has to run its budget.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise for a moment--and I will be joined shortly by my colleague, the senior Senator from Georgia--to pay tribute to a great American who passed this Earth 40 years ago on January 21, 1971. His name was Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. He was one of the handful of Senators everybody and every historian rates as the finest of the Senate. He was a great Georgian with an interesting past.

He was elected to the State legislature in the 1920s and rose to be the speaker of the house of representatives in the State of Georgia. He then went on to be Governor of the State of Georgia from 1931 to 1932. During that time, he served as Governor at the same time another gentleman was serving as the Governor of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They became good friends.

President Roosevelt even became a constituent of Senator Russell's because, with his affliction, the springs of Warm Springs, GA, were where then-Governor, soon-to-be-President Roosevelt would come to heal and get better and thank his good friend, Richard Russell, for his support. It was that relationship that brought Richard Russell to be one of the first Governors in the United States to come out and endorse Franklin Roosevelt to be President of the United States.

In his career in the Senate, Richard Russell served with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He served with Harry Truman--8 years side by side with Harry Truman. He served under President Dwight Eisenhower. He served under President John F. Kennedy. He served under Lyndon Johnson. In fact, in just a minute I will explain why he made Lyndon Johnson who he was. He finally passed away under Richard Nixon's first term as President of the United States. But back for a second to Richard Russell and Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Lyndon Baines Johnson became the President of the Senate and later became the President of the United States. In his own works, Lyndon Johnson credits Richard Russell with being the strength of his career as a Senator. In fact, so great was Senator Russell's control of the Senate that in a quote by Powell Moore, his press secretary, a few years ago, he said: When President Kennedy gave advice to newly elected Senators, he said the following:

If you want to learn how to be an effective Senator, you

should start by going to see Dick Russell.

That is exactly what Lyndon Johnson did.

So good a friend of Lyndon Johnson was Richard Russell that every Sunday night in their careers in the Senate, Lady Bird would have Richard Russell over at the house to cook him dinner just to thank him for what he had done the week before for Lyndon Johnson. As Lyndon Johnson grew in power, he kept beside him Richard Brevard Russell of Georgia.

Richard Brevard Russell of Georgia is the greatest Senator who ever served from our State. Senator Chambliss and I will be the first to tell you, we are way back in the back of the line when you compare our record to his record. He was a great Georgian. He was a great American.

When I was elected to the Senate and was asked to pick an office, I said: The only requirement I have is it be in the Russell Senate Office Building because I wanted to serve in the same building, named after the greatest Senator ever to serve from our State.

So on the 40th anniversary of his passing, I want to leave this Senate floor by reminding America we had a great Senator from Georgia whose lasting contribution to our country is indelible in the hearts and minds of our people: Richard Brevard Russell, a great American, a great Georgian, and one to whom all of us owe a great deal of thanks and a great deal of credit.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that that be extended by 3 minutes.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about jobs, and also to talk about an admonition I got from my father when I was growing up: Judge a man by his actions, not his words.

I intend to apply that, as well. We should all be judged by our actions, not just our words. I am very disappointed in what this administration is doing now. On the one hand, they are talking about jobs being the most important thing America needs. Yet every single action of the agencies is a job killer. Here is an example: The most recent nominee to be the new Commerce Secretary of the United States is a former director of the Boeing Aircraft Company. That aircraft corporation is now under a suit from the interim general counsel of the NLRB to stop them from opening a new plant that will employ 1,000 people in the State of South Carolina, alleging they built the plant there to strike back at the unions in Washington State, when in fact the Dreamliner, their main airliner, which they have tremendous orders for, is being built in Washington, but they had to expand another plant to meet the demand for orders. They decided, in the interest of the company, to have one on the east coast and one on the west coast. They weren't retaliating. They were trying to create jobs for a great American product. The NLRB wants to stop 1,000 jobs from being created on an allegation that it is some type of retribution. That is dead wrong.

The NLRB this week came out with a new admonition. That is, they are going to change election rules so new elections, instead of being required to take 38 to 42 days, can have quickie union elections in 10 to 12 days, making it much more difficult for management to react to a union vote or a union movement.

All these things are job creators. I am not here to demagogue unions or to demagogue this President for that matter. I just think fair is fair. If you say you want to create jobs, don't stop job creation. If you say you want the economy to recover, do those things necessary to empower business.

Let me take another example; that is, the National Mediation Board. The National Mediation Board is the agency that regulates employment from the standpoint of airlines and railroads and transportation entities. The NMB is 75 years old. For 75 years, their rule on a union election in a covered company is that 51 percent of the number of people employed who would be unionized had to vote in order for a union to become established.

Summarily, 11 days after their appointment under the new administration, that 75-year-old rule was struck to become only a simple majority of the number of people who vote, regardless of how many people are going to be covered in employment. Now, that was specifically targeted at Delta Airlines--an Atlanta company that became the largest airline in the world after buying Northwest and merging the two.

Northwest had union flight attendants, Delta did not. Delta's flight attendants had twice in the last decade rejected unionization in a vote of 50 percent plus 1 of all employees covered. The change in this rule was specifically targeted to try to force Delta to go from a nonunion shop in their flight attendants to a union shop. But even after an aggressive change in law and by the unions, the flight attendants still voted--under the new rule, which is much easier--not to unionize.

Still not satisfied, the National Mediation Board has now filed an action against Delta alleging improper activities. I find this very ironic since in the FAA conference committee, which I am a part of today, we are trying to get a chance for airlines and those covered to be able to have a legal action against a ruling of the NMB if they suspect the NMB ruled unfairly. The NMB has rejected that entirely, the leadership of this body has rejected it entirely, and that conference report languishes--all over an issue that would create jobs, but instead they want to retard jobs.

My message in coming to the floor is very simple. Actions count, words don't matter, simply talking about creating jobs don't mean a thing if we are taking actions that stymie business or punish people from making investments that bring about employment.

It is time for this President, it is time for each of us in the Senate, it is time for this administration, and it is time for the Congress to do what the American people have done: put our shoulder to the grindstone and do those things that bring American business back, our economy back, and bring jobs back to the greatest country on the face of this Earth--the United States of America.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, last night, between 6 and 7 o'clock, I did a telephone townhall meeting in Georgia. We had a little over 3,000 people on the call, and I was able to handle 16 questions. As I listened to the answers I was giving to the questions, I was struck by what a real problem we have in Washington. Washington is making things worse. Georgians are frightened for their jobs, the value of their homes, and the education of their children. They are uncertain about everything. As you give answers about what is happening in Washington, you realize Washington is making it worse.

I wish to give a couple of examples based on my experience. First of all, let's talk about legislation for a second. We have high unemployment--9.1 percent. We have people without jobs or underemployed. We have a law called the Workforce Investment Act or WIA. I am on the subcommittee that overseas it and the Education Committee. We have basically had an agreement on expansion of the reauthorization for the Workforce Investment Act for months, but it still languishes in committee because there are arguments over labor provisions that some want to be added to it.

Here we are, a nation in trouble, and we cannot pass the Workforce Investment Act, which is intended to help the very problem we have.

Secondly, I am on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee, which does the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--the fundamental foundation of training and improving our kids for the jobs of the 21st century. It has gone 4 years without reauthorization, and it languishes in committee because of a lack of willingness to bring it forward. Our children remain educated and taught and motivated under a law now expired for 5 years. That is not right, when we should be educating our children and training workers.

We in Washington are doing nothing. On the Commerce Committee, on which I serve, we are over the FAA

committee and reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, which is critical to economic development. That conference committee continues to languish. What are the arguments? They are about changes in labor law.

We need to get the job done in Washington and go to work. We need to understand that the American people are in trouble and are hurting. Our job is to provide answers, not to make it worse.

I wish to talk about a second feature--about regulation for a second--or strangulation, if you will. I have told this story before on the Senator floor, and I will tell it again. On January 3 of this year, I was in a cafe for breakfast and to meet with some businessmen. I walked in the front door and Steve Hennessy of Hennessy Cadillac and Land Rover in Atlanta called to me and came running across the floor. I thought he was going to give me a bear hug, but he said: Johnny, yesterday, I fired a salesman and hired two compliance officers. This financial regulation in the Dodd-Frank bill is strangling my productivity and raising my cost of doing business.

We have to recognize that regulation has consequences. It is not our job to eliminate risk in the marketplace. It is our job to mitigate risk so people will take risks, in terms of seeking rewards, which is what the capitalistic system is based on.

I will talk about a few other regulations that are causing significant problems in our recovery. The qualified residential mortgage rule that is being promulgated now by the six regulators will, if it goes into effect on August 1--and they have put the effective date off now--probably constrict the real estate market, which is already suppressed by 70 percent, by another 40 percent. It is going to take capital and risk capital and credit away from the Americans who are, in fact, buying homes today. In fact, in order to mitigate risk and try to eliminate it, it requires lenders to hold a 5-percent risk retention until the loan matures. It says you cannot loan anybody less than 80 percent--more than 80 percent, and if you have anything more than that, you cannot even have a private mortgage insurance policy to guarantee the money. So you are going to flood every buyer left to where? Through FHA, which is exempt from the Dodd-Frank bill, or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are going out of business, which means you will shift more of the burden of mortgage financing on people who are already overstressed.

Regulatory intent should not do that. My dairy farmers in Georgia are looking at a rule where milk is being categorized where it is going to have to be contained in tanks and reservoirs that now meet the standards of petroleum. That is higher investment and no additional profit for the country. That is protracted. Water--the EPA wants to take ``navigable'' from in front of the word ``water,'' in terms of the Clean Water Act, so the government doesn't regulate just navigable waters but every water.

Credit. Credit is becoming nonexistent for Main Street. I am a small business guy. I was in a small business in Georgia for 33 years. A lot of small businesspeople use their credit cards to manage their cash flow over time. Because of the credit bill passed a couple years ago, they don't have the flexibility to do that anymore. Bank credit is suspended primarily because banks are being run by the FDIC under cease and desist orders or, if they are extending credit alone, they are extending it to the extent that a borrower can put that much money in the bank. When you constrict credit, you suppress small business. When you suppress small business, you suppress 72 percent of the employment in the United States.

I commend Senator Corker for his remarks about an hour ago on the floor of the Senate because he focused on the big problem we have; that is, debt and deficits. It is kind of disappointing to me we have spent more time on the SBA act, which has been pulled now--it was on the floor the beginning of last month--than we have spent on all the appropriations bills in the last 3 years of this Congress. We debated amendments, we protracted the debate but still nothing happened. We ought to be talking about debt reduction, about deficit reduction, and a long-term plan, over time, to amortize the debt of this country to a reasonable level.

We have a debt ceiling vote that is confronting us, and I have heard the political statements made by people in both parties that there is a game of chicken being played right now, with some saying we are going to push it right up to August 2 and force a vote. If we don't get it, we will run the risk of America's credit going up in cost and uncertainty happening. Others are saying we are not going to do anything on a debt ceiling increase period until we have to at the last minute.

That is not the way to run a business. That is not the way to expand credit. That is not the way to run a country. We ought to be sitting down at the kitchen table of Washington, DC, in the Senate reprioritizing the way we spend money to begin to rein in our expenditures, lower our deficit and lower our debt.

I bet in the last couple of years every family in America, as every family in Georgia, has had to sit around their kitchen table and reprioritize their expenditures. Things have changed. Their nest egg may have shrunk. Their equity may be suppressed. Their job may be in trouble. We have all had to do it. I have had to do it. Almost everybody in America has had to do that. Why doesn't the government do it? At a crisis moment of $14 trillion in debt, with no ceiling above it; with a deficit of $1.5 trillion, $300 billion more than discretionary spending, why aren't we sitting around that kitchen table?

The questions I heard last night during my tele-townhall meeting made it clear to me Washington is making things worse. The American people want to be confident that we will address the debt and the deficit problem; that we are working on it and not that we are putting it off to a drop-dead date and then play chicken politics in the Senate.

People don't mind regulation that is fair, but they do mind regulation that is suppressive and that suppresses jobs. They don't mind having legislation debated in Washington on the floor of the Senate, one way or another depending on your position, but to leave it languishing in committees and not even bringing it up is not right. So my challenge--for me and for every Member of the Senate, and for this administration and for the President--is for us to lead.

We have a clock winding down on a debt ceiling increase that will be important for this country. But without substantial reform of the way we do our business and a game plan for a downpayment on our debt and deficit, and without an indication we are going to work together and have shared sacrifice, there is nothing at all we can do in this government except cause things to be worse. I don't want to be a part of that.

My last comment is this: I was 39 years old in 1983. A report was put out by the board of the Social Security Administration saying it was going broke in 2004. President Reagan and Tip O'Neill got together and said: We can't let that happen.

President Reagan said: I don't want it to go broke, but I am not going to raise the tax.

Tip O'Neill said: I don't want it to go broke, but I am not going to cut the benefit.

They went to the actuaries and said: What do we do?

The actuaries said: Put out the eligibility.

So they changed the law and said if you are an American born after 1943 you can't get Social Security at 65; you have to wait until you are 66. I am 66. They put my Social Security off a year. I didn't miss it. They also made Social Security actuarially sound until 2050. Only in the last 2 years has that date come down, and it has come down because of unemployed Americans at age 62 taking discounted early Social Security and putting more pressure on the system.

We could fix Social Security tomorrow just like they did in 1983 and not take a penny away from anybody. We could move the eligibility out to be more reflective of life expectancy. I know Medicare is the big political football and everyone wants to say the Republicans are trying to kill Medicare, and the Democrats love to say they are trying to protect it. Heck, I want to protect it. I have nine grandchildren. The rest of my life is about those grandchildren. I want to see to it they have a country that is as free, as productive, and safe, and that the benefits

are there for them that have been there for me. It is important we save Medicare, but we can't save it by looking the other way or by taking it off the table. We can't demonize a Democrat or a Republican for making a constructive decision to save Medicare.

Instead of trying to make it the political issue of the 2012 election, we should make it the personal issue of each Senator. We should sit around that kitchen table, work together, and try to find a meaningful solution to a problem that saves Medicare for future generations, and also doesn't cause an escalation in our debt and deficit. We are capable of doing it, but we have not demonstrated a will to do it.

I challenge my colleagues to do the same thing, and I challenge my colleagues to do one other thing--to hold a tele-townhall in the next couple of weeks. Talk to 3,500 of the citizens in your State and listen to the questions they are asking. They are scared, they are worried, and they feel threatened, and Washington is making it worse.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Kansas. I had no idea when I came to make my remarks that they would be so in keeping with a part of his speech with regard to regulation and what the regulatory regimen of the current administration is doing to economic improvement and economic development in the United States of America.

I rise for a moment to talk about the Dodd-Frank legislation, to talk about the qualified residential mortgage provision, and to talk about the six regulators of financial services and a recent decision they made.

Shaun Donovan, Ben Bernanke, Sheila Bair, Edward Demarco, John Walsh, and Mary Schapiro were challenged with carrying out and writing the rules of intent for Dodd-Frank. When they published, a few weeks ago-- about 2 months ago now--the proposed rule on qualified residential mortgages, it created a firestorm and created a number of speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It also created a letter from 39 Members of the U.S. Senate, which I ask unanimous consent be printed in the Record.

These 39 Senators wrote specifically to these regulators to express their concern with the possible effects of the proposed regulation that the regulators were proposing on qualified residential mortgages. I am pleased to say that a few days ago the six regulators extended the comment period from June 20 now to August 1. I have not talked to them, but I hope it is because they have been listening to speeches, they have been reading the comments, they have been seeing the testimony, and they understand, if left uncorrected, and if put in place, the current rule on qualified residential mortgages will be a second hit to what is already a very fragile U.S. housing market.

Just last week, the reports for the most recent month in terms of residential home sales saw the beginning of a second dip in residential housing. This morning the Wall Street Journal reported 40 percent of the homes in America that contain a second mortgage or an equity line of credit are now under water--40 percent.

One of the reasons they are is because prices are continuing to decline. One of the reasons prices are declining is the buyers are not there. It is a seller's market, we have too many foreclosures, and too many short sales.

The impact of the qualified residential mortgage amendment to Dodd- Frank was an amendment offered by Mrs. Hagan, Ms. Landrieu, and myself--all with experience in housing and knowledge about the marketplace. We put it in because the original Dodd-Frank legislation said mortgage people making mortgages were going to have to hold risk retention of 5 percent in that mortgage, which basically would put most everybody in the mortgage business out of the mortgage business, except a handful of people. We put in the qualified residential mortgage amendment the specific parameters by which a mortgage could be exempt from risk retention, which were a downpayment of at least 20 percent or, if the downpayment was less than that, it had to carry private mortgage insurance to insure the effect of an 80 percent loan; second, qualified ratios that demonstrated the couple could pay back the mortgage under any reasonable assumption; third, the house had to appraise; fourth, the credit worthiness of the individual had to demonstrate they could pay for the mortgage.

Those were all the reasonable underwriting criteria that existed before the financial collapse of mid 2006-2007. The rule that was proposed by the six regulators, on which now they have extended the commentary time, completely avoided and made no mention of the private mortgage insurance requirement and said for a qualified residential mortgage to exempt risk retention, the buyer would have to put down at least 20 percent. Most buyers in America do not have at least 20 percent, and under current economic times and what has happened, they have a lot less than that.

But for years--and I was in the housing business for 33 years--the 90 and 95 percent conventional loans made in this country were the backbone of the loans that helped support the housing market, and those loans required a private mortgage insurance policy on any amount of loan exceeding 80 percent, up to 95 percent. We need the ultimate rule coming back from these regulators, by August 1, to contain that provision so as to exempt from risk retention any mortgage that meets the underwriting criteria, including private mortgage insurance on any amount above 80 percent, and up to 95 percent.

If we do not do it, I want to tell you what will be the outcome, and it is without question. You will remember, Mr. President, when we got into trouble in housing it was because we directed Freddie and Fannie to buy affordable housing loans, which became a consumer of subprime packages that were generated on Wall Street. Subprime packages were loans that had high coupon rates, and they were made to risky borrowers. They were intended to get more people into housing, but they became an abused process.

Because we directed Freddie and Fannie to buy that type of paper, it created a demand for that type of paper, which Wall Street fulfilled. So, in other words, you had a premium pricing on the coupon, which made the security attractive, but the risk was greater because the loans were to people with less good credit.

We have now gone the other way. The pendulum has swung 180 degrees the other way. With the pending rule being circulated, upon which this commentary time has been extended, if it goes into place, you will create 90 and 95 percent loans being priced just like loans that were subprimer priced because very few people will make those loans--only a few large lenders. They will price the interest rate on those loans high because of scarcity. In other words, a borrower borrowing 95 percent or 90 percent with private mortgage insurance will end up paying a premium--a premium in interest rate or discount points--in order to get that loan because there will not be a wide distribution or availability of that type of conventional financing.

The unintended consequence of the rule being proposed--which we, fortunately, have an extension on comment time--would create another ability for lenders with the capacity of risk retention to price a loan at such a rate that it is too high for the average consumer.

The other thing it is going to do is a lot of consumers who cannot get a qualified residential mortgage of 90 or 95 percent will be out of the housing market.

What is the result of that? The result of that is an extension of what the most recent figures demonstrated: lower demand, declining housing prices, and a protracting continuance of the worst housing recession in the history of the United States of America.

So I come to the floor today, first of all, to say thank you to the six regulators for extending the comment period; second, to urge my colleagues to urge the lending institutions, the real estate industry, the consumer interest groups, the housing advocacy groups, to have their input with these regulators on the proposed qualified residential mortgage rule, because if left unamended--as it currently is proposed by the regulators--it will make housing less affordable in America; the access to conventional credit less available in America; it will decline the demand that exists already, which is historically too low; it will protract the continuing decline of housing values in America; and it will cause our economy to continue to slide in an even deeper, deeper depression.

It is critically important what the Senator from Kansas said be recognized: Be sure when you pass a regulation that the unintended consequence does not cause a bigger problem than the problem you are trying to correct.

I admire our regulators. I appreciate the hard job we have given them. I appreciate the fact they have extended the comment time. I hope now they will also listen to the comments being made, come back, and make a qualified residential mortgage rule that includes the provision for private mortgage insurance on loans in excess of 80 percent and no more than 95 percent.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mr. President, on certain occasions in the life of a public official one is called upon to make difficult and unpleasant decisions. Such is the case for the six members of the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee today. But we recognize it is essential that the institution--this Senate-- that passes the laws which all our citizens must live under must also enforce those laws and rules of standards and conduct which we impose upon ourselves. It is a solemn responsibility, but it is important to the integrity and the future of this institution.

The Senate Ethics Committee looks upon itself as an advisory board and a source of information and counsel to our Members. We ask Members to come to us when there are questions about the potential ethical violation of a decision or even something that might, in passing, seem to be trivial. Our job is to make sure everybody who has a question gets an answer and no one unwillingly gets caught in an unethical situation. But it is also our responsibility, when complaints are filed, to follow up on those complaints and, if we find merit in the complaint, to enter an initial investigatory period of time which, if that position bears enough likelihood that a violation has occurred, ultimately goes to an adjudicatory phase and then finally a decision on the floor of the Senate. It is rare, and I can tell my colleagues personally it is a situation I hope I am never involved in again. But, as I said, it is an essential process to the integrity of this body.

When the particular complaint in question in the Ensign case came to us, it was, similar to any other case, reviewed initially to determine whether it even merited an investigation. After the initial review determined it did merit an investigation, the Senate staff did an overwhelming and wonderful job of gathering information, evidence, and testimony to help us get to a position to begin to make a decision as to whether we could go further in

the case. But we didn't rely just on ourselves. We sought forensic experts and computers and technology so the over 500,000 documents that were reviewed and cross-referenced had a forensic test to them and we knew what we were dealing with and how it was dealt with. We even hired a special counsel, which is rare for the Senate Ethics Committee to do, but it was essential because of where the evidence and the testimony was leading the committee.

I wish to say, at this point in time, I have known a lot of lawyers in my day, ones I have hired and ones I have been on the other side of the deposition table from. I have never known anybody more professional or whose ability I admired more than Carol Elder Bruce, and I wish to commend her on the floor of the Senate. It was her report which we are also submitting with the referrals today to indicate that we have looked to see that there was reasonable evidence to conclude that a violation may have occurred. The ultimate decision on that will be up to the U.S. Department of Justice and it will be up to the Federal Election Commission. But the report clearly indicates that the Senate Ethics Committee did not act on what it thought or an opinion or a whim. It acted on facts determined through hundreds of interviews, 500,000 documents that were examined, and testimony that came to our committee.

It is the hope of the chairman and myself and each member of the committee that every Member recognizes the Senate Ethics Committee wants to be a source of information, advice, and counsel, to see to it this institution always rises to the occasion as the most ethical body in our government. But we will as a committee, if it becomes necessary and the evidence finds it to be true, pursue our responsibility as a committee and we will do what is required of us in this body.

I wish to thank Chairman Boxer for the method in which she has handled this from the beginning to the end, as well as Laura Schiller, who has been her aide throughout and helpful. I also wish to commend Joan Kirchner, Chris Carr, and Glee Smith on my staff for their tireless efforts. The members of the committee also should be commended for their hard work, and it has been hard work. Ben Cardin has been a tremendous legal mind for us. Sherrod Brown has been an insightful person to ferret out information and guide us in the right direction. My dear friend, Senator Roberts, is the dean of the members of the Ethics Committee. On the floor are Senator Roberts, Senator Cardin, and Senator Brown. Senator Risch from Idaho is not here, but he deserves equal credit. As the chairman said, his legal mind and insightful nature helped us come to the conclusions we came to today.

I wish to repeat my thanks to Carol Elder Bruce for the tremendous work she did, as well as Brian Stolarz, Mike Missel, and John Songstregth, who all worked with her legal team. The staff of the Ethics Committee, our staff director, John Sassaman, has been invaluable in his tireless hours of work to see to it that every I was dotted, every T was crossed, and the committee did its job. To Rochelle Ford, Lynn Tran, Bill Corcoran, and Dan Schwager, thanks to them for all the effort they made.

I will end where I began. No one in public office volunteers for the type of responsibilities we have had in the case of Senator Ensign. But all of us took that responsibility when it came upon us, recognizing the integrity of the Senate and the integrity of our decision was important for the future of this body. As sad as the deliberations were and the ultimate result was, it was proof that this Senate and its Ethics Committee can stand and do the effort necessary to see to it this institution's integrity proceeds in the future uninhibited and unendangered.

With that, unless there is a Member who wishes to speak, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise on a point of personal privilege to commend a gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Keith Hatcher.

Twenty-five years ago, when I worked with my father--my father, among other things, was the past president of the Georgia Association of REALTORS. I remember one afternoon he came into my office and said: Son, we just hired someone today who is going to be special. His name is Keith Hatcher. I want you to be sure and look him up the first time you get a chance.

Well, about a week later I met Keith. I was then a member of the Georgia Legislature, and I showed him around a little bit. He became the assistant to John Cox, who had been the venerable representative of the REALTORS for years in that State. I saw that spark in Keith Hatcher's eye, and I knew he was going to be a great one, and a great one he has been.

In his 25 years representing the Georgia association and landowners and homeowners around our State, he has fought hard for limitations and curbs on the power of eminent domain, fought hard for lower ad valorem taxes and transfer taxes, and fought hard for reform of landlord-tenant laws. He has worked day in and day out for the landowners of our State and for the REALTORS of our State, and he has done it in the most professional, comprehensive way anybody could possibly do it.

He has another great story to tell. Keith faced a significant health hazard just a few years ago. He was about to lose a kidney, and he could have lost his life, but he went through a transplant program in Birmingham, AL. The transplant was successful, and he rehabilitated himself. Today, he works as hard as he did before the injury. Importantly, as well, he works as a member of the board of the National Kidney Foundation helping to raise money to support the transplant program so others who are afflicted as he was will have the same cure he has had.

So this week, as the REALTORS from Georgia come to town, as I think they will from every other State of the Union, to talk to the Members of the Senate about laws that affect their industry and their profession, the one from Georgia will be led by Keith Hatcher. As he has for the last 24 years, he will be a voice for home ownership, a voice for lower taxation, and a voice for wide distribution and ownership of land, which makes the United States of America the most unique country of any on the face of this Earth.

I am pleased to commend him today on the celebration of his 25th anniversary representing the Georgia Association of REALTORS.

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

I thank the Senator from Alabama for the question. I will tell you this, I was in the real estate business for 33 years. Leverage is essential in real estate. You have to borrow money and put in equity as well to make a real estate transaction work. You cannot just do it for all cash. But too much leverage will destroy you. America has just been through a period where many American homeowners were destroyed by too much leverage. They borrowed more than they could afford to pay in order to borrow for a house.

The United States of America is at the point where we have too much leverage. We have too much debt. Our deficit continues to escalate, adding to that debt. I tried to think--when I thought about what I would say this morning, I did not know you would ask the questions you asked. But it is appropriate that you did.

I was trying to think of an example we could put forward of a leader in the private sector who addressed a tremendous problem America faced and solved it. You know who that leader was? Lee Iacocca. I do not know how many of you will remember it, but in the 1970s Chrysler was busted. The cars did not work, people did not buy them, they were going broke, they had too much debt. They hired a guy named Lee Iacocca, brought him up from the ranks and said: Lee, we need to fix this company or we are going broke. Lee Iacocca as a leader put everything on the table: benefits, how they made their cars, discipline, rules, everything. He brought everybody to the table, the labor unions, the workers, the advisers, the economists, and the board of directors.

He said: Look, we do not even care who takes credit, we need to fix the Chrysler Motor Corporation. In a short period of time, Chrysler went from the worst rated consumer satisfaction to the best. They raised the guarantee on their product. They reduced their debt by efficiencies, and they became the most productive automaker of their time in the 1970s.

America has the ability to return to our productive times but only through leadership. I am looking forward to the President's remarks today. I hope he will be a Lee Iacocca. I hope he will not take things off the table. I hope he will not play politics with where we go. All of us have to decide to put everything on the table and make sure we prioritize America's future and get our debt and deficit under control.

I just had the Georgia Hospital Association leave my office. I will tell you the last thing I told them. They were talking about, please make sure we do not cut this, that, and the other. I said: You know, medicine is 17 percent of gross domestic product, but it is about 80 percent of our challenge in terms of Medicare and Medicaid with the future years of the debt and the deficit. We are going to have to put everything on the table. We are going to have to make sure we rein in our expenses while not destroying 17 percent of the private sector.

Quite frankly, I fear the health care bill that passed in December of 2009, and was signed last year in March, is a bill that is overly prescriptive, overly regulatory, and disincentivizes competition in terms of health care.

I hope the President will be open to suggestions in terms of bringing about

competition, making our citizens consumers, making sure we are price competitive in the delivery of the best health care in the world, not a government that tries to manage everything and be so prescriptive.

Yes, we have a problem, but we are a great country where Republicans and Democrats need to sit down at their kitchen table like the American people and make decisions that are in the best interest of their future.

I commend Senator Corker on the CAP Act. It is the right way to go. I also want to bring up the biennial budget. I know the Senator from Alabama is the ranking member of the Budget Committee, and I have talked to Chairman Conrad about this. We have an example that works, and that is to change the way we do our business.

In the last 3 years we have had 4 hours of debate on spending $10 trillion. That is not the way to run a railroad. We need to change our process from an annual appropriation to a biennial appropriation where we appropriate money in odd-numbered years and we spend in even- numbered years, which are election years, looking for savings and waste and reprioritizing the way we spend money.

I know this must be true for the Budget Committee, and I know myself, if I am given the time and the task of finding savings or overexpenditures, if I am given the charge of doing so, I can do it. But if I am told to come in January, raise my right hand, and then by October pass as much spending as I can, I will spend too much money. It is human nature.

The American people ask of us only to do what they have to do. They don't have the luxury of too much leverage. If they borrow too much, they go bankrupt. We need to empower the American people by the Congress doing what the American people have to do.

The biennial budget, the CAP Act, and then Senator Hatch, with a number of Senators in this body, have introduced the balanced budget amendment--those are three components that change the paradigm, the process, and I guarantee will change the result.

Mr. President, I appreciate the compliment. It is probably overstated, but it is an honor and a privilege to serve with Senator Sessions as well as with Senator Coats.

I wish to reflect on something we shared this morning. Senator Coats and myself and others were with Senator Akaka for breakfast this morning. He talked about 1941, living on Hawaii, the youngest of eight children. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and America went to war in the Pacific and in Europe. Sixteen million Americans of that generation went to the Pacific and Europe, fought and died. Some came back to this country and, because of the GI bill, 8 million of them went to universities and got bachelor's degrees and started the small businesses and the industries that took the U.S. economy to dynamic growth and opportunity for every generation that has succeeded them, up until now.

Senator Sessions and I and Senator Coats and Senator Akaka, who is a great American, a Democratic Senator from Hawaii who is retiring next year, we are all part of a generation that will, at some time, leave a legacy to our children and our grandchildren. The Senator from Alabama has children and grandchildren, I have them, and Senator Coats does as well. I don't want to be the first generation since World War II to leave my children and my grandchildren worse off than every generation before left their children and grandchildren.

This economic war we have on spending and debt is every bit as damaging as a war with bullets and bombs. Because with too much leverage, with an inability to pay our debt, we have what happened to us once before in the last 65 years, and that was the early 1980s when we had the misery index: double-digit unemployment, double-digit interest rates, double-digit inflation. I remember the days when I ran my business when the prime rate was 21 percent. I remember when unemployment was 14 percent and inflation was 12 percent. It was called the misery index. What happened is, America started borrowing too much, spending too much, and business contracted.

We need to make sure we don't let that happen again because the greatest economic threats to the security of America are runaway interest rates, runaway inflation, and runaway unemployment. We don't want to be the cause of that. We want to be the platform that allows free enterprise and American business to come back, the American economy to come back, reduce our deficit over time, and reduce our debt over time. We don't have to pay it all off, but we have to stop the increase. We have to begin to get back in order so we are not an overleveraged Nation.

I pledge this, as Senator Coats did, and I know the Senator from Alabama did as well: I will not leave my grandchildren and my children worse off than I was left by my parents and my grandparents. We have the greatest Nation on the face of this Earth. Democrats and Republicans, the President, Congressmen, and Senators need to sit down at the American kitchen table and do what we have asked of the American people: get our spending in order and look to a brighter, more prosperous future for those who will succeed us.

I thank my colleague for the time.

Well, it is, because it will instill a degree of confidence that we have finally been willing to deal with our long-term problem of debt and deficit, with our entitlements but also with our spending.

But I want to refer back to a statement the Senator made in his previous remarks before he recognized me, when he was challenging the President to bring forward a budget in this speech he will make in an hour or so. He should bring it and put it on the table, along with putting Paul Ryan's recommendations on the table, putting the deficit commission's recommendations on the table, and putting the group of six who are working on another document on the table--let's don't rule anybody out--and sit down and one by one go through them and find out what is the best answer and the solution for America.

It is time to stop the political job of picking and choosing for political purposes. We need to pick and choose for the American people. If we put everybody's ideas on the table, and they are genuine about their interests to solve the problem, we can do it, and we can begin this afternoon.

Absolutely. With all due respect, I think the last couple years the government has tried to eliminate risk with overregulation of almost everything. If you eliminate risk, nobody gets out of bed in the morning and figures they are protected. We need to mitigate this and allow people to take a risk in order to get a reward. We can give them a platform of confidence and predictability so they will deploy capital, invest money, and employ people. The interesting point is, the byproduct of that is you have higher revenues. When you have a productive America on a progressive tax system, you get higher revenues. If people are more satisfied, they are more happy and more productive. There is less productivity when there is overregulation and underconfidence. We need to restore the confidence and have fair but equitable regulations and we need to empower the American investor to invest their capital and we will improve employment, improve revenue, and improve the future of the United States.

I will close by just saying amen.

Mr. President, before the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire leaves the floor, I want to commend her on a number of things, but most important is her hard work with me and many others on the biennial budget bill, which we hope will come to the floor in the future.

I want to comment, because this potential shutdown, which I hope doesn't happen--we have been speculating or asking the agencies to speculate on what this means. If you read yesterday's Washington Post, you saw that the only agency of the government that will work seamlessly through a shutdown, without any shortcoming or deficiencies, is veterans health care. That is because we biennially appropriate for that. The one thing that will be open during the shutdown is the one thing we do in the 2-year process rather than a hit-or-miss process like the current appropriations act.

So the distinguished Senator, who was Governor of her State that has a biennial appropriations process and has worked with it, knows what I know. If you can plan and make things predictable, you will save money and improve the quality of your service. I hope we can get this country to a position where we do biennially appropriate and can spend 1 of every 2 years doing oversight and find waste and find ways to do things better and less expensively.

Yes.

There is no question that the Senator is correct. We are predictably unpredictable here. We need to be predictably predictable when it comes to the efficiencies we can bring about and how we spend our money. We need to do what people do, which is sit around their kitchen tables and prioritize what comes in and what goes out. And they balance their budgets. They have to. It is about time we have the same discipline the American people have.

I thank the distinguished Senator.

Mr. President, in the South we have an old saying: If you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, stop digging.

We are at that point. We accomplished some amazing things in the last 3, 4 weeks. I commend the House on the cuts that have taken place, but we ought to remember we are focusing on the minnow, when the big fish is on the horizon. There is only so much we can cut when 50 percent of a fiscal year is gone. People are talking about how little we are cutting out of small areas. That is because it is all there is to cut from. The cuts have demonstrated that we can begin to get our house in order. The big enchilada is coming up with the big 2012 budget.

I did a little research on what we have done in the last 3, 4 years. In the last 3 years, we spent all our money on omnibus appropriations, except one Defense appropriations act. In doing the research, we spent on average 4 days of debate on those three bills. We have had the small business bill on the floor for 12 days, and we haven't finished it yet. We spent 12 days on the small business reform bill, and we only spent an average of 4 days on spending over $10 trillion. It is time that we got the current agreement--and I understand there is one--on how much we cut done. If we have differences on policy, we can reserve them for debates on the 2012 appropriations act.

Let's get moving. Everybody here knows we have two big votes on the horizon. One is the pending debt ceiling vote at some time in May or June, and the other is the fiscal year 2012 appropriations. We will not get a second chance on those. The world markets are not going to give us another year to spend our money in a helter-skelter manner. We have the ability and the brain power, and we need the commitment in this body to spend money like the American people have to spend theirs. That is all they ask of us. We don't need to be extravagant, frivolous, and wasteful.

Another thing on the current, pending, looming possible shutdown is that it is absolutely crazy, when we have committed our sons and daughters to

harm's way--right now, they are in three countries: Libya by the Air Force, Iraq, and Afghanistan. To put them in a position of accruing their income because we have shut down the government is just not right. It is not the right thing to do. We ought to debate these matters on the Senate floor with the government functioning.

I hope all of my colleagues will recognize that we are about to take defeat from the jaws of victory. We have won the battle on the short term with the cuts we needed. Let's get this short-term cut done, let's get the CR done, and then let's get to the kitchen table of the American people and get it done for fiscal year 2012 and the years ahead. We have to find out how to pay back over time $14 trillion. That is going to take a lot of commitment, work, and time. Let's get to it. Let's get the CR done. Let's come back next week and finish dotting the i's and crossing the t's and commit ourselves that the rest of the year is about America's future, it is about our children and grandchildren; it is about beginning to rein in expenses and spend our money accountably and predictably so the American people can expect of us what we always demand of them.

I yield the floor.