Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to speak on my amendment to the fiscal year 2010 Energy and Water Appropriations bill.

This amendment prevents the Department of Energy from spending taxpayer dollars on companies that invest significant resources or do business in Iran's energy sector to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Earlier this year, the Department signed contracts with energy giants Shell, Vitol, and Glencore to add almost 17 million barrels to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Open source material indicates that these three companies make up a majority of Iran's gasoline imports.

Companies that sell gasoline to Iran should not receive the support of the American taxpayers, and this body has now gone on record multiple times opposing government contracts with companies that have substantial investment in or do business with Iran's energy sector.

My amendment does not penalize the Department of Energy for this activity, but prevents this sort of thing from happening again. Ending taxpayer support for Iran's energy sector is a commonsense step and crucially important. Most major importers of gasoline to Iran have substantial ties to the U.S. Government, and unanimous adoption of my amendment sends a clear message to those involved in Iran's energy sector: You can do business with us, or you can do business with Iran-- not both.

Modeling and Simulation R & D

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article by Martin Feldstein, ``Obama's Plan Isn't the Answer'' printed in the Washington Post, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, printed in the Record.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak in morning business for up to 20 minutes.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, what I wish to talk about today is the subject that probably more than any other is on the minds of the American people and certainly probably the No. 1 item on the agenda of most of us in the House and the Senate; namely, what we do about the escalating cost of health care in America and the need for all Americans to have access to coverage.

Those two questions are animating a debate which has captured the time of the people in the House and the Senate, who represent to the American people, and, as we have found more and more--and I found out this weekend when I was back in my home State--the attention of our constituents.

Let me begin by saying, I think that is good.

There was a question about whether the Congress would pass legislation on the House floor or the Senate floor before the beginning of the August recess. Most of us on this side of the aisle felt it would be beneficial if we could go back home and take the month of August, when we are supposed to be home visiting with our constituents, to have some townhall meetings and other fora, and engage them in a conversation about what they think the best ideas are. Because, at the end of the day, legislation this important, that is going to affect every single American, needs to be well understood by them. And we need, as their representatives, to get their input on what they think is a good idea.

The reality is that very few, if any, Members of either the House or the Senate have read the major bills yet, let alone be able to post them on the Internet so the American people can see them or get them in some kind of hard copy for other people to understand, evaluate them, and discuss them with the American people.

Anything this important cannot be done quickly. It has to be done right. And the first principle is: People need to understand what it is. I have found--and I confess, first of all, I have not read the three House bills nor have I read the HELP Committee bill, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee bill. I have read a great deal of what has come out of the Finance Committee. But there is no bill put together in the Finance Committee yet.

The thing that strikes me is the complexity and the degree of government takeover involved. I can't begin, in the brief period of time I have, to describe all the different ways in which the government would take over the key decisions about health insurance and health care in America if these bills were to pass. They are replete with references to the most minute things about people's health that the government will then be taking over.

There are major decisions being made here. We don't know the ramifications of them all. Among other things, the cost. One thing we are learning is ideas Members have about reducing costs don't translate into actual cost reduction because the Congressional Budget Office, which is the entity we have charged with the obligation of telling us how much these things cost, has come back with estimates that are very low in terms of savings and very high in terms of cost. For example, in the main bill in the House of Representatives, the deficit is increased by $240 billion, and in the bill that has come through the HELP Committee in the Senate, the deficit is increased by $600 billion.

Nor has the CBO been able to find much savings. I think it was last Friday that they examined the latest idea to come to the White House; namely, to put a group in charge--it used to be called MedPAC, but it would have a different name now--and they would be in charge of identifying what coverage for federal programs there was and how much would be reimbursed to the providers. Unless both Houses of Congress affirmatively voted to reject those recommendations, they would automatically go into effect.

Well, apart from the obvious concerns about that, CBO came back and said it will only save perhaps $2 billion over 10 years, which is a drop in the bucket when given the over $1 trillion cost of the legislation in the House, when it is fully implemented, $2 trillion cost to the Senate bill.

I mention this simply to point out the order-of-magnitude issue we have facing us: a hugely complex subject; huge amounts of money to be spent, big increases in the deficit, lots of new taxes proposed to help pay for it, and ramifications that will affect all of us in terms of the health care we are entitled to receive. Because of the amount of government involvement in both what insurance can and cannot cover as well as what the government programs such as Medicare can and cannot cover, every American will be affected in terms of the health care our physician says our family or we need but which the government says not necessarily can we receive from our physician; in other words, putting the government between the patient and the physician. That will result in delay and denial of care and outright rationing of health care. This is something that is also of concern to the American people.

When we take $500 billion in proposed cuts from Medicare at the same time we are adding a brandnew group of baby boom generation retirees, there

can be only one result: a cut in health care for seniors. So seniors also have a right to be concerned. Young people have a right to be concerned when we say that in order to reduce the cost of insurance for the sickest people, we are going to put everybody in the same pool, basically, and they will all get the same basic insurance premium or at least within a dictated range. The sticker shock for younger people in America is going to be incredible. They are going to see their premiums increase. So for many people, the cost of health care is not going to go down, it is going to go up.

Very few people believe we can actually reduce the cost of something by putting the government in charge of it.

The final issue people are concerned about after the cost of it, the increase in deficits, the increased taxes to pay for it, the fact that it will result in delay and denial of care, is the fact that it will not enable people to keep what they have. This is one of the reasons the President has said so many times that if you like your insurance, you get to keep it. The President is wrong when he says that. He hasn't read the bills. On this I will take just a little bit of time because he is wrong on two counts.

First of all, the statement comes with significant conditions; second, it comes with an expiration date. There are two primary reasons why it is not true that if you like your insurance, you get to keep it. Let's back up a little bit. According to a Fox News survey, 91 percent of Americans say they have health insurance. Eighty-four percent of them rate their insurance as either good or excellent. This is why the President makes the comment ``If you like it, you get to keep it,'' because most Americans have it and they like it, they want to keep it, and they don't want to sacrifice their coverage in order to solve some of the other problems that are inherent in our system. But the promise, as I said, is not true.

First of all, what the President and our Democratic colleagues want is what they call a public option--a government-run insurance company-- to compete with other insurance companies. To the extent that a lot of Americans don't particularly like insurance companies--and I must confess there are some things insurance companies do that I don't like--it is easy to put them out there as a target and say, as the President has said, we need somebody to keep them honest.

Well, let's examine that for a moment. Do we need to have a government-run business in every business in America in order to keep the privately run businesses honest? In the first place, the health insurance industry is the most regulated--or one of the most regulated--industries in America. Every State regulates the health insurance that is issued in their State. They don't need to be kept honest by a competitor from the government. In the second place, having the regulator--the government--also be a competitor has its obvious limitations. It won't be long before the other competitors are put out of business. I think most people who look at this say that is exactly what would happen.

But it also represents a point of view that I find very troubling. I know the government has now taken over our biggest automobile manufacturers. It has gotten into the business of other insurance. It has gotten into the business of banking. It has gotten into the business of student loans; in fact, it now has a monopoly in that. But I can't believe the American people want there to be a government business to compete with private businesses in other elements of our economy. That is socialism. I don't think the administration wants to do that. Certainly, the American people don't want to. So why would you have a government competitor in the private market? For one reason only, and most people who are honest about this acknowledge that it is in order to have the government take over health care. It is called single payer. There is a group in America that wants single payer very badly.

Members of Congress have said: Well, we can't get there in one giant step; the American people won't stand for that. It is going to take two steps. First, we will create a very powerful government-run insurance company to compete with private business and eventually put them out of business and then we will have one insurance company for all of America. It will be a government company, and there won't be any more private companies, at least to speak of. So it is a two-step process. That is the hidden agenda of those who want a government-run insurance company. There is no other reason to have one.

We have 1,300 insurance companies in America. We don't need yet one more competitor. They sell thousands of different kinds of insurance policies. We don't need yet one more competitor. Honesty is not the issue. We have a highly regulated industry by the States and by the Federal Government. The only reason to have it is to put the private insurers out of business.

Is that what would happen? How does this relate to people who like their insurance and won't get to keep it? Well, the Lewin Group, which is a highly respected, nonpartisan health care think tank, says that within a couple years, we will have 119 million people on the government-run insurance plan, 88 million of whom were previously insured by private business. In other words, 88 million people will lose their coverage because it is much cheaper to have the government- run plan take care of them than for their employer to continue to do so. As much as their employer likes the employees, if it is substantially cheaper to provide health care to them by paying the fine that the bills have--$750 per employee, 8 percent of the payroll tax; there are different fines in here--it is still cheaper for the business to pay the fine than it is to pay the health care they are currently providing. So 88 million people: Sorry; even if you like your health care, you don't get to keep it, according to the Lewin Group. I think their estimate is, if anything, conservative.

There is a second reason why if you like your insurance you won't be able to keep it. Those who are not insured by larger businesses--the ones whom I have just been talking about--but by smaller businesses or who are self-insured, there is an expiration date on this promise. After 5 years, you don't get to keep it and probably sooner than that. Because if there is a change in your policy or if the insurance company enrolls anybody else in it, then automatically it loses its protected or grandfathered status and is now under the regulatory regime that is established by these bills. That regulatory regime will totally change what that insurance coverage is. They dictate what is covered, what isn't covered, what the premiums are, what the companies can make, and a whole host of other things. So even though you may like your insurance, you are not going to get to keep it because no plan is static; that is to say, it never enrolls any more people and it never changes any of its terms. If either of those two things happen under the House bill, you lose your insurance. So it is not true that if you like your insurance, you get to keep it.

That is the final reason people are concerned. They are concerned about the huge cost: $1 trillion, $2 trillion; they are concerned about the deficit, the increase in the deficit, even with more tax increases. These numbers are not mine; these are from the Congressional Budget Office--nonpartisan, which is in business to tell us how much these things cost. So these are facts, not opinions.

It is my opinion that based upon the language of these bills, we will lose the ability to determine with our doctor what health care we get. Secondly, even if you like your health insurance, you are not going to be able to keep it for the reasons I mentioned.

Mr. President, may I inquire how much time is remaining?

Five minutes. Thank you very much.

The American people are becoming concerned about this as well. The more they hear about it, the more they don't like what they are hearing. I resent those who say we have to do this quickly or it might not happen at all. It is a lot like the stimulus. We were told we had to do it quickly. Nobody read that bill. It was over 1,000 pages. It had a lot of stinkers in it. It had porkbarrel spending. It made a lot of promises it couldn't keep: We are going to cap unemployment at 8 percent. Well, it is on its way to 10 percent. It hasn't created 4 million jobs. It is not going to. And it is going to cost us over $1 trillion.

So I think fooled once, maybe that is your fault; fooled twice is my fault. The American people are saying we are not going to be fooled twice. We want time to look at this one. It is over 1,000 pages. We want to read it. We want you, the Senators and Representatives, to read it, and when you do, you will find a lot of things you are going to be surprised about and you do not like.

The American people, as I said, are beginning to answer polling questions, and I wish to share some of the data. A majority--this is from the Fox Poll I cited earlier--say slow it down. We would rather have it slowed down and done right than moved quickly. They are afraid it will raise taxes and costs. By 2 to 1 they believe it will reduce the care they currently receive. By the way, they are right.

I mentioned the fact that 91 percent have insurance and 84 percent rate it as good or excellent. Fifty-three percent, according to a Rasmussen Poll--and this was just at the end of last week--53 percent disapprove of the Obama health care plan. It is no longer true that the majority of Americans want this plan. Now that they know about it, they don't like it. They want us to deal with the deficit first. That is another one of the things the polls say. By the way, on this idea of a public plan, they oppose it by 50 to 35.

All this has resulted in some reduced polling numbers for the President. His job performance now has actually gone under 50 percent. People disapprove rather than approve 51 to 49. I don't wish him ill, but if he keeps pushing proposals such as this, that approval rating will probably continue to decline.

What have some people said about these bills? Representatives of the Mayo Clinic basically said this won't create affordable care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite. In other words, it will increase costs. The Congressional Budget Office, in looking at the House bill, said it won't reduce the trajectory of Federal health care spending. In fact, it will increase the budget deficit by $239 billion. Incidentally, that assumes taxes will be raised by the amount of $583 billion.

Incidentally, if anybody wants to check what I said about if you like your insurance, you get to keep it, check the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School of Public Policy Web site.

They have a site called factcheck.org. This is a totally nonpartisan organization. They contradict on factcheck.org the notion that if you like your insurance, you get to keep it.

The last thing I want to say about this today is that: it is not enough for us to say what is wrong with the bills that are before us. There are a lot of great ideas Republicans and Democrats have put forth that aren't in these bills. Unfortunately, a lot of amendments were offered in the HELP Committee--for example, to try to inject some of these Republican ideas into the bill--and they were defeated, every one of them. In fact, when he was a Senator, President Obama voted against several of these ideas.

Let me give you a flavor of some of these things to illustrate that there are a ton of good ideas on how to address access and costs in health care. They don't require us to scrap the entire system we have and superimpose a brandnew system of huge government regulation or a government takeover of health care, which results in these huge expenses, deficits, and dictating what care we can get and what care we cannot. There are solutions that go right to the specific problems.

For example, you never hear the President talking about medical malpractice reform, lawsuit liability reform, or, as some have called it, ``jackpot justice.'' There are a lot of estimates out there that, because of the defensive medicine physicians have to practice, we can save over $100 billion every year if we have some modest reforms in the lawsuit liability area.

Two very prominent Arizona physicians were in my office this morning, and both of them talked at length about the specific situations that require the practice of defensive medicine because of the fact that maybe 1 out of 10,000 people who come before them may have something go wrong, a lawsuit is filed, and they have to, therefore, go to excessive lengths to protect themselves by ordering all kinds of tests, calling in specialists, and doing things that cost a lot of money, not because they are necessarily needed or provide better care but simply to protect against a lawsuit. Annual premiums of $200,000 are not uncommon. That is more than most of us make. Before you can start practicing medicine on January 1, you have to pay your liability carrier. The President doesn't even mention liability reform. Let's start with that.

Next is the interstate sale of insurance. This is a great idea. Why do they always vote it down? Because if you actually let insurance in the health field be sold like home insurance, liability insurance, and car insurance--you can buy a State Farm car insurance policy in virtually every State, and it doesn't matter where you move to; you are still covered. Why can't you do that with health care? They don't want that because they want the government to control it instead of allowing private companies to sell it all around the country. If they were able to do that, they could reduce premiums and provide greater access. That is one of the bills the President voted against.

Why not let small business compete like big business with small business plans or association health plans? Basically, you could allow all the small businesses in your town--the Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs--to associate together and create a bigger risk pool, which brings down premiums, just as big businesses do. If you are a small business owner with 30 employees and one of them gets really sick, your premiums skyrocket the next year. By making a 3,000-person risk pool rather than 30, your premiums will come down. We have tried to get that into the bill. The Democrats say no.

There could be greater affordability by giving individuals the same tax deduction businesses get. The President voted against that when he was in the Senate. We could expand health savings accounts so you can use the money saved there to buy health insurance--pay the premiums. Again, the President voted against that when he was in the Senate.

These are Republican ideas, good ideas, and they have been voted down in these bills.

Here is another one: require insurance companies to share the claims data. One big business told me they couldn't compete and get a lower cost because their current health care insurer wouldn't give them their claims data. That information ought to belong to the company. So we can make that requirement.

Another thing is--the last thing I will mention--we need to encourage less first-dollar coverage. Our automobile insurance would be very expensive if we insisted that it cover every tire we have to buy or every battery we replace or any other thing we do. Yet with health insurance we complain about a $15 or $20 copayment or a deductible of $50. It is common to have a $500 deductible or even a $1,000 deductible on your car insurance. Certainly, health care ought to be more important to us than owning a vehicle.

These are just some of the comments I have about the reaction my constituents are having to the bills being proposed out there and the fact that they want to slow it down and look at it carefully because they are concerned about the cost of it, the increase in the Federal deficits, the increased taxes that will result, the government takeover, and that the net result will be our health care will be rationed, we will have delay and denial of care, and we won't be able to keep the insurance most of us have and like.

Those are legitimate concerns, and they should not be answered by simply saying we have to hurry up and get this done. No, we don't. We need to let the American people evaluate it and have them tell us what they want to be done. I think they have already spoken in some of the polling, and I think it is important for us, therefore, if we approach our duties the way we are supposed to here, by carefully considering what our constituents want, asking whether we can solve some of the specific problems with, for example, some of the ideas I laid out--good Republican ideas--rather than having to throw out the baby with the bathwater, tossing overboard what we know works for most people most of the time just because it doesn't work for everybody all of the time, in exchange for a new government takeover--it is a bad bargain.

I urge my colleagues, in the last week or two before the August recess, we have to start planning for opportunities to visit with constituents over the recess, get the information together so we can present it to them and they can tell us what they think about these ideas. I suspect that, at the end of the day, they will say they don't want a government takeover, just fix what needs to be fixed and leave the rest of it, which works, alone.

Madam. President, a spate of new polls reveal that, while Americans want health care reform, just as all of us in Congress do, most of them oppose the plan put forward by President Obama, disapprove of his handling of health care, and have serious concerns about the cost of his plan and how it would affect the quality of their own health care.

For example, a Rasmussen poll released July 22 shows a full 53 percent of voters oppose the health care legislation ``working its way through Congress.''

A July 17 Zogby poll backs up these findings, revealing that a full 50 percent of Americans disapprove of the health care bill introduced in the House of Representatives and endorsed by President Obama.

A July 20, USA Today/Gallup poll shows that 50 percent of Americans disapprove of the President's overall handling of this issue.

These findings dovetail with polling that indicates Americans are very wary of the projected costs of the President's health care plan.

Zogby's July 17 poll shows that 59 percent of Americans say the President's proposals, including health care, call for too much government spending.

And a whopping 78 percent of U.S. voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that taxes will be raised on the middle class to cover the cost of health care reform, a July 16 Rasmussen poll tells us.

Nearly half of respondents--44 percent believe ``government-managed coverage'' will increase--not decrease--the price of health care, according to a July 21 Public Strategies Inc/Politico poll. Only 27 percent think a government-managed health care system would lower costs, while 29 percent said prices would remain the same.

Americans' concerns about how the President's plan would affect health care access and quality are reflected in this same Public Strategies/Politico survey.

Asked by pollsters ``what effect a government-managed health care coverage option would have on access to health services, 40 percent said it would make the situation worse, 38 percent said it would make it better, and 22 percent said it would remain the same.''

Asked what effect the President's plan would have on the quality of health care, ``42 percent said it would make health care worse, 33 percent said it would make it better, and 25 percent said it would not have an effect.''

We, in Congress, have heard Americans' concerns about the President's proposed health care reform for weeks now--and these concerns were not allayed at all when the Director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office told us that these reforms would actually increase, rather than decrease, costs, and drive our Nation more deeply into debt.

That statement, along with congressional Democrats' plan to raise taxes

on small businesses--creators of two-thirds of new jobs in America--as well as individuals, should put to rest any claims that we need this Washington-run health care system to help the economy. Moreover, except for tax increases, many of the proposals in the President's bill wouldn't take effect for at least another 4 years, by which time the recession will hopefully be over.

In a recent radio address, President Obama criticized those ``who make the same old arguments'' in opposition to his health care plan and painted those who object to it as obstructionists.

I would like to know why the President equates having legitimate, honest objections to a government-run regulatory health care system with being an obstructionist?

No one in Washington wants to block health care reform. But many of us want to take the time to achieve the right kind of reform--the kind Americans are looking for.

Republicans want an approach that will bring costs down, make sure health care is accessible to all, and fix parts that aren't currently working. We have put forward many sensible ideas on how we can get there, without jeopardizing the care many happily insured Americans have.

To reiterate some of those ideas: We want to root out Medicare and Medicaid fraud, reform medical liability laws to discourage ``jackpot justice,'' allow small businesses to band together and purchase health insurance as large corporations can, allow insurance companies to sell their policies across State lines--just as car-insurance companies can--and strengthen wellness and prevention programs that encourage healthy living. We believe we should apply specially tailored solutions to specific problems, rather than scrap the whole current system and impose a one-size-fits-all Washington-run health care system.

If the President's plan is implemented, Americans could be left with a health care system that few people would recognize, or even want. And they would be stuck with it, permanently.

I urge President Obama and congressional Democrats to take a harder look at Republican ideas, which the Republican leader, many of my colleagues, and I have spoken of repeatedly.

These reforms would put patients first, lower costs, make health care more accessible to the uninsured, and most wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime. I believe that is an approach Americans would be sure to support.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal article ``Health Reform's Hidden Victims'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an amendment I submitted with 12 cosponsors that the Senate adopted yesterday by voice vote. My amendment, No. 1760, as modified by a second-degree amendment I offered, No. 1807, sets some important benchmarks for the President to meet as his administration negotiates and prepares for Senate ratification of a follow-on to the 1991 START agreement, which expires this December 5.

As my colleagues know, the Constitution entrusts the Senate with the responsibility of advice and consent on treaties.

It is entirely within the Senate's prerogative--in fact, it is the Senate's responsibility--to consult with the administration at the beginning of a treaty negotiation, during the process, and at the end. I have said before, if the administration wants to have the Senate on board at the end of the treaty process--at ratification--it must listen to Senators throughout that negotiation. That is why the National Security Working Group which I co-chair with my friend Senator Byrd is so important.

It is also why this amendment is so important. The amendment is simple and straightforward so that there should not be any confusion about what the Senate expects in this treaty process.

First, the amendment requires the President to submit a report on the plan to modernize the U.S. nuclear deterrent, including the nuclear weapons stockpile, the infrastructure and the delivery systems. This report must be put together in consultation with the experts: the directors of the national weapons labs, the Administrator of NNSA, the Secretary of Defense and the Commander of the United States Strategic Command. And it must be accompanied by a plan to pay for the modernization of the deterrent over the next decade.

This report is due within 30 days of enactment of S. 1390 or at the same time the President sends the START follow-on treaty to the Senate, whichever occurs earlier.

And to make sure there is no confusion about what the Senate expects, I joined my colleagues Senators Levin, McCain, Kerry, Lugar, and Byrd in sending a letter to the President to make clear that this plan must be in place, and funded in fiscal year 2011 and the outyears, at the same time the START follow-on treaty is sent to the Senate. I will ask to have this letter printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.

Let there be no mistake about what we mean: if the administration does not submit to Congress a plan for the modernization of the U.S. nuclear deterrent, with funding to implement that plan, at the same time it submits a START follow on agreement, that treaty will not be ratified by the Senate until it does.

I know modernization is a dirty word to some arms controllers who believe that our nuclear weapons will simply go away if we neglect them enough. It should now be clear that that plan of nuclear disarmament through neglect and atrophy is dead.

Second, the amendment addresses the Russian Federation's demands that the U.S. place limitations upon its missile defenses, space capabilities, or advanced conventional modernization in order to reach an agreement on the treaty. Any such treaty would be dead on arrival in the Senate.

To strengthen the President's position with the Russian Federation on these matters, the amendment makes clear the Senate expects the administration will not change its position by including any of these limitations in the follow-on treaty, no matter how hard the Russians huff and puff and stomp their feet.

And the Senate has now joined the House of Representatives in unanimously backing my amendment and the similar House amendment offered by Congressman Turner so the Russians and the Obama administration should have no question about what both Houses of the Congress expect from this treaty process.

I would like to say a few words about why I felt it was necessary to offer these measures.

In recent months, it has become clear that our nuclear deterrent is in need of serious attention. As high an authority as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned:

At a certain point, it will become impossible to keep

extending the life of our arsenal, especially in light of our

testing moratorium. It also makes it harder to reduce

existing stockpiles, because eventually we won't have as much

confidence in the efficacy of the weapons we do have.

And:

To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a

credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our

stockpile without either resorting to testing our stockpile

or pursuing a modernization program.

The Perry-Schlesinger Commission, which recently issued its final report, also warned that:

For the indefinite future, the United States must maintain

a viable nuclear deterrent. The other NPT-recognized nuclear-

weapon states have put in place comprehensive programs to

modernize their forces to meet new international

circumstances.

Yet, it is clear that the steps necessary to do that are not being taken. The administration's fiscal year 2010 budget for the nuclear deterrent has been described by its own officials as ``treading water'' and a ``placeholder.''

The physics and chemistry that are causing our nuclear weapons to deteriorate will not wait for the next Nuclear Posture Review--NPR-- though.

I make that point because I'm sure there are those who will make the argument that a comprehensive modernization plan should wait for that

Madam President, obviously, whatever is most convenient to the chairman and ranking member is fine, subject to I had planned, because of our conversations last night, to be able to do this this morning. By this afternoon, I am going to have a lot of conflicts. In fact, I too am on the Finance Committee where Senator Kerry is right now and I am supposed to be there but made this arrangement.

I don't believe the business before the Finance Committee is going to last very long at all. In fact, it was a very quick matter to be resolved. So as long as we can try to get the amendments relating to the START treaty resolved before afternoon, I am perfectly willing to agree to anything that is acceptable to everybody else here, and it seems to me we should be able to accomplish that.

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

Madam President, let me take a moment to indicate to colleagues where we are at the moment. The pending business is my amendment, amendment No. 1760, dealing with the START treaty. We need to have our nuclear weapons program modernized consistent with the START treaty.

What we are thinking of doing is to start the debate with about 2 minutes of conversation, and then if we are able to work out an agreement with the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and other members who have an interest in this, we can avoid a long, protracted debate and potentially a lot of votes on alternatives as well as this amendment.

In the meantime, other business on the bill could be conducted. I think the next business the chairman intends would be for Senator Schumer to speak. So what I would suggest is that we move forward to try to work out an agreement. The essence is simply this, for my colleagues who are interested in this START treaty: We know there is a treaty, or at least we hope a treaty is going to be submitted to the Senate late this year.

We would be reducing the number of nuclear warheads and delivery systems in an agreement with the Russians. That makes it even more necessary to put some money into our current nuclear program, the infrastructure and our nuclear stockpile, to bring it up to snuff, to modernize it, and to ensure that it meets the test for safety, security, and credibility.

We need to have a plan for doing that, that is at least no later than the point at which the treaty would be submitted to the Senate so we know what we are going to be able to support. Hopefully, what we would do is convey to the administration jointly, Democrats and Republicans, our desire to have that submittal to the Senate to have a study we could put into law as a part of this bill that would call for bringing in that modernization program and thereby avoid voting specifically on the amendment No. 1760 I have proposed.

We are trying to work out the details of that. If we can do that, we can probably save quite a bit of time.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Bennett).

Mr. President, I call up the second-degree amendment to my amendment No. 1760 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I wish to thank the ranking member on the committee, my colleague John McCain, and the chairman of the committee, as well as Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar, for working through this amendment. We have a good resolution. We will be writing a letter to the President. We will be adding a short provision to the bill that calls for appropriate studies and reports to accompany the START Treaty when that treaty is sent to the Senate. I think it is a good resolution of this issue.

I call for the immediate disposition of the amendment. We do not need the yeas and nays.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Bennett).

Mr. President, every American should be proud that a Hispanic woman--one with a very impressive background--has been nominated for the Supreme Court.

In evaluating a nominee, it is important that the Senate examine all aspects of the individual's career and his or her merit as a judge and not make judgments on the basis of gender or ethnicity.

It starts with the judge's decisions and opinions. Also important to understanding what an individual really thinks about things are his or her speeches, writings, and associations.

Judge Sotomayor's most widely known speech is, of course, her ``wise Latina woman'' speech, which was given in various fora over the years. It is clear that the often-quoted phrase is not just a comment out of context but is the essence of those speeches.

Judge Sotomayor's central theme was to examine whether gender and ethnicity bias a judge's decision. Judge Sotomayor concludes they do, that it is unavoidable. She develops this theme throughout the speech, including examining opposing arguments and examining evidence that suggests that gender makes a difference. She then quotes former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's statement that men and women judges will reach the same decision and, in effect, disagrees, saying she is not so sure. That is when she says she thinks a ``wise Latina'' would reach a better decision.

Her attempt to recharacterize these speeches at the committee hearing strained credulity. I will address this issue at greater length during the confirmation debate, but suffice to it say that I remain unconvinced that she believes judges should set aside these biases, including those based on race and gender, and render the law impartially and neutrally.

Judge Sotomayor's address to the Puerto Rican ACLU, entitled ``How Federal Judges Look to International and Foreign Law under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution,'' also raises red flags.

In this speech, she inferred that foreign law should be used but later testified it should not. I will also discuss at length my concerns related to this matter during the confirmation debate and the problems I have squaring her testimony with the contents of this speech. The central point, of course, is that it is completely irrelevant to consider foreign law in U.S. courts. I don't believe Judge Sotomayor is sufficiently committed to this principle.

Judge Sotomayor's supporters argue that we should not focus on her speeches but on her ``mainstream'' judicial record. They claim she agreed with her colleagues, including Republican appointees, the vast majority of the time. That may be true, but as President Obama has reminded us, most judges will agree in 95 percent of the cases.

The hard cases are where differences in judicial philosophy become apparent.

I have looked at Judge Sotomayor's record in these hard cases and have found cause for concern. The U.S. Supreme Court has reviewed directly 10 of her decisions--8 of those decisions have been reversed or vacated, another sharply criticized, and 1 upheld in a 5 to 4 decision.

The most recent reversal was Ricci v. DeStefano, a case in which Judge Sotomayor summarily dismissed before trial the discrimination claims of 20 New Haven firefighters, and the Supreme Court reversed 5 to 4, with all nine Justices rejecting key reasoning of Judge Sotomayor's court.

In my view, the most astounding thing about the case was not the incorrect outcome reached by Judge Sotomayor's court--it was that she rejected the firefighters' claims in a mere one-paragraph opinion and that she continued to maintain in the hearings that she was bound by precedent that the Supreme Court said did not exist.

As the Supreme Court noted, Ricci presented a novel issue regarding ``two provisions of Title VII to be interpreted and reconciled, with few, if any, precedents in the court of appeals discussing the issue.'' One would think that this would be precisely the kind of case that deserved a thorough and thoughtful analysis by an appellate court.

But Judge Sotomayor's court instead disposed of the case in an unsigned and unpublished opinion that contained zero--and I do mean zero--analysis.

Some have speculated that Judge Sotomayor's panel intentionally disposed of the case in a short, unsigned, and unpublished opinion in an effort to hide it from further scrutiny. Was the case intentionally kept off of her colleagues' radar? Did she have personal views on racial quotas that prevented her from seeing the merit in the firefighters' claims?

Judge Sotomayor was asked about her Ricci decision at length during the confirmation hearing. Her defense, that she was just following ``established Supreme Court and Second Circuit precedent,'' as I said, is belied by the Supreme Court's opinion noting ``few, if any'' circuit court opinions addressing the issue.

When I pressed Judge Sotomayor to identify those controlling Supreme Court and Second Circuit precedents that allegedly dictated the outcome in Ricci, she dissembled and ran out the clock. Her ``answers'' answered nothing and, in my opinion, violated her obligation to be forthcoming with the Judiciary Committee.

I am also concerned about Judge Sotomayor's analysis--or lack thereof--in Maloney v. Cuomo, a second amendment case that could find its way to the Supreme Court next year. Maloney was decided after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that the right to bear arms was an individual right that could not be taken away by the Federal Government.

In Maloney, Judge Sotomayor had the opportunity to consider whether that individual right could also be enforced against the States, a question that was not before the Heller Court. In yet another unsigned opinion, Judge Sotomayor and two other judges held that it was not a right enforceable against States.

What are the legal implications of this holding? State regulations limiting or prohibiting the ownership and

use of firearms would be subject only to ``rational basis'' review. As Sandy Froman, a respected lawyer and former National Rifle Association president, said in her witness testimony, this is a ``very, very low threshold'' that can easily be met by a State or city that wishes to prohibit all gun ownership, even in the home. Thus, if Judge Sotomayor's decision were allowed to stand as precedent, then States will, ironically, be able to do what the Federal District of Columbia cannot--place a de facto prohibition on the ownership of guns and other arms.

As we have seen, Judge Sotomayor's testimony about her previous speeches and some of her decisions is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with her record. Similarly, her testimony about the extent of her role with PRLDEF is in tension with the evidence that we have. The New York Times has detailed her active involvement as recounted by former PRLDEF colleagues, who have described Judge Sotomayor as a ``top policy maker'' who ``played an active role as the defense fund staked out aggressive stances.''

What were the litigation positions advanced by PRLDEF during Judge Sotomayor's tenure there? Well, it argued in court briefs that restrictions on abortion are analogous to slavery. And it repeatedly represented plaintiffs challenging the validity of employment and promotional tests--tests similar to the one at issue in Ricci.

Unfortunately, I have not been persuaded that Judge Sotomayor is absolutely committed to setting aside her biases and impartially deciding cases based upon the rule of law. And I cannot ignore her unwillingness to answer Senators' questions straightforwardly. For these reasons, I oppose her nomination.

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

What I am going to do now is seek to get an amendment which is filed pending. The other side will want to offer a side-by-side amendment. I understand there may be an opportunity to debate some of this tonight. Some of the other debate may have to be tomorrow, and that is fine. But at this point, is there an amendment pending?

I call up amendment No. 1760 and ask for its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

If there are others who wish the floor, I would be happy to accede to their wishes so that I can come back tomorrow and discuss it further.

This is identical to an amendment that was unanimously adopted by the House of Representatives in their version of the Defense authorization bill. So I would hope that on both sides of the aisle this should not be particularly controversial.

It has to do with the START negotiations, the negotiation the administration is engaged in with the Russians right now on the number of warheads and delivery vehicles that both Russia and the United States will field in the next many years.

Whatever those numbers are, whatever the agreement is, that treaty will be presented to the Senate later this year. Presumably we will act on it either late this year or early next year.

All this amendment does is say that during the 7 years when the START Treaty is implemented, the United States needs to do certain things. We want to make sure the treaty is verifiable. That is something we all agree with. We need to ensure that our missile defenses are protected; that our conventional strike capability is protected, that is, our submarines and bombers that deliver conventional weapons, for example, and, very importantly, we want to make sure the modernization program for our nuclear weapons complex and the weapons themselves, the modernization program that was recommended by the bipartisan Perry- Schlesinger Commission begins to be implemented.

In fact, this amendment does not identify exactly what that program is. It does not say it has to be a particular amount of money or describe the details of it. But it does say we need to get a modernization program underway.

The point of this is to simply acknowledge the obvious; which is, as we begin to reduce the number of warheads and delivery vehicles in our strategic nuclear deterrent, we need to make more and more sure what we have works and works well.

It is an aging stockpile. The Perry-Schlesinger Commission noted that there is a lot of work that needs to be done to bring these weapons up to modern conditions to maintain them appropriately to ensure they are safe and reliable. The work that has to be done on that is going to take some time and cost some money.

So it makes sense to put Congress on record with the administration as insisting that we begin this process right away. The amendment does not say this, but my strong recommendation to the administration is, since they are going to begin putting the budget for fiscal year 2011 together starting in another month or two, that they need to be working now on what their budget recommendations for 2011 are for the modernization of our nuclear complex and stockpile.

So what this amendment would do is to say, as the START Treaty is implemented, whatever that treaty is, it does not bind the administration in terms of what it negotiates, whatever it is, that that money cannot be spent on that until these other conditions are met as well.

I hope that since this received a unanimous endorsement in the House, it would not be particularly controversial on this side. I would just reiterate one final time, this does not bind our negotiators at all. It does not tell the negotiators what they can and cannot negotiate with the Russians.

What it says is, once they have negotiated whatever they have, then we need to start a process of modernizing our nuclear weapons program and stockpile. I think that is something, since it was the unanimous recommendation of the Perry-Schlesinger Commission, that we ought to be able to agree upon.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in support of an amendment to be offered by my good friend, the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman.

The purpose of this amendment is straightforward: it seeks to make sure that the missile defense system deployed in Europe is as cost- effective and as capable of protecting the United States as the installation of ground-based midcourse defense missile defense interceptors and early warning radars proposed by the last administration; that proposal was endorsed by the NATO alliance and embraced by the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic.

This system is important not just because it provides the U.S. with a much needed defense against the long-range ballistic missile threat of Iran, but also because of what it says about the alliance between the United States and these two countries. It is significant that Poland and the Czech Republic, which spent the better part of the 20th century as oppressed satellites of the Soviet Union have so earnestly sought to align themselves with the United States to confront the threats of the 21st century.

This deployment is clearly in U.S. interests. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, recently concluded a study of the options--current and future--to protect the U.S. and its allies from the Iranian threat. The results of that study were clear: only the Polish and Czech deployments can protect the United States and Europe; any other option costs more and defends the U.S. less, if at all.''\1\

Let me quote from this CBO study, ``Options for Deploying Missile Defenses in Europe'':

Of the modeled options, MDA's proposed European system

would provide the most extensive defense of the United

States, covering the entire continental United States against

liquid-fuel ICBMs and covering all of the threatened portion

of the continental United States plus part of Alaska against

solid-fuel ICBMs.\2\

The reason for this deployment is plain: the STRATCOM and EUCOM Commanders said to Congress in a July 24, 2008 letter:

We are in complete agreement that Europe requires a layered

defense enabled by a robust network of sensors in and a

credible interceptor capability. Iran's actions last week

illustrate the imperative for credible global missile

defenses. We cannot wait to counter a long-range, WMD-

capable, Iranian missile threat. Deploying missile defenses

in Europe would demonstrate our resolve to deter this threat

and protect our nation and allies by providing a critical

capability to the warfighter.

As Combatant Commanders responsible for both United States

military operations in the European theater (EUCOM) and

global missile defense plans, operations, and capability

(STRATCOM), our best military advice leads us to strongly

endorse the President's funding request for European missile

defense sites. These capabilities remain critical to

defending America and our allies in Europe and for deterring

our adversaries today and in the future.\3\

That is why I am a cosponsor and supporter of the Lieberman amendment.

endnotes

\1\ CBO study, ``Options for Deploying Missile Defenses in

Europe.'' Pg. xv. (February 2009). (Quoting CBO: ``Overall,

CBO estimates, Option 1 would cost between $9 billion and $13

billion; Option 2, between $18 billion and $22 billion;

Option 3, between $9 billion and $13 billion; and Option 4,

between $10 billion and $14 billion. (Those and other cost

estimates in this report are in 2009 dollars.)'')

\2\ CBO, pg. 37. (Quoting the CBO study: ``Option 4, with

its Kinetic Energy Interceptors, would also provide

substantial added coverage of the United States, particularly

against solid-fuel ICBMs. The systems using SM-3 Block IIA

interceptors (Options 2 and 3) offer the least additional

defense of the United States: almost none against solid-fuel

ICBMs and coverage of only parts of the northeastern (and, in

the case of Option 2, central) United States against liquid

fuel ICBMs.'')

\3\ General Kevin P. Chilton and General Bantz J. Craddock.

Letter to Senator Robert C. Byrd. 14 July 2008.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the following documents: (1) an open letter to the Obama administration from leading Europeans, including Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, who warn in strong terms that the so-called U.S.-Russia reset must not come at the expense of mutual interests between the U.S. and the nations of central and eastern Europe; (2) a recent New York Times article, ``Eastern Europe Is Uneasy Over U.S. Ties with Russia''; and (3) an op-ed from yesterday's Washington Post, ``A Letter From Europe: U.S. leadership in the post-Soviet age is needed to face new challenges.''

Mr. President, I will make some brief remarks here, and at the conclusion we will determine whether there is an agreement on the other side so I can go ahead and lay down an amendment. But first I want to discuss what that amendment will be. It is amendment No. 1628, and in a moment I will seek to offer it and get it pending. It is an amendment I introduced with Senator Lieberman, Senator Bayh, and Senator McCain.

Like other Members of this body, we have watched recent events unfold in Iran with great concern. This year began with talk of warming ties and potentially reestablishing contact with Iran; that we would no longer be afraid to talk to Iran and perhaps to even reach some kinds of agreements. In recent months, however, the Iranian regime has continued its support of terrorism, its illegal nuclear weapons program in defiance of its NPT obligations, and its engagement in violent and deadly repression of its own citizens.

While the administration has made clear its intention to continue to pursue high-level talks with Iran, an overture which the regime has not seen fit to even respond, the President has indicated that the window for Iran to negotiate and demonstrate progress toward complying with its international obligations is not open indefinitely.

I think President Obama was correct when he said:

Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would not only be a threat

to Israel and a threat to the United States, but would be

profoundly destabilizing in the international community as a

whole and could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle

East that would be extraordinarily dangerous for all

concerned, including for Iran.

In May, the President indicated that Iran would have until December to show meaningful improvement. More recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on behalf of the G8 nations that they will give Iran until September 2009 to agree to negotiations with respect to its nuclear activities or face tougher sanctions.

If negotiations do not prove fruitful, the United States must be ready to act quickly to increase pressure on Iran to end its support for terrorist groups and its illegal nuclear program.

The Kyl-Lieberman amendment expresses the sense of the Senate that the President should sanction the Iranian Central Bank if, by December, Iran has not verifiably halted its uranium enrichment activities, as well as come into full compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Additional Protocol.

By sanctioning the Central Bank of Iran--Bank Markazi--our

Nation would send the message that we will use all methods at

our disposal to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and oppose

sponsors of terror.

The case against the Iranian Central Bank is strong. It is knee-deep in the regime's illicit activities. Last year, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmit revealed that between 2001

and 2006 the bank had moved $50 million from banks in London to Hezbollah front organizations in Beirut. Hezbollah, of course, is a terrorist organization.

It also processes transactions for Iranian banks that already face U.S. sanctions. The Central Bank of Iran is instrumental in helping Iranian banks--the very ones this body voted overwhelmingly to sanction in 2007--to avoid sanctions. In March 2008, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Department of the Treasury warned financial institutions about the illicit behavior of the Central Bank of Iran. Here is what the advisory said:

The Central Bank of Iran and Iranian commercial banks have

requested that their names be removed from global

transactions in order to make it more difficult for

intermediary financial institutions to determine the true

parties in the transaction. They have also continued to

provide financial services to Iranian entities designated by

the U.N. Security Council in its Resolutions 1737 and 1747.

The U.S. Department of Treasury is particularly concerned

that the Central Bank of Iran may be facilitating

transactions for sanctioned Iranian banks.

Under U.S. law, institutions that aid entities covered by financial sanctions are liable to penalties. The Central Bank's activities clearly warrant such action, and sanctioning the bank would increase the effectiveness of existing measures. I urge my colleagues to support our amendment at such time as we are able to get a vote on it.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo).

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

Mr. President, today marks President Obama's sixth month in office. The President began his term with an enormous amount of goodwill, high approval ratings and pledges to work in a bipartisan way. In the earliest days he reached out in a bipartisan way to secure passage of administration priorities and Republicans reciprocated. For example, I joined the President in supporting the release of the second tranche of financial stabilization money. But the administration has become increasingly partisan in the months since then. The effectiveness of the President's policies is increasingly questioned by the American people as spending and deficits have skyrocketed. Unemployment has gotten much worse since he took office, and America's interests abroad have been challenged with little response.

Let me first speak to the issue of domestic policy, spending and debt. On domestic policy, President Obama's first 6 months in office have been characterized by unprecedented spending and debt accumulation. In 6 months, President Obama has put the country on a course to spend more and accrue more debt than any President in history; in fact, to take on more debt than all of the other Presidents in the history of the United States combined. The President has at the same time exercised the power of government in unprecedented ways. The President knows this is greatly concerning to the American people. So on June 16, President Obama told an interviewer:

I actually would like to see a relatively light touch when

it comes to government.

But when it comes to the size and scope of the government, nothing President Obama has done in his first 6 months resembles a light touch. Time after time, he has pushed government intervention and takeovers and huge spending increases as the preferred solutions to various problems, whether it is to stimulate the economy, reform health care, or bail out bankrupt car companies.

The President cites the economic downturn as a reason to clear the way for more and more new spending, but we still don't have any evidence that this record-breaking spending has actually helped the economy. Take the $1.2 trillion so-called stimulus bill. In pitching the stimulus to the Nation, the President pledged that ``a new wave of innovation, activity, and construction would be unleashed all across America.'' The administration also said it would help keep unemployment from topping 8 percent and ``save or

create 3.5 million new jobs.'' He insisted Congress rush the bill through despite concerns about the cost and the Government's ability to disburse funds in a timely way.

As we now know, since President Obama signed the legislation, far from stopping unemployment from exceeding 8 percent, unemployment has now reached over 9.5 percent and is headed to at least 10 percent. The economy has lost over 2 million jobs, including 433,000 last month. According to the White House Web site, which tracks stimulus spending, only 7.68 percent of the stimulus money has been funneled into the economy.

In an article for the Washington Post, Michael Gerson explains why the stimulus is having such a negligible effect:

Pouring money into the economy through a thirst sponge of

federal programs . . . is slow and inefficient.

Just as Senate Republicans argued when we opposed this plan.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects less than a quarter of the funds earmarked for this bill will be spent by the end of this year, with the lion's share being distributed over the next 3 years, by which time, hopefully, the recession will be over. If that is the case, the administration will no longer have a justification for this stimulus spending. But taxpayers will still be on the hook for the hundreds of billions of dollars the government will have to borrow to pay for it.

Thanks to a new report by Senator Coburn, we know more about some of these wasteful projects that have been funded by the so-called stimulus or are awaiting funds, including a $23.5 million turtle tunnel in Florida, a $550,000 skateboard park in Rhode Island, and even $40,000 to give someone a job in North Carolina to lobby for more stimulus funds. That is just a handful of the projects approved so far.

So what has happened to the President's plan to spend wisely? That brings us to the budget. The President's $3.4 trillion 10-year budget also defies the idea of a light touch. In an editorial about the budget, the Wall Street Journal wrote:

With [his] fiscal 2010 budget proposal, President Obama is

attempting not merely to expand the role of the federal

government, but to put it in such a dominant position that

its power can never be rolled back.

So the spending is the means to an end, a bigger government that can never be tamed. To understand the magnitude of the budget the President proposed, consider: Federal spending will skyrocket to 27.7 percent of the gross domestic product in 2009. That is up from 21 percent of GDP in 2008. According to the CBO's monthly budget review, for the first 9 months of the 2009 fiscal year, outlays are 21 percent higher than they were in the first three quarters of 2008, though revenues have fallen by 18 percent. Federal spending will make up a greater share of the economy in 2009 than in any year since 1945, when the country was still fighting World War II. It is also a greater share of the economy than during the Vietnam war or during the recessions of 1974-1975 or 1981- 1982.

The debt created by his budget will be greater than the combined debt created by the budgets of each of the previous 43 Presidents, all the way back to President Washington. By the end of this fiscal year, our publicly held debt will amount to roughly 57 percent of the gross domestic product and deficits of $1 trillion every year are predicted for the next decade. This will drive the debt to 82 percent of the gross domestic product by the year 2019. Interest payments on this debt will soon make up the single largest item in the debt. In fact, as for the interest cost, beginning in 2012 and every year thereafter, the government will spend more than $1 billion a day on finance charges to holders of U.S. debt. That means Federal spending on finance charges for the government's debt will be a whopping $5,700 per household in 2019.

Americans are weary of this kind of debt, to say the least, and many don't think it is fair for Washington to overspend and then simply pass the bill on to our children and grandchildren.

These levels of spending and debt would be reckless in the best of economic times, and they are not consistent with President Obama's pledge for a new era of fiscal responsibility.

Let's turn to health care.

The American people--and those of us in Congress--want health care reform. That is not in question. But President Obama is proposing a trillion-dollar health care program that would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cause millions of Americans to lose their current care by providing an incentive to employers to drop their health care coverage.

How is this consistent with the President's assurances that if Americans like their current insurance, they can keep it? Remember, 85 percent of Americans have insurance and the vast majority of them like their coverage and they do not want to lose it.

President Obama frames this huge new entitlement as a cost-saving, deficit-reducing measure. At a July 1 townhall meeting in Virginia, the President told participants:

If we want to control our deficits, the only way for us to

do it is to control healthcare costs.

But does anyone believe that creating a new trillion-dollar, Washington-run health care bureaucracy will reduce costs? When in history has a new government program ever reduced costs? Our two current government-run health care programs--Medicare and Medicaid--are both on financially unsustainable paths. Medicare alone has a $38 trillion unfunded liability over the next 75 years and is in urgent need of reform.

Some of the projected revenue for the President's plan comes from cuts in Medicare. How is it fair to cut seniors' care to pay for a new government-dominated system for nonseniors, especially since Medicare is already in financial trouble? This would ultimately lead to shortages, rationing, and the elimination of private plan choices-- something our seniors rightly fear.

It does not make much sense to strip funds from those already participating in government health care and to then use the savings for the creation of a massive new government health care system that few people want. Americans rightly worry the President's proposals will lead to the kind of denial and delay that happens in Canada and Great Britain.

The President has even said:

What I think the government can do is be an honest broker

in assessing and evaluating treatments.

That can only mean one thing: denial and delay of care. In that kind of system, Federal boards would dictate what is best for you and me, if our health care is worth the money, and drive a wedge between doctors and patients.

President Obama said recently:

When you hear the naysayers claim that I am trying to bring

about government-run healthcare . . . know this, they are not

telling the truth.

Well, maybe the President does not like the term ``government-run health care'' because it is not popular with Americans. But a plan administered by the government, with prices and policies and treatments evaluated and dictated by Washington bureaucrats, is government-run health care, plain and simple.

On another issue, cap and trade: One of the President's oft-repeated campaign pledges was he would not raise taxes on middle-income Americans. But the cap-and-trade legislation he and congressional Democrats are backing would do just that.

On June 26, the House of Representatives passed cap-and-trade legislation described by Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein as ``a stealth strategy for a massive long-term tax increase.''

The bill would implement a cap-and-trade program with the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Cap-and-trade programs set strict mandatory limits on carbon emissions from various sources, such as electric utilities. Those sources would then either reduce carbon emissions or buy or trade emission allowances to achieve the required overall emissions reductions.

The energy bill would not directly raise taxes on Americans; that is, they will not necessarily see a larger income tax bill at tax time in April. Rather, cap and trade increases the cost of living for everyone by raising energy costs and consumer prices for virtually everything. The effect would be the same as if the IRS sent them a tax bill.

When the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analyzed the cost of a reduction of carbon emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels, it estimated a

family's cost of living would increase by $1,600.

To put that $1,600 carbon tax in perspective--

Martin Feldstein wrote--

a typical family of four with earnings of $50,000 now pays an

income tax of about $3,000. The tax imposed by the cap-and-

trade system is, therefore, equivalent to raising the

family's income tax by about 50 percent

That is $1,600 that families will not be able to spend or save for the future.

In addition to the tax increase, cap and trade would retard economic growth. The Heritage Foundation analyzed the proposal and concluded it would slow long-term growth by almost $10 trillion over the next 26 years. Jobs would be lost. The Heritage Foundation's analysis, in fact, found that my State of Arizona would lose thousands of jobs.

Proponents of the cap-and-trade proposal argue that job losses will be offset by the creation of new green jobs. But it is not at all certain those jobs will materialize, let alone make up for the jobs that are lost. In Spain, where government has invested heavily in green jobs, two jobs are lost for every green job created, according to Spanish economist Gabriel Calzada.

Especially at a time when the economy is shaky and unemployment has reached a 25-year high, I am disappointed the President is promoting this legislation that not only would violate his campaign promise but would cost taxpayers billions of dollars and harm jobs.

Let me now address some issues that are not directly domestic: free trade issues and problems with Iran and North Korea.

First, on free trade: I am very disappointed that the administration has not made free trade a top priority. It has failed in its first 6 months to take any action on bilateral trade pacts with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea--all of which were signed under President Bush. These trade deals would provide a boost to the U.S. economy and would also strengthen U.S. partnerships in two important regions. Not only has the administration failed to move swiftly on these trade agreements, it has also supported a number of damaging protectionist measures, such as a ``Buy American'' provision in the stimulus package.

These policies have angered U.S. trading partners and hurt America's credibility as a promoter of free trade liberalization. They have already triggered retaliation. For example, after the administration canceled a trucking program with Mexico--a program opposed by the Teamsters Union--the Mexican Government responded by slapping tariffs on a range of American imports, including wheat, beans, beef, and rice. A global recession is no time in which to start a trade fight.

With Iran: There are few regions of the world as volatile as the Middle East. Yet the administration's approach to Iran has been regrettable, to say the least.

When prodemocracy demonstrations were being suppressed in Tehran, the President offered barely a word of support for the people putting their lives on the line for their freedom.

Iranian people were met with violence after they took to the streets to peacefully protest the validity of Iran's Presidential election in June to declare their support for free elections and oppose Iran's oppressive police state.

The President likes to say: Words matter. Very true. But his initial statement referring to ``deep concerns about the election'' failed to condemn the Iranian theocracy and lacked moral fortitude. And even as pressure rose on the President to take a stronger stand, he declined to provide the leadership the world expects from America, the standard bearer for freedom and democracy.

As the Weekly Standard recently editorialized:

Since June 12, [President Obama has] done nothing to help

those Iranians who have been seeking, in the words of Thomas

Jefferson, `` . . . to assume the blessings and security of

self-government.''

Explaining his reticence, the President said:

It's not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian

relations to be seen as meddling--the U.S. president meddling

in Iranian elections.

The United States should be lending full-throated voice to the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people, while seeking to impose sanctions on their oppressors. It is not meddling for the world's oldest and greatest democracy to stand with them.

The administration's Iranian policy was flawed from the beginning. It came into office with the idea that it could negotiate a ``grand bargain'' with the mullahs on Iran's nuclear program and would meet with its rogue leader without preconditions. With the mullah's repression of dissent following Iran's flawed elections, that has all gone by the boards. Of course, it was always destined to fail.

Was it ever realistic to believe this is a government with which we can successfully negotiate--a government that sponsors terrorism and murders peaceful student protesters and does not even have the mandate of its own people? What do we think we can give this government more than it wants a nuclear weapon?

What is more, what message do we send to the Iranian people, many of whom have been arrested, tortured, and had family members killed, by negotiating with this regime while it robs its own people of their fundamental rights? I do not believe the United States can deal in good faith with a regime that so violently suppresses its own citizens. I hope the President will come to agree.

With regard to North Korea, the administration's reaction to North Korea's recent activity is also of concern. As Pyongyang prepares for the transition of power from Kim Jong Il to his son Kim Jong Un, the regime's behavior has become increasingly belligerent and unpredictable.

North Korea has pulled out of the six-party negotiations, restarted its nuclear program, test launched several ballistic missiles, and conducted a suspected underground nuclear test. The regime even declared that it has now abandoned the armistice that brought a cease- fire to the Korean war.

What has the Obama administration done in response to this threat to the security of other nations in the region and indeed to the very security of the United States? The answer is disappointing. It has cut missile defense.

The President's budget cut the Missile Defense Agency's budget for fiscal year 2010 by $1.2 billion and decreased the planned number of Ground-Based Interceptor missiles in Alaska from 44 to 30. These proposals amount to almost a 15-percent cut in the Missile Defense Agency's budget and a major reduction in our missile defense portfolio--at the very moment we should be increasing our capability to defend ourselves and our allies from the North Korean threat.

Finally, a word about the prison at Guantanamo Bay. I think this is important in evaluating the first 6 months of this administration because one of the very first acts of the President, after he was inaugurated 6 months ago, was his self-imposed deadline to close the facility at Guantanamo within 1 year.

A majority of Americans strongly oppose the closure of Guantanamo. Congress has refused to support President Obama's arbitrary deadline to close the facility without a plan, for example, showing where he will relocate the terrorists. The administration has convinced Palau and Bermuda to take a few detainees, but this is not much of a solution if the President is determined to close the facility in just another 6 months. Where will the rest of the detainees still housed at Guantanamo Bay go? We still do not know.

Ultimately, the debate over Guantanamo has become a debate over geography. Both the new Attorney General and the new Solicitor General have endorsed the government's right to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely. Whether we can detain them at Guantanamo or at prisons on U.S. soil does not change the fundamental reality that this administration, similar to its predecessor, will be holding certain individuals without trial.

We have been told that Guantanamo must be closed for symbolic reasons. But America should never make national security decisions based on symbolisms--or on false moral arguments.

In conclusion, on the campaign trail and after his election, President Obama repeatedly promised ``change we can believe in'' and the end of partisan politics in Washington. He pledged to bring Republicans and Democrats together.

On election night, he said:

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on . . .

partisanship.

But partisan politics looms larger than ever. Congress is urged to rush costly legislation through, despite frequent Republican concerns about the pricetag and the efficacy of the legislation. Indeed, the President's budget and stimulus both passed mainly on party lines.

As Michael Barone recently wrote, the President:

Brings [to Washington] the assumption that there will

always be a bounteous private sector that can be plundered on

behalf of political favorites. Hence, the takeover of

Chrysler and GM to bail out the United Auto Workers union.

Six months later, President Obama continues to take unnecessary jabs at his predecessor. On his promise for change, more government debt, government bailouts, and large transfers of the economy from the private to the public sector are not what Americans are looking for.

Americans want the President and Congress to support the private sector to help the economy get back on track, without tidal waves of spending, debt, and new taxes. They want real health care reform without a government takeover, and they want the President to lead us in this dangerous world, acknowledging the harsh reality that not every rogue regime will respond to smooth talk.

In the next 6 months, and beyond, I hope the President will take a more sensible and, indeed, more bipartisan course so we can all accomplish what the American people seek.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Bennett), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).

Madam President, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which my colleague from Vermont has offered as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill, should not be attached to such an important piece of legislation. The Defense authorization bill authorizes nearly $680 billion for national defense programs, most notably the ongoing operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror. It authorizes funding for such crucial programs as missile defense and foreign military aid for Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as a 3.4-percent across-the-board pay raise for the men and women in the military. With such important issues at stake, we should not attach a controversial piece of unrelated legislation that puts passage of the entire bill at risk.

Last month, members of the Judiciary Committee received a letter from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights strongly urging us to vote against the proposed Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

The Commission states this bill ``will do little good and a great deal of harm.'' Those are very strong words from the Federal body charged with investigating, reporting on, and making recommendations related to civil rights issues. The Commission's letter details a number of specific concerns, including that the bill would permit Federal authorities to prosecute defendants who have been previously acquitted by State juries--a result that it describes as contrary to the spirit of the double jeopardy clause of the Constitution. Like the Commission, I believe that hate crimes legislation poses significant constitutional problems and risks undermining important principles of federalism.

No less than 45 States and the District of Columbia already have hate crimes laws. I am not aware of evidence that any State has been reluctant to aggressively prosecute hate crimes. Furthermore, Federal sentencing guidelines already provide for enhancements for hate crimes based on race, color, religion, natural origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. In fact, in the case of Matthew Shepard, for whom this bill is named, his killers are appropriately serving life sentences in prison for felony murder.

The trend to try at the Federal level crimes that traditionally have been handled in State courts not only is taxing the judiciary's resources and affecting its budget needs but also threatens to change the nature of our Federal system. The pressure in Congress to appear responsive to every highly publicized societal ill or sensational crime needs to be balanced with an inquiry into whether States are doing an adequate job in these particular areas and, ultimately, whether we want most of our legal relationships decided at the national rather than local level.

Federal courts were not created to adjudicate local crimes, no matter how heinous they may be. State courts handle such problems. While there certainly are areas in criminal law in which the Federal Government must act, the vast majority of local criminal cases should be decided in the State courts which are equipped for such matters. Matters that can be handled adequately by the States should be left

to them; matters that cannot be so handled should be undertaken by the Federal Government. Neither Senator Leahy nor other supporters of this bill have demonstrated that there is an epidemic of hate-based violence that State and local authorities can't or won't prosecute, therefore justifying the need for a hate crimes bill.

For these reasons, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act amendment.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez), and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea,'' the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker) would have voted ``yea,'' and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``yea,'' the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea,'' and the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez).

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

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Bennett), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Lugar), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich).