Floor Statements

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Madam President, S.J. Res. 37 is very important.

If passed, this resolution would overturn one of the most costly and unnecessary regulations ever adopted by the EPA. Unless we in Congress act, that regulation, Utility MACT, would establish the first ever ``maximum achievable control technology''--or MACT--standards for ``hazardous air pollutant''--or HAP--emissions from powerplants.

The Clean Air Act only allows the EPA to set MACT standards for HAP emissions if it can establish a hazard to public health that would make such regulatory action ``appropriate and necessary.''

In December 2000, just as a new administration was set to take office, the Clinton EPA, under great pressure from special interests, promulgated a Utility MACT rule based on public health concerns about mercury. The data simply do not support that regulation.

First of all, mercury does not pose health risks via inhalation, but rather only after entering water bodies and accumulating as methylmercury in the aquatic food chain. For humans, the primary route of mercury exposure is through eating fish. Accordingly, the EPA itself has acknowledged uncertainties about the extent of public health risks that can be attributed to electric utility mercury emissions, and it admits that ``there is no quantification of how much of the methylmercury in fish consumed by the U.S. population is due to electricity emissions.

We now know too that the EPA's projections for major increases in mercury emissions from powerplants at the time were grossly inaccurate. The agency estimated that emissions would increase from 46 tons in 1990 to 60 tons in 2010. But, in fact, they actually declined to just 29 tons in 2011--more than 50 percent below the projections--and all without the MACT rule.

Moreover, the studies EPA relied upon about methylmercury exposure in children and women of childbearing age have also been found to have inflated health risks. More recent research undertaken by the CDC indicates that Americans are not being exposed to levels of mercury considered harmful to fetuses, children, or adults. Additionally, both the FDA and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry have recommended regulatory levels for mercury that are significantly less stringent than the EPA's reference dose.

With respect to nonmercury hazardous air pollutants--or HAPs--the EPA does not set actual limits for those emissions. Instead, it uses limits for fine particulate matter emissions in the standard as a surrogate for a variety of HAPs under the rule. While EPA calls the benefits associated with reducing particulate matter ``co-benefits'' of establishing the Utility MACT regulation, it has also stated that such reductions are not the primary objective or justification for the rule. If that is the case, then why are more than 99 percent of the rule's claimed health benefits due to projected reductions in particulate matter? I am all for incidental health benefits--it is always nice to get more bang for the buck--but that's simply not what is going on here.

Double-counting the benefits from reducing particulate matter as a Utility MACT benefit is, at best, misleading. Indeed, if 99 percent of the quantified health benefits cited in the rule are not due to reductions in HAPs, can we really call the Utility MACT rule ``appropriate and necessary?''

The EPA is trying to pull a fast one by regulating particulate matter--a non-HAP--under the guise of concern about mercury. The agency already regulates particulate matter emissions under the Clean Air Act, and it has been doing so for 15 years. If it believes there are benefits to further reducing particulate matter emissions, it already has the power to do so; adopting S.J. Res. 37 would not prevent such EPA action.

Once the coincidental co-benefits from reducing particulate matter-- estimated to be $33 billion to $89 billion, or $3 to $9 in health benefits for every dollar of cost--are excluded from Utility MACT, the EPA's own cost benefit analysis demonstrates that the health benefits of the rule are far outweighed by its costs. The EPA estimates that implementing the Utility MACT rule would cost $9.6 billion in 2016, and that reductions in mercury emissions would provide just $0.5 to 6 million in health benefits in the same year. This means that, even in the best case scenario, the cost of Utility MACT will exceed its estimated benefits by a factor of 1,600 to 1.

Sixteen hundred to one.

The cumulative costs and consequences of this and other EPA regulations are both real and substantial. Final and pending EPA regulations will reduce the diversity of America's energy portfolio, increase energy prices, eliminate jobs, and threaten electric reliability.

With regard to our energy portfolio, we are already seeing negative effects. Coal's share of electric power generation recently dropped to just 34 percent, the lowest level we have seen since the 1970s. As a result, utility companies have already announced plans to shut down more than 25,000 megawatts of electricity rather than upgrade plants with costly new emissions control technology. These changes in our energy portfolio are just the tip of the iceberg. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation--or NERC--estimates that EPA regulations will lead to an additional retirement of 36,000 to 59,000 megawatts of electricity generation. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Office of Electric Reliability has stated that EPA regulations would likely shutter 81,000 megawatts.

These plant closure predictions from nonpartisan reliability organizations are 8 times higher than EPA's estimates of just 10,000 megawatts. The closures caused by EPA regulations will not just affect our energy mix--they will also affect grid reliability.

NERC has said that EPA regulations pose the No. 1 threat to grid reliability.

But these reliability organizations are not the only ones concerned about the EPA's effect on coal and coal power generation. Earlier this month, Moody's changed its outlook on the coal industry to ``negative,'' largely blaming the EPA for the downgrade. As Moody's put it in a statement:

A regulatory environment that puts coal at a disadvantage

along with low natural gas prices, have led many utilities to

increase or accelerate their scheduled coal plant

retirements.

It continued:

In addition, newly proposed carbon dioxide regulations

would effectively prohibit new coal plants by requiring new

projects to adopt technology that is not yet economically

feasible.

I have witnessed the EPA's attempts to reshape the energy industry through regulation in my home State.

Arizona relies on coal-fired power for its base-load electricity. Coal mining and plant operations are an important employer and economic engine for Arizonans and, specifically, for our Indian Tribes. As just one example, take the Navajo Generating Station--or NGS--a 2,250- megawatt facility located on the Navajo Nation's reservation.

The NGS was constructed as part of a negotiated settlement with environmental interests that, at the time, preferred a coal-fired powerplant to a hydropower dam project in the Grand Canyon. It provides more than 90 percent of the pumping power for the Central Arizona Project, Arizona's primary water delivery system. The plant and the coal mined to operate it play a vital role in the economies of the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe, not to mention the State as a whole. A study prepared by Arizona State University's Seidman Institute concluded that the NGS and its associated mine will account for over $20 billion in gross State product--GSP--almost $680 million in adjusted State tax revenues, and more than 3,000 jobs.

Yet, the station's future viability is now directly threatened by Utility MACT and other pending EPA regulations. Right now, the EPA is undertaking an NGS-specific rulemaking to determine whether additional emissions control technologies should be installed at the station for purely aesthetic visibility reasons, rather than actual health concerns. That rulemaking could require the installation of emissions controls at a cost of more than $1.1 billion.

That is just one power station--just one--$1.1 billion. And we don't even know yet what the estimated cost of compliance with Utility MACT might be.

Steve Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation EPA, said this about EPA's regulatory approach:

EPA's one size fits all' approach to rulemaking fails to

acknowledge or address the specific concerns and impacts to

the Navajo Nation, as well as regional impacts. Making

matters worse, EPA's uncoordinated approach to rulemakings

impacting the same industries creates regulatory uncertainty,

increases compliance costs, and puts at substantial risk the

national and regional economies, critical jobs of Navajo

people, and the very viability of the Navajo government.

I couldn't agree more.

The consequences of a shutdown of the Navajo Generating Station would be felt throughout the State, and even by the Federal Government. However, a shutdown would most acutely impact Indian tribes, whose economies and access to affordable water are highly dependent on the

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

I oppose the Kerry amendment and hope it will be defeated and that my amendment will be adopted.

Senator Kerry has appropriately characterized the amendment as being food aid to North Korea. However, it is not just about abhorring North Korea's bad behavior but also the administration's bad behavior. On four separate occasions, the State Department assured Members of this Senate that food aid would not be used as a condition to negotiations with the North Koreans; that under no circumstances would the United States provide any incentives or rewards, is the way they put it, to North Korea. In each case, we inquired, and we specifically talked about the food aid. Four times they said no, it wouldn't be done. Two weeks before the negotiations were to begin this spring, all of a sudden, $240 million in food aid was put on the table, and only because the North Koreans launched their so-called satellite long-range missile were those negotiations canceled.

So a national security interest that can simply be provided by the President based on his views----

Does not solve the problem.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. President, I call up my amendment which is at the desk, No. 2354. I ask for its consideration.

Mr. President, what I said before was, on four separate occasions over just a couple of months, the administration had assured Members of the Senate that it would not use food aid as an enticement to the North Koreans to come to the negotiating table.

Here are direct quotations from the State Department, comments such as ``had no intention of rewarding them for their actions that their government has already agreed to take.'' Reaffirmed, ``There are no financial incentives for North Korea to meet the precepts or engage in talks.''

Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, ``To be clear, the Administration will not provide any financial incentives to Pyongyang. . . .'' et cetera, on the negotiations. And further that ``any engagement with North Korea will not be used as a mechanism to funnel financial or other rewards to Pyongyang.''

We also heard media reports and asked them about them. They said no:

These media reports are not accurate. U.S. policy toward

North Korea has not changed. We have no intention of

rewarding North Korea--

And so on. And a mere 3 weeks later, we do exactly the opposite. That is why a waiver for the President to say otherwise does not do any good and why I urge support----

For my resolution which simply prevents the administration from providing food aid to North Korea.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

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

Mr. President, I want to respond today to some statements President Obama has been making on the campaign trail regarding debt, spending, and taxes during his administration.

Last week, the President said he should not be blamed for the massive debt and spending in recent years because, in his words, it was all ``baked into the cake'' when he took office. He also contended that his administration has done the responsible thing in taking steps to fix our Nation's fiscal problems. Here is the totality of what the President said:

I love it when these guys talk about debt and deficits. I

inherited a trillion dollar deficit. We signed $2 trillion of

spending cuts into law. Spending under my administration has

grown more slowly than under any President in the last 60

years. They baked all this stuff into the cake with the tax

cuts and the war.

I would like to respond to each of the President's comments. First, on deficits and debt, President Obama is not the reformer he makes himself out to be. Since he took office, the national debt has climbed by $5 trillion. It is now larger than the entire economy. If we take his entire 4 years and all of the Presidents before him, he has incurred as much debt as all of the Presidents, from George Washington through George W. Bush, just in his time as President.

Yearly deficits, which is the gap between revenues and spending, have grown substantially as well. Despite a promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, the President has run annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion for 4 years in a row. None of this has anything to do with what happened before he became President. So how about after he became President?

According to the President's own budget numbers, in 2009, the first year of his Presidency, the deficit was $1.4 trillion. In 2010 the deficit was $1.3 trillion. In 2011 it, again, was $1.3 trillion.

If the President's policies are followed, the deficit this year is expected to top $1.3 trillion. Those are all in the years when he was President.

The highest deficit under President Bush, his predecessor, was $458 billion, and that was in 2008. Every deficit under President Obama has been more than double that figure. But President Obama says he is blameless when it comes to the debt problem? Not hardly. He never even submitted a plan to come close to balancing the budget, even with the massive tax hike he supports.

As Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote last week:

Despite [the President's] claim that ``both parties have

laid out their policies on the table,'' President Obama has

made no serious proposal to fix the runaway entitlement

programs that threaten to swamp the government's finances.

Dana Milbank is not a conservative Republican.

Second, let's take a look at the President's claim that spending during his Presidency has grown more slowly than during any Presidency in the last 60 years. That claim does not pass the smell test.

Keith Hennessey, former Director of the National Economic Council, is one of many observers who has debunked this claim.

First, as Hennessey notes, the President's claim is based on a discredited article that suggests he isn't actually accountable for anything that happened before October 1, 2009. That is the start of the fiscal year. But, of course, he took office almost 9 months before that time.

In other words, that timetable excludes the auto bailouts, the first year of the stimulus bill--which, of course, was President Obama's legislation--the bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and a lot of other things. As Hennessey writes, this date was ``cherry-picked . . . to make President Obama's record look good.''

I would ask: Does President Obama also disclaim anything to do with the auto bailouts that occurred during that same period of time? No, last time I heard, he was bragging about that. That is the height of cherry picking. The things that make you look good, you take; the things that make you look bad, you reject. You can't have it both ways.

Second, the President actually proposed spending far higher than was enacted into law. For example, his latest budget request proposed spending of $3.72 trillion in fiscal year 2013. But the President is taking credit for spending in the CBO baseline which is $3.58 trillion, which is somewhat less than the $3.72 trillion he proposed. So the President wanted to spend more but was restrained by the Republicans in the House of Representatives in Congress.

Mr. Hennessey also explains how the President's spending claim collapses once you take three basic errors into account. He writes:

If you instead do this calculation the right way and

measure the average annual growth rate from fiscal year 2008

to CBO scoring of the President's budget proposal for fiscal

year 2013, you get an average annual growth rate of Federal

spending of 4.5 percent. That is a nominal growth rate, so

the real growth rate will be in the 2s.

Finally, on spending, it is inaccurate to measure a President's record without looking at the overall size and scope of government. President Obama's preference for big government is obvious to everyone. He usually argues for it. He doesn't argue he is for a smaller or less active government. Well, the historical average of spending to gross domestic product before President Obama took office was roughly 20.6 percent.

So how does President Obama's record stack up? Here is the breakdown of spending to gross domestic product. These are the ratios during the Obama years. Remember now, this is compared to the historical average of 20.6 percent. In 2009, his first year, 25.2 percent; next, 2010, 24.1 percent; in 2011, 24.1 percent again; and an estimate for this year, 2012, is 24.3 percent.

All of these figures are substantially higher than the historical average of spending at 20 percent. So his spending every year he has been in office, including the projected spending this year, will be far greater than the historical average.

And lastly, in the President's budget request for fiscal year 2013, which would be next year, the spending averages 22.5 percent--still above the 20-percent historical figure.

So it is no wonder President Obama doesn't want to run on his real spending record, because it is not one of fiscal constraint.

Third, I want to address the President's claim that the tax relief Congress enacted in 2001 and 2003 somehow played an outsized role in driving up the debt. We have heard him talk about this--if it weren't for the Bush tax cuts, he said we would be closer to having a balanced budget. Not true. The records for this come from the nonpartisan referees at the Congressional Budget Office. These are not partisan people--not on one side or the other--and they have shown what we have is a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

In May of 2011, CBO released an analysis showing that nearly 50 percent of the cumulative budget deficit since 2001 is due to increased government spending, 28 percent of it is due to economic and technical corrections, and 11 percent is due to temporary stimulus-like tax provisions. The 2001 and 2003 tax relief to which President Obama refers--which, by the way, is the same tax relief he extended for 2 years about a year and a half ago--accounts for how much? Just 14 percent of the deficit since 2001 and 2003.

So, far from being the cause of the deficit, it only accounts for 14 percent of the deficit. It is inaccurate for the President to place the blame for his spending records on broad-based progrowth tax relief that has helped to create jobs and economic growth in this country prior to the last downturn--and that he himself supported extending.

Additionally, the recently released ``Long-Term Budget Outlook'' estimates that tax revenues will exceed the historical average in the next 10 years if this same tax policy--the 2001 and 2003 tax relief--is extended, and if Congress prevents the alternative minimum tax from hitting millions of additional middle-class families. And that is what Republicans have been supporting all along. So we will get back to the historical average of revenues raised.

We all know robust economic growth is the most effective way to reduce our debt and that raising taxes will not achieve that goal. Failure to stop this tax-driven fiscal cliff could push us into another recession next year, again according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It would result in a $4.59 trillion tax hike on individuals, families, businesses, and investors over the next decade. We have said that is the largest tax increase in the history of our country--over $4.5 trillion. If we are serious about increasing tax revenues through economic growth, avoiding a recession is a good place to start.

Republicans are happy to debate President Obama on the best way to create jobs and to get our country back on sound fiscal footing. But in order to do so, we need to get the facts straight first. President Obama has not lived up to his promise to cut the deficit. He has not reduced spending in any meaningful way. And tax relief is not the main reason why we are in the red today.

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

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. President, I wish to comment on something the President recently said that is very much in the news.

Last Friday, the President of the United States said, ``The private sector is doing just fine.''

This is not taken out of context. He was talking about economically. His office leader explained what he was really talking about is the comparison between the public sector and the private sector, and I take him at his word there.

The President said:

Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do

with state and local government--oftentimes cuts initiated by

governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that

they have in the past from the federal government and who

don't have the same kind of flexibility as the federal

government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.

I think that is generally true. But here are the two key points I would make in response: First, everyone--not just government employees--is suffering. They are struggling in the Obama economy.

Yes, the number of government jobs has decreased during the last 40 months since President Obama took office, but overall employment in government has increased on the whole in recent years, even with the reductions that have occurred in the last couple of years.

For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total government employees added up to 21,847,000--rounded off--in January 2006. That is just a little over 6 years ago--21,847,000. By comparison, last month the total amount of government employees added up to 21,969,000. So there are a few more government employees today-- State, Federal, and local--than there were just 6 years ago. I would just ask, how on Earth did we get by in this country with only 21,847,000 government workers in 2006? I think we were doing just fine.

The reality is, when a private firm faces financial difficulty, usually the first area the firm looks to in terms of saving money is its workforce. It is too bad, but frequently firms have to lay off workers because they simply can't afford to continue to pay that many workers.

I will just give the experience of a friend of mine in Arizona who said: This recession was probably the best thing that happened to us because it forced us to look at our workforce, how we did business, and whether we could make savings. He said: Today, we are making more money than we ever have, even with a lower workforce, because we found that we could make do and make the improvements that made us more efficient.

We are asking that to be done in government. Government doesn't have a right to continue to grow and grow. Government should be as efficient as the private sector, including with respect to the number of people it hires to do the work that has to be done. After all, the private sector has to take care of paying both the employees in the private sector and the employees in the government sector. Who pays government employees? All of our constituents, the people in the private sector.

So we in the government have an obligation to run the governments-- Federal, State, and local--as efficiently and leanly as we possibly can. If we find we can run the government with just a few more employees today than we had, for example, 6 years ago, then all the better for our economy and all the better for the taxpayers who have to pay their salaries.

So there isn't some right of the Federal Government to continue to grow its workforce at a rate higher than the private sector. Rather, we should be trying to run the government on as few a number of employees as necessary to do the work the American people want us to do. But here is the larger point: As the Wall Street Journal points out, the reason the government workforce has shrunk since January 2009 is not due to smaller budgets or dwindling aid, as the President suggested. As the Wall Street Journal notes, revenues to State and local governments have increased during the last 2 years, according to census data. The main problem is rising health care and pension costs for government workers, and we have seen the experience in a State such as Wisconsin in having to deal with that to make some reductions, which caused a lot of political turmoil in the State. But at the end, the voters of the State said: We agree. We need to cut government cost as it relates to the health care and pension commitments we have made to our government employees.

While government has experienced some job losses, it is important to remember that benefits enjoyed by government workers are far superior to those enjoyed by those employed in the private sector. For example, according to an article in the National Review magazine, on an hourly basis private sector employees' benefits cost their companies $2.15 an hour. State and local government workers cost taxpayers $4.72 an hour-- 219 percent more.

For retirement benefit costs, the private sector figure works out to $1.02 per hour. The State and local workers sum, $3.37 an hour--a 330- percent premium.

This is where the extra costs are for government workers. You can't blame State and local governments for trying to provide more efficiency for their operations by conforming their practices for health care and pension benefits more to those in the private sector.

Why do government employees deserve more? I guess that is the question. As is a matter of fairness--and especially when compared to people who are paying their salaries--I don't think anyone can argue that government employees should have twice as much or three times as much of a benefit as somebody in the private sector.

The second point I would make is this: At 4.2 percent, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate among government workers is also far below that of the private sector. We know the average in the country is 8.2 percent, and that is only the people who are still looking for work. If we

took all the people who are out of work, it would be about 11.1 or 11.2 percent. But among government workers, the unemployment rate is 4.2 percent.

Compare that with unemployment in some other sectors. In agriculture, it is 9.5 percent; 8.1 percent in the wholesale and retail trade; 9.7 percent in leisure and hospitality, to name just a few industries. In each of these I named--I think each of them would be thrilled to have unemployment at 4.2 percent. When the President says the real problem is with government employment, the private sector is doing just fine, the facts simply belie that. The President was wrong; he was incorrect.

Finally, let me address his theory of how an economy grows. Unemployment, as I said, is 8.2 percent nationwide. Labor force participation is at historic lows--the number of people actually working or looking for work. GDP growth in the first quarter of 2012 was a very anemic 1.9 percent. This is not enough for this country to grow and prosper and the President wants to borrow or raise taxes from that segment of our society so taxpayers can finance more government workers? That does not make sense.

I think not only is the President wrong on the facts about the private sector doing just fine, he has it wrong as to what the solution would be. The solution to help government workers is to have the private sector do better so it can afford to help--to hire more government workers and to pay them better benefits. Government stimulus spending and aid to States has not grown the economy so far and it is obviously not going to do so in the future.

Rather than divide the country into public versus private sector workers, Federal versus State and local workers, rich versus poor, men versus women, as the President is wont to do, I hope we work hard to represent all Americans. No one benefits in the long run from an enormous government with an appetite to grow more and more, crushing economic growth and crowding out the private sector, a government that drives up costs for job creators and forces companies to lay off private sector workers. None of us benefits from that. Yet that is what we are seeing playing out right now. The total number of unemployed and underemployed is over 23 million people in the United States. Think of that. That is the number of people who are looking for work who have stopped looking for work or who do not have the kind of work they could be doing. Economic growth last quarter, as I said, was only 1.9 percent; only 69,000 new jobs added. We need more than twice that many jobs added each month in order to keep pace with the new workers coming into the economy, so we are losing ground in terms of jobs created. I don't think the President's solution of more spending on government employees is the answer. I think that is a recipe of another 40 months of 8 percent-plus unemployment. At that rate we are not going to get out of the economic difficulties we are in right now. Let's do things that support the private sector, things that help the private sector. The healthier the economy is, the more growth we have, the more we are able to do for the public sector as well. That is the ultimate answer.

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

Mr. President, I wish to speak on a different subject primarily, but in view of my colleague's comments and my disagreement with them, let me just make a note of my position.

Mr. President, I certainly respect my colleague from Iowa. Like him, my views on the issue of abortion are very decidedly pro- life, and I too disagree with the decision in Roe v. Wade. I agree with him that many legal scholars believe that decision rests on very shaky legal grounds.

But I would say this about Andrew Hurwitz, the nominee who will be before us: Never in any decision he has rendered as a member of the Arizona Supreme Court has anybody I know believed he let his personal views, his personal philosophic or political views determine his judicial rulings. To the contrary, everyone with whom I have spoken, and to the degree I have been able to study his career of about a decade on the Arizona Supreme Court, it is remarkably free of the kind of politics that sometimes infuses judicial decisionmaking.

His opinions are well considered, based on the law, well written, and generally a part of a consensus court. There are both Republicans and Democrats on the Arizona Supreme Court, and Justice Hurwitz is usually with his other colleagues on the court in deciding these matters.

I think it is unfair to an extent that because he wrote a Law Review article several years ago in which one can assume he expressed a pro- choice point of view that therefore somehow he would be disqualified from serving on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In fact, here is some breaking news: President Obama nominates pro-choice candidates to courts. Obviously, I am being facetious.

I suspect most of President Obama's nominees are pro-choice. I don't ask the nominees I consult with, the ones we recommend from the State of Arizona, what their view is on any particular issue, including that issue. But I can assume the nominees of President Obama are probably more liberal--and are pro-choice--on that particular issue than my views. But President Obama is the President. He gets to nominate people. So I have to work with his White House Counsel to try to find the best possible people with two primary qualifications: One, how good a judge would that individual be in intelligence, judicial temperament, the kinds of things that make a good judge?

Secondly--and this is very important to me--will this judge decide cases based on the law, period, the facts of the case and the law, and the U.S. Constitution or will the nominee potentially allow his or her own personal preferences, political points of view, and philosophy to be a part of the decisionmaking process?

If I believe it is the latter, then I will not support a nominee. I have opposed nominees right here on the Senate floor based on that test where I thought that based on the hearing and the record of the nominee that the individual could have a hard time separating out their own political judgments from deciding cases. Then I voted no.

This is a nominee I not only gladly vote yes on, but I am, frankly, asking my colleagues to vote yes because I absolutely, totally believe he will decide cases based upon the merits of the case, the facts, and the law, not based on the politics.

Interestingly, on this one particular issue, to my knowledge there has not been an issue before the Arizona Supreme Court in the last decade, while he has been on the court, which would call on him to decide it one way or the other. So neither side can say, well, he didn't allow it to happen or he did allow it to happen. We have not been able to find any case like that.

There have been other political kinds of issues that have come before the court--issues dealing with the death penalty and things of that sort. As I said, neither my conservative friends back in Arizona nor I have been able to find a case in which Justice Andrew Hurwitz's decisions have been based on anything other than a pretty clear reading of the law as applied to the facts of the case. I have every reason to believe in his honesty and his integrity in continuing that practice, which he has manifested over the last decade, if and when he is confirmed to the Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals or I would not have recommended him to the administration, and I would not be recommending him to my colleagues.

So with all due respect to my good friend from Iowa, whose views I share on the question of abortion, I think it would be wrong to oppose this nominee based on that fact.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. President, I wish to speak to this same question. As everyone knows, a ruling on the constitutionality of ObamaCare is expected

later this month. I think it is important that it be done in the right context. A lot of our Democratic colleagues have made clear their view that if the ruling doesn't go the way they want it to, it is not because they passed an unconstitutional law but rather, in their view, because it is some kind of a partisan activity by judicial activists and a lot of attention has been specifically focused on Chief Justice Roberts. This should not stand.

The President himself actually started this, I think, when he said:

I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what

would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning

a law that was passed by a strong majority of a

democratically elected Congress.

Never mind it was not passed by a strong majority--and, by the way, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee said something very recently, basically issuing a warning to Chief Justice Roberts on the floor of the Senate, stating that a 5-to-4 decision to overturn the law would be controversial. ``I trust he will be a Chief Justice for all of us and that he has a strong institutional sense of the proper role of the judicial branch.'' In other words, the intimation here is if the decision doesn't go their way, the Court's reputation, and specifically the reputation of Chief Justice Roberts, is on the line.

The Wall Street Journal wrote about this, and others have, talking about threats by the President and certain other members of his party with warnings that:

Mr. Roberts has a choice--either uphold ObamaCare, or be

portrayed a radical who wants to repeal the New Deal and a

century of precedent.

Let's clear up a few things. First of all, as I said, the law was not passed by a strong majority of Congress, it was passed exclusively by Democrats. Not a single Republican supported it. It was the first time in history that major domestic legislation was passed by one party.

That is not the key point in terms of the constitutionality of the law, however. The key point is that the Court's job is, as Chief Justice Roberts said at his confirmation hearing, to work as an umpire, calling the balls and strikes as the Court sees them. Nonlegal arguments, such as the Court's decisions have to be popular or unanimous--those are just unserious and frankly political rhetoric.

We all know that in 1803, in the Marbury v. Madison case, the U.S. Supreme Court established the review of congressional action under article III of the Constitution. Since then, courts have overturned hundreds of laws. It would hardly be, therefore, unprecedented or extraordinary for the Court to overturn a congressional enactment as the President has said. As the Supreme Court noted in that case, courts determining whether acts of the legislative branch are consistent with the Constitution is ``of the very essence of judicial duty.'' The Court further noted that ``the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature.'' If the two conflict, ``the Constitution and not such ordinary act must govern the case to which they both apply.''

The actual substance of the case which Democrats seem eager to avoid talking about is that ObamaCare, if upheld, empowers the Federal Government to order its citizens to purchase particular goods and services that the government believes its citizens must have. That sort of all-powerful Federal Government is at odds with the concept of enumerated powers, as is creating commerce in order to regulate it, as Justice Kennedy intimated at the oral argument.

This is why a significant majority of Americans dislike the law. They know the Constitution is meant to place limits on the power of our Government in order to protect the freedom of the people.

I can't guess how the Court is going to rule. It may not agree with my views. But I suggest that political leaders in the executive and legislative branches need to cool their rhetoric, as my colleague said, stop yelling at the umpire and stop the thinly veiled threats and react to the ruling after it is rendered, rather than before.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 12 minutes.

Mr. President, let me speak today about two recent CBO reports and what they portend for the economy and for policy that we might want to make in the Congress. CBO, of course, is the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and from time to time it looks at economic conditions and presents studies or issues reports about the state of our economy based upon legislation the Congress has adopted.

There are two recent reports that I think suggest some very dire news for this country unless we in the Congress are willing to take some action. The first was a couple of weeks ago, and it dealt with the so- called fiscal cliff, the problem that will occur with the combination of two things automatically happening unless Congress and the President act.

The first is the automatic across-the-board cuts or sequestration that will affect both defense and nondefense spending to the tune of $109 billion next year, something which the Secretary of Defense has said would be ``devastating'' and ``catastrophic'' for our national security. That is the first problem. The Congressional Budget office said the combination of the sequestration with the second item, which is the automatic tax increase, which is a $4.5 trillion tax increase that begins on January 1, the combination of those two will put this country back into recession.

CBO projected the growth rate next year to be only about one-half of 1 percent. That, of course, is devastating for not just the economy but for job creation, for businesses, for families and the like.

The second recent report of the CBO just came out. It is a report that talks about the surging debt of the United States Government and talks about the probability of sudden fiscal crisis. So we have a combination of the potential for going back into recession, combined with the probability of sudden fiscal crisis because of the amount of debt the Federal Government is taking on.

Because this second report just came out, let me refer to some things that have been said about that, primarily in the Wall Street Journal in a piece on June 5 called ``Obama's Debt Boom.'' I will just quote a few lines from this editorial in the Wall Street Journal. It says:

The CBO's long-term budget outlook notes that Federal debt

held by the public--

That is the part we have to pay back--

will surge to 70 percent of the economy by the end of this

year.

Which is the highest in the history of the country except during World War II.

I think that is about $49,000 or $50,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. They point out that under the present trend the debt will hit 90 percent of GDP by 2022. Then it balloons to 109 percent by 2026.

What does this mean in practical terms? Here is a quotation from the Wall Street Journal about the CBO projection:

We have never been deficit scolds, preferring to focus on

the more important policy priorities of economic growth and

spending restraint. But the Obama era is taking America to a

place it has never been. Inside of a decade the country will

have a debt-to-GDP ratio well into the 90 percent to 100

percent danger zone where economists say the economy begins

to slow and risks mount.

CBO notes . . . that this level of debt increase increases

the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis, during which

investors would lose confidence in the government's ability

to manage its budget and the government would thereby lose

its ability to borrow at affordable rates.

How bad is it? In the absolute worst-case scenario, CBO

says debt would exceed 250 percent of GDP in 2035. At that

point, CBO's economic model breaks, because so much debt is

so far outside ``historical experience'' and the CBO's

``assumptions might no longer be valid.''

That is where we are headed if we don't do something about it.

Interestingly, what CBO assumed in order to reach these conclusions is that tax collections would continue to hold to the post-1972 historical average of 18 percent of GDP. The point is we are not talking about raising taxes in order to effect this. They are assuming we will have revenues of a historical level of 18 percent of GDP. The problem is not the tax collections; in other words, the problem is the excess spending. They point out that, of course, excess spending is primarily a factor of the entitlement programs--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They point out that the biggest of all those is in Medicare.

Then the Wall Street Journal concludes this way:

This is where the tax burden comes in, and on that score

CBO admits that ``to the extent that additional tax revenues

were generated by boosting marginal tax rates--

This is what President Obama proposed, remember--

those ``higher tax rates would discourage people from working

and saving, further reducing output and income.'' So even the

Keynesians who dominate CBO admit that there are costs in

lower growth . . .

If they raise tax rates as the President has proposed.

This is, in effect, the most predictable crisis in history. So we have the combination of the CBO report talking about the fiscal cliff-- what happens if both the sequestration and the automatic tax increases go into effect--combined with the most recent report about the debt, and we can see the United States is headed for a disaster without intervention by the Congress and the President.

Just one thing. The Director of CBO put it this way:

The explosive path of Federal debt . . . underscores the

need for large and timely policy changes to put the Federal

Government on a sustainable fiscal course.

What has the President and the Democratic majority in the Senate suggested? We turned to Jay Carney, who had a press conference Monday. He is the spokesman for the President. He said that ``the President is continuing to work with his team on potential new ideas.''

I would like for him to work with the Congress because we have had a lot of ideas. The House of Representatives passed almost 30 bills that deal with this, and they range all the way from the Keystone Pipeline, which immediately puts 20,000 people to work, easing environmental regulations, offshore oil exploration, and so on. So we would love to have him work with the Congress, rather than this anemic to-do list he has proposed, which, obviously, would not provide any relief.

The bottom line is that as was reported in a story by the Associated Press, by Andrew Taylor, I think. As he said, after talking about the bills passed by the House of Representatives: ``Democrats will try to stop Republicans from forcing a vote on it in the Senate.''

What he is talking about is the vote the House of Representatives intends to have before long that would extend the current Tax Code, so there is certainty in tax rates, and businesses and families don't have to worry about this $4.5 trillion tax increase. The Democrats will try to stop Republicans from forcing a vote on it in the Senate.

Why would the Democratic leader not want to have a vote on whether to extend the current tax rates as opposed to having an increase in taxes of $4.5 trillion? Actually, there are a lot of folks--leaders in the President's party, people who have worked with him--who have said it would be a good idea to extend those tax cuts. In fact, the President himself said so when he extended them for 2 years, along with the support from Congress, on December 1 year ago. He said not to do so would harm economic growth. He was exactly right then, and he is right now.

As a matter of fact, we had a better GDP growth back then than we do now. If that would have been harmful then, it would be more harmful now. His belief then is adhered to by people who have worked with him and former leaders. For example, former Democratic President Bill Clinton suggested Tuesday--yesterday--that Congress temporarily extend all the Bush-era tax cuts. That includes the tax cuts for the wealthy. Remember, the Bush tax cuts applied across the board. They applied to everybody. The President has said that is fine but not for the wealthy.

What President Clinton said is, no, the best thing would be for all of those tax cuts to be extended. I will quote what the former President said:

What I think we need to do is to find some way to avoid the

fiscal cliff, to avoid doing anything that would contract the

economy now.

He was asked if that meant extending tax cuts, and he said:

They will probably have to put everything off until early

next year. That's probably the best thing to do right now.

Then the President's former adviser, who is an economics professor, Larry Summers, said today that Congress should temporarily extend the Bush-era tax cuts. He said:

The real risk to this economy is on the side of slowdown .

. . and that means we've got to make sure that we don't take

gasoline out of the tank at the end of this year.

He said that on MSNBC's ``Morning Joe'' program. He said: ``That's gotta be the top priority.''

So here you have Larry Summers, former adviser to President Clinton on economic matters, and former President Bill Clinton, both of whom have said we need to extend these tax policies today in order to avoid further damage to our economy tomorrow--exactly what the President himself said when these tax rates were extended a year and a half ago.

I just note this from another Associated Press story regarding the comments by President Clinton. As they say:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and others have

warned that letting both events occur--

That is to say, the sequestration and the automatic tax increases--

would suck so much out of the economy that it could spark a

renewed recession next year.

That is when they refer to the statement of President Clinton that we need to find a way to avoid that fiscal cliff and that would include extending the tax cuts.

The reality is we have somewhat of a consensus beginning to develop that it would be a wise thing for the country to retain current tax policies and not allow this big tax increase, to avoid the sequester or the across-the-board cuts that otherwise would affect both defense and nondefense; and if we don't do those things, according to CBO, the nonpartisan office that advises the Congress, we are likely to go back into a recession with growth that would be only one-half of 1 percent of our GDP next year.

Let me conclude by referring to another article in the Wall Street Journal, dated June 5, entitled ``Defense Chiefs Signal Job Cuts.''

Here we are talking about the employers of people in the defense industries that are predicting that if we don't do something about sequester, they are going to have to begin laying off people. The article begins with this quotation:

U.S. defense contractors are preparing to disclose mass job

cutbacks ahead of November elections if Congress fails to

reach a deficit-reduction deal by then, industry officials

said.

One of the people quoted is Robert Stevens, chairman of Lockheed Martin, a big contractor with the Defense Department. He said:

It is quite possible that we will need to notify employees

in the September and October timeframe that they may or may

not have a job in January, depending upon whether

sequestration does or doesn't take effect.

One of the reasons is a Federal law that requires employers to provide this notice--the Worker Adjustment and Retaining and Notification Act, known as the WARN Act, which requires companies to notify employees in advance of mass layoffs or plant closings--if they have more than 50 or more employees, for example. One thing Mr. Stevens said is that it doesn't just affect the big companies such as his but also all these suppliers, people who have to provide the pieces or components of products that they end up putting together. They would have to be notified because they are not going to have subcontracts next year.

One of the industry officials said sequestration is already here. What he meant by that was the reality is that businesses are having to make decisions now. This talk in the Senate about we will somehow be able to deal with this in the lameduck session after the election is simply not true. I suggest to my colleagues in the House and in the Senate that if we try to wait until after the election, I think our constituents, knowing what is happening--some of whom will probably have gotten job notices that they may be subject to termination because of the automatic across-the-board cuts, known as sequester--I think they may be sending a message to us this fall and, therefore, it behooves us to act before rather than after the fact.

There has been talk today about what the Wisconsin recall election meant. I think one thing it must have meant is that people may complain about some of the decisions that are made when there are tough decisions, but they want people who are elected to do something about the problems, to act, have some courage, tackle the

tough problems. Even if they don't totally agree with the solutions, I think they respect political leaders who are willing to do that. Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin, took a lot of heat, but he took the bull by the horns and tried to solve a problem and, as a result of the things they were able to do, the fiscal situation in Wisconsin is much better than had they not taken those actions.

That is what we in Congress need to learn. The people understand we have a big debt crisis facing us, which is confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office. They understand there is a huge risk of another recession because of the twin problems of the biggest tax increase in the history of the country coming our way January 1 and this sequestration that also occurs on January 1. They would like us to do something about that. I think what they resent is politicians saying after the election we will take it up and begin thinking about it. First of all, that is too late for a lot of people whose jobs depend upon it, and it makes for a very inefficient way of running the government.

Secondly, I think political leaders owe their constituents the ideas they would like to put into effect. We don't wait and hide the ball from our constituents, refusing to tell them what we think until after the election. The idea of a democratic republic is people stand for office by saying: This is what I would do to solve our problems. Do you like it or not? If the voters say, yes, we think that is a good idea, they elect us and expect us to follow through on it. If they don't like our ideas, they elect the other person. But if we hide the ball and say we are not going to take votes in the Senate because we don't want to put Members on record because then the voters might know what they are thinking and they might not like it and not elect them, that is obviously a lack of political courage. It also runs counter to what the fundamental concept of elections is all about.

I suggest that what we ought to do is tackle these two issues now, not wait until after the election. Legislation has been introduced in both the House and the Senate to find a way to save the $109 billion that needs to be saved in order to avoid the sequester for next year. This process will have to be undergone, undertaken, every year for the next 10 years because we have promised the voters we would save a total of $1.2 trillion.

So how will we do it next year? Well, there are any number of ways. Senators McCain, Ayotte, myself, Chambliss, Graham, and Cornyn, and some others have introduced legislation that says, well, here is a way you can save the $109 billion next year: Get half of it by simply extending the President's own pay freeze for many Federal employees through the middle of 2014, and the other half, instead of replacing every single Federal worker who retires or leaves the Federal workforce, only replace two out of the three.

Everybody talks about how wonderful the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles Commission were. Well, the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended hiring one new Federal employee for every three who leave the workplace. We double that. We say, well, let's hire two of the three back. The combination of just those two things would result in saving $109 billion.

If you don't like that way to save money, there are many other ways to do so, and there are revenues from the sale of Federal property, for example, that could also be put on the table. So there are many ways to do this. But let's get about it.

Why aren't we doing it? Well, the majority leader and the President say the only way they would consider doing this is if we also raise a bunch of taxes, and their wonderful idea about raising taxes is a tax on millionaires. Here is the problem with that. The very people we want to create the jobs are the businesspeople who pay these taxes.

According to President Obama's Secretary of the Treasury, that Department says 80 percent of the people who would be subject to this millionaires' tax are business owners--the very people who need the money to hire the workers to put the economy back in good shape.

When Senator Lindsey Graham asked Defense Secretary Panetta: Wouldn't sequestration be like shooting ourselves in the foot, he said: No, Senator, it would be like shooting ourselves in the head.

I submit that raising taxes on the exact people to whom we are looking to create jobs is the same thing. That is the reason Republicans have said that is the wrong way to come up with this $109 billion.

The whole idea of the Budget Control Act was to control spending, not to raise taxes. Since there are so many ways in which this government's $3 trillion-plus budget can save money, I don't think we have to turn to something that would itself have a negative impact on economic growth; namely, raising taxes. So that has been the reason this hasn't been taken up.

One side insists we have to raise taxes in order to deal with this sequestration problem. The other side says: No, we don't have to do that at all. Let's sit down and work together and find a resolution for this problem, and let's get it done before the end of the year. At that point it is too late for a lot of people who will have lost their jobs.

By the way, some of these industry people have told us some of the sole-source suppliers or subcontractors would probably end up taking bankruptcy because their orders could not be filled due to the uncertainty that a contract was there. So we could have a great deal of damage to the economy.

In fact, the estimate is--if sequestration or across-the-board cuts occur--in the Defense industry alone we are talking about 1 million jobs lost. Remember how many jobs were created last month? I think it was 69,000 jobs were created last month. Compare that to losing 1 million jobs, and you can see the significance of what the Congressional Budget Office was talking about. This is a fiscal cliff.

We cannot allow sequestration to occur, and we cannot allow these big tax increases to occur without understanding the damage that will do to the economy. They said it is going to put us back in a recession. That is before the report they just released on the increasing debt burden of this country.

So, Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, the evidence is here. Leaders such as former President Clinton and economist Larry Summers and, of course, many other economists have said the best thing to do is to keep the tax rates where they are. Don't raise them. Resolve this sequestration issue so we don't have that hanging over our heads, and then look for other ways to boost job growth and economic productivity. That is the way to get out of the recession. That is the way to help families. Ironically, at the end of the day, a growing economy, producing more wealth, produces more tax revenues for the Federal Government, and that helps us deal with the big debt we have accumulated.

So I think everybody agrees economic growth is ultimately the best way to get out of the government's fiscal problem. But it also, of course, is precisely the way for businesses and families to prosper.

I hope colleagues in both the House and Senate--both Democrats and Republicans--can see their way clear to respond to this crisis--this utterly predictable crisis--and to deal with this problem sooner rather than later, exercising the courage our constituents would like to have us exercise and thereby representing them in the way they deserve to be represented.

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