Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask that my time be taken from the minority side when it comes to the 30-minute allocation.

Mr. President, I stand up in support of my friend and colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman. We were able to get passed a piece of legislation, through an amendment on the supplemental bill, that is directly on point regarding the pending court case, the subject matter of which is releasing additional detainee photos of past abuse.

The President has looked at these photos, and we all understand that it is more of the same--that the photos in question came from American troops' cameras, who were engaged in inappropriate activity. Disciplinary action has been taken where appropriate, and nothing new is to be learned. There is no new evidence of crimes by people who have yet to be dealt with.

It would, as my friend from Connecticut said, be voyeurism for the sake of voyeurism. The photos are offensive but no different than what we have already seen.

The reason we are here supporting this legislation and supporting the President is because, as Senator Lieberman said, the consequences of releasing the photos are not a mystery. Americans are going to die.

I just got back from a trip to North Africa, Morocco, and Algeria, and I went to Greece. Every embassy very much was worried about what would happen to Americans if these photos were released. They were preparing to be, quite frankly, under siege.

As Senator Lieberman indicated in the Miami Herald article, when Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq was informed these additional photos may be released, another tranche of photos coming out about detainee abuse, according to American military officials involved, he went pale in the face and uttered the phrase: ``Baghdad will burn.''

To those who are arguing for the release of the photos, I do not question their patriotism, I do not question their motives. I question their judgment. To our House and Senate colleagues who are in conference, please understand that Senator Lieberman, myself, and I think the vast majority of our Senate colleagues--we did not take a recorded vote--believe this is a life-and-death matter. I believe that to release the photos would result in certain death and attack against American interests abroad, particularly against the diplomatic corps and our men and women serving abroad, and no higher purpose would be achieved here at home.

We made compromises in the legislation, but we did not destroy the intent of the legislation. And for the courts that may listen to try to discern the legislative intent, the intent by both authors was to make sure that the photos subject to the pending litigation were never released and Congress weighed in and agreed with the President's decision not to release those photos. We have changed the law, directly on point, to give legislative backing to the idea that these particular photographs, and those like these photographs, should not be released for a period of 3 years, and that is in our national security interests to do so.

I hope the courts will understand what we were trying to do and what we actually did.

To our House and Senate colleagues trying to find compromises on the supplemental legislation, please understand the purpose of this amendment, how important it is to the war effort, why the President is in support of the amendment. He is making a very responsible decision as Commander in Chief. I applaud him for doing that. This language needs to stay as is, intact. Again, it is a matter of life and death. And if for some reason it came out, it would be a disaster--because the court case is pending now--if it came out, please understand that there will be nothing done in the Senate for as long as I am here and Senator Lieberman is here that would not have this amendment attached. You could not name a post office without this amendment. It is not going away.

I thank my colleague from Arkansas for her courtesies.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, today I ask the Senate to join me in recognizing Mayor Harry M. Hallman, Jr., on the occasion of his retirement as mayor of Mount Pleasant, SC. Mayor Hallman is a dedicated public servant and his work has earned our gratitude and appreciation.

It was with much personal and professional sadness that he recently announced he would have to relinquish his position as the mayor of one of South Carolina's largest municipalities as he continues his personal battle with Alzheimer's.

In an address to the residents of Mount Pleasant, the mayor made clear this was a difficult decision. He could have stayed in office and carried on. But Mayor Hallman felt he could no longer meet the high standard he had set for himself of being ``effective.''

As Mayor Hallman said in his resignation, ``To me, being `effective' means `excellence'. I realize now that I am not meeting my personal definition of `effective.' This Town deserves only the best from its leadership. Half way will not do for my Town.''

His resignation was the mark of a true public servant willing to put the interests of the town he loves above his own personal interests.

Mayor Hallman has compiled a long and distinguished career of service in public office and private life.

After being elected to the office of mayor in September of 2000, Mayor Hallman spent nearly two terms in office growing his town and improving its assets. He will be remembered as a mayor who instituted infrastructure projects that helped change the face of Mount Pleasant. After only 3 years under his service, the town saw over $150 million worth of road improvements and city development. Additionally, he helped secure Federal and State moneys for a newly debuted farmer's market venue and a waterfront park for public use.

During his time as mayor of Mount Pleasant, Mr. Hallman chaired the Police, Legal and Judicial Committee and the Transportation Committee. He also served on the Water Supply Committee and as an ex-officio member of the Mount Pleasant Waterworks Commission, the Patriots Point Authority, and the Charleston Aviation Authority.

In 1988, Mayor Hallman was elected to serve in the South Carolina House of Representatives. While in office, he chaired the Charleston County Legislative Delegation as well as the State House Committee, which was responsible for overseeing the $78 million renovation of the South Carolina State House. He also offered his skills on the Joint Bond Review Committee, and the State Development Board.

Born and raised in South Carolina, Mayor Hallman took great pride in seeing his State develop from corner to corner. As the son of a retired oil executive and a stock market investor in Greenwood, SC, he grew up to appreciate all that the State has to offer. He was a 1958 graduate of the University of South Carolina, where he finished with a degree in business administration. Years later he was awarded an honorary doctor of humanity letters degree from the University of Charleston.

As a distinguished member of the State community, Mayor Hallman was often asked to participate in the development of multiple health and educational improvements and expansions. He served on the University Study Committee as their chairman, as well as the Low Country Graduate Advisory Board. Mayor Hallman chaired the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and served as treasurer for Charleston Memorial Hospital. His dedication to all aspects of life in South Carolina was broad in scope and great in impact.

A devoted citizen, Mayor Hallman formally retired on May 20, 2009, as a revered member of the Mount Pleasant and South Carolina community. His leadership and his commitment to our State will be forever marked by his extraordinary vision and endless sacrifice. Throughout his entire career and to this day, Mayor Hallman has served as a model to those around him.

Along with his wife Shirley ``Brooke'' Hallman, who has stood next to him with unwavering loyalty and shared sacrifice, he celebrates his retirement with his three children and six grandchildren. I thank him for his service and wish him the very best in his retirement.

I ask that the Senate join me in honoring him for his lifelong career of service and also send along our best wishes to him and his family as he continues his battle.

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

Thank you, Mr. President.

No. 1, I would like to associate myself with the comments of the minority leader about Guantanamo Bay. It is a location that does protect our national interests in terms of a location. It is probably the best run military prison in the world. I have been there several times.

To the guard force and those who are serving at Guantanamo Bay, in many ways, you are the unsung heroes in this war because it is tough duty. You have to go through a lot to be a member of the Guantanamo Bay guard team.

They do a wonderful job. It is a very Geneva Conventions-compliant jail, and there are some pretty bad characters down there who make life miserable for our guard force. But those who serve at Guantanamo Bay do so with dignity and professionalism. Their motto, I believe, is ``honor bound.'' That certainly reflects upon them well.

The idea of the Congress saying we want to plan before we appropriate money to close Guantanamo Bay makes a lot of sense to me. We see a bipartisan movement here to make sure we know what we are going to do with the detainees who are housed at Guantanamo Bay. The American people should be rightly concerned about how we dispose of these prisoners. Quite frankly, they are not common criminals accused of robbing a liquor store; they are accused of being a member of al-Qaida or allied groups that have taken up arms against the United States. Their mission and their purpose is to destroy our way of life and to put our allies and friends in the Mideast into the dark ages. So if you do not want to go back to the dark ages in terms of humanity; if you want young girls to grow up without having acid thrown in their face; if you want a young woman to be able to have a say about the future of her children in the Mideast, then we need to come up with a rational policy regarding fighting al-Qaida and, once we catch them, how to dispose of their cases and make sure they are not only fairly treated but their mission and their goals are defeated and they do not return to the fight.

We have seen in Iraq that there are Muslim populations that do not want to be part of the al-Qaida agenda. Al-Qaida followed us to Iraq because they understood if we were successful there in creating a democracy in the heart of the Mideast, it would be a threat to their agenda. Iraq has a way to go, but I am very proud of the Iraqi people. They have come together. They are making political reconciliations. Their army and police forces are getting stronger. The story of the surge is that the Iraqi people joined with our forces and coalition forces and delivered a mighty blow against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida is, quite frankly, in the process of being defeated by the Iraqi people with our help. Now the fight goes to Pakistan and Afghanistan. I cannot think of a more noble cause than to take up arms and fight back against these terrorists who wish the world ill, who will do anything in the name of their religion to have their way, and who would make life miserable for parts of this world and eventually make life miserable for us.

Imagine a caliphate being established in Baghdad, which was their plan, to put the Mideast in constant turmoil. We would not be able to travel freely in this world. We could not interact or do business with the people in the Mideast. It is a very oil-rich region, so it is in our national security interests to stand with moderate people in the Mideast and other places where al-Qaida attempts to take over, and fight back. But when we fight back, we don't have to be like them. Quite frankly, if we are like them when we fight back, we will lose.

This is an ideological struggle. There is no capital to conquer. There is no navy to sink or air force to shoot down. We cannot kill enough of the terrorists to win the war. What we have to do is contain them, fight them, and empower those who live in the region who want to live in a different way, give them the capacity to defend themselves and bring about a stable life in their countries. That is what we are trying to do in Iraq. If we win in Iraq, we will have a democracy in the heart of the Arab world that will be an ally to this country in perpetuity. We will have replaced a dictator named Saddam Hussein, and we will have a place where we can show the world that there are Muslims who do not want to be governed by the al-Qaida agenda, and to me that is a major win in the war on terror. Now we are in Afghanistan. We have lost ground, but we are about to recapture that ground from the Taliban, which are al-Qaida sympathizers and, quite frankly, allowed them to operate in Afghanistan late in the last century and early in this century to plan the attacks of 9/11.

So that is why we are fighting. That is why we are in this discussion. That is why we are concerned about releasing these prisoners within the United States, and that is why we are concerned about Guantanamo Bay. We have every right and reason to be concerned as to how we move forward.

I want to move forward. We need a plan to move forward. We should not close Guantanamo Bay until we have a comprehensive, detailed, legal strategy as to what we will do with these prisoners. Where we put them is only possible if people know what we will do with them. So we have to explain to the American people and our allies the disposition plan. What are we going to do with these detainees? Then where you put them becomes possible. Without what to do, we are never going to find where to put them.

I do believe the President and our military commanders are right when they say it is time to start over. It is a shame we are having to start over, because Guantanamo Bay is a well-run jail. But as I mentioned before, this ideological struggle we are engaged in, the enemy has seized upon the abuses at Abu Ghraib, the mistakes at Guantanamo Bay, and they use that to our detriment. They inflame populations in the Mideast based on our past mistakes. Our commanders have told me to a person that if we could start over with detention policy and show the world that we have a new way of doing business--a better way of doing business--it would improve the ability of our troops to operate in the regions in question where the conflict exists; it would undercut the enemy; it would help our allies be more helpful to us. Our British friends are the best friends we could hope to have, and they have had a hard time with our detainee policy. So we have every reason in the world to want to start over, but the Congress is right not to allow us to start over until we have a plan. The Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, is absolutely right to keep Guantanamo Bay open until we have a complete plan. I do believe this President understands how to move forward with Guantanamo Bay.

The best way to move forward, in my opinion, is to collaborate with the Congress, to look at the military commission system, which I think is the proper venue to dispose of any war crimes trials. Remember, these people we are talking about have been accused of taking up arms against the United States. They are noncitizen, enemy combatants who represent a military threat. Military commissions have been used to try people such as this for hundreds of years. We did trials with German saboteurs who landed on the east coast of the United States for the purpose of sabotaging our industries. They were captured and tried in military commissions. So there is nothing new about the idea of a military commission being used against an enemy force.

I do think the President is right to reform the current commission. I, along with Senator McCain, Senator Warner, and others--Senator Levin particularly--had a bill that set up a military commission process that received complete Democratic support on the Armed Services Committee, and four Republicans. I think that document is worth going back to. The ideas the President has put on the table about reforming the commission, quite frankly, make a lot of sense to me.

So we do need to move forward. We do need to start over. If we could start over with a new detention policy that is comprehensive, it would help our war effort, it would help operations in the countries in question and in the

Mideast at large, and it would repair damage with our allies. Quite frankly, we have lost a lot of court decisions. It would give us a better chance to win in court.

What do I mean by starting over? Come up with a disposition plan that understands that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay represent a military threat and apply the law of armed conflict in their cases. That means we have to treat them humanely. The Geneva Conventions now apply to detainees under Common Article 3 held at Guantanamo Bay based on a 2006 Supreme Court decision. We are bound by that convention because we are the leader of the convention. We have signed up to the convention. As a military lawyer for 25 years, I hold the Geneva Conventions near and dear to my heart, as every military member does, because it will provide protections to our troops in future wars. Yes, I know al-Qaida will not abide by the conventions but, quite frankly, that is no excuse for us to abandon what we believe in. When you capture an enemy prisoner, it becomes about you, not them. They don't deserve much, but we have to be Americans to win this war. There are plenty people in this world who would cut your head off without a trial. I want to show the world a better way. How we dispose of these prisoners can help us in the overall ideological struggle.

What I am proposing is that we come up with a comprehensive plan that will reform the military commissions and that the President come back to the Congress and we have another shot at the commissions to make them more due process friendly but we realize that the people we are trying are accused of war crimes and we apply the law of armed conflict.

I have been a military lawyer, as I said, for 25 years. The judges and the jurors and the lawyers who administer justice in a military commission setting are the same people who administer justice to our own troops. It is a great legal forum. You have rights in the military legal system. You get free legal counsel. Usually cost is not an object. The men and women who wear the uniform who serve as judge advocates take a lot of pride in their job. They are great Americans. They are great officers. They believe in justice. We have seen verdicts, and the few verdicts we have had at Guantanamo Bay indicate that our juries are rational. Our military jurors do hold the prosecution to the standards of proof and they balance the interests of all parties. As I say, I have never been more impressed with the legal system than within our military justice system. Military commissions need to be as much like a court-martial as possible, but practicality dictates some differences.

The one thing this body needs to understand is that it is illegal under the Geneva Conventions to try an enemy prisoner in civilian court. Why is that? You are afraid that civilian justice, jurors and judges, will have revenge on their mind. They are not covered by the Geneva Conventions. Participants in a military commission are covered by the convention--every lawyer, every judge, every juror. They have an obligation to hold to the tenets of the convention and any misconduct on their part in a trial could actually result in prosecution to them or disciplinary action, and that would not be true in the legal world. So having these trials in a military commission setting is the proper venue because they are accused of war crimes. Having the trials in military commissions is consistent with the Geneva Conventions. It is a world-class justice system. Quite frankly, it is the best place to balance our national security interests.

But to the hard part. We can do that. We can reform the commissions. Some of these detainees can be repatriated back to third countries in a way I think is rational and will not hurt our national security interests. But there is going to be a group of detainees--maybe half or more--where the evidence is sound and certain that they are a member of al-Qaida, but it is not of the type that you would want to go to a criminal trial with. It may have third country intelligence service information where the third country would not participate in a criminal trial because it would compromise their operations. Some type of evidence would be such that you would not disclose it in a criminal trial because it would compromise national security. You have to remember, when you try someone criminally, you have to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. You have to share the evidence with the defendant. You have to go through the rigors of a criminal prosecution. Under a military commission people are presumed innocent, and that is the way it should be. But I want America to understand that we are not charging everyone as a war criminal; we are making the accusation that you are a member of al-Qaida. In military law what you have to do if you are accusing someone of being part of the enemy force is prove by a preponderance of the evidence that you are, in fact, a part of the enemy force.

So what I would propose is to set up a hybrid system. For every detainee once determined to be an enemy combatant by our military or CIA, there will be a process to do that, a combat status review tribunal, and we need to improve that process--but you run each detainee through that process and if the military labels them as an unlawful enemy combatant, a member of al-Qaida, then we will do something we have never done in any other war, and that is allow that detainee to go into Federal court.

Under article 5 of the Geneva Conventions, status decisions are made by the military, not by civilian judges. It is usually done by an independent member of the military in an administrative setting. These are administrative hearings. But this war is different. There will never be an end to this war. We will never have a signing on the Missouri as we did in World War II. I realize that. An enemy combatant determination could be a de facto life sentence. So I am willing to build in more due process to accommodate the nature of this war.

What I have proposed is that every detainee determined to be an enemy combatant by our military would go to a group of military judges with uniform standards where the Government would have to prove to an independent judiciary by a preponderance of the evidence that the person is, in fact, an enemy combatant, and if our civilian judges who are trained in reviewing evidence agree with the military, that person can be kept off the battlefield as long as there is a military threat. About 12 percent of the detainees released from Guantanamo Bay have gone back to the fight. The No. 2 al-Qaida operative in Somalia is a former Gitmo detainee. It is true we put people in Gitmo, in my opinion, where the net was cast too large and they were not properly identified. You are going to make mistakes. What I want to do is have a process that our Nation can be proud of: transparent, robust due process, an independent judiciary checking and balancing the military, but never losing sight that the goal is to make sure that the determination of enemy combatant is well founded and, if it is, not to release people back to the fight knowing they are going to go back and kill Americans. That doesn't make us a better nation, to have a process where you have to let people go when the evidence is sound and clear they are going to go back to the fight. That does not make us a better people. You do not have to do that under the law of armed conflict. Let's come up with a new system that will give every detainee a full and fair hearing in Federal court. If they are tried for war crimes, put them in a new military commission, and every verdict would be appealed to civilian judges. Let the trials be transparent. Balance national security against due process. But never lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with people who have taken up arms against the United States. Some of them are so radical and their hearts have been hardened so much, they are so hate-filled, it would be a disaster to this country and the world at large to let them go in the condition that exists today.

Where to put them. Mr. President, 400,000 German and Japanese prisoners were housed in the United States during World War II, and 15 to 20 percent, according to the historical record, were hardened Nazis. A hardened Nazi is at the top of the pecking order when it comes to mass murder. The idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational. We have done this before. They are not 10 feet tall.

It is my belief that you need a plan before you close Gitmo, and when you look at a new facility, it needs to be run by the military because under the Geneva Conventions you cannot house enemy prisoners in civilian jails.

I look forward to working with the President of the United States to start over, but we need a plan to start over--a plan to try these people, consistent with the law of armed conflict, in a military commission that is reformed, that will administer justice fairly and balanced and will realize that these people present a military threat. We need a system to allow for keeping the detainees off of the battlefield--who are committed jihadists--that will allow them to have their day in court with an independent judiciary but also will allow a process that will keep them off the battlefield as long as they are dangerous. If the judges agree with the military on the enemy combatant, you should have an annual review process to determine whether they present a military threat. No one should be held without a pathway forward, but no one should be released because you think this is a crime we are dealing with.

If you criminalize this war and do not use the law of armed conflict, you are going to make a huge mistake. There are countries that have terror suspects in jail right now that are about to have to release them because under criminal law you cannot hold them indefinitely. Under military law, you can hold the enemy force off the battlefield if they are properly identified as part of that force, as part of the military threat. That has been the law for hundreds of years, and it ought to be the law we apply. Where we put them is important, but what we do with them is more important, how we try them and detain them.

We have a chance to show the world that there is a better way, a chance to showcase our values. Yes, give them lawyers and put the evidence against them under scrutiny. Put burdens on ourselves, make us prove the case--not just say it is so, prove it in a court that is appropriate for the venue we are talking about, appropriate for the decisions we are about to make. Put that burden on us, and treat them humanely because that is the way we are. That may not be the way they are, but that is the way we are. That makes us better than they. The fact that we will do all these things and they won't is a strength of this Nation, not a weakness. Some people in the past have lost sight of that. The fact that we give them lawyers and a trial based on the evidence, not prejudice and passion, makes us stronger.

We will find a better way to do what we have been doing in the past. We will find a way to close Gitmo, and we will come up with a new plan because we are Americans and we are committed to our value system and committed to beating this enemy.

I look forward to working with the Members of this body to come up with a comprehensive disposition plan that will find a new way to try these people, a new process to hold them off the battlefield, and always operating within our values, which will allow our commanders the chance to start over in the region. Every military commander I have talked to said it would be beneficial to this country to start over with detainee policy. They also understand that we are at war and we need to have a national security system.

As to where we put them, there were six prison camps in South Carolina during World War II. There is a brig near the city of Charleston, a naval brig. It is not the location, because it is near a population center. The place I have in mind is an isolated part of the United States--if necessary--that will be run by the military, with a secure perimeter, that will be operating within the Geneva Conventions requirement, that will have a justice system attached to it, that will be transparent and open where we can administer justice and reattach our Nation to the values we hold so dear.

Part of war is capturing prisoners. That is part of war. We know what the other side does when they capture a prisoner. Let the world know that America has a better way, a way that will not only make us safe but help us win this war.

In conclusion, the goal of this effort to start over is to undermine the enemy's propaganda that has been used against us because of our past mistakes, allow our allies to come join us in a new way forward, and protect us against a vicious enemy that needs to be held off the battlefield, maybe forever. Some of these people are literally going to die in jail, and that is OK with me because I think the evidence suggests that if we ever let them out, they would go back to killing Americans, our friends, and our allies. I will not shed a tear. The way to avoid getting killed or going to jail forever is, not to join al- Qaida. If you have made that decision to do so, let it be said that this Nation is going to stand up to you and fight back, within our value system. Some of these people will never see the light of day, and that is the right decision. Some of them can be released.

Let's have a process that understands what we are trying to do as a nation. Make sure it is national security oriented, make sure it is within our value system but also that everything we do is as a result of a nation that has been attacked by these people. They have not robbed a liquor store; they have tried to destroy our way of life. The legal system I am proposing recognizes that distinction.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I call up the Lieberman-Graham amendment No. 1157.

Madam President, I will talk about the amendment, if I may.

Madam President, I wished to thank Senator Lieberman for his leadership on this issue. We have been working together on what I think is a very big deal for the American people in the overall war effort. As many of you know, particularly our colleagues and the public at large, we have had a discussion in this Nation about whether we should release more

photos showing detainee abuse in the past.

The President of the United States has decided to stand for the proposition that releasing these photos would jeopardize the safety of our men and women serving overseas and Americans abroad, as well as civilians serving in the war zones. He has indicated the photos don't add anything to the past debate about detainee abuse. They are more of the same. No new person is implicated. These photos, again, were taken by our own folks, detailing abuse, and a lot of that has been dealt with already and prosecuted.

The President, I think rightfully, has determined, after consulting with his combat commanders, that if we release these photos, it would not help us understand any more about detainee problems in the past than we already know. But it would be a tremendous benefit to the enemy. The enemy used these photos in the past to generate resentment against our troops. It has been a propaganda tool. The President is rightfully concerned that to release more photos would add nothing to the overall knowledge base we have regarding detainee abuse, and it is simply going to put American lives in jeopardy. I applaud the President, who stood for our troops and men and women and the civil servants overseas.

There are a lot of mysteries in this world, but there is no mystery on what would happen if we release those photos. I can tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if these photos get into the public domain, they will inflame populations where our troops are serving overseas and increase violence against our troops.

What we have done--Senator Lieberman and myself--is we came up with an amendment that addresses the lawsuit before our judicial system about the photos. This amendment says any detainee photos that are certified by the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with others, that would result in harm to our men and women serving overseas, jeopardize the war effort, and put our troops in harm's way, with Presidential approval, those photos cannot be released for a 5-year period of time. To me, that is a reasonable compromise. It doesn't change FOIA, in its basic construct, but it provides congressional support to the President's decision that we should not release these photos.

Senator Lieberman and myself have been to the theater of operations many times. We have met with al-Qaida operatives who have switched sides, basically, and they have told us firsthand how at prison camps in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib photos were used in the past to recruit new members to al-Qaida and generate resentment against our troops.

I applaud the President. This legislation will help the administration in court. I thank Senator Lieberman, who, above all else, puts his country and the security of our men and women ahead of any political calculation. For that, I very much appreciate his leadership and his friendship. I wish to recognize what he did.

Madam President, here is a closing thought. The President understands very well, and I know Senator Lieberman does, and I think we all understand we have some damage to repair. We have made mistakes in this war. Detainee operations are essential in every war. Part of war is to capture prisoners and how you dispose of them can help or hurt the war effort. There have been times in the past where detainee operations have hurt the war effort. We need to start over. That is why we need to look at a new system to replace the one we have regarding military commissions--but keep it in the military setting--and a way to start over with basic detainee operations in a comprehensive manner. But in repairing the damage of the past, you have to make sure you are not creating future damage. If you release these photos, you will not repair damage from the past, and you will not bring somebody to justice that is in these photos whom we already don't know about. There will not be a new person named. It is more of the same. So it doesn't contribute to repairing the damage of the past, but it sure does create damage for the future.

The one fact I am very aware of is that the young men and women serving overseas today--soldiers, military members, and civilians--have done nothing wrong. They should not pay a price for the people who did something wrong in the past whom we already know about.

If you release these photos, Americans are going to get killed for no good reason. That is why we need to pass this amendment--to help the President defeat this lawsuit that would lead to violence against Americans who are doing their job and have done nothing wrong. They should not be punished for something somebody has done in the past, which has already been addressed.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, it is my understanding that there is an agreement we can bring up the amendment at this time. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 1157 on behalf of Senator Lieberman, myself, and Senator McCain.

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

Madam President, Senator Lieberman and I have already explained the need for this amendment. It will help the President win a lawsuit that is moving through our legal system regarding the release of photos of past detainee abuse. As I said, that will not help us to learn more, and it will only put American lives at risk, as the commanders have told the President. The Senate can avoid that by passing this targeted amendment.

I hope we can get a large vote for this amendment.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I appreciate what the Senator from Texas has been saying. This issue of what to do with the Guantanamo Bay detainees is a central issue for the Nation and the overall war on terror, because the President is looking for partners. He keeps saying that. I stand ready to be a partner. The best-run jail in the world where they are now is Guantanamo Bay. I have been there many times. The men and women who are working in that prison are doing an outstanding job. They follow the rules. It is a model military prison. It is tough duty. What they go through every day you probably don't realize, and we can't tell you at all, but it is tough duty. Anyone serving down there is doing the country a great service.

Having said that, I understand the need to change the image of the country. I have been one of the Republicans--a military lawyer for 25 years--who understands the way we conduct this war determines whether we will win it. The high ground in military operations is usually a physical location. When you are in a battle or a war, you try to get the high ground, because that is the best place to fight the enemy from. In this war, it is an ideological struggle, so the high ground is the moral high ground. It does matter what we do.

My goal for America is to be the best we can be. Our enemies--al- Qaida and other groups--are some of the most barbaric people in the history of the world. But here is what it comes down to. When we capture one of them, it becomes about us. They will cut people's heads off in the most brutal fashion, abuse and humiliate people. They don't give trials. They are not reasoned. They are barbarians. The fact that we choose a different way is not a weakness, it is a strength. Trust me, if we are going to lead the world to a better way, we need to show the world a better way. And there is a better way.

In World War II, we had thousands--350,000, I think--of German and Japanese prisoners housed in the United States, Nazis and Japanese prisoners committed to our destruction. We held them here under our value system, under the Geneva Conventions, in communities all over America. The Nazis and the Japanese were a tough crowd. When those prisoners were released, those who were released, they went back to their country with a view of America that helped us form the modern Japan and Germany.

Some of the people we are talking about at Guantanamo Bay are subject to war crimes trials. So I am urging the President to leave on the table the military commission option. We can reform it, but let's not criminalize this war. They are not accused of robbing a liquor store. These are not common criminals.

Under domestic criminal law, you cannot hold someone forever without a trial, nor should you. But under the law of armed conflict, if you catch a member of the enemy force, you can keep them off the battlefield as long as they present a danger. That has been military law forever.

I believe we would be better off if we look at the people who are members of al-Qaida at Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants, part of an unorganized militia, military organization bent on our destruction, and they are a part of the enemy force, not some common criminal. We can keep them off the battlefield as long as necessary, but we have to do it within our value system.

I am urging the President that if someone at Guantanamo Bay is subject to a war crimes trial, let's don't go to Federal court, as we did with the blind sheik trial in the nineties, which was a disaster. Let's put them in a military tribunal and give them justice through the military legal system of which I have been a part for 25 years.

I can tell America one thing: The judges, the lawyers, and the jurors who wear the uniform of the United States are the best among us. These are the same people who administer justice to our own troops. It is a great place to conduct a trial because we can do things for national security in a military setting that we cannot do in Federal court. But I can assure you, justice will be rendered and people will be treated fairly. The courts-martial we have had, the commission trials we have had at Guantanamo Bay, we have seen sentences that make sense.

I have been a part of the military all my adult life. The jurors take their responsibilities extremely seriously. They hold the Government to their burden of proof. And the judges and the lawyers are outstanding.

There will be a group of people who will not be subject to war crimes trials because of the nature of the evidence, because of the unique relationship we may have between the evidence and an ally, that we are not going to subject that evidence to a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, but we know with certainty, beyond a preponderance of the evidence, that this person is a member of a terrorist organization and is engaged in dangerous activities and likely to do that in the future.

What I am arguing to the administration, proposing to them, is those people we think are too dangerous to let go, let's create a national security court made up of Federal judges, somebody out of the military, who will look over the military shoulder and see if the evidence warrants an enemy combatant designation. That way, we will have an independent judiciary validating the fact that the person in custody is part of an enemy force, a danger to this country, and then have a periodic review of that person's status so they are not left in legal limbo. They will have a chance every year to make their case anew.

We have to realize that we have released more people from Guantanamo Bay than we have in detention and we have put people in Guantanamo Bay who were there by mistake. That is a fact. We threw the net too large. That happened.

Let me tell you what else has happened. Mr. President, 1 in 10 we let go has gone back to the fight. The No. 2 al-Qaida operative in Somalia was a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. We had a suicide bomber in Iraq blow himself up who was at Guantanamo Bay. We are going to make mistakes, but I want a process to limit those mistakes as much as possible.

I end with this thought. How we do this is important. We can close Guantanamo Bay and repair our image, but we have to have a legal system that has robust due process, that is transparent, that is independent, but recognizes we are at war. And that takes us to the Uyghurs.

There is a group of people in our custody whom we caught in Afghanistan who are part of a separatist movement in China. They are Muslims. They were training in Afghanistan to go back to China to take on the Chinese Government. They have been determined to no longer be enemy combatants in terms of a threat from the al-Qaida perspective, but what to do with the Uyghurs.

One thing I suggest to the President is that you cannot change immigration law. Our laws prevent a known terrorist from being released in our country. These people have engaged in terrorist activities. Their goal was to go back to China, not to come here. But there are press reports that one of the Uyghurs was allowed to look at TV and saw a woman not properly clothed and destroyed the television. We have to make sure that, one, we follow our own laws, and the fact they were going to go back to China does not mean they are safe to release here because they have been radicalized.

We have to make some hard decisions as a nation. I stand ready with the President and my Democratic colleagues to close Guantanamo Bay, but we do need a plan. We need a legal system of which we can be proud that will protect us.

The final comment is that the idea of releasing more photos showing detainee abuse is not in our national interest. We have men and women serving overseas. It will inflame the populations. It will be used by our enemies. I urge the administration to take that case all the way to the Supreme Court and protect our troops in the field.

I understand the President's dilemma and challenge. Harsh interrogation techniques have hurt this country more than they have helped. We can be a nation that abides by the Geneva Conventions, rule of law--we have been that way for a long time--and still defend ourselves. I agree with the President there. But I do believe we need a detainee policy that understands that the people we are talking about are not run-of-the-mill criminals. They are committed terrorists, and I don't say that lightly. The only way that label should stick under the system I am proposing is if an independent judiciary validates that decision. That is the best we can do.

This decision we are going to make as a nation is important. I tried to speak my mind and be balanced. There is a way for us to work together to get this right. I look forward to working with the administration to make some of the most difficult decisions in American history. I am confident we can do it if we work together.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask my fellow colleagues to join me in honoring the memory of a dedicated servant and leader, Milford June ``Dolly'' Cooper. After a lifetime of unprecedented service to his State and Nation as a World War II veteran and a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, Mr. Cooper passed away in Greenville, SC, on April 26, 2009, at the age of 88.

While he will be remembered by most as a man who loved to help people and demonstrated an unwavering dedication to the community, I will remember him as a spirited, commanding, honest giant of a man. Affectionately referred to as ``Dolly'' by all who knew him, he was a World War II veteran who prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our freedom. He served in the 30th Infantry Division and saw 11 months of combat in Europe, at Normandy, at the Battle of the Bulge, and at the Rhine River. He was also involved with the capture of the last large German city, Madgeburg, which was 45 miles from Berlin. For his service he was awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, American Defense Silver Medal, the Combat Infantry Badge, and the Belgian Forragere Award.

Perhaps one of my greatest honors was to see that Mr. Cooper was in person at the dedication of the National D-day Memorial on June 6, 2001. This memorial is a tribute to Mr. Cooper's valor, fidelity, and sacrifice, and those who served along side him during the allied invasion of Western Europe.

Born and raised in upstate South Carolina, Mr. Cooper attended Piedmont High School in 1937 and joined the South Carolina National Guard in Easley. After his service in the military, Mr. Cooper opened the Piedmont Economy Store, which he solely owned and operated from 1955 to 1999.

In 1974 he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives on a platform of bringing health care services to rural South Carolina. Mr. Cooper served House District 10 for 16 years.

In addition to his time in politics, Mr. Cooper was active in the Pelzer Lions Club for 55 years. He was member of the Medical University of South Carolina Board of Trustees from 1989 to 1996. Mr. Cooper also served as a board member for the Pelzer Rescue Squad, the Appalachian Health Council, and the Baptist Hospital Boards for Easley and Columbia. After decades of serving South Carolina, Mr. Cooper was awarded the Order of the Palmetto from Governor Carroll Campbell in 1989.

Mr. Cooper is survived by his wife of 61 years, Melba Blackmon Cooper, by his four children, six grandchildren, and three great- grandchildren.

I ask that the U.S. Senate join me in commemorating Mr. Cooper's lifelong dedication to service to our country and to the State of South Carolina.

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

Madam President, could you inform me when 10 minutes has expired?

I thank the Chair.

I rise today to speak about the budget and the debate we are having in the Senate about the budget. Quite frankly, if you asked me to give a scenario that would best explain what a politician thinks about life and politics, I would say: Let them write a budget. When you give a political leader the opportunity to sit down and spend money coming from the taxpayer, it tells you a lot about their priorities, it tells you a lot about how they view the role of Government. And I am here to say that this budget is not good news for the American taxpayer.

Today marks the anniversary of the President's first 100 days, and I think the biggest accomplishment in the first 100 is a budget that is transformational in terms of how it transforms the country in a way that I don't think is healthy.

The one thing we have had going for us as Americans, from one generation to the next, is the hope and belief that the ones to follow--our kids and grandkids--would have a chance to do better; that we would do what is right and what is necessary on our watch so they would have a chance to do better. If this budget passes, you are going to have a hard time looking the next generation of Americans in the eye and saying: You are going to have a chance to do better than people alive here today.

What this budget does is it doubles the national debt. President Obama's proposal, a 10-year budget--I will give him credit for making it a 10-year window--triples the national debt. This budget creates more debt for America in the first 100 days of the Obama administration than every President since George Washington combined. We have spent, in the first 100 days, $12 billion a day. We are running up the deficit and the debt at an alarming rate, and we are growing the size of the Government in a way that future generations are going to have to pay for.

The question for the country, if this budget passes, is this: Are we creating a government that is sustainable by the next generation? Can the next generation, with this budget in place, have a chance of doing better than we have? I don't think so. I really don't. And I never thought I would hear myself say that.

As we look down the road, we see how the budget explodes the national debt and the deficit--67 percent of the debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP. That is what happens under the Obama budget in 2014. This is a 5-year budget, and we have ignored some of the things we know we are going to do to make the numbers look better because the President's budget was so large and so unnerving in terms of long-term indebtedness.

The worst that Bush did--and we did not do a good job on our watch as Republicans--was to have a $500 billion deficit.

The best this budget does, 10 years from now, is about $600 billion, and we sustain trillion-dollar deficits for several years. But the percentage of publicly held debt relative to GDP, gross domestic product, is going to be 67 percent down the road. That is Third World nation status.

The budget is a 5-year budget. The numbers look better, but we have not done anything to fix the doctor reimbursement problem, the last 2 years of the AMT fix are not included, and we are expanding the Make Work Pay tax credit. What we have done is mask the real cost of what we know is going to be there after 5 years.

The budget that was proposed by the President triples the national debt and increases taxes by $1 trillion on people who make over $250,000 a year. That may sound good because I don't make $250,00 a year. Maybe 2 or 3 years of my entire life I have. I am the first person in my family to go to college. My dad and mom owned a liquor store. We had a middle-class lifestyle at best, but we were happy. I never looked across the street at the person who owned the big business in town and had the nice house as my enemy. They are not.

In a recession and a global economy that is on its knees, if we start raising taxes on American business people, they are going to look to take their business somewhere else. To go from 35 percent to 39.5 percent on people who earn over $250,000 is in theory more money for the Government, but it is less money for the people who have taken a huge risk to create a business. The day we start punishing people and rewarding the Government for the risks they take is the day America gets off track.

Raising the capital gains rates, as this budget does, from 15 to 20 percent, will make it less likely that people will engage in entrepreneurial activity. But one thing John Kennedy understood is, low tax rates generate business activities that actually generate more money for the Government. So what we are doing is raising taxes, and we are playing class warfare.

The defense spending in President Obama's budget over a 10-year period went to 3 percent of gross domestic product. It is about 4.5 or 4.6 percent now. That would put us on the low end, in the Nation's history, for defense spending. So liberals raise taxes, and they cut defense at a time when I think we can't afford to do either.

The world, to me, in the next 10 years is not going to be safer unless we act. Iran and North Korea are pursuing nuclear programs that could jeopardize our lives as we know it. The one thing I can tell you about Iraq and Afghanistan, we made plenty of mistakes, but we have the best trained, best equipped military in the world, and that really does matter. We are going to win in Iraq if we continue the course we are on, and we are going to turn Afghanistan around, but it is going to take blood and treasure.

The one thing I am not looking for from an American perspective is a fair fight. When we go to war--and sometimes that is required to protect the national interest--we need to go to win, and we need to overwhelm the enemy. We need to have technology they do not. We need to have more troops than they do. We need to have equipment that can destroy their equipment without destroying our people. That requires investment. The whole world is reducing their defense budgets.

Our NATO allies spend less on defense combined than we do. Like it or not, we are the arsenal of democracy, and now is not the time to reduce the arsenal and to be cheap on defense and grow the domestic side of Government. We need butter and we need guns, but let me tell you right now we need a lot of guns in the world we are about to inherit in the next 10 years.

Finally, the increase in domestic spending puts the country on an

unsustainable path, and the next generation is going to have to pay for this big government. To pay for it we are going to have to raise their taxes. To make it all work we are cutting defense.

There is a better way. Let's keep taxes competitive and as low as possible, realizing we have a government to run. Let's spend wisely. Let's reform health care so the Government doesn't become the one group in the country that decides what doctor we can see and what the doctor makes and what kind of treatment we get.

This climate change issue is real, in my opinion. I think manmade emissions, CO2 emissions, are heating up the planet. In the President's budget he was going to put a $646 billion cap-and-trade tax on industry and American consumers--$3,100 per family--at a time when we could ill afford it. That was taken out of the budget. That is good news. But what I am trying to say to my Democratic colleagues is, this is your Government now. You run this place. The problems in the past, the mistakes made by Republicans are real. You don't fix those mistakes by spending more money than we did. You don't fix the problems that America faces for the next generation by growing the Government at a pace and a level you can't pay for down the road unless you have to give up some of your hopes and dreams.

There is a role for Government. There is a role for us in health care. There is a role for us to play in the economy of our times: to help business and to be a safety net for those who have lost their jobs. But we are about to pass a budget that will increase the national debt, double what we have today. There will be a day in 2014 when we will spend more money paying the interest on the national debt than the entire Defense Department budget. That is not healthy for this country.

We have done nothing to reform Medicare or Social Security. We are talking about $1 trillion more in spending on health care when we spend more than any nation in the world.

We are going to pass this budget. It is my hope the American people will weigh in. The stimulus package was $787 billion of spending--a lot of growth in Government and very few jobs created. You need to speak out. You need to get involved. You need to tell us all, Republicans and Democrats: I expect you to collect taxes from me. I expect you to offer services to me and my family. But I do not expect you to make it so that my children and my grandchildren cannot have the life I have had. I expect you to do what I am doing, tighten your belt and set priorities.

This is your Government at the end of the day. It is fashionable and appropriate to criticize political leadership. But in a democracy, when you look in the mirror, that is ``we the people.'' So for America to change it is going to require Americans to demand it from both of us, Republicans and Democrats. I believe in you. Your Government is dysfunctional. It will be made better if you want it to be. There are people here listening. Speak out before it is too late.

Mr. President, I wish today to recognize and pay tribute to MG Daniel V. Wright, the Deputy Judge Advocate General of the Army, for his many years of exceptionally meritorious service to our country. General Wright will retire from the Army on May 29, 2009, having completed a distinguished 36-year military career. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his many contributions to our Nation and the legal profession, particularly during operations in support of the global war on terror.

Born on the Fourth of July in 1951, in Birmingham, AL, this great patriot grew up in Miami, FL. He graduated in 1973 from the United States Military Academy and was commissioned as an infantry officer. His initial assignment was to the 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, where he served as an infantry officer until 1977. He was then selected by the Army to attend law school through the Funded Legal Education Program and completed his legal studies at the University of Miami.

His career as a Judge Advocate spanned the globe and included the most challenging assignments. He quickly distinguished himself as an expert in operational law when he served as the first Regimental Judge Advocate for the 75th Ranger Regiment, America's premier rapid-reaction assault force. He later served as the legal adviser for the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, NC, where he participated in operations in Somalia and Haiti. As the Staff Judge Advocate for the U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, SETAF, in Vicenza, Italy, he twice deployed to central Africa as the Joint Task Force legal adviser in support of regional stabilization, refugee return, and noncombatant evacuation operations. From 1999 to 2001 he served as the Staff Judge Advocate for XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, where he advised the operational commander of over 85,000 soldiers worldwide.

Upon selection and promotion as a general officer in 2001, he assumed responsibilities as the Commander, U.S. Army Legal Services Agency, and Chief Judge, U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. His service included supervision of the Army's considerable litigation program, government and defense appellate programs, and Chief Judge of the Army's criminal appellate court.

In 2003, he was appointed the Assistant Judge Advocate General for Military Law and Operations, where he forged a cohesive team of experts who delivered legal advice across a wide range of disciplines including the establishment of the Office of Military Commissions, the evolving role of the law in judicial reconstruction and stability operations, and the significant growth of contractors as force multipliers.

General Wright was appointed Deputy Judge Advocate General on October 1, 2005, and promoted to the rank of major general. In this position he served as the principal assistant for the largest legal services corps within the Department of Defense, with more than 9,000 uniformed and civilian attorneys, paralegal NCOs, and civilian support staff across 651 offices in 19 countries. General Wright routinely advised the Judge Advocate General, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, and other senior military leaders on the most sensitive matters of policy, personnel, ethics, operational law, and military justice. His advice has been invaluable because it was built on decades of perspective, experience, and study, and was delivered with clarity and candor.

General Wright's awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, Army Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, and Humanitarian Service Medal. He has earned the Expert Infantryman's Badge, the Master Parachutist Badge, and the Ranger Tab.

I know all my colleagues join me in saluting MG Daniel V. Wright and his wife, Jan, his daughter Melissa, also an Army veteran, his daughter Katie, and his son Brian and his son Jeff, for the family's many years of truly outstanding service and support to the Judge Advocate General's Corps, the U.S. Army, and our great Nation.

Mr. President, our hearts go out to the people of North Myrtle Beach, SC, today. As you may know, North Myrtle Beach firefighters, along with firefighters from around South Carolina, are battling the worst wildfire to hit that area since 1976.

While the cause of the fire is unknown at this point, high winds have fanned the flames resulting in a total damage of nearly 15,000 acres-- 23 square miles. My understanding is that officials on the scene estimate that the wildfire is about 75 to 80 percent contained at this point which is good news. Ninety firefighters from eight different departments from across South Carolina are currently battling this blaze.

It is at times like these when you really appreciate the hard work that our firefighters do on our behalf. You also appreciate the dangers. I understand that last night, two of our South Carolina firefighters had to deploy their emergency fire shelters when they became surrounded by flames. Both, I am told, are unhurt.

At this point, no injuries or fatalities have been reported and we should be very thankful for that. However, many have lost their homes. Seventy homes have been destroyed with another 29 severely damaged. I expect that that number, unfortunately, will likely go up. Anyone who has ever lost a home to a fire understands the sense of terrible loss-- the loss of the house they grew up in and the loss of irreplaceable family heirlooms.

I want to thank North Myrtle Beach Mayor Marilyn Hatley, the Governor, his emergency management team, the Forestry Commission, the State Fire Marshall, the State national guard, the officials of Horry County, the South Carolina Red Cross, and the others who are pitching in right now to put out this fire. My understanding is that the Red Cross has shelters open in North Myrtle Beach and is housing several hundred people tonight.

I want to applaud our firefighters for always standing ready to answer the call to action. I pray that they accomplish their mission soon and come home safely to their families. And I pray for the families who have suffered devastating losses.

Mr. President, today I pay tribute to an outstanding military leader, public servant, true patriot, and citizen of Charleston, SC: MG Thomas L. Carter.

General Carter is currently the Mobilization Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, and on May 1, after nearly 35 years of distinguished and honorable service, General Carter will retire from the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

General Carter began his active duty service in 1975 after graduating from the ROTC program at Memphis State University. As an Air Force C- 141 pilot he flew over 4,000 hours performing missions in support of the U.S. Special Forces. He also had the distinction of serving as the Air Force Aide to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 to 1986, where he spent countless hours with the President ``carrying the football'' at the height of the Cold War. Following his active duty career, he served 23 years in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

General Carter's public service also extends to the Senate. From 1986 to 1989 he served as Assistant to the Republican Leader for National Security Affairs in the Office of Senator Robert Dole. His keen understanding of the Senate made him the leader's chief adviser on defense, foreign policy and veterans' affairs matters, and also resulted in his selection as a key member of Senator Dole's 1996 Presidential campaign.

General Carter's legislative prowess was so respected, that he left the Senate to assume the role of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Senate Affairs in 1989. In that capacity, he counseled the Department of Defense leadership and individual service executives on issues before Congress.

For 13 years, General Carter also served in the Secretary of Air Force's Office of Legislative Liaison, advising numerous Secretaries on government affairs matters. He also trained countless Air Force officers in the ways of Washington, DC. His trademark was his commitment to providing each new assignee to the office with his ``Hill 101'' where military officers, and many times new congressional staff, would be given the secrets to success for navigating the legislative branch. Many of those he mentored have gone on to tremendous success in the public and private sector, due in large part to General Carter's tutelage.

In 2003, General Carter was named Assistant to the Chairman for Government Affairs during the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. He also served as a civilian in the Department of Defense as a member of the Senior Executive Service while Senior Counselor to the Coalition Provisional Authority--CPA--from 2003-2004. In that capacity, he led numerous congressional delegations through areas of ongoing combat operations including visits to Baghdad, Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah.

The Nation will miss General Carter's congressional expertise, tireless advocacy for the Air Force, and unwavering commitment to public service. However, I know he will continue to serve his Nation wherever he goes. Tom is the proud father of Kathryn, 28, Will, 26, and Mary-Lee, 15. I am proud to speak on behalf of a grateful Nation in saying thank you to General Carter for his years of service and sacrifice.

I hope my colleagues will join me in wishing him well in all his future endeavors and hope that those who follow in his footsteps will continue his legacy of selfless dedication to our great Nation. Good luck and Godspeed.

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

Madam President, if it is all right with the bill managers, I would ask for 7 minutes to speak in support of the McCain amendment.

Five minutes. OK, thank you, Madam President.

I stand today in support of an alternative budget that is being proposed by Senator McCain and others. This country is trying to write a budget for the American people. That should not be unknown to the American people. They are doing it every day. Every business is writing a budget. Every family is trying to plan a budget. The one thing families and businesses are doing is they are tightening their belts. Well, we are not. We are buying a bigger belt. We are buying a bigger suit.

We are trying to mask the fact that we are grossly overburdened. The budget before us is better than President Obama's budget. But Peter Orszag of OMB says it is 98 percent the same. So we are tying to find a different path. You can evaluate the people running your country as to how they want to spend your money and how much.

What we are proposing in this budget is to basically freeze domestic spending, except for defense and veterans--to

do what you are doing, basically; that is, control your spending, to get by on the same amount of money, with allowing some growth in some needed areas, but to rein in what will be a dramatic increase over time of domestic spending. I think we can do that.

We are spending trillions of dollars. We have trillions of dollars available to us. I know we could get by for another year or two on that same amount of money, allowing growth in certain key areas if we wanted to. But we don't have to. It is a choice we make. You don't have that choice. You can't go and print money. If you write a bad check, you go to jail; we call it good government. So you have choices. You have to make choices. We seem not to be bound by any choices.

If you are going to build a budget from a Federal level, what is the most important thing? At home and in your business, you build a budget around the essentials of what your family needs and what your business needs. I think we should be building a budget around securing the Nation. Under the budget of President Obama, defense spending goes from 4.7 percent of GDP--we are in Iraq and Afghanistan; there are all kinds of threats from Iran, North Korea, you name it; the world is a very dangerous place--and over 10 years, his defense budget takes spending down to 3 percent of GDP. I don't know what he is listening to in terms of intelligence reports, but I don't think this world is safe right now, and now is not the time to cut defense. The budget I am supporting, Senator McCain's alternative, does away with tax increases on the job creators. If you make over $250,000 a year, your taxes are going to go up by about 25 percent. At a time when we are trying to get people to expand their business--and I can tell my colleagues one thing, and John Kennedy understood this--if you raise taxes, people do less business. If you raise the capital gains rates from 15 to 20, people do less capital gains transactions because there is a penalty to engage in business activity. So now is not the time to raise taxes on anyone.

We have to compete with China and India. When you pass on the cost of doing business--and that is what will happen--the American consumer suffers and the American business community is going to suffer because they are competing with people in a global economy who do not have all these tax burdens.

The biggest problem this country faces in terms of long-term debt is Social Security and Medicare. These are entitlement programs. When you get retirement eligible under Social Security, you get a check based on your contributions. Nobody wants to allow that system to go bankrupt, but it is headed toward bankruptcy. Why? Because the amount of money coming in and the amount of money obligated do not match.

When I was born in 1955, there were 15 workers for every retiree. Today there are three and in 20 years there will be two. People will not be able--two workers will not be able to meet the obligations that are owed through the Social Security system unless we act now. This budget puts aside a reserve program to deal with saving Social Security. Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid are a very large part of our budget, and they are on autopilot. I commend the President for wanting to do something in health care, but in his budget, he adds $1.6 trillion as a downpayment on health care reform.

We already spend more money than any country in the world on health care. Rather than adding another $1 trillion into the system, let's see if we can better manage the money we have today. This budget puts a new earmark system in place so Senators and Congressmen cannot, in the middle of the night----

This is an alternative that makes sense. This is an alternative that has to make the same choices you are making in the private sector. I hope the Congress will adopt this proposal.

I call up amendment No. 910.

I will.

Amendments Nos. 892 and 893

Mr. President, since I am not a squish like Senator Coburn, I am going to go ahead.

My amendment is straightforward. This amendment creates a budget point of order on legislation that increases the cost of energy for middle-class families. Why are we doing this? The climate change proposal that was in the President's budget would create a massive tax increase on anybody who uses energy, and that would be every American middle-class family, which already has a tough time getting by. This would be a point of order against any bill that would raise the cost of energy on our middle-class families who are struggling to get by.

I ask the Senate to rally around this concept. We can deal with climate change without passing a $3,000-per-household energy tax on the families of America who are having a hard time paying their bills.

Yes. I am sorry. I thought we had done that. Everything I said still goes.

No.

I thank the chairman for the courtesy.

As we talk about different views of the budget, one thing I would like to comment upon to the people of North Dakota, I have been very struck and impressed by the way the people of North Dakota have come together with the flood. It looks like tough going there but a hearty group. We all wish them well. The two Senators from North Dakota represent their State well.

The Johanns amendment is what I would like to talk about a bit. This idea to most people of a debate about reconciliation probably is mind- numbing and not very interesting. But there is a process in the Congress where you can take legislation and basically put it on a fast track. It is subject to 50 votes.

The Senate has served the country well. When you are in the majority, you don't appreciate the minority's role too much. But the one thing about the Senate, it changes hands fairly often.

The AIG legislation in the House where there is going to be a 90- percent tax on bonuses because people are upset--I can understand people being upset about AIG, but that wasn't the right response, creating a retroactive tax on a limited group of people because you are mad. The power to tax somebody is a pretty awesome power. It should be used in a constitutional and lawful way. Our friends in the House are up every 2 years, and sometimes they get carried away in the moment. I guess sometimes the Senate does as well.

The whole idea of the Senate kind of cooling things down has served the country well. In that regard, to end debate you need 60 votes. If 41 Senators are opposed to a piece of legislation, strongly enough to come to the floor every day and talk about it, that legislation doesn't go anywhere. I argue that is probably a good rule. There were times when we were in the majority that we didn't particularly like the

rule. But if 41 Senators from one party or a bipartisan group believes that strongly, it is probably worth sitting down and thinking about.

If you took climate change and health care, two very controversial, big-ticket items, and put them on the reconciliation track, you would basically be doing a lot of damage to the role of the Senate in a constitutional democracy.

Senator Byrd, who is one of the smartest people to ever serve in the Senate about rules and parliamentary aspects of the Senate, said that to put climate change and health care reform in reconciliation is like ``a freight train through Congress'' and is ``an outrage that must be resisted.''

Senator Conrad said:

I don't believe reconciliation was ever intended for this

purpose.

I think both of them are right. Under the law, you cannot put Social Security into reconciliation because we know how controversial and difficult that is. I come here in support of the Johanns amendment that rejects that idea.

Our majority leader said something a little bit disturbing. He said climate change cap-and-trade revenues could be used to pay for health care. If we put climate change in reconciliation, you have really abused the process and will create a bad climate for the Congress. There is a lot of bipartisan support not to go down that road to abuse reconciliation. From the climate change debate, there are some Democratic and Republican Senators who are opposed to 100 percent auction. We believe climate change is real but do not want to go down the road the administration has charted. I believe manmade emissions are heating up the planet. But if you take the revenue stream from the climate change bill to fund the Government, you will lose a lot of support for climate change. The money that is generated from a cap-and- trade system should go back into the energy sector to allow people to comply with the cost of a cap-and-trade system. The Obama proposal, $3,000 per family, is a very expensive proposal. There is bipartisan support for climate change legislation with a mix of auctions and credits that could be done in a reasonable way.

The idea of putting climate change or health care in reconciliation will bring the Congress to a halt. It would be everything opposite of what the President ran on in terms of bringing us together. There is a lot of Democratic push back for this idea. I applaud my Democratic colleagues who think it is a bad idea because it is.

I do pledge to work on climate change. Health care will be tough. We will certainly try that. But there is bipartisan support for climate change legislation through the normal process. For those who disagree that it is a problem, they can have their say and we can get the votes necessary to put together a bipartisan climate change bill through the normal process.

Senator Johanns from Nebraska has done the Senate a service by putting this amendment forward. I urge its adoption and yield the floor.

I would like to discuss amendments I intend to offer tomorrow. I thank the Senator from Texas for allowing me to speak briefly. The first amendment is No. 898, which is a point of order against new mandatory spending if the Social Security trust fund dips below $5 billion.

There is talk about this economy and the effects of a recession, and they are real. But one of the things we found out a couple of days ago is the Social Security trust fund spent more than it took in, in February. The projections for next year are to have a $3 billion surplus, so the day of reckoning that Senator Coburn was talking about, when it comes to Social Security, is upon us even quicker than we thought. Everybody thought it would be 2018 when we would pay out more benefits than we collect in taxes.

If this trend continues, that will be accelerated by several years. That means the longer we delay in finding a fix for Social Security, the harder the mountain will be to climb. If we put this off one Congress after the next, the solutions that will get us to solvency are going to be too draconian and will hurt people. We need to act now because this problem is getting bigger faster than anybody anticipated.

If we do responsible things about readjusting the benefits for upper income Americans and for Senators, where if we took $10 less a month when we retire, it would bring about 70 percent of the solvency needed to get Social Security back in balance. Do something on the age that is prospective, that realizes we all live longer. Do something on modernizing the program, so you could have savings on top of the Social Security. There are ways to get there. Increase revenues by raising the cap to have a transition. Let's make sure that people who live past 80--the fastest growing demographic in America--do not outlive their 401(k) plans.

So we have a challenge and an opportunity, and this amendment says that there will be a budget point of order against any budget when there is not a $5 billion surplus in Social Security.

The second one would be a point of order against any bill that would impose a national energy tax on middle-income Americans. The reason we talk about this is cap and trade. We have to be smart about how we deal with climate change. If we don't watch it, we will create a cap-and- trade system that will be a huge burden on average, everyday Americans. Every time they flip on a light switch, there will be a sales tax. So this point of order is against an energy tax on middle-income Americans.

Madam President, with that, I yield the floor, and I look forward to discussing these amendments when I offer them tomorrow. And I thank the Senator from Texas for allowing me to speak.

Madam President, one, I would like to recognize the role Senator McCain has played on this issue. It is not something he comes to lightly, when the issue of climate change is discussed. He put together a cap-and-trade system with Senator Lieberman at a time when it was not very popular among some Republicans. But I think he understands the issue as well as any Member I have talked with.

The idea that what we put into the environment can affect our environment--I am not a scientist, but that is common sense to me. Acid rain is a reality. It was a reality. You could see it in the Southeast, where the Presiding Officer lives in North Carolina, and in South Carolina. It was a cap-and-trade system, a new technology that solved that problem. So it is not much of a stretch to me that CO2 carbon emissions that we are putting into our environment from transportation and power production is heating up the planet, but we can have that debate. If you are serious about energy independence as a nation, it would be good to get away from fossil fuels coming from the Mideast. Clean coal technology is something worth pursuing. The worst thing that could happen to the climate change debate is--you cleaned up your planet and you passed on a better environment to your children only if you did it responsibly.

Really, the worst thing that could happen to the climate change debate is what this administration is doing. They have destroyed, in my opinion, a lot of bipartisanship by coming up with a $646 billion budget number, revenue to be created from a cap-and-trade system they never talked to anybody about who has been involved in the issue. This is a radical, reckless departure from the climate change debate that existed before they took office.

This 100 percent auction is a bit complicated to explain, but it is a major

departure from the solutions that have existed in the past. Under the McCain-Warner-Lieberman approach, 22 percent of the credits available to industry and energy users would be auctioned and there would be an allocation of credits.

What do I mean by that? A cap-and-trade system at its very basic level--concept--is that we are going to put limits on how much carbon you can emit into the air as an industry. We will have one for the power sector, the transportation sector, for manufacturing. We are going to put a cap on these industries, and anything you emit above that cap, you are going to have to go get a credit, purchase a credit.

Well, if you have a 100-percent auction of these credits, hedge funds are going to come in and buy these credits and bid them up, so it would be very hard for an industry to purchase the credits. People start speculating with these credits.

Now, the northeastern compact has a 100-percent auction, but the emission standards they have decided upon allow--basically, it is greater than the current emissions that exist, so the credits only trade for $3 because they don't have much of a cap that puts pressure on anybody. The only way you will solve this problem is to have caps that will push people to get away from using carbon, but our manufacturing sector is hanging by a thread in the global economy. If you put too much of a burden on these industries to move away from carbon and their cost of doing business goes up vis-a-vis their competitors in China and India, you are going to put them out of business.

So in some circumstances, you have to allocate to these industries some credits so they can make it through the transition phase. This idea of having a 100-percent auction on day one is a radical departure, and it does generate more revenue, and I think that is what this whole exercise is about--revenue--not solving the climate problem. They have a budget problem, and they are using the climate change debate to generate money.

I have asked the Secretary of Energy and the OMB Director: Where did you get $646 billion to plug into your budget? What system did you evaluate that would generate that much money? What did the credits trade for? Nobody has a clue. I literally think they made up these numbers. Some people are talking about the $646 billion being maybe half of what the actual cost would be if you went to a 100 percent auction. So this is a major departure from the way we have tried to solve the climate change problem in the past, and I think it is going to destroy the ability of the Congress to come together to solve a problem that is looming for the world and particularly this country.

So I hope our colleagues who are serious about the climate change issue will reject this proposal, and let's get together, talk among ourselves, rather than making up numbers that will increase the cost to American consumers by hundreds of dollars a month. This idea of using revenue from a cap-and-trade system to pay for a tax plan of the administration is a complete departure from what we have been doing in the past. I wouldn't expect my Democratic colleagues to allow the Republican Party to come up with a cap-and-trade system to fund one of our projects. The money from a cap-and-trade system should go back into the energy economy to help people comply with the cost of a cap-and- trade system and to develop technologies to get us away from using carbon.

The make work pay tax program is something I don't agree with. It doesn't apply to everybody who will be using energy, and it is a departure from how we would envision the use of revenue, and that is a problem that has to be addressed. If the administration is going to insist on a cap-and-trade system that would generate this much money from our economy at a time when we are weak as a nation economically and would dedicate the revenue to controversial programs, they have done more to kill the climate change debate than any group I know of. You have some people who disagree with the idea that climate change is real. I respect them. They are attacking it up front. We are having a genuine debate. But to say you believe in climate change as a result, and you devise a program such as this without talking to anybody means that you have put climate change second to the budget problems you have created by a massive budget. So this is not going to bear fruit. This is a very low point, in my opinion, in the bipartisan effort to try to create a meaningful inclusion to climate change. I hope the administration will reconsider.

To my Democratic colleagues, those of you who stood up and said: We are not going to let reconciliation--we only need 50 votes to pass something regarding climate change; we are not going to go that route, you have done the country and the Senate a lot of good because if you ever try that, you have destroyed the position of the minority in the Senate on a major piece of legislation, and that is not what we need to be doing. That is certainly not the change that anybody envisioned. That would be a radical departure in terms of how reconciliation has been used in the past.

To take an issue such as climate change, which has a massive economic impact and is politically very difficult with a lot of honestly held differences, and jam that through reconciliation, well, that would not be the politics of the past, that would be the politics of the past on steroids. That would be taking us to a place where no one has gone before, and if you wanted to destroy any chance of working together, that would be a good way to do it.

Now, as to my colleagues on the Democratic side who see through that, God bless you for standing up and not letting that happen.

So I wish to end my discussion with where I began. Senator McCain and others have charted a path that would lead to a bipartisan solution. I hope the President will consider nuclear power because it is very disingenuous to say you want to solve the climate change problem and you will not address nuclear power as part of the solution. Seventy percent of the energy that is created in America that is not emitting, that has no carbon base, comes from nuclear power. When he campaigned for President, candidate Obama openly talked about offshore drilling and nuclear power. When his budget comes out, there is nothing in the budget to enhance nuclear power, and Yucca Mountain is now going to be closed, apparently, and the idea that reprocessing of spent fuel is the way to store less spent fuel seems to be resisted by this administration.

So I thought we were going to have an administration where science trumped politics. Well, I can assure you when it comes to nuclear power, politics is trumping science. Other than that, I have no problem with what they are doing.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask that I be recognized for 7 minutes and be informed when I have used 6 minutes.

Mr. President, this debate is coming to an end, and it never really started. We are bringing a conclusion to a process that will spend $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years, and there has never been a thoughtful discussion between the parties to figure out how we can get there from here.

The Republican alternative was $440 billion, I believe. It had tax cuts. It had spending on unemployment benefits extension, food stamp extension. It had a $35 billion, $45 billion amount of spending for infrastructure, shovel-ready jobs. It was an alternative that also had a trigger that said that once the economy got back on its feet and we had two quarters of positive GDP growth, any unspent funds would be frozen, and we would look at trying to get back to a balanced budget situation. In other words, it had a slowdown provision. There is nothing in this bill that is going to slow down spending.

The compromise that has been reached--$440 billion was the Republican alternative--we are going to settle on a bill of about $787 billion- plus that received no Republican votes in the House. I think they lost seven or eight Democrats in the House. Apparently, they are going to pick up three Republicans in the Senate.

I would argue that if the shoe were on the other foot, if Republicans were in charge and we lost more Republicans than we picked up Democrats, that would be a lead story. So the idea that this is bipartisan does not meet any realistic test of bipartisanship, and that is a loss. Mr. President, $1.1 trillion unfocused over 10 years, in terms of job creation, is a huge loss to the next generation of Americans who are going to pay this bill.

We had a chance to start over early on in this administration. The attitude that started this process in the House, ``We won, we write the bill,'' never changed. It came to the Senate. We spent 1 hour 40 minutes marking up this bill. We have had a handful of Republican amendments accepted. I am not saying our version is the right way completely. I am saying the difference between $440 billion and $787 billion and $819 billion, the House version, is not $787 billion.

There has never been a real effort to try to find common ground. The percentage of this bill that is tax cuts is 27 percent of $787 billion; 27 percent of the amount is for tax relief. A $400 rebate check is a great part of the tax provision. Last year, we gave people $500 tax rebates. That did not stimulate the economy. The $400 will not.

What stimulates the economy is cutting taxes for consumers as well as business. As Senator Thune from South Dakota said about 75 percent of the jobs in America are created by small business. If your goal is to stimulate the economy and create new jobs, one test of this bill would be how much did you do for small business.

Less than $3 billion in the entire package is directed to small business. I would argue that if 75 percent of the jobs come from the small business sector and only $3 billion of the money is allocated for small business relief, we missed this thing by a country mile.

This bill started out of the House as a ``We won, we write the bill'' spending package that never had a focus on job creation. There are so many things in this bill unrelated to creating a job in the next 18 months that it is, in my opinion, a failure as a stimulus package.

Of the $580 billion of this bill that is appropriated--about 53 percent of it is appropriated--only 11 percent of that money hits the economy in the first year. Fifty-three percent of the appropriated funds are not spent until after 2 years from now.

So the goal I had working with our Democratic colleagues and the White House was to try to create as many jobs as possible by stimulating the economy through a combination of tax cuts and spending that would create jobs in the near term and, yes, help people who have lost a job. We have failed miserably in that endeavor, in my opinion. We have run up the cost of this bill, and every dollar that is wasted in the stimulus package that does not create a job is one less dollar to jump-start housing and banking.

To my colleagues, you all know this one fact. We will never get out of this economic mess until we deal with the banking problem and the housing problem. We have wasted a lot of money in this bill that could have gone to banking and housing. There will be a request in the future, mark my words. The TARP funds left to deal with banking and housing of $315 billion are not nearly enough to deal with the toxic assets that cripple the ability to lend, not nearly enough, in my opinion, to deal with the foreclosures that are coming in waves in this country.

The stimulus package is important, but it was, in my opinion, the least-effective measure to jump-start the economy. We put all the money in the thing that works the least, and we designed it in a fashion where it will work hardly at all. This is a blown opportunity to come together in a bipartisan fashion to deal with banking and housing. We put all our resources upfront in a stimulus package that has very little to do with creating jobs and a lot to do with growing Government.

Mr. President, we have created more Government, new Government than we created jobs. We lost the spirit of bipartisanship we were yearning for. It is going to be hard for us to come back to the American people after this monstrosity of a bill is understood in the next couple weeks and ask for more money in housing and banking.

I am disappointed in the process. I am disappointed in the final substance of the bill. We spent $1 trillion in about 2 weeks, with very little discussion.

Finally, America wants this Congress and this new administration to be smart and work together. We are not being smart, and we sure as heck haven't worked together.

I yield the floor.

Could the Chair inform me when I have used 9 minutes?

Madam President, we are about to vote at 5:30. Under Senate rules, we need 60 votes to bring closure to a bill, to basically end debate, move on with any amendments that are left hanging, and bring the debate to an end. I hope people were listening to my colleague from Tennessee. I thought he made a very good argument that we are bringing to close a debate that really never began.

I don't remember debating doubling the size of the Education Department budget. I do know that education spending in Washington has grown significantly under the Bush years. Maybe there is room for it to grow even more. But I thought we were trying to create jobs to get our economy going. I am quite confident that many of the programs they are trying to expand in the Education Department have more to do with a particular agenda of a few people than creating jobs. The health care issue is enormous. Providing broadband service to rural America is very important. There is $9 billion in this bill to do that. But the question is, Does that money create a job in the near term?

The reason I believe we need a stimulus package is because I don't think the private sector has the ability to jump-start the economy because they can't borrow money. There are not many businesses out there that have the ability right now to expand.

One thing we could do in Washington to help the economy is cut people's taxes so that businesses would have more money to expand and hire new people; cut individual taxes so people would have more money to meet the needs and manage the budget and make their house payments; and infuse into the economy some spending, shovel-ready projects. You are going to need a shovel when this bill passes, not to build anything, just to get the money out the door.

There is $200 million in oversight; $200 million is going to be spent just to try to figure out where the money went. This is an incredible amount of money being spent, $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years with interest, and we have spent 4 days on it in the Senate.

The House started this process, and they couldn't pick up one Republican vote. I can assure you, there are Republicans in the House and Senate who really do believe we need to cut taxes and spend money to jump-start the economy. They lost 11 Democrats in the House.

This bill started poorly and has gotten worse. It comes to the Senate in the compromise, and I applaud Members for trying to reach a compromise. The bill is $7 billion more in the Senate than it was in the House. I wouldn't want these people to buy me a car. That is not exactly what I had in mind when it came to compromise.

Every Republican voted for a bill--I think it was $415 billion--to cut taxes, money for infrastructure spending, money to extend unemployment benefits and food stamps, and other programs to help people who have lost their jobs. Compromise is not going from $415 to $7 billion more than the House bill. To those who said this is the best deal we could get, I couldn't disagree more. This is the best deal you could get with two or three people.

But I do believe the American people have seen through this bill, and they don't like it. They don't know exactly what to do. That is probably true of many of us in Congress. This is something unusual. But they know this process is not what they had in mind when it came to change. They know this bill stinks.

This bill was written by appropriators, not by economists. The focus of this bill--to create jobs in the near term--has been replaced by what I consider basically an orgy of spending. People have piled onto this bill policy changes that were never debated. We made up numbers when it comes to education and health care without really any vetting. The markup in the Senate, where the bill was drafted, lasted an hour and 40 minutes. We have had 2 or 3 days on the floor to talk about the bill. It has been helpful. But at the end of the day, we are bringing closure to a bill that spends $1.2 trillion that will transfer to the next generation of young Americans a debt on top of what they already owe, and we are digging a hole for the next generation of Americans I don't think they will be able to get out of. Shame on us.

If it creates 4 million jobs, who knows, that is still $275,000 per job. If it is 1.3 million, that is almost $600,000 per job. What was intended to be a good thing has turned out to be the old way of doing business. Less than 20 percent of the money gets into the economy within the first year. I argue, if you can't get the money into the economy within a year or 18 months, we should not be doing it.

The sad thing is that the fundamental problem with the economy is unaddressed; that is, housing, what got us into this mess, a collapse of the housing industry. You can't borrow money at banks. Why? Banks have a hard time lending money because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other organizations pushed home loans to people who couldn't afford to pay the loans. They took these questionable mortgages and repackaged them 1,000 times over, calling them different things such as mortgage- backed securities, and it spread throughout the entire world. Now banks own these troubled assets. And the first round of TARP that was supposed to get some of these assets off the book--we just gave the money to banks to keep them from folding.

We have yet to address the housing problem and the banking problem. We are going to find out maybe tomorrow what additional money would be required to fix those two aspects of the economy. There is $310 billion left in the TARP fund. It will not cover the needs of the banking or housing industries. The public will be asked to give more money.

My point is simple: Every dollar that is unfocused and wasted in the stimulus could be spent on helping people stay in their homes and helping banks lend money. That is the way I look at it. There is so much in this bill that may be worthy but doesn't create a job and could be transferred to the housing and banking problems and not just spent.

The President called this a spending bill. I thought it was a bill to create jobs. We have a way to spend money. It is called the appropriations process. We came together early on after the election to try to find a new way of doing business. We, most of us--I think there are 20 Republicans--would sign up for a bill that would cut taxes and spend money in a focused way. The bill we have before us cuts taxes and spends a lot of money, and neither one of them is focused.

The public will be asked again to put more of their money on the table--and it is all borrowed from their children--to deal with the fundamentals of the economy, housing and banking, that are pretty much unaddressed. It is disappointing for me that we are bringing

to close a debate that really never happened.

To the Senator from Tennessee, he has a great reputation of being somebody who listens and is pretty easy to get along with. I think I have a reputation of reaching across the aisle, sometimes to my own political detriment. It is in my nature to try to find common ground on big problems that no one party can solve. I argue that the economic crisis we are in is not going to be solved by one group of people. It is going to be solved by America working together.

The message from the election that I thought was received by most Americans is that you want us to be smarter and you want us to work together.

The public was hopeful that the Congress and the new President would be smarter and we would work together. I think we have failed. I don't believe this bill is smart at all. It certainly wasn't a work product that came from working together.

Where do we go from here? We go to get more of the public money to fix housing and banking. We wasted a lot of their money. We cannot spend enough money through a stimulus package to save this economy unless we deal with banking and housing. We have thrown a lot of good money after bad. I apologize, and I am sorry that we can't do better. I now know why the Congress is in such low esteem.

I am disappointed in this new President. Like everyone else, I want him to do well because our country needs to do well. But he has missed a great opportunity.