Floor Statements

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would ask the Senator from Illinois if he would consent to a modification of his request that it not be in order for the Senate to consider a conference report that includes reconciliation instructions to raise the debt limit.

I object.

Madam President, let me just say briefly that I have gotten a lot of calls about Egypt as well. Look, I understand it. We look at what is happening over there, we look at some of the wild things that are happening in the streets, certainly tragedies as well. We see the oppression of religious minorities, and we wonder: Why do we continue to give aid to a country that does that? I think that is a very important question.

I think the problem we face is we in this place are sometimes put into a position between two absolutes, when there are other options available to us. The choice before us is not to cut off aid to Egypt or to continue aid to Egypt. I think the opportunity we have now is to restructure aid to Egypt in a way that furthers our national interest.

What is our national interest in Egypt? Our national interest is to have a secular, stable, democratic government that provides security so their economy can grow, a government that lives up to the Camp David Accords, that cooperates in counterterrorism, that prevents discrimination to religious minorities. Our foreign aid should be restructured--not simply canceled but restructured--so that it fits and fills that aim that we have for that country and for our national security interests in that country. That means we should restructure our foreign aid, not simply eliminate it but go back to the Egyptians and say: If you want to continue to get foreign aid from the United States, you are going to have to show measurable improvement on these four things: You are going to show us how you are protecting religious minorities; you are going to have to show us how you are advancing toward democracy and stability. You are going to have to show how you are doing these things. That needs to be measured. If they stop doing it, the aid stops coming.

I would also say regarding restructuring the aid that the aid should be geared toward what they need. They probably do not need that many for more F-16s. What they need is more capacity building for internal security. What they need is more capacity building to live up to the Camp David Accords. That is what they need. Our aid should be aimed toward that.

I also think it is a mistake to just say we are eliminating aid completely because if we eliminate aid completely, we lose leverage. They are still going to buy weapons. They will just not get them from us and our influence will be diminished.

So I think there is a third way. I think what has happened in Egypt is a unique opportunity to restructure--not to cancel but to restructure--and reframe our relationship with Egypt. If they do certain things, they will continue to get aid. If they move toward certain goals that are in our national interest, they will continue to get aid. They will continue to get aid that helps them meet these goals, not simply anything they ask for.

This is the opportunity we have now. This should be done in a thoughtful and careful way. I hope that is the direction the body will move. I think to simply cancel aid without putting these other conditions in place is a missed opportunity from which we should not walk away.

So I would say to our colleagues, let's not simply cut off aid. Let's take

the time to work so that we can restructure aid with Egypt in a way that furthers our national security interests: a secular, democratic government that lives up to the Camp David Accords, that cooperates in counterterrorism, that respects religious minorities, and that provides the internal security they need to create the economic growth they need so that they can be stable now and in the future and be a partner of ours.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Utah for organizing this effort.

Let me answer that question by coming up with a couple of things we can find consensus on. First of all, I think all of us agree the American middle class is one of the things that make us exceptional. All the countries in the world have rich people. Unfortunately, every country in the world has people who are struggling. But what has made America unique and different from all of these other countries is that we have a vibrant middle class. We have people who work hard, make enough money to own a home, take their kids on vacations, save for college expenses, and kind of fulfill many of their dreams.

I grew up in that environment. I tell people all the time I didn't have everything I wanted, but we always had everything we needed. Through hard work and sacrifice my parents became part of that great American middle class--working-class Americans who had the opportunity to give us the life they never had.

I think we can all agree the middle class is very important for America because it is one of the things that makes us exceptional, unique, and sets us apart from the rest of the world. Quite frankly, one of the reasons why people want to live here and love being in America is because it creates those opportunities.

What strengthens the middle class? We are having a debate about that in this country. Is it a bunch of government spending? Is it a bunch of government programs? Is it the Senators? Is it the President of the United States? The answer is no. What rationally makes the middle class possible and vibrant is jobs that pay middle-class salaries. What makes it possible is that we have jobs that pay that kind of money so people can join the middle class and give their kids a better life.

Where do those jobs come from? Do they come from the government? Do they come from the White House? Do they come from the Senate or from our laws? They don't. They come from a vibrant private economy that is creating those jobs. How those jobs are created is not that complicated. People have to start new businesses or grow a business that already exists. Those are the two primary ways in which middle- class jobs--in fact, most jobs--are created outside of government. That is the only place where we will find the kind of growth we need for a vibrant middle class. We should analyze every issue before this body through the lens of the middle class and through the lens of whether it makes it easier or harder for someone to start a business or grow an existing one.

Let's examine what the Senator from Utah just asked about ObamaCare in the context of what I just explained. The answer is that it is clear ObamaCare makes it harder for people to start a business or grow an existing business for a number of reasons the Senator has pointed out. No. 1, it has an incentive for businesses not to grow. It tells a business owner that if they have more than 50 full-time employees, they will have to meet a set of rules which will make it very expensive for them to start a business or grow an existing business.

The other thing it creates is a tremendous amount of uncertainty. It goes back to the point the Senator from Utah raised. These laws are being canceled on a whim. The President is deciding to enforce one part of it but not another part of it. That creates confusion.

Imagine if a person has a business and some money set aside to grow, that business owner doesn't know how much it is going to cost to grow. You know what they do? They don't grow the business. As a result, those jobs are not created.

How about the cost of that insurance, which is an issue the Senator from Utah talked about a moment ago. Yesterday in Florida the commissioner of insurance said that in the individual

marketplace in Florida next year--because of ObamaCare--rates are going up 30 to 40 percent. Ask yourself: Does that make it easier to start a new business or does it make it harder? Does it make it easier to grow an existing business or does it make it harder?

Think about the impact all of this uncertainty is going to have on middle-class workers. Add to that the following: Right now there is an incentive to have part-time workers. That is why we are reading everyday in the newspapers that company X is moving people from full- time to part-time. Companies are moving employees to less than 30 hours so they can avoid the penalties in this bill.

How about insurance? Let's say a person works somewhere that has insurance and they are happy with it. This law might require the employer to put that person on a new insurance or move that person to a government exchange, which means that doctor that worker has been dealing with for 10 years who knows their case history might not be their doctor next year because of ObamaCare. The result is we have a holding pattern.

Businesses in America, the people who create the middle-class jobs, are in a holding pattern and waiting to see which direction this goes, but they are all headed in a poor direction because of this.

So when the Senator from Utah talked about this and asked the question: What impact is the Senator hearing, that is what I am hearing. I am hearing that this law makes it harder for people to create jobs. This bill is going to make it harder on the middle-class jobs. It is going to make it harder for middle-class jobs to be created because it makes it harder to start a business and makes it harder to grow an existing business.

I imagine the Senator from Utah has heard similar concerns in his own State. The Senator from Texas has joined us, and he is from a State even larger than mine. I am sure he will share his input on what he is hearing from his home State and from people across the country.

I say to my colleague that is what I have been hearing from my constituents everywhere I have been going in Florida for the last 6 months.

Mr. President, in response to the Senator from Utah, I would say I have because I think there is a pretty clear understanding growing every day, as evidenced by the Senator from Texas a moment ago, who went through all these groups out there, including labor unions that have now turned on ObamaCare because of what it means to their members. So it is increasingly established how much damage this law is doing.

The question I get, I say to the Senator from Utah, is, What can we do about it? There is almost this resignation by people that, well, what can we do about it? It is already in place. Is there anything we can do?

So I think there are three things we should be able to do, and I will summarize those fairly quickly.

The first thing we should do is not continue to double and triple down on these things.

I think both the Senator from Texas and the Senator from Utah grew up at the same time as I did, so they will remember something that a lot of the younger people here probably do not remember. There was a time when Coca-Cola came out with something called New Coke. It was a new Coca-Cola formula. After about 100-some years, they changed the formula of Coca-Cola and they came out with something called New Coke. It was a disaster. Everybody hated it. In fact, they hated it because--they said: If we want to drink something that has that kind of sweetener, there are other options on the market. We like old Coke.

What did Coca-Cola do when New Coke began to flounder? They did not say: Well, we are just going to continue to make more of it. They backed away from it. They went back to the original formula. They learned from their mistake, and they did not double down. That is the way it is in the real world. That is the way it is in our lives, and that is the way it is in the private sector--but not government, not Washington. In Washington, if something is going wrong, here they double and triple down. It is like an invitation to move forward. We should not do that. That is the first thing I would say.

The second thing I would say is that we have to stop this from moving forward. The implications of this law are already being felt, but the regulations around this law--the mandates in this law, the fees and the costs and the new rate increases in this law, those things, you are only going to start to feel that right now. In the next few months you are going to really start to feel what this new law means to your life, to your business, to the place where you work.

Now is the time to act. People ask me: What can we do about it? Let me tell you what is probably not going to work in the short term. You are probably not going to get President Obama to sign a bill that repeals ObamaCare, and you are not going to get the votes in the Senate to do that. So these repeal votes--I will vote for every single one of them, but the problem is that our chances of getting that accomplished are probably minimal so long as President Obama is the President of the United States. So truly our last option is to stop paying for this thing. Why would we continue to pour billions and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into a disaster? Why would we double down with your hard-earned money on a program that is going to hurt you?

We will have a chance to do that in September because in September, in order for the government to continue to function, we have to pass something called a short-term budget. I wish it were a permanent budget, but it is supposed to be a short-term budget. All we are saying is, in that short-term budget, fund the government, keep the lights on, pay the military, make sure Social Security checks go out. The only thing you should not do is you should not fund and pay for ObamaCare.

The pushback we get from that from some people is, well, that is crazy because that means you are willing to shut down the government over ObamaCare. That is not the way I see it. The way I see it is that if we pass a budget that pays for everything except for ObamaCare and the President says he will veto that, it is he who wants to shut down the government, it is he who is basically saying: I will shut down the government unless it pays for ObamaCare. That is an unreasonable position. It is unreasonable because this law is so bad. His own allies are coming to him and saying: Please stop this from moving forward. Well, we are going to give you a chance, Mr. President, by refusing to fund it.

Here is my last point: To my colleagues in the Republican Party--I know every single one of the Senate Members here in the Republican Party is against ObamaCare--this is our last chance, our last best chance to do something about this. When this thing starts to kick in and starts to take root, it is going to be very difficult to undo major portions of this despite the damage it is going to create.

Now, I only speak for myself, although I think I can speak for the other two Senators who have joined me here today in this effort. I want to be able to go back to Florida, no matter how this thing turns out, and say to the men and women who sent me here in 2010: I did everything I could to keep this from happening to you.

When someone comes to me and says: I just got moved to part time because of ObamaCare, I want to be able to look them in the eye and say that I did everything I could.

When someone says to me: I just lost the insurance I was happy with; I now have this new insurance plan I am not that familiar with, and my doctor, whom I have had for 30 years, is not on that plan, I want to be able to say to them that I did everything I could.

When someone comes to me and says: I have a pretty successful business; I have set some money aside; I was going to open a new business or grow this one, but I am not because of ObamaCare, I want to be able to say that I did everything I could.

If we pass a budget in September that funds ObamaCare, you did not do everything you could. You paid for this. You doubled down on it in ways that will have irreparable harm to our economy and to our country.

This is our last best chance.

To those who say they are against ObamaCare, I believe you. But let me tell you something. If we are not willing to draw a line in the sand on this issue, then on what issue are we willing to draw a line in the sand? If we are not willing to go to the limit on this issue, then what issue is there? Is there an issue on which we are prepared to say: We will not move forward because of this? Is there an issue on which we are willing to do everything we can and lay it all on the line? Is there such an issue? And if it is not this one, which one is it?

That is the choice before us. I truly believe you cannot go back home and say you did everything you could to stop ObamaCare if you vote for a budget that funds it.

I would ask the Senator from Texas if he too shares those thoughts and those feelings?

Mr. President, due to a family commitment, I was unable to cast a vote on Monday evening regarding the nomination of James Comey to be the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, FBI. I would have voted yes because all Presidents are entitled to nominate whomever they want to key positions, and I believe Mr. Comey is well qualified to lead this important agency and the brave men and women who dedicate their lives to protecting our people and enforcing our laws domestically. In this new position, Mr. Comey should expect Congress to maintain its strong oversight role in ensuring that the FBI effectively executes its mission to keep Americans safe, while protecting the rule of law and our constitutional rights.

Mr. President, even as I speak at this very moment--or maybe he has wrapped up--the President is in Jacksonville, FL, today. He is discussing the middle-class and how to get the middle class growing again in America, and it is a very worthy topic.

I wish the President would do less talking and more listening. If he listened to the middle class--and particularly those middle-class Americans who either work at a small business or own a small business-- he would hear the No. 1 concern many of them now have is about ObamaCare.

Recently, I made the statement that I don't believe we should pass a short-term budget here that pays for ObamaCare. Since that time, I have heard the comments of some that that is an unreasonable request. I wish to outline one more reason why I think it is an unreasonable request to actually fund it. It is unreasonable because of the impact ObamaCare is having on real people--particularly those in the middle class in the United States.

I wish to focus on small businesses today because they truly are the backbone of the American economy. People here throw that term around all the time, ``the backbone of the economy.'' It truly is.

I live within a few blocks of 8th Street, the famed Calle Ocho, where literally every business is a small business, such as bakeries, sandwich shops, you name it. They are primarily run by immigrants who are here in search of a better life and the American dream. They own these small businesses. They will be impacted by the changes this law will have, and I wish to describe some of them.

Yesterday, we had a hearing in the Small Business Committee where the administration spoke first. Basically, their take on it is that ObamaCare will be good for small businesses for two reasons: One, we will set up these health exchanges small businesses can go to and offer health insurance to their employees on these exchanges.

Basically, the exchange is a one-stop shop. A company owner can go online--and there are theoretically 8 or 10 private insurers--and the owner of the business gets to pick a plan from one of those choices and their employees get insured from it. In theory that is not a bad idea. However, in a moment I will outline why that is not working out.

The second thing they brag about is the tax credit that small businesses will be able to use. I want to use the testimony--not just of them but of small businesses--to outline why, in fact, these things are not only not going to work, but ObamaCare is going to be deeply hurtful to small businesses and the middle class.

Let's talk first about the exchanges. The exchanges are not unfolding as they were planned. I asked the administration yesterday: Is it going to be ready about October 1? Are businesses going to be able to go on this exchange and find an insurance plan for their employees? They said they are sure it is going to happen. But the truth is it is not working out that way.

There are 17 States that have decided to go on to their own exchanges. All 17 of those States are behind schedule in one form or another. Maryland was one of the first States to embrace it. They asked for a delay in April because they couldn't get it going on time.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office reported that all 17 States were behind schedule and that they were missing deadlines on 44 percent of the key things they had to do.

Here is the second problem: These exchanges only work if you have a lot of companies competing against each other, but that is not happening either. Insurers are not flooding to offer insurances on these exchanges.

Let me give an example. There are three States: Washington State, New Hampshire, and North Carolina where only one company has responded. There is no competition, and that is what is supposed to drive down the rates. In another State, not a single company responded until very recently when Humana came in to save the day and actually decided to jump on board.

Here is what the vice president of a consulting firm that specializes in this--it is called Avalere Health. Caroline Pearson is the vice president and she said:

Humana may have a difficult time building competitive

networks in [Mississippi], so we could see higher than

average premiums in this region.

Again, another reason to doubt that these exchanges are going to work and the impact it is going to have is terrible.

What about the tax credits? That is a great idea, right? We are giving tax credits to small businesses that they can use to buy health insurance for

their employees. That is not working out either.

Let me give an example: Only 14 percent of companies that are eligible for the tax credit are using it, and I will explain why.

I have a quote from Pat Thompson, a tax partner at Piccerelli, Gilstein & Company, in Providence, and chair of the American Institute for Certified Public Accountants, who said:

The definition of an eligible business is challenging

because it is not based on [the number of] employees, but on

full-time equivalents. For companies with a lot of part-

timers . . . that is not very transparent.

He went on to say that the way to decide whether you are qualified for this tax credit is so complicated that most small companies can't figure it out. In fact, the companies that benefit the most from the tax credit are the ones that are least likely to get it because they cannot afford to hire a professional accounting firm to figure it out for them.

Here is another one from the Birmingham Business Journal. The manager at a health care consulting group, Warren Averett, LLC, said that only 20 percent of the small businesses they deal with even qualify for the credit. He said many businesses he worked with offered less than 50 percent, and bumping their coverage to meet the requirement would have cost them more than the credit saved them.

These are serious problems with this tax credit, not to mention that the General Accounting Office has already said the credit is so small that it is just not enough to change the equation for these small businesses to use it.

What is the bottom line? The bottom line is that two of the things we are being told are going to help small businesses with ObamaCare are not going to. One is an exchange that is relying upon there being competition among insurers. They are not signing up, folks. The other is this tax credit that is being deeply underutilized and it is so complicated and so small that most small businesses will not benefit from it.

I say all that to my colleagues because yesterday we heard from a real small business owner--someone who is the epitome of what it means to own a small business in America. His name is Larry Katz. He owns some restaurants called Dots Diner. Here is what he said. His dream was to own his own company so he cashed in his whole life insurance policy, he calculated how much credit card availability he had, and emptied his life savings. With less than $200,000, he opened his first diner. Within 12 months he had stopped sleeping. He was down to less than $10,000 in savings. He considered two options: Either mortgage his home or declare bankruptcy. That is what he faced, but he made it through, as many small businesses make it through in America. Today he owns 6 diners, 85 employees, 65 of them are full-time.

Here is what he offers those employees today: paid holidays, vacation, dental, vision, term life, and health insurance. He offers those to them right now, but because of how much ObamaCare is going to cost him, here is what he is going to have to do. He said:

I have unfortunately made the decision to quit offering

coverage as soon as the employer mandate kicks in, as the

penalty, while huge, is less than the costs of offering the

required coverage to all of our employees.

What he is basically saying is that there are employees today in his business in Louisiana who have health insurance, who are happy with their health insurance, but because of ObamaCare they are going to lose that health insurance.

One of the promises made to the American people was, if you are happy with your health insurance, you get to keep it. I know of at least one business in Louisiana where that is not true, and I promise it is not limited to just this business. In fact, the evidence keeps coming in from all over the country the impact this is going to have.

Here is a quote from Texas: At Lion & Rose pubs and Golden Chick SA restaurants, 1,000-plus employees saw their work schedules reduced to part-time shifts.

From the Wall Street Journal: Ken Adams has been turning to more part-time workers at his 10 Subway sandwich shops in Michigan to avoid possibly incurring higher health care costs.

From the same article: Rod Carstensen, owner of 11 Del Taco restaurants around Denver in Colorado, began in April converting his mostly full-time workforce into one comprised of mostly part-time to help minimize the health care costs.

This is the real impact.

Interestingly, I asked an administration official yesterday: Can you tell us whether anyone who has health insurance now and is happy with it will lose it?

The answer: I can't answer that.

I don't know if she meant she doesn't know or if she meant she can't tell me. But I can tell my colleagues, and small businesses will tell us, if we talk to them, the impact this is going to have is not only that people are going to lose their health care coverage, they are going to lose their hours and get moved from full time to part time.

Here is something: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce did a poll: 74 percent of small businesses plan to deduct the costly law of ObamaCare by either firing workers, reducing hours of full-time staff and moving them to part time or not offering any coverage at all.

This is the real-world impact of ObamaCare on the middle class and working class. This is terrible for our country.

This is no longer a Republican or Democratic issue. It doesn't matter if a person voted for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. This is going to hurt everybody. There are working-class people in America who have existing insurance who are happy with their doctor, and they are going to lose all of that because of this experiment. There are people today who are struggling to make it just as it is, and they are going to lose their hours. They are going to get forced from full-time work to part- time work. That is the real-life impact of ObamaCare. That is the impact it is having on the working class and on the middle class.

How can we go forward with this? We have a chance to stop this. It may be our last best chance, and it comes in September when we have to pass a short-term budget in this Chamber. If we vote for a budget that funds this, this is going to move forward and hurt people terribly, and those who vote for it are going to have to answer for that.

To my Republican colleagues I would just say this: If we are not going to draw a line in the sand on ObamaCare, we have no lines in the sand. If this issue is not important enough for us to draw a line in the sand, what issue is? This is not a political issue. This is not a partisan issue.

Today I am giving this speech on behalf of the hard-working men and women of this country--working class, middle class, small business owners--who are going to be terribly impacted by this law. We cannot just stand by and allow it to go further. We have to do everything we can to keep this from happening to people, and in September we will have our last best chance to do that.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak as if in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, this morning there was news that the President of the United States is going to engage in a series of speeches around the country to discuss the American middle class and the economy. I think that is actually a positive thing, to start to focus on that a little bit.

The America middle class is the essence of America's greatness. I have said this often before because I am a product of that working middle class--how critically different that makes us from the rest of the world. Every country has rich people, and unfortunately every country has poor people. But one of the things that distinguishes America from the rest of the world is that we have this vibrant middle class.

I have lived that in my life. My parents were working-class people and came to this country with not a lot of education or many connections, but they were able to provide for us a lifestyle where they owned a home and were able to do vacations and provided us everything we needed--not always everything we wanted, of course. But that really distinguishes this country from the rest of the world. That vibrant middle class is the essence of our economic exceptionalism.

I am glad the President is focused on the middle class, and I hope we will begin to focus on the middle class here in our conversations as well. That is why I come to the floor to speak about the middle class for a moment, because I am very concerned about the impact that the health care law--ObamaCare--is having on the middle class.

I know Republicans have been opposed to ObamaCare from the very beginning, and I understand that a lot of people out there see ObamaCare as a bill that is going to give them access to health insurance they may not have right now. But what I want people to understand from a nonpartisan basis--Republicans, Democrats, Independents, no matter whom you voted for in the last election--is that ObamaCare is not working out the way it was advertised.

What I wish to point to today is how ObamaCare is actually hurting that vibrant American middle class which the President is trying to focus on in his speeches and which I hope we will be focused on in our policies.

Last week on Friday I traveled to central Florida. I went to a place called Gatorland, which is kind of an old Florida tourist attraction where kids have gone for a long time with their parents to see the live alligators and the shows they put on. I used that as a forum to meet with several small businesses in the region, not all tourism related. I had a chance to sit down and talk with them about their concerns about ObamaCare and, importantly, not just what it means for their businesses--and these are middle-class businesses, by the way; we are not talking about billionaires here--but also, more importantly for me, the impact that was going to have on their employees, the people who work for them, working-class, middle-class Americans who happen to live in Florida and work at these places.

First I heard from the owner of Gatorland, who pointed out that he has a little over 100 full-time employees who work for him. You can imagine who I am talking about--the people who take your tickets when you walk in, the ones who run the exhibits. These are everyday working- class people. Some of them are young people who just got married and are trying to start a family. He gives them insurance. They have insurance right now. He pays a portion of their premiums and they pay the rest, and they seem to be pretty happy with that insurance coverage. It is not perfect. They have to pay for part of it out of pocket. But it is coverage they are happy with, and through that coverage they have a relationship with their doctors.

A young couple--for example, the wife is a few months pregnant. They have been going to the same OB/GYN. They get comfortable with this doctor, and they are happy going to this doctor. Maybe it is the same doctor who helped them with their previous pregnancies or their kids' pediatrician who knows their family's history, so every time they sit with him, they don't have to reeducate him. But the point is that they are happy with their insurance and also their doctor.

But there is a problem: Health care costs and premiums are going up for this business. As they are sitting there looking into next year and beyond, their insurance companies are already telling them: Your premiums are going to go up. We can't tell you by how much, but it is going to be by at least this much.

This means the amount of money they put aside every year in Gatorland's budget to pay for health insurance for their middle-class employees is going to go up big time, so this business has to find the money from somewhere. They could just raise the price of admission. But they really can't do that. No. 1, people can't afford it. No. 2, they have some pretty significant competition nearby from Disney World and Universal Studios. So that is not really an option for them.

Their options are as follows:

They can take the insurance they are providing now for their employees and get rid of it and replace it with another insurance that is cheaper and covers less. By the way, now it is new insurance, so if those middle-class employees are happy with their doctors, their doctors may or may not be on the new plan. So you destroy that relationship as well. It will be cheaper insurance for the employer and the employee, but it will cover less. But it meets the mandate, and obviously Gatorland can continue to operate.

The second option they have is to reduce a bunch of people to under 30 hours because if they are working less than 30 hours, they don't have to offer them anything. That is a big cost savings. They don't want to do that, as proven by the fact that they are offering the coverage now, but they may have to do that.

The third option is to just pay a fine and let these people go out and find their own insurance in the exchanges. The problem with that is, No. 1, the exchanges haven't even been created yet. Even though you are supposed to be enrolled beginning October 1, they don't exist yet. So you can't even figure out what they are if you live in Florida. No. 2--the same problem--it is a new insurance company, which means you may or may not have the same doctor.

A fundamental promise of this law when it was passed was that if you are happy with your doctor, you won't have to lose that doctor. If you are happy with your insurance, you can keep it. Obviously, for about 100-some-odd people who work in central Florida, that is not true.

I also met with a young woman named Gigi Barrios. She is the owner of FCS Building Services. Basically, it is a company that provides janitors at night to come and clean your office. This is the epitome of the working class. You know who I am talking about--the people who come in after 6:00 and vacuum the carpets and clean your offices. These are her employees. She also offers them health insurance, but her health insurance premiums are going up next year big time. She is going to have to go through the exact same choices as Gatorland. So right now in central Florida there are janitors and janitorial crews who are working more than 40 hours a week, have health insurance they are happy with, have doctors they have relationships with, and they are on the verge of losing all of that because of this law and its impact.

I met with an owner of a place called Fun Spot. Fun Spot is an old Florida attraction place. After 5 years of working at Fun Spot, you get 100 percent coverage. If you work there for 5 years, they pay all of your insurance; you don't pay a penny out of pocket. But their costs are going up astronomically--higher than anybody else's who was meeting there. The same calculation is going to happen: They are going

to have to find new and cheaper insurance, which means people who have 100 percent full coverage and are happy are going to lose it--these are ticket takers and ride operators and people who clean up. These are middle class, working-class Americans. They will lose their coverage.

I can tell you, they are not going to pay 100 percent of anyone's coverage moving forward because even if they wanted to at this point-- and they do want to--they can't afford it. The premiums are going up because of ObamaCare. Or they could come up with one of these newer plans that costs less money, but there is the same fundamental problem.

Now, you may say maybe this is a Florida problem. It is not. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently did a survey. They found that 75 percent of small businesses in America are going to have to do something like this. In their survey they found that 27 percent of small businesses are going to cut hours just to get under the 30 hours a week to avoid the health insurance mandate because they can't afford it; 24 percent of small businesses are going to hire fewer people--which is one of the problems at Fun Spot. They actually own land, and they want to expand and grow Fun Spot. They want to add more rides, more attractions, more middle-class, working-class jobs. That is not going to happen now. So 24 percent of companies are going to hire fewer people because of ObamaCare, and 23 percent of companies plan to replace full-time employees with part-time employees.

The Congressional Budget Office has found that at least 7 million people in America are going to lose the employer coverage they have right now. At least 7 million Americans will have the promise that was made to them broken. So if you have insurance, if you are happy with your insurance, you are going to lose your insurance because of ObamaCare.

Five million people will have to pay for more expensive plans because of ObamaCare. Because they make too much according to the law, they won't qualify for a subsidy to help pay for it.

It is not just businesses, by the way. This is from Florida Today:

Some part-time Brevard County workers are getting their

hours cut so the county would not be forced by federal law to

pay for their health insurance. . . . Brevard County Library

Service Director Jeff Thompson said 37 of his department's

employees have had their hours cut as a result of the health

care issue.

So the library services department--this is the middle class, and they are going to lose hours.

I don't care if you are a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, whom you voted for in the last election, this is a disaster for all of us. And rather than digging in and saying, I am going to fight to the death on this law because it has my name on it, because it was my signature achievement in my first term, I wish the President and White House were more open-minded about saying this is not working out the way we thought. This is going to hurt way too many people at a time when people are already hurting. Let's put the brakes on this or let's redo this. Let's get rid of this and start over.

But they don't seem to be focused on that. They claim to be focused on the middle class. Yet we know millions of middle-class Americans-- and a few hundred whom I know now personally in Florida--are going to be dramatically hurt by this law. Yet it is full speed ahead. That is outrageous.

I think we have one last chance to stop this if the White House won't cooperate, and that is through our budgeting process. In September we are probably going to have to pass a short-term budget to move forward into the next year. A lot of my colleagues love to say they are against ObamaCare, but if you vote for a budget that pays for ObamaCare, that pays for these things I have just described, you have voted for ObamaCare.

Some will say: That is crazy. You are going to shut down the government over ObamaCare.

No. What is crazy is moving forward with this after all the problems. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could be here 6 hours describing all the problems with ObamaCare. Moving forward on that is what is crazy. What is crazy is arguing that the only way we can move forward with a budget is if it includes ObamaCare. What is crazy is shutting down the government because the budget doesn't pay to implement this outrageous and broken system.

We need to wake up and realize what is happening. This is hurting the American middle class, and if we lose the American middle class, we lose what makes our economy different and special and unique.

So, Mr. President, as you travel around the country this week, as you come to Jacksonville, FL, on Thursday, I hope you will also explain to the American people how it is that you can justify cutting hours, cutting benefits, taking away existing health insurance and existing doctor-patient relationships from millions of working-class and middle- class Americans who are going to be hurt by this law because of your refusal and the refusal of many of your allies to consider suspending this or permanently repealing it and replacing it with something better.

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

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

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

Mr. President, just a few moments ago I heard the President speaking from the White House regarding ObamaCare. He was lamenting, saying: Why are we still litigating old news around here? Let's move on to other things. This issue has been finished.

The reason this issue is still being talked about is because ObamaCare is a disaster. I think it is important to remember when we talk about health insurance that most Americans do have health insurance they are happy with. But no one would dispute that we have a health insurance problem in this country.

For many who have insurance the cost of their insurance is getting unaffordable, and many others have no access to insurance at all. They have a job, perhaps, that doesn't provide it or they are chronically ill so insurance is impossible for them to find or they are young and healthy and they never go to a doctor, so they figure, why do they need it? Yes, for millions of people the cost and availability of insurance is a real problem, and we should do something about that.

The problem is ObamaCare, as a solution, is a massive government takeover of health insurance in America, and it does not fix the problem. It only makes it worse, and that is why we are still talking about it. It makes it worse for a number of reasons.

Tomorrow I am going to visit a business in Florida where the reality is growing every single day. Tomorrow I will visit Gatorland. Gatorland is in central Florida. It is a tourist destination where many Floridians and tourists have taken their kids to see alligators and to enjoy Florida's unique wildlife.

For 135 Orlando area residents, however, Gatorland is their workplace. It is their livelihood. It is how they feed their families. It is how they pay their mortgages. It is how they get ahead in life. The reason we are still litigating this, Mr. President, is because like hundreds of thousands of other businesses around the country, ObamaCare is threatening to unravel it all. It is threatening to unravel the livelihood of 135 Floridians who work at Gatorland, to shatter their financial security for them and their families.

Let me describe the problem. Gatorland has 135 full-time employees. Gatorland is currently paying 80 percent of the insurance cost for these employees. But now, under ObamaCare, evidently what they are doing is not going to be enough. ObamaCare, first of all, requires them not to just provide insurance but to provide for them a certain type of insurance, a type of insurance the government decided is enough.

Second, because of ObamaCare, the cost of the insurance that Gatorland wants to provide for its employees is going to go up; that is, if they want to continue to pay 80 percent of the insurance costs for the 135 Floridians who work there, it is going to cost them a lot more money. Those are the two problems.

No. 1 is they have to offer a certain type of insurance; the one they have potentially may not be enough according to the government. No. 2, because of all these changes, it is going to cost Gatorland more money to provide 80 percent of the cost of the insurance.

What does this mean in the real world? Here is what it means. It means that as Gatorland looks to next year and into the future, they now have a new cost on their books. As they look at their business plan for the coming year, all of a sudden they see on the cost side it has gotten more expensive. So if they want to stay in business, they are going to have to figure out a way to come up with that extra money.

What are their options to come up with this extra money? Option No. 1 is they can raise their prices. Option No.

2 is they can cut back on expenses, such as the number of employees and benefits and hours. Option No. 3 is just not to comply at all with ObamaCare and pay a fine. Basically, don't offer insurance to these employees; let them go off and find it in the so-called exchanges and pay a fine to the IRS.

I ask you, Mr. President, and I ask the people of this country, and I ask my colleagues, which one of these three options is good for our country? Which one of these three options is good for America, and which one of these three options is good for the 135 people who feed their families by working at Gatorland?

If they raise their prices, that means the cost of going to Gatorland will go up. I understand our economy is not doing very well these days. Millions of people are underemployed and unemployed. They are working twice as hard and making half as much, and you are going to make it more expensive for them to go on vacation. I would argue that raising their prices is probably not an option available to them anyway. Gatorland is not Disneyland and not Universal, and it is not one these big tourist destinations. It is a small place that has to compete, and if you raise prices there comes a point where people just will not go.

Not only is raising prices bad for our economy and people who want to visit Florida and take their families there, it might not even be feasible. So that certainly is not a good option. It may not even be an option at all.

The second option is they would have to cut down on their expenses with their employees. That means they can lay off some people; find the money by instead of having 135 employees, try to get by with 125 employees. That could mean not laying off people but as people retire or quit just not replacing them. That could also mean moving some of these people who are working full time to part time so they can get around the ObamaCare mandates, and so they can lower their costs. How is that good for our economy? How is that good for 135 people who work at Gatorland? How is that good for Florida? How is that good for us?

The third option is they could pay the fine, but it is going to cost at least 135 people in my State the insurance they are happy with. I want you, Mr. President, to remember what you said--in fact what you repeated today in your statements a moment ago at the White House. You said if you are happy with your insurance, you can keep it. For 135 people working in Gatorland in central Florida, that may not be true. They could lose their insurance that is working well for them, that they are happy with, because of this experiment. That is why we keep revisiting this issue.

Interestingly enough, by the way, that is not just me saying that. This week some prominent labor unions, labor unions who are actually in favor of this law--lead among them was the Teamsters head, Jimmy Hoffa--wrote a letter to the President attacking this very point. They said the new law is breaking the promise that was made that if you are happy with your coverage, you are not going to lose it.

I single out Gatorland because that is the real world. That is where I am going tomorrow, and that happens to be in my State. There are thousands of businesses like this that are facing these decisions. There is not one, there are hundreds of thousands of businesses that are facing this dilemma, that have these same concerns.

By the way, this is not the only problem with ObamaCare. There are many others. The President keeps saying: There are people in town who want this plan to fail. They keep bringing up ObamaCare because they want it to fail.

The plan is already failing. It is failing by your own admission. You just had to cancel, had to suspend one of the critical components of this bill because it is not doable. This plan is already failing on its own.

By the way, if you are going to accuse us of wanting ObamaCare to fail, you better accuse the Teamsters of it because they have the same criticisms on this point that I have raised today.

I think we have reached a point where no matter how you voted on ObamaCare--I was not here, but no matter how you may have voted on ObamaCare if you were here, no matter who you voted for for President, no matter if you are a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent, it is bigger than politics--this is really about people. Today I highlighted the plight that 135 people in Florida are facing, but hundreds of thousands if not millions of others will soon face this plight as well. As Americans, we have to come to grips with the fact that this law is a terrible mistake, and we cannot go forward with it because it is going to hurt millions of middle-class Americans in the ways I have just described.

We are going to have an opportunity to get this right in September because we are going to have to vote on a short-term budget to fund the government. I implore my colleagues to use that as an opportunity to put the brakes on this terrible mistake before more people lose their insurance, put the brakes on this before more people lose their jobs, put the brakes on this before more people lose their businesses. In that short-term funding bill, we should not pay for the implementation of ObamaCare. Let me be clear. Anyone who votes for the short-term budget that funds ObamaCare is voting to move forward with ObamaCare. Don't come here and say ``I am against ObamaCare'' if you are willing to vote for a budget that funds it. If you pay for it, you own it.

I want to make myself clear to the employees of Gatorland, the working people of Florida, and anyone in America who is watching that I, for one, will not vote for any bill or any budget that funds the implementation of this disaster. Does that mean we shouldn't do anything about health insurance in America? Of course it doesn't mean that. We should do something--something that protects what is good about the current system and fixes what is bad with it. ObamaCare throws out what is good about the current system in order to try to fix what is bad with it, and in the end it messes up everything.

We should repeal ObamaCare and replace it. We should replace it with ideas that allow uninsured and underinsured Americans to find affordable insurance without taking away other people's insurance and other people's jobs.

For example, we should expand flexible savings accounts. These are accounts like the ones to which every Member of Congress has access. That allows us to take money out of our paycheck every month tax free and put it in a savings account for health purposes. We don't have to pay taxes on that money. A deposit is made every month, and it starts adding up. That money can be used to buy medicine or to pay for a copayment or any other medical expense. It is our money, and we control it. It has to be used on health care, but it is tax free. If Members of Congress get this, why shouldn't every American have a chance to have something like that?

I used that account last year to pay for my daughter's braces. Millions of Americans should have the chance to do that. Why don't they? Because ObamaCare undermines it instead of encouraging it. It lowered the amount we can save every year from $5,000 to $2,500. Ridiculously enough, it says that in order for me to pay for children's Advil for my kids with my flex savings account, I have to get a prescription from a doctor. Think about that. If you buy children's Advil because your child has a fever, you now have to go to a doctor and get a prescription if you want to use your money to pay for it. Instead of encouraging the flex savings account, ObamaCare undermines it.

Another good idea would be to allow people to buy insurance with their own tax-free money. Let's use the example of Gatorland. Let's say that the monthly premium is $1,000 and Gatorland pays $800 of it. They don't pay taxes on that $800. But let's say that tomorrow a business like that decides it is going to give you the $800 so you can go out and buy insurance from any company. If it does that, you have to pay taxes on the $800. If the employer buys the insurance for you, they don't pay taxes on the money. If you buy insurance for yourself, you pay taxes on the money. That is ridiculous. That is something we should be for.

Here is another one. Why can't we Americans buy insurance from any company that will sell it to us? I live in Florida. If there is a company in Georgia that will sell me health insurance, why can't I buy it? I can't buy it

because they are not licensed by the State of Florida. This ignores the fact that every American needs a different type of health insurance.

If you are like me, with four children, you need a family plan that will cover a lot of things, and that will cost more.

What if you are a 25-year-old healthy single person who hardly ever gets sick? What you probably want is a hospitalization and catastrophic insurance account and a health savings account. The health savings account can be used if you get the flu, so you can take out $50 or $100 with the tax-free money you have saved and pay for the doctor's visit. If, God forbid, you get hit by a car, your insurance steps up and pays for it. A plan such as that is a lot more affordable, but right now you can't buy it. Most States have rules, and most of the rules say: You either have to sell them a Cadillac or nothing at all. What if you don't want a Cadillac? What if you want a Geo? The same is true with health insurance, and it is wrong. We should encourage those things.

It is not too late to change all of this. It would be a terrible mistake to move forward. This is not about defeating a President's agenda or wanting or rooting for it to fail. We do have a health insurance problem, and we should address it. What we are doing now is going to hurt an economy that is already struggling. There are people who will lose their jobs, lose hours at their jobs, paychecks will be cut, and they will lose the health insurance they are happy with. There are businesses in America that are going to be forced to absorb these costs by laying people off or raising prices or both. There are people who will lose coverage now and be thrown into exchanges that don't exist yet. This is a disaster. We should take the time to slow this down, and we will have a chance to do that in September.

I will repeat it. I, for one, will not vote for any budget that funds the implementation of this disaster and hurts people in this way. I hope my colleagues will put partisanship and pride aside and come together. The fact is that if ObamaCare goes through and begins to be implemented, it is going to hurt us in ways that are potentially irreversible. It is not too late to stop.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, there has been a lot of news over the last 24 hours about the nuclear option and how that has been averted here in the Senate and what good news that is for the institution. I do value the Senate, and I do value the ability of individual Senators-- and particularly the minority, which I hope I won't be a part of forever--and of the minority to speak and to be heard. That is one of the things that make this institution unique.

But I think we have to answer a fundamental question about why we have these rules in place and in particular why we have these rules in place when we are dealing with nominees, people who are nominated to the Cabinet and other executive positions. It is because the Constitution gives the Senate the power to advise and consent, to basically review these nominees and find out information about them and then decide whether they should be confirmed.

There are two different standards with regard to that. The first standard is whether the nominee should be able to go forward, and that requires a supermajority vote--60 votes--to continue debate. It is kind of arcane and I don't want to do a tutorial on the Senate, but let me say that if you can't get those 60 votes, then you have to continue to debate that nominee. That is an important tool--not to obstruct but should be used judiciously. It is a tool that should be used to make sure that this process is being respected and that people are answering critical and valid questions. It is an important tool to use. It needs to be used judiciously. It needs to be used in a limited way. You can't do that on everybody. You shouldn't do that on everybody. Quite frankly, the minority has not done it on everybody, nor have I. I have been very careful in its use and have tried to ensure that when we do use it and when I do use it, I use it for reasons that are valid.

It is with that in mind that I am very concerned about a nominee who will be before this body as early as today on a 60-vote threshold about whether to cut off debate on this individual and proceed to final confirmation, and that is this nominee for the Secretary to head the Labor Department, which is a significant agency of our government that, quite frankly, has a direct impact on the ability of businesses to grow and hire people and so forth. This is an important nomination and one that I think deserves careful scrutiny.

Now, let me be frank and up-front. I have significant objections to this nomination on the basis of public policy, and I have stated that in the past. I believe this individual, Thomas Perez, who is currently an Assistant Attorney General, is a liberal activist who has used his position--not just in the Department of Justice but in other roles he has played--to advance a liberal agenda that, quite frankly, is out of touch with a majority of Americans and that I believe would be bad for our economy, hence the reason I don't think it is a good idea for him to head the Labor Department. But the President has a right to his nominees.

So that is a reason to vote against this nomination. That in and of itself may not always be a reason to block a nomination from moving forward. Where I do think there is a valid reason to block someone's nomination from moving forward is when that individual has refused to cooperate with the process that is in place to review their nomination.

When you are nominated to serve in the Cabinet or in the executive branch, you get asked questions about things you have done in the past, things you

have said in the past, and you are expected to answer those fully and truthfully so that the Members of this body can make a decision about your nomination based on the facts. I don't know of anyone here who would dispute that, including people in the majority. Irrespective of how you feel about the nominee, every single Senator here--and through us, the American people--has a right to fully know who it is we are confirming, whether it is to the bench or to the Cabinet or to some other executive position. That is a right that is critically important.

When a nominee refuses to cooperate with that process, I believe that is a valid reason to stand in the way of their confirmation and to block it from moving forward until those questions are fully and truthfully answered. I do believe that is a reason not to vote for what they call cloture around here. I think that is a case in point when it comes to this Labor nominee, Mr. Perez, and I want to take a few moments to argue to my colleagues why it is a bad idea for both Democrats and Republicans to allow this nomination to move forward until this nominee answers the questions he has been asked by the Congress. Let me give the background.

There was a case filed by the City of St. Paul in Minnesota, and this case had to do with a legal theory called disparate impact. It is not really on point per se, but it basically says that you look at how some policy is impacting people, and even if there wasn't the intent to discriminate against people, if the practical impact of it was that it was discriminating against people--let's say a bank was giving out loans, and although the loan officer wasn't looking to deny loans to minorities, if the way they had structured the program meant that fewer minorities were getting loans than should be under a percentage basis, then under this theory you would be allowed to go after whatever institution did that. That is the theory which is out there in law.

The City of St. Paul had a challenge to that in court that chose to define exactly what that meant, and it got all the way to the Supreme Court. It was on the Supreme Court's docket. At the same time, the Justice Department was being asked to intervene in a whistleblower case regarding Housing and Urban Development. Again, it would take too long to describe exactly why that is important, but the bottom line is that the case against the City of St. Paul, the separate case--the whistleblower case--because of the way the law is written, they couldn't move forward on that case unless the Department of Justice intervened. And that is where the nominee, Mr. Perez, stepped in. He is an enormous fan of the disparate impact theory. In fact, he had used it to go after banks, of all things, in his time at the Department of Justice.

At some point in the future I will come to the floor and detail why I object to his nomination, appointment, and confirmation, but today I am just making the argument as to why it is a bad idea to move forward on this nomination until certain questions are answered.

This is where Mr. Perez steps in. What he did is he basically went to the City of St. Paul and said: Look, if you drop your Supreme Court case, we will not intervene in the whistleblower case. It is what is known in Latin as a quid pro quo--you do this for me, I will do that for you. In essence, City of St. Paul, drop your Supreme Court case and I will not intervene on behalf of the Department of Justice.

He argues reasons why he did that were based--he told the House committee the reason why I did that is because I thought it was a bad case, I had bad facts and I didn't want to move forward on the HUD whistleblower case anyway. He claimed that. But, in fact, a subsequent investigation found that a career attorney in the Department of Justice actually did not feel that way at all. A career attorney who was involved in this case believed it was a good case and, in fact, at a meeting about the case he expressed concern that this looked like we were ``buying off'' the City of St. Paul.

Right away the nominee had, frankly, misled the congressional committee when he argued it was a bad case, everybody agreed that the facts were bad. In fact, that is not true. The career prosecutor who was looking at this case wanted to move forward and was concerned that the way this looked was that it was a buy-off.

Then the nominee was asked: By the way, did you use your personal e- mail to conduct this deal? Did you e-mail with people about it? We understand your Federal account, we have access to that, but did you use your personal accounts?

You know, we all have business accounts and we all have personal accounts. The question was did you use your personal accounts to cut this deal or negotiate this deal or even talk about it with anybody? His answer was he could not recall, he had no recollection of that.

Subsequently, however, it was discovered that, in fact, on at least one occasion initially, he had used his e-mail to discuss something with someone at the City of St. Paul. That is when the House oversight committee stepped in and it asked him voluntarily and the Justice Department voluntarily to produce any e-mails from his private account that had to do with his official capacity.

Understand the request. It wasn't: Send us e-mails between you and your children or between you and your family or about you planning your vacation. What they asked for were any e-mails from your private accounts that have to do with your official capacity.

The Justice Department responded to that request by saying: We have found 1,200 instances of the use of his personal e-mails for official business. We found at least--the number at least was 34, but then 35-- instances where it violated the open records laws of the Federal Government. So he was voluntarily asked to produce these e-mails to the House. He refused.

The House then subpoenaed these records, a subpoena which has the power of Congress behind it basically compelling you: You must produce it now. Again, he refuses to produce these e-mails.

What we have before the Senate today is a nominee to head the Labor Department of the United States of America who refuses to comply with a congressional subpoena on his e-mail records regarding his official business conduct. He refuses to comply; will not even answer; ignores it.

Here is what I will say to you. How can we possibly vote to confirm somebody if they refuse to produce relevant information about their official conduct? Think about that. This is an invitation for any official in the executive branch to basically conduct all their business in their private accounts because they know they will never have to produce it, they can ignore the Congress.

The nominee, Mr. Perez, hides behind the Department of Justice and says: They are handling this for me. But the problem is the Department of Justice doesn't possess these e-mails. These are his e-mails from his personal account that he refuses to produce.

If, in fact, there is nothing to worry about--and I am not claiming-- I have not seen the e-mails. I don't know what is in them. None of us do. That is the point. The fact is we are now being asked to vote to confirm someone--not just to confirm someone, to give him 60 votes to cut off debate on the nomination of someone who is in open contempt of a congressional subpoena and repeated requests, including a bipartisan request. I have it here with me, a bipartisan request signed by Mr. Issa of California and Mr. Cummings, the ranking minority member, dated May 8, 2013:

We write to request you produce all documents responsive to

the subpoena issued to you by the committee on April 10,

2013, regarding your use of a non-official e-mail account to

conduct official Department of Justice business. The

Department [Justice Department] has represented to the

Committee that roughly 1,200 responsive e-mails exist. To

allow the Committee to fully examine these e-mails, please

produce all responsive documents in unredacted form to the

Committee no later than Friday, May 20, 2013.

The answer: Nothing, silence, crickets.

This is wrong. How can we possibly move forward on a nominee--I don't care what deal has been cut--how can we possibly move forward on someone until we have information that they have been asked for by a congressional committee? This is outrageous. If ever there was an instance where someone's nomination should not move forward, this is a perfect example of it.

I am not standing here saying deny this nominee 60 votes because I think he is a liberal activist--I do, and I think that is the reason why he should not be confirmed. What I am saying to my Republican colleagues is: I don't care what deal you cut, how can you possibly agree to move forward on the nomination when the nominee refuses to comply with a congressional subpoena to turn over records about official business at the Justice Department?

By the way, we are not confirming him to an Ambassador post in some obscure country halfway around the world. This is the Labor Department. This is the Labor Department.

I am shocked that there are members of my own conference who would be willing to go forward, go ahead on a nomination like this, who are willing to give 60 votes on a nomination like this on a nominee who has, frankly, flat out refused to comply with a congressional subpoena and answer questions that are legitimate and important. We are about to make someone the head of one of the most powerful agencies in America, impacting the ability of businesses to grow and create jobs at a time, frankly, when our economy is not doing very well, we are about to confirm someone to chair that agency, head up that agency when that individual has refused to comply with a legitimate request. How can we possibly go along with that?

I understand how important it is to protect the rights of minorities here. I understand how important it is to protect the right of the minority party to speak out and block efforts to move forward. But, my goodness, what is the point of even having the 60-vote threshold if you cannot use it for legitimate reasons? This is not me saying I am going to block this nominee until I get something I want. This is a nominee who refuses to cooperate, who flat out has ignored Congress and told them to go pound sand. And you are going to vote for this individual and move forward before this question is answered?

I implore my colleagues, frankly on both sides of the aisle--because this sets a precedent. There will not be a Democratic President forever and there will not be a Senate Democratic majority forever. At some point in the future you will have a Republican President and they are going to nominate people and those people may refuse to comply with a records request. You are not going to want those records? In fact, you have in the past blocked people for that very purpose.

So I ask my colleagues again, how can you possibly move forward a nominee who refuses to comply with giving us the information we need to fully vet that nomination? This is a serious constitutional obligation we have. Do we have an obligation to the Senate and to this institution, being a unique legislative body? Absolutely. But we have an even more important obligation to our Constitution and to the role the Senate plays in reviewing nominations and the information behind that nomination, and we are being blatantly denied relevant information. We have colleagues of mine who say it doesn't matter, move forward. This is wrong. It is not just wrong, it is outrageous.

Again, I do not think that we should use--nor do I think we have, by the way, used the 60-vote threshold as a way to routinely block nominees from moving forward. You look at the record. This President has done very well with his nominations, across the board--judiciary, Cabinet, executive branch. But, my goodness, can we at least agree that I have a right as a Senator from Florida--as all of you have a right as Senators from your States--to have all the relevant information on these nominees before we move forward?

I am telling you, if you are going to concede that point, then what is the point of having the 60-vote threshold if you can never use it for legitimate purposes?

I would argue to my colleagues today, let's not have this vote today. Let's not give 60 votes on this nominee until he produces these e-mails and we have time to review them so we can fully understand what was behind not just this quid pro quo deal but behind his public service at the Justice Department as an assistant attorney general, frankly confirmed by this Senate with the support of Republicans.

This is not an unreasonable request. For us to surrender the right to ask these questions is a dereliction of duty and it is wrong. If ever there was a case in point for why the 60-vote threshold matters, this is an example of one. I am telling you, if this moves forward, there is no reason why any future nominee would not decide to give us the same answer; that is, you get nothing. I tell you nothing. I will tell you what I want you to know. Then we are forced to vote up or down on someone on whom we do not have information. And that is wrong.

There is still time to change our minds. I think this is a legitimate exercise--not forever. Let him produce these e-mails. Let us review these e-mails. Then bring him up for a vote and then you can vote on him, whether you like it or not based on all the information. But to allow someone to move forward who is basically telling an oversight committee of Congress: I don't have to answer your questions, I don't have to respond to your letters, I ignore you?

I want you to think about the precedent you are setting. I want you to think about how that undermines the constitutional--not just the right, the constitutional obligation of this body to produce advice and consent on Presidential nominees, and I think this is especially important when someone is going to be a member of the Cabinet and overseeing an agency with the scope and the power of the Labor Department.

I still hope there is time to convince as many of my colleagues as possible. I do not hold great hopes that I will convince a lot of my Democratic colleagues, but I hope I can convince a majority of my Republican colleagues to refuse to give the 60 votes to cut off debate on this nominee until Chairman Issa and the oversight committee get answers to their questions that frankly we would want to know. They take leadership on asking these questions but we are the ones who have to vote on the nominee. They are doing us a favor asking these questions. We should, at a minimum, stand here and demand that these be answered before we move forward.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute so that I may be able to read a letter with regard to the upcoming vote.

Before we vote on this, especially to my colleagues on the Republican side, we are about to give 60 votes to a nominee who is not in compliance with a congressional subpoena.

I have in my hand a letter sent to me moments ago by Darrell Issa, the chairman of the Oversight Committee in the House, where he writes in part that ``Mr. Perez has not produced a single document responsive to the Committee's subpoena. I am extremely disappointed that Mr. Perez continues to willfully disregard a lawful subpoena issued by a standing Committee of the United States House of Representatives. . . . This continued noncompliance contravenes fundamental principles of separation of powers and the rule of law. Until Mr. Perez produces all responsive documents, he will continue to be noncompliant with the Committee's subpoena. Thank you for your attention to this matter.''

He goes on to note, by the way, that Mr. Perez has not produced a single document to the committee; therefore, he remains noncompliant.

Members, you are about to vote to give 60 votes to cut off debate on a nominee who has ignored a congressional subpoena from the House on information relevant to his background and to his qualifications for this office.

Madam President, I don't have objection to the time they want to use. What is our order on the time until 12:30?

I ask unanimous consent that after they are done with their remarks, I have 10 minutes. I may have an objection, and probably will, and would like to speak on that as well. I want to make sure we could have unanimous consent on that. I don't intend to keep us in longer than we need to be.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I do not oppose going to a budget conference with the House. I think I have shown, especially in the last week, a willingness and ability to compromise on important issues--one, quite frankly, very unpopular among people supportive of my candidacy--in my time here in the Senate when we dealt with the issue of immigration. My concern is that when this goes to a budget conference with the House, they will negotiate the debt limit--an issue that I believe is so monumental it should be debated on its own merits and by itself.

So what I am arguing for is a compromise. Let's go to conference but assure everyone here that this is not a conference that is going to deal with the debt limit issue. We need to deal with that issue separately.

I ask unanimous consent of the Senator on a compromise. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator modify her request so that it not be in order for the Senate to consider a conference report that includes reconciliation instructions to raise the debt limit.

I object.

How much time do I have remaining?

Madam President, let me say at the outset on this debt limit issue that we have been told by everyone here that the debt limit is not going to be dealt with; they don't intend to deal with it; that, in fact, we have rules in place that prohibit that from happening. So if the intent is to say we are not going to deal with the debt limit, why not just put it in writing? Why not just agree to it? I think it raises suspicion that they refuse to take the debt limit off the table in writing in a specific motion, even though they told us that is not the case.

But I want to raise a couple of points in regard to all this debate we are having. We heard a lot of debate about the impact of the sequester on this country. I do not dispute that it will have an impact. In fact, I voted against the deal that actually gave us the sequester, and I voted against it because, while I believe deeply we need to constrain spending because we are spending a lot more money than we are taking in, about $1 trillion a year more than we are taking in, borrowing about 40 cents of every dollar we spend in the Federal Government--for the folks visiting here in the gallery, you may be shocked to hear that. Every dollar the Federal Government spends, 40 cents of it is borrowed. When you borrow it, that means you have to pay it back with interest. That is your money. That doesn't come from a tree. That is money taxpayers are eventually going to have to come up with. And for the youngsters here, I want you to understand it is primarily going to come from you in the years to come.

So the reason I thought the sequester was a bad idea is because that sequester is going after things that by and large are not the drivers of our debt. The drivers of our debt are certain programs that are built in a way that are unsustainable, important programs such as Medicare. I believe in Medicare. I support Medicare, as I tell anyone when they ask me about it. My mother is on Medicare. I don't want to see Medicare hurt or changed for her. But I also recognize that if Medicare is going to exist when I retire, we better start making some changes to it for future retirees, people 20 or 30 years from now. That is where we should be focusing our reform efforts.

We cannot get the other side to agree on any sort of changes. There was an effort in the House last year to try to do something very serious about that. They brutally attacked it. There was a reference to the Ryan budget a moment ago. The Ryan budget--I am not saying it was perfect, but it was the most serious effort yet in this Congress, in this city, to reform a program that is going bankrupt on its own.

I think the only thing worse than the sequester is to raise taxes to prevent a sequester because that will hurt job creation in America. The only thing worse than the sequester is not to have any spending reductions at all, which leads me to the point that was raised earlier saying that we are not going to agree to a short-term budget unless ObamaCare is defunded and that we are threatening a crisis by shutting down the government.

Let me say that one of the people who said that was me, so let me address that for a moment. Let me tell you what the disaster is. The real disaster is ObamaCare itself. In fact, it is such a disaster that the people who supported it are now delaying implementing portions of it. Just last week we were told that one of the key components of the law requiring that employers provide insurance--they are going to have to delay that by a year, conveniently until after the next election.

Here is the other thing we found out last week. I know that under ObamaCare, when you go in and say, I make so much money, you can qualify for the government to give you extra money to buy insurance. Guess what. They now admitted they have no way of verifying how much money you really make. Basically, it means people are going to get to show up and say, I only make $20,000 a year, and get their subsidy, with no way to verify the truth about what they make.

It is not limited to that. The disaster that is looming with regard to ObamaCare impacts every single American. Here is a list of them that was recently produced by the Heritage Foundation. They missed a bunch of deadlines.

Most states resisted Obamacare's call to create insurance

exchanges, choosing to let Washington create a federally run

exchange instead. However, a Government Accountability Office

report noted that ``critical'' activities to create a federal

exchange have not been completed and the missed deadlines

``suggest a potential for challenges going forward.''

That is right--you may have to go on a Federal exchange--including, ironically enough, the Members of the Congress and their staffs--and the exchange doesn't exist yet. You are going to be expected in a couple of months to sign up for something that doesn't even exist yet. That is one part of the disaster. There are many others.

The administration announced in April that workers will not

be able to choose plans from different health insurers in the

small business exchanges next year--a delay that [a liberal

blogger] called ``a really bad sign of ObamaCare

incompetence.''

Here is another one, the child-only plans--one of the things people were excited about. There was a drafting error in the law that actually led to less access to care for children with preexisting conditions.

A 2011 report found that in 17 states, insurers are no

longer selling child-only health insurance plans, because

they fear that individuals will apply for coverage only after

being diagnosed with costly illnesses.

Basic health plan: DELAYED.

This government-run plan for states, created as part of

ObamaCare, has also been delayed, prompting one Democrat to

criticize the Administration for failing to ``live up'' to

the law and implement it as written.

The early retiree reinsurance--it is broke.

The $5 billion in funding for this program was intended to

last until 2014--but the program's money ran out in 2011, two

years ahead of schedule.

Waivers:

After the law passed, HHS discovered that some of its new

mandates would raise costs so much that employers would drop

coverage rather than face skyrocketing premiums. Instead, the

Administration announced a series of temporary waivers--and

more than half the recipients of those waivers were members

of union health insurance plans.

It goes on and on. This thing is a disaster. I don't care about how you feel about it, there is an insurance crisis in America, let there be no doubt. People are struggling to find access to quality health insurance. We should deal with that, but this approach is a disaster. No matter how you feel about it, it is a disaster. It cannot be implemented in time. You don't think that is looming over our economy?

I just left a meeting with an owner of a chain of restaurants. They are worried about it. They don't know what to make of it. Why, if you ask what it is going to look like next year, they don't know. They don't know. We are in July already, folks. We are going to implement this? We are going to force this on our economy? You don't think that is a disaster? You don't think in the

real world--not in Washington or the think tanks--small- and medium- sized businesses and individuals are holding back on investing or holding back on making moves? You don't think someone who decided to leave their job, take their life's savings, and open a business because they believe so much in their dream--you don't think this uncertainty is hurting that from happening? It is.

You cannot grow your economy unless people are willing to start new businesses or grow existing businesses, and ObamaCare is keeping that from happening. That is the disaster.

Why would we fund a disaster? Why would we pay for something out of the American taxpayer's wallet we know isn't going to work? When they talk about shutting down the government and how it is going to be a disaster--ObamaCare threatens to shut down our economy. I am telling you this is a disaster. We should not fund it, and we should not have a temporary budget around here that gives money to this thing. It is a disaster, it will not work, and it is going to hurt people.

The other thing about this debt limit that I make such a big deal about--let me tell you why. We owe $17 trillion, and that is bad, and it is bigger than our economy. Here is the worst part about it: There is no plan in place to stop that from continuing to grow. You heard right. There is no plan. This budget the Senate passed--I am glad we passed a budget--only makes it worse; it doesn't make it better.

Where is the urgency? What are we waiting for? This isn't going to take care of itself. We are not going to win the Powerball lottery and pay this thing off. When is someone going to step up and say it is time to solve it?

I have been here now 2\1/2\ years. If on the day I got elected you told me we would go 2\1/2\ years without seriously dealing with this, I wouldn't have believed you. I would have said: Look, I know it is going to be hard, but we have to do something. We are 2\1/2\ years into this, and they are saying: We are going to raise the debt limit, and we don't want any conditions. We don't want to deal with anything that fixes it.

People say: Well, the debt is something that is far off in the future. It is off in the future, but it is also happening now. Do you think when people decide to invest money to start a new business or expand an existing business--which is how you create jobs; that is how jobs are created in the private sector.

If you graduated college, went to school, got your degree, and now you can't find a job, I will tell you why you cannot find a job: The businesses that create those jobs will not create them until all of this is figured out. People do not want to risk their hard-earned and saved money in an economy that is headed for a catastrophe.

Look at what is happening in Europe now. Europe has a debt problem. You know how they have had to deal with it? Disruptive changes in government and tax increases. If you think that stuff attracts investment in business, you are out of your mind. There isn't a chamber of commerce in the world that tells people: Come to us. Here we have high taxes and heavy debt that will make those taxes even bigger in the future.

The bottom line is that the debt limit and the fact that we don't have a solution for the debt is also the reason for the crisis. We need to begin dealing with this seriously and stop playing games. Someone has to draw a line in the sand, and I know many of my colleagues and I intend to do so every chance we get.

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

Yes.

Mr. President, this issue is very important to millions of Americans, and one with which I am too familiar. I think I have shared this in the past, but I will share it again.

Obviously, my parents didn't make a lot of money. So I would not have gone to college, I would not have gone to law school had it not been for Federal financial aid, both in the form of Pell grants, loans, and work-study. All of these programs opened that door for me. In fact, I don't think any of my siblings could have gone to college without some assistance.

The point is that I know how important these programs are to Americans. In fact, when I was elected to the Senate in 2010, I still had a student loan that was over $100,000. I was fortunate to write a book--which is now available in paperback, if anyone is interested--and with the proceeds that I made from that, I was able to pay off that loan. Had it not been for that, I am not sure when I would have been able to pay off my student loan for law school.

Early on, when I had multiple student loans from both undergrad and law school and the private loans I had to take out for the bar study, there were months where my student loan payments were higher than anything else I was paying. At its peak, it was about $1,400 a month. That is with a graduate and a law degree, and making what most people would consider a pretty good living. Even with that, it was a real load.

Obviously, that is at the high end of the spectrum, but even if you talk about the average loan debt in America today being around $25,000 or $26,000, the evidence is clear this is having an impact on graduates.

So you graduate from college, you have the student loan debt around your neck, and it actually prevents you from doing things like starting your life, buying a home. In some instances, if you fall behind on your payments, it starts to hurt your credit rating. The evidence continues to grow that a significant percentage of young Americans are facing a challenge that no Americans before us have faced with regard to this sort of student loan debt that hangs over their heads.

So, clearly, we have to figure out a permanent solution--not a 1-year solution but a long-term solution--on the issue of student loan rates. That is an important part of this debate, but here is what I think is missing from this debate; that is, an open acknowledgement that what we have today in higher education as it is currently structured is becoming increasingly and inexplicably unaffordable. And that is the part that isn't being discussed.

The fundamental problem isn't the loans. The fundamental problem is the tuition rates that continue to climb across this country. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal today, institutions of higher education grew their revenue faster than inflation from 2005 to 2011. Of course, the spending also grew. How many other parts of our economy grew their revenue and their spending at a pace faster than inflation over the last decade?

The evidence is that every time we increase the amount of student aid that is available in both Pell grants and in loan programs, that is just eaten up by higher tuition rates.

Now, as a former State legislator in Florida, that was a battle we had every year because the universities said they needed higher tuition in order to retain quality faculty, et cetera. To some extent, I imagine some of that is true. But at the end of the day, there comes a point--especially in our public institutions--where quality but also affordability have to meet. We cannot continue to price people out of higher education in this country because it is inextricably linked to our future well-being.

There are two fundamental problems that face our economy. No. 1 is we don't have an economy that is growing fast enough, producing the kind of middle-class jobs that allow people to have the kind of lifestyle all Americans want. The other problem is we have a skills gap in America where a growing number of people simply have not acquired the skills they need for 21st-century middle-class jobs. The only way to close that skills gap is through education--and particularly higher education.

What I would argue today is that the model of higher education we have in place today, largely based on 19th- and 20th-century models, is broken. It no longer lives up to the reality of the 21st century.

For example, many of the higher paying jobs in the middle class today don't require a 4-year degree from a liberal arts college. They require less than 2 years or a 2-year degree program that you could get at a community college.

There are other things available to us in terms of how we can incentivize or reform our higher education programs. We should look at accreditation reform.

Right now, in order to get student loans or aid from the Federal Government, you have to go to an institution that is accredited. Traditionally, these are the 4-year or 2-year institutions. But there are now alternatives available to us, things that we weren't doing a few years ago.

No. 1, we should rely on community colleges, which, by the way, are a treasure in this country. The services that community colleges provide students to get 2-year degrees--in fact, some community colleges are in the 4-year degree program, and they have tailored programs that allow people to go to school while they continue to work. That is an important part of the backbone.

It is also an extraordinary part of retraining people. You might have a job, and all of a sudden that job doesn't exist anymore, and you have to get retrained in a new skill or a new trade. Community colleges are an important part of that component.

It goes beyond that though. Career and technical education, for the life of me, I do not understand why we have stigmatized that in this country; why we have created this idea that unless you get a 4-year degree or more that you are somehow not successful when we know we have a shortage of people we need to be trained in the skills and trades we once used to do in this country. We should get back to some of that. We should encourage that, quite frankly, even before the college level.

Why can't we graduate kids from high school with an industry certification and a career in a trade, so when they graduate high school they get a diploma and they are industry certified to go to work?

We have an example of that on a smaller scale in south Florida, where a friend of mine actually takes high school kids and begins to train them as BMW technicians. They go to school in the morning for a couple of hours. Then they go to the shop and get trained. When they graduate from high school, they are BMW-certified technicians. Within a year after that, they can get even higher levels of accreditation, and some of them start making $35,000, $40,000 a year out of high school.

Why aren't we doing more of that? Instead, we leave kids trapped. They feel as though they are studying things they don't like and don't speak to them. They drop out of high school. They languish in the economy for 10 or 15 years, and then sometimes they will find themselves in a for-profit college or some other program to try to get trained.

Let's avoid all of that. Let's allow these high school students and others across this country with an opportunity to study something they enjoy and they love and to get the needed skills so they can avoid all of that.

We also have this new revolution in massive online coursework. Now, not every course can be taken that way, but we now have the ability to allow people to actually have self-directed learning, to use the Internet platforms that are available so they can take a course in political science from Harvard and economics from Yale. You can sit there and actually put your own course work together. This is still being developed, but this is an important part of our future innovation--the ability to bring the in-classroom learning to the student, not just require them to sit there for lectures for an hour and a half in a classroom when they can easily get it online and it can be tailored to their work schedule, to their workload, to their needs.

Beyond that, innovations, in terms of giving people credit for work experience or life experience--we see that colleges are doing that now where you can go in and say: This is what I have done for the last 20 years of my life, and you get credit for that work because you have life experience and work experience in a field. They don't make you sit there and spend a bunch of money on electives you are never going to use and don't really need because they want you to be ``well rounded'' but all it does, in fact, is drive up the cost of your education.

I don't know about you, but in the last 4 years of my degree I was searching for electives to take because I had to have electives. I don't remember what some of those electives were, but I paid for them with student loans and Pell grants. I would much rather have gotten my degree in the things I needed to know so I could have moved on to law school and done that there.

These are some of the ideas we have in terms of how we should revolutionize our higher education system to reflect the needs and the realities of the 21st century. The fact is that we now have a challenge before us unlike anything we have ever had. Industries are now evolving on a yearly basis. Most Americans are going to have to

be retrained at some point in their lives on a new skill because that is the pace of change, and we need to have infrastructure in place to provide that for people in a way that is affordable.

It reminds me of a story of a friend I had who was one of the parents on one of my son's teams, and the mom was always struggling. She was always the first one to get laid off at her office. She worked primarily as a receptionist at a dental clinic or medical clinic, got a little bit into billing. What she really needs to become and would like to become is an ultrasound technician so she can make a little bit more money, have a little job security, and provide her kids with the opportunities she wants them to have. The problem she has is that she has to work 8 hours a day. How is she going to do that and go to school and get that training?

In many parts of this country we do not have the infrastructure in place for that to happen and the financial aid programs both on the loan side and Pell grant side do not provide the flexibility to allow them to do it in the most cost-effective way. To that end I have proposed a number of pieces of legislation. Most of them are bipartisan. I have worked with Senator Wyden and others on the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act. That basically means that before you take out these loans, you are going to be provided meaningful information: This is how much it is going to cost to go to school here, this is how much people who graduate with this degree from this college make when they graduate, and this is how much you are going to owe. You can still take the course, you can still major in that, but you deserve to know. You deserve to know that if you are going to owe $20,000 and you are only going to make $20,000 a year when you graduate with this degree, it will take you a long time to pay it, if ever.

Students have a right to know before they go. That is the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act.

I also offered the Higher Education and Skills Obtainment Act, which will create one universal tax credit for higher education, and it will produce measurable savings, some of which can be redirected to the shortfalls in the Pell Grant Program that are coming up. The bill offers one tax credit for students who are most in need, giving students the ability to avoid navigating a confusing maze of temporary tax provisions worth different amounts for different income thresholds.

By the way, people involved in job skill training would also have access to this universal credit as opposed to all these different credits floating out there now that people do not fully understand how to use.

There are other ideas I have proposed. I have introduced legislation with Senator Coons that provides an innovative partnership that will create an interactive source of information for students to be able to create college savings accounts. Studies have shown that American children with college savings accounts in their name are seven times more likely to go to college than students without one. This bill will combine innovative student support tools with savings accounts to promote access for low-income students in our country so they put some money aside to be able to do this.

The fact is that today's 21st-century student requires a higher education system that best suits their needs, whether it is in the form of a traditional university, a community college, a career or technical education, workforce retraining programs, or a combination of all of these.

I am not saying this is not an important debate to have because it is. It is facing people right now. But I hope at some point we will look at our student aid programs and what we can do to tailor them to the 21st century, to all of the innovations that are now available to us to allow people to gain the knowledge they need to become competitive in a 21st-century economy. That is going to require, in my opinion, a significant restructuring on how our higher education is developed.

This is not a threat to liberal arts colleges or a transitional 4- year college education. That will always be a part of our system. It is an important part of our system. But that does not work for everybody, not because they are not smart enough but because they have a job during the day, because they are raising three kids. If you are a single mom with three kids and a full-time job, you cannot just leave all that behind and go to Gainesville, FL, to the University of Florida for 4 years. You need the ability to get that degree that allows you to do that. I lived that. My sister had to do that. She went back to school in her thirties and finished her college degree and then got her master's to become a teacher, and today she is an assistant principal, all the while raising two boys on her own. She would not have been able to do that if the only choice she had available to her was the University of Florida, Florida State, because she couldn't just move. That doesn't work for someone in that part of their lives.

We need to have answers. So I hope we will spend some time focusing on what we can do and reforming the way we accredit colleges, particularly when it comes to student financial aid, and in the way we structure our financial aid programs so that the education system meets the needs of our 21st-century students and not the other way around.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, my father had a rough childhood. His mom died just 4 days shy of his ninth birthday. The small catering business his parents ran together had collapsed, so as a young child he was forced to leave school and go to work, and he would work virtually every day for the rest of his life. My mother grew up just as hard. Her father was disabled by polio as a child, and he struggled to provide for his seven daughters.

My parents met at a small store where my mother was a cashier and my father was a security guard. He actually lived and slept in the storage room of that store. Like all young couples, they had dreams. My mother wanted to be an actress, and my father tried hard to get ahead. In fact, after work he would take correspondence courses to become a TV and radio repairman, but it was hard because he barely knew how to read.

They did everything they could to make a better life, but living in an increasingly unstable country, with limited education and no connections, they just couldn't. So they saved as much as they could, and on May 27, 1956, they boarded a plane to Miami. They came to America in search of a better life.

Like most recent arrivals, life in America wasn't easy either. My father had someone actually phonetically write on a small piece of paper the words ``I am looking for work.'' He memorized those words. Those were literally the first words he learned to speak in English. He took day jobs wherever he could find them.

They both went to work at a factory, building aluminum chairs. My dad started working as a bar boy on Miami Beach, eventually becoming a bartender. He saved money and tried to open some businesses. When that didn't work, they tried Los Angeles and they tried Las Vegas, but that also didn't work. So he found himself back on Miami Beach behind a bar. The truth is that they were discouraged and homesick for Cuba too. In fact, in the early days of Castro's rule, before he came out as a Marxist, they even entertained going back permanently. But, of course, communism took root in Havana, and that became impossible too.

I am sure that on their worst days they wondered if it would ever get better. Then the miracle we know as America began to change their lives. By 1967 they had saved enough money to buy a house within walking distance of the Orange Bowl, where on Sundays they would make extra money by letting people park on their lawn. My older sister was in ballet; my older brother, the star quarterback at Miami High. But it wasn't just their lives that changed, it was also their hearts. They still spoke Spanish at home and kept all the customs they brought with them from Cuba, but with each passing year this country became their own.

My mother recalls how on that terrible November day in 1963 she wept at the news that her President had been slain. She remembers that magical night in 1969 when an American walked on the Moon and she realized that now nothing was impossible, because, you see, well before they ever became citizens in their hearts, they had already become Americans.

It reminds us that sometimes we focus so much on how immigrants can change America, we forget that America has always changed immigrants even more.

But this is not just my story. This is our story. It reminds us of the words etched on the marble above the rostrum of the Senate: ``E Pluribus Unum''--out of many, one.

Now, no one should dispute that, like every sovereign nation on this planet, we have a right to control who comes in. But unlike other countries, we are not afraid of people coming in here from other places. Instead, inspired by our Judeo-Christian principles, we Americans have seen the stranger and invited him in, and our Nation has been blessed for it in ways that remind us of these ancient words:

God divided the sea and led them through and made the

waters stand up like a wall. By day he led them with a cloud;

by night, with a light of fire. He split the rocks in the

desert. He gave them plentiful to drink as from the deep. He

made streams flow out from the rock and made waters run down

like rivers. He commanded the clouds above and opened the

gates of heaven. He rained down manna for their food and gave

them bread from heaven.

Our history is filled with dramatic evidence that God's hand is upon our land. Who among us would dispute that we Americans are a blessed people? In the harbor of our most famous city, there is a statue of a woman holding a lamp, and at the base of that statue is a poem that reads:

Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp! . . . Give me your

tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe

free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these,

the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the

golden door!

For over 200 years now they have come in search of liberty and freedom for sure but often just in search of a job to feed their kids and a chance at a better life. From Ireland and Poland, from Germany and France, from Mexico and Cuba, they have come. They have come because in the land of their birth, their dreams were bigger than their opportunities. Here they brought their language and their customs, their religions and their music, and somehow they have made them ours as well. From a collection of people from everywhere, we became one people--the most exceptional Nation in all of human history.

Even with all of our challenges, we remain that shining city on the hill. We are still the hope of the world. Go to our factories and our fields, go to the kitchens and construction sites, go to the cafeterias in this very Capitol, and there you will find that the miracle of America is still alive. For here in America, those who once had no hope will give their kids the chance at a life they always wanted for themselves. Here in America, generations of unfulfilled dreams will finally come to pass. And that is why I support this reform--not just because I believe in immigrants but because I believe in America even more.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the last few days I have received numerous e-mails and calls from conservatives and tea party activists from across the country regarding immigration. Their opinions really matter to me because they were with me 3 years ago when so many people in Washington--and in Florida, for that matter--thought I had no chance to win my election.

Let me say these people are patriots. They are Americans from all walks of life who are deeply concerned about the direction our country is headed, and they are increasingly unhappy about the immigration reform proposal in the Senate. It is not because they are ``anti- immigrant'' as some like to say, and it is not because they are closed- minded. They believe, as do I, that as a sovereign country, we have a right to secure our borders and we have a right to have immigration laws to enforce them.

They are increasingly opposed to this effort because for over three decades and despite many promises to enforce the law, the Federal Government, under both Republicans and Democrats, has failed to do so.

In the end, it is not just immigration reform itself that worries them; it is the government that has failed them so many times before. They realize we have a legal immigration system that needs reform. They realize we have over 11 million people currently living in our country illegally and that we have to deal with them. They just simply believe no matter what law we

pass, we cannot trust the Federal Government to ever actually enforce it.

This sentiment was best summed up for me in an e-mail I received from Sharon Calvert, a prominent tea party leader in Tampa, FL. She wrote:

Today, June 2013, we are in a very different political

climate than we were after the last election. We are in a

political climate of distrust. Distrust of government and

elected representatives is at its highest.

She goes on to say:

Do we want to trust this administration to faithfully

enforce a bill to the best interests of all Americans with a

bill that few have read?

She makes a powerful point.

After finding out that the IRS investigates people based on their political views, all the questions that remain about Benghazi, and seeing the Justice Department target reporters, trust in the Federal Government is rightfully at an all-time low.

I share this skepticism about this administration and Washington in general. In just the 2 years I have been here, I have seen the games played and the promises broken and how the American people ultimately suffer the consequences. That is exactly what led me to get involved in this issue in the first place.

We have a badly broken legal immigration system--not only one that does not work; it actually encourages illegal immigration. We have a border with Mexico that, despite billions of dollars already spent, is still not secured. Every day, people, drugs, and guns are trafficked across the border, and we have 11 million people living in this country illegally in de facto amnesty.

What I am describing is the way things are now. This is the status quo, and it is a terrible mess. It is hurting our country terribly, and unless we do something about it, this administration isn't going to fix it.

Political pundits love to focus on the politics of all this, but for me this isn't about catering to any group for political gain. Predictably, despite all the work we have done on immigration reform, some so-called ``pro-immigrant'' groups continue to protest me daily.

This isn't about winning points from the establishment or the mainstream media either, by the way. No matter how consistent I have been in focusing on the border security aspects of reform, whenever I have spoken about it the beltway media has accused me of trying to undermine or walk away from this reform.

This isn't about becoming a Washington dealmaker. Truthfully, it would have been a lot easier to just sit back, vote against any proposal, and give speeches about how I would have done it differently.

Finally, this certainly isn't about gaining support for future office. Many conservative commentators and leaders--people whom I deeply respect and with whom I agree on virtually every other issue-- are disappointed about my involvement in this debate.

I got involved in this issue for one simple reason: I ran for office to try to fix things that are hurting this special country. In the end, that is what this is about for me--trying to fix a serious problem that faces America.

The proposal before the Senate is by no means perfect. As does any proposal that will come before the Senate, it has flaws; but it also has important reforms that conservatives have been trying to get for years. For example, it changes our legal immigration system from a predominantly family-based system of chain migration to a merit-based system that focuses on job skills.

This proposal mandates the most ambitious border and interior security measures in our Nation's history. For example, it requires and funds the completion of 700 miles of real border fence. It adds 20,000 new border agents. It details a specific technology plan for each sector of the border. It requires E-Verify for every employer in America. And it creates a tracking system to identify people who overstay their visas.

These are all things that at a minimum must happen before those in the country illegally can apply for permanent status. And the proposal deals with those who are here illegally in a reasonable but responsible way. Right now, those here illegally are living in de facto amnesty. This is what I mean by that: They are unregistered, many pay no taxes, and few will ever have to pay a price for having violated our laws.

Under this bill they will have to come forward. They will have to pass background checks. They will have to pay a fine. They will have to start paying taxes. They will be ineligible for welfare, for food stamps, and for ObamaCare.

In return, the only thing they get is a temporary work permit, and they can't renew it in 6 years unless they can prove they have been holding a job and paying their taxes. For at least 10 years, that is all they can have. After all that, they cannot even apply for permanent status until the fence is built, the Border Patrol agents are hired, and the border security technology, E-Verify, and the tracking system are fully in place.

Yet despite all of these measures, opposition from many conservatives has grown significantly in the last few weeks. Why? Well, because they have heard the Secretary of Homeland Security can just ignore the border requirement. But this is not true. The Department does have the discretion on where to build the fence but not on the amount of fencing it must build. At the end of the day, it is simple: 700 miles of pedestrian fencing must be built.

They have also heard the Secretary of Homeland Security can just waive the radar and the drones and the ground sensors and the other technology required in the bill. But that is just not true. The Secretary can always add more to the plan, but the list of border security measures we mandate in the legislation is the minimum that must be implemented.

Some oppose it because they have heard ``a future Congress can just defund all of the security measures'' as they have done in the past. But that is just not true. The money is built into the bill. Unlike previous border security laws, it doesn't leave it dependent on future funding.

They also oppose the bill because they have heard it creates a taxpayer subsidy for people to buy a car or a scooter. That is just not true. Nothing in this bill allows that.

Finally, they oppose the bill because they have heard that last Friday, a brandnew, 1,100-page bill no one has read is what is now before the Senate. That is just not true. This is the exact same bill that has been publicly available for 10 weeks. The main addition to it are about 120 pages of border security because in order to add 700 miles of fence, 20,000 border agents, and a prohibition on things such as foreign students or tourists from getting ObamaCare, we had to add pages to the bill.

Now, I understand--I do--why after reading these false claims people would be opposed to this bill. I also understand why, after we have been burned by large bills in the past, people are suspicious of big reforms of any kind. I understand why, after promises made in the past on immigration have not been kept, people doubt whether they will ever be kept again in the future.

But I also understand what is going to happen if at some point we do not come up with an agreement we can support on immigration reform. What is going to happen is we will still have a broken legal immigration system. We will not have more Border Patrol officers. We will not have enough fencing. We still will not have mandatory E- Verify. And we will still have 11 million people living here illegally.

That is why I am involved, because despite all of the problems we have with government, the only way to mandate a fence, E-Verify, and more agents is to pass a law that does so.

I knew getting these requirements into the bill would not be easy. This administration insisted the border is already secure, and they fought every effort to improve the border security parts of this bill. The administration wants the fastest and easiest path to citizenship possible, and they fought every condition and every trigger in this bill.

I got involved because I knew if conservatives didn't get involved in shaping this proposal, it would not have any of the border security reforms our Nation desperately needs.

Getting to this point has been very difficult. To hear the worry and the anxiety and the growing anger in the voices of so many people who helped me get elected to the Senate, whom I agree with on virtually every other issue, has been a real trial for me. I

know they love America, and they are deeply worried about the direction this administration is trying to take our country.

When I was a candidate, I told people I wanted to come here and fight. I want to fight to protect what is good for America and fight to stop what is bad for America. I believe what we have now regarding immigration is hurting our country badly, and I simply wasn't going to just leave it to Democrats alone to figure out how to fix it.

I guess perhaps at the heart of my support of this proposal is that I know firsthand that while immigrants have always impacted America, America changes immigrants even more. Just a generation ago my parents lived in poverty in another country. America changed them. It gave them a chance to improve their lives. It gave them the opportunity to open doors for me that were closed to them. And the longer they lived here, the older their kids got, the more conservative they became, the more convinced they became that limited government and free enterprise and our constitutional liberties made this Nation special.

I am a firsthand witness to the transformative power of our country, how it does not just change people's pocketbooks, it changes their hearts and their minds. Despite all the challenges and despite our broken government, I still believe this is that kind of country.

I realize in the end many of my fellow conservatives will not be able to support this reform. But I hope you will understand that I honestly believe it is the right thing to do for this country--to finally have an immigration system that works, to finally have a fence, to finally have more agents and E-Verify, and to finally put an end to de facto amnesty.

In my heart and in my mind, I know we must solve this problem once and for all or it will only get worse and it will only get harder to solve.

To my fellow conservatives, I will continue to fight alongside you for real tax reform, for lowering our debt, for balancing our budget, for reducing regulations, for rolling back job-killing environmental policies, and for repealing the disaster of ObamaCare. To my fellow conservatives, I will continue to fight alongside you for the sanctity of life and for traditional marriage. But I will also continue to work in the hopes of one day uniting behind a common conservative strategy on how to fix our broken immigration system once and for all.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity and I will be brief. My colleagues have already stated what this entails and the details of it. I think that is important.

I got involved in this issue earlier this year after spending the better part of my first 2 years in the Senate thinking about this issue because, frankly, not just from being from Florida but living in south Florida I am surrounded by the reality of it every single day. When I started this effort, I became deeply convinced this is something that needed to be fixed and needed to be dealt with, but from the very beginning, the early days of my involvement, I made clear border security was an essential component of it.

This is not against anybody. Border security is not an anti-anyone effort. That is not what it is. We understand that America is a special country. It is so special that people want to come from all over the world and they do. One million people a year come here legally, every single year.

We also understand it is so special, unique, some people are willing to risk their lives to come here illegally. As compassionate people, we understand that reality and our heart breaks at the stories of what people are having to go through to come. But we also understand the United States of America is a sovereign country. Every single sovereign country on the planet, every single one, tries to or does control its borders and who comes into the country and who leaves. Every country in the world does that. The United States of America should not be any different.

At the end of the day, that is what this issue is about. It is that we have a sovereign right to protect our border and we have a crisis on the southern border of the United States. For many different reasons, people have chosen to cross that border illegally, consistently, for the 20 or 30 years, and the results are obvious to all of us. That is why border security is such an important part of this bill and this measure.

When we introduced our bill, the bill said basically the Department of Homeland Security would be given some money, and they would get to decide what the border security plan looked like. Many people in the public and many of our colleagues were unhappy with that proposal. They raised valid concerns that we were turning over border security and deciding what the plan would be to people who claim it is already secure. What this amendment does is it takes that back and it says that we, instead, we in the Senate, will decide what that plan is after we get input from border agents and others about what will work.

What this amendment reflects is what we know will work. We know that adding border agents, doubling the size of the U.S. Border Patrol, that will work. We know that completing fence work will work. We know an entry-exit tracking system, since 40 percent of our illegal immigrants are those who overstay their visas, will work. We know E-Verify will work. It is something many of my colleagues in my party have asked for, for the better part of 10 years. It will work because it takes away the magnet of employment.

We know these new technologies that were not available to us in 1986 or 2006 or even 5 years ago will work. What this bill says is you must do all of those things, and it is linked to legal permanent residence. In essence, someone who has violated our immigration laws cannot become a legal permanent resident in the United States until all five of those actions happen. That is the guarantee this will happen.

Let me close by saying I understand the frustration. I truly do. I know these promises have been made in the past. In a moment, the Senator from Alabama whose position on this is well stated will point out these promises were also made in 1986. By the way, in 1986, I was 15 years old, and I have to tell you immigration was the last thing on my mind at that time. But here is the reality of it. The choice before us is to try to fix this or to leave it the way it is. What we have is a disaster of epic proportions. We have 10 or 11 million human beings living among us. We don't know who they are. They are working but not paying taxes. There are criminals among them. That has to be solved. A legal immigration system built on the 19th century? We need to fix this and this is our chance to fix it.

Mr. President, I wish to speak about the immigration bill as we approach the end of this week because we are obviously hearing from many people outside of the building who are concerned about this issue, and I think it is important to make a few things clear as we head into next week and what I hope will be final passage of this measure.

First, let me describe how this program works because immigration is complicated. It can sometimes even be confusing. We throw around these terms here, and we assume everybody understands what they mean, so I want to explain. The way I will explain it is how this bill will work if we pass the amendment filed by Senators Hoeven and Corker, which I believe will pass and should pass with significant bipartisan support.

First, let's describe the problem we have today. No. 1, we have a broken legal immigration system. We have a system of legal immigration. About 1 million people a year come here legally. But the system is broken because it is designed, for example, solely based on primarily family reunification, which, by the way, is how my parents came in 1956. The problem is that the world has changed, and as a result, because we live in a global economy where we are competing for talent and not just workforce, we need to have more of a merit-based and career-based immigration system, and this bill would move us in that direction.

We have a broken legal immigration system, by the way, because it is cumbersome and complicated and bureaucratic. One really has to lawyer up to legally immigrate to the United States, especially in certain categories.

If we look at the agriculture sector, there is no reliable, sustainable way for agriculture to get foreign labor. By and large, while there are Americans who will do labor in the agriculture industry, there is a significant shortage of Americans who will work in the agriculture industry. And we don't have a program for agriculture that works for people to come legally here, but the jobs are there, so people are coming illegally.

So we have a broken legal immigration system, and that has to be fixed and modernized, and this bill does that. That is why we haven't heard a lot of discussion about it.

The second problem we have is that our immigration laws are only as good as our ability to enforce those laws. If we want to get to the heart of the problem we are facing in terms of opposition to the bill, it is because in the past, both Republicans and Democrats have promised to enforce the immigration laws and then have refused or have been unable to do it. Part of it has just been an unwillingness, to be frank.

We have talked about 1986 and 2006 and other efforts. In the past, people have been told we are going to enforce the immigration laws, and then we don't do it. As time goes on, the problem gets bigger and people say: We have been told this before, and we are not going to do it again. That really is standing in the way of more support for this measure.

Another problem we have is the systems we use to enforce the law are broken. For example, on the border there are sectors that have dramatically improved, and so from that experience we have learned what works, but there are sectors that have actually gotten worse or have not improved significantly. So to say the entire southern border has been secured is not true, and we really shouldn't say that to Americans, especially those living near that border who understand that is not true.

We also have a problem with visa overstays. What that means is people come into the United States legally on a tourist visa, and then when it expires they don't leave. So they came in legally--they didn't jump a fence or cross the border--but then they get here and they stay. That is a visa overstay. That is 40 percent of our problem. We don't have a system to track that. Even though it is mandated by law, we do not have a system to track that. We track people when they come in, but we don't track them when they leave in real-time, so we don't have a running tally of who has overstayed their visas, leading to 40 percent of our illegal immigration problem.

The third problem we have is the magnet that brings people here. I am not saying every single person who comes here illegally is coming looking for jobs and opportunity, but I am saying the enormous majority of people who come here are coming because they believe there is a job in the United States for them so they can feed their families. That is a magnet. We have jobs and we have people willing to do those jobs, and those two things are going to meet. They are going to come. The choice we have is, do they come through a legal process that is organized and secure or do they come in a chaotic way that contributes to illegal immigration? And that is how they are coming now.

So that is why in this bill we have an entry-exit tracking system but also have something called E-Verify, which simply means that employers--any business, any company, anyone who hires someone, when they hire them, they have to ask their name. The employee has to produce their identification. The employer runs that name through the Internet on a system called E-Verify, and it will confirm whether that person is legally here. If they are hired after that person says they are illegally here, we double and sometimes even triple the penalties for employers who do that.

So those are important measures this bill takes. And that is the second problem we face.

The third problem we face is even more fundamental. As we speak, as I stand here before my colleagues today, estimates are there are upwards of 11 million human beings living in these United States who are here illegally. They have overstayed visas, they were brought as children, they crossed the border, they are here. They don't qualify for welfare, they don't qualify for any Federal benefits, but they are here. They are here and they are working. They are working for cash. They are working under someone else's identification, but they are here. The vast majority of them have been here for longer than a decade. They are here.

Let me tell my colleagues, that is not good for them because when a person doesn't have documents, they are unprotected. When a person is here illegally, that person can be exploited, and that happens. But it is also not good for the country. It is not good for this country to have that many people. We don't know who they are. They are not paying taxes. They are working, but they are not paying taxes. We have no idea--the vast majority of them are not criminals, but a handful of them are, and we don't know where they live, who they are, how long they have been here. We know very little about them. That is not good for our country either. We have to deal with that.

That is my point. If we don't do anything--let's say this bill fails or let's say we pass it and the House doesn't do it or let's say we decide not to do anything at all on immigration. All of those things I just described stay in place. If we don't do anything, the border stays the way it is, we still don't have E-Verify, we still don't have an entry-exit tracking system, and we don't have any idea who the 11 million people are, and we still don't have an immigration system that works. That is what happens if we do nothing.

That is why I got involved in this issue. It isn't politics, and I disagree with my colleagues who have said this is about politics. This is not about saving the Republican Party or anybody else. This is about correcting something that is hurting the United States of America.

I can certainly say it is not about my personal politics because this is an issue that makes a lot of people unhappy, a lot of people who have supported me and support me now, people whom I agree with on every other issue. If you pull out a list of issues facing this country, I agree with them on every other issue, but they disagree with me on this issue, and I respect and understand why. They are frustrated because they have been told in the past that this is going to get fixed, and it hasn't, because they feel and see and know that this is the most generous country in the world on immigration, and it has been taken advantage of and they are frustrated by it.

I have seen some describe opponents of immigration reform as haters and anti-Hispanic and anti-immigration. That is just not true. It is not true.

These are people who are just frustrated that the laws have not been followed and they do not want to reward it. I honestly do understand that. What I would say to them is, look, I get it. I do. I do not like this either.

I do not like the fact that we have 11 million people here illegally. I do not like the fact that people have ignored our laws and crossed our borders or overstayed visas. I do not like it either. But that is what we are going to get stuck with if we do not do anything about it. That is what this bill tries to do. Let me explain how it does it.

First we outlined--because when we filed this bill, what was said was, Department of Homeland Security, here is $6.5 billion. Go out and design a border fence plan and a border plan. Submit it to Congress. Issue a letter of commencement. And then you can begin the process of identifying these people who are here illegally. That was our bill.

Then I went around my State, sometimes the country--and my colleagues did as well--and people told us: Look, we don't trust the Department of Homeland Security. These people say the border is already secure, and you are going to tell them to design a plan?

I thought that was a good point. So now we have an amendment before us by Senator Hoeven and Senator Corker that actually defines the plan. Let me describe this new plan because I think it is the most substantial border security plan we have ever had before any body of Congress.

No. 1, it does not say you can, it does not say you should, it says you must have universal E-Verify for every business in America, and you have to wrap that up within 4 years. It starts with the big businesses, until it gets to ag and the small businesses. The reason why you need 3 to 4 years is because for a really small business, it is going to take them time to buy the technology to do this. That is No. 1.

No. 2, it says you have to finish the entry-exit tracking system. After this bill was amended in committee, it says that eventually the 30 major international airports in this country will have it biometrically--this entry-exit tracking system.

The third thing it says is that you have to deploy upwards of $3 billion in technology. This is technology that was not around in 1986. This is technology that was not around in 2006.

Let me describe that technology: radar, sensors on the ground, night vision goggles, motion detectors, even unarmed drones--things that allow you to see people, and even if they get past you at the first stop on the border, you can follow them and then apprehend them a few miles down the road. This technology did not used to exist.

We go further than that in the amendment. We do not just say you have to deploy this technology, we tell you where you have to deploy it. We do not even leave that to DHS. And those ideas did not come from Senators, they came from members of the Border Patrol on the frontlines. They have told us: Here is where we need this stuff. So in a level of detail unprecedented in the history of this body, we actually say: 50 goggles in this sector, 100 radar in this sector. That is the third thing this bill requires you to do.

The fourth thing it requires you to do is to double the size of the Border Patrol, adding 20,000 new border agents. This is a dramatic increase in the number of people because cameras and sensors are great, but if you do not have people to actually do the apprehension, it does not work.

The last thing it says is that you have to complete this fencing. That includes, where it is practical, where it is possible, getting rid of these vehicle barriers because one of the things they did with the fencing is they would put up some barrier on the road and say that is a fence. The problem is that may keep a vehicle out, but it does not keep somebody from climbing over it. We actually say that, where it is possible, where the terrain allows it--there are places where the terrain does not let you build a fence, but where the terrain allows it, you have to put a fence there. In some places the fence is doubled, especially in urban areas. It has been very successful in San Diego.

These are five things we require. We do not say you can, you might-- you must. You must do these five things before anyone who has violated our immigration laws can even apply for permanent legal residency in the United States of America--10 years from now, by the way.

One of the criticisms people have said is that this bill is legalization first. It is not that simple. Real legalization is permanent legalization; it is what we call a green card. You have to have a green card before you can apply to become a citizen of the United States.

Under this bill, illegal immigrants cannot get a green card, cannot even apply for a green card until 10 years have passed and these five things I have just described--E-Verify, entry-exist tracking system, full technology implementation, 20,000 new border agents, finishing the fence--all five of those things have to happen.

People say: Well, why are you linking the two things?

Here is the answer: Because of the problems we had in the past. The only way we can make sure that a future President or a future Congress does not go back on these promises is if we tie it to something we know people want. That is why they are linked.

So no one who is here illegally--they cannot apply for that permanent residency until these five things happen, and that is the trigger that is going to guarantee that this happens.

Their argument is, though, legalization first because you are allowing the people who are here illegally now to stay in the meantime.

Let me tell you the problem with that issue. The problem with that issue--first of all, we are talking about 11 million people who are already here. They are already here. We are not talking about 11 million new people. We are not talking about people who are outside the country who might come in in the meantime. We are talking about people who are already here. More than half of them have been here longer than a decade, so that means the chances are they have children who are U.S. citizens. They are definitely working because somehow they are eating. They do not qualify for Federal benefits because--we do not even know who they are. OK. They are already here. You have to do something about them in the meantime.

You cannot build a fence and you cannot hire 20,000 border agents in 6 weeks. It takes a little bit of time. It does not take 10 years, but it takes some time to do that. So here is what we do. We say: If you are illegally here and you have been here for--you could not have come last week or even last year--if you have been here for a while and you are illegally here, you have to come forward. You are going to have to pass a national security background check. You are going to have to pass a criminal background check. You are going to have to pay a fine because you broke the law. You are going to have to start paying taxes and working. And the only thing you get--to the extent you get something, the only thing you get is you get a work permit that allows you to do three things: work, travel, and pay taxes. When you get this work permit, you do not qualify for food stamps, you do not qualify for welfare, you do not qualify for ObamaCare subsidies, you do not qualify for any of these things.

People may say: Well, we are rewarding them. But I want people to think about this for a second. They are already here. They are already working. We are not going to round up and deport 11 million people, so it is basically de facto amnesty. The only thing that is going to change in their lives is they are going to start paying taxes, they are going to have to pay a fine, and we are going to know who they are.

By the way, this work permit is not permanent. It expires every 6 years. So if you come forward and get this work permit, which is temporary, in 6 years you have to go back and apply for it again. If it is not renewed because you have broken a condition, you are illegally here, but now we know who you are, and you will not be able to find a job because of E-Verify. And when you go back and renew it after 6 years, you are going to have to pass another background check, pay another fine, pay another application fee, and you are going to have to prove that in the previous 6 years you have been here working and paying taxes. You are going to have to prove that, that you are self- sustaining, that you are not dependent. This whole time, you do not qualify to apply for permanent status, not to mention citizenship.

After 10 years have gone by in this status--not 10 years after the passage of the bill, 10 years after you, the applicant, have been in this status--then--and only if those five things I talked about--E- Verify, entry-exit tracking system, the technology plan, the border fence, and the 20,000 new agents--only if those five things have happened, then you can apply for a green card through the green card process.

That is another mistake people are making. They think, all right, 10 years is here, you made the five conditions, they are going to hand you a green card. Not true. You can apply for it. It is not awarded to you.

Now, is this perfect? I do not think this problem has a perfect solution. But I can tell you, if we do not do anything--let's suppose immigration reform fails. Suppose we do nothing. We are still going to have the 11 million people here. We are still not going to know who they are. They are still not going to be paying taxes. They still will not have undergone a background check. And you will not have E-Verify. You will not have border security. You will not have the agents. You will not have the technology. You will not have the entry-exit tracking system. You will not have any of that.

Life is about choices. Legislating is about choices. And the choice cannot be between what you wish things were like and this bill. The choice is between the way things are and this bill--or some alternative to it. Again, if we defeat it, then we are stuck with what we have. And what we have is a disaster. It is a disaster.

I want to make clear another point. People have said: Boy, all this border security is overkill and so much stuff. Look, the United States is a special country. That is why people want to come here. A million people a year come here legally--1 million people a year. There is no other country in the world that comes close to that. Do you understand what that means? Other countries do not want people coming or people do not want to go. When is the last time you heard of a boatload of American refugees arriving on the shores of another country? People want to come here. We understand that. In fact, this country is so special that there are people who are willing to risk their lives to come here and willing to come illegally to come here. We are compassionate. Our heart breaks when we hear stories about that.

But I also have to remind people that we are also a sovereign country. Every country in the world secures their border or tries to. Many of the countries that people come here from secure their border-- sometimes viciously. We are not advocating that. We have a right as a sovereign country to secure our border. We have a right to do that. While we are compassionate, no one has a right to come here illegally.

So I will close by saying that I know this is a tough issue. I do. I really do. I understand that on the one side there are the human stories of people you have met. And this issue really changes when you meet somebody. It is one thing to read about 11 million people who are here illegally; it is another thing to meet one of them: a father, a mother, a son, or a daughter, someone whom you know as a human being and you know about their hopes and dreams and how much they are struggling. It is one thing to know about that. It changes your perspective.

But I also understand the frustration people have--that they have heard all these promises before, that people have violated our laws, they have ignored them, and that is wrong, and we should not reward that. I do understand that. But ultimately I ran for the Senate because I wanted to make a difference. I know I could have just stayed back on this issue and come to the floor and--I am not making any criticism of anybody else, but that I could have just come to the floor and offered up what I would have done instead and be critical of efforts that others were making. That was an option for me, but I could not stand it. I could not stand to see how this problem is hurting our country and leaving it the way it is. How is this good for us?

We have to do something about this. That is what we are trying to do. With this new amendment, we will do more for border security than anyone has ever tried to do before. All I would ask my colleagues and members of the public to do is to think about that. Think about it. What do you want? Do you want things to stay the way they are or do you want to try to fix it? I will just say to you, our country desperately needs to fix it.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.