Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, this week I joined my colleagues in introducing immigration reform legislation that seeks to end de facto amnesty by achieving the strongest border security enforcement measures in U.S. history but also by modernizing our legal immigration system so it can unleash the strong economic growth and job creation potential that immigration has.

Let me begin by stating the obvious, and that is that America is a nation of immigrants. We know that because every single one of us can track our lineage back to someone who came here from somewhere else. The truth is it is one of the things that make us different and special from the rest of the world.

If we think about the history of the world, it is basically people being told

they can only do what their parents did for a living. How far you are going to go in life depends on what your parents used to do and who you are and to whom you are connected. What made America truly unique and what made the idea of America truly revolutionary was the idea that every single human being, no matter where they were born, how they were born, into what kind of family they were born, and into what circumstances they were born, had the God-given right to go as far as their talent and their hard work would take them. We may take that for granted--those of us, like me, who were born and raised here our entire life--but this is the exception rather than the rule throughout human history, and it is one of the things that have made America so special because the belief and commitment to that ideal unleashed here the revolutionary power of the human spirit and transformed this country into the single most powerful and greatest and freest Nation in all of human history.

This is the story of immigration in America, and it is why we as Americans understand that legal immigration is critically important for our future and a critical part of our heritage. The problem is that for too long both Republicans and Democrats have failed to enforce our immigration laws, and the result is that today we have millions of people living in the United States in violation of our immigration laws. The other problem is that our legal immigration system is broken. It is just broken. It doesn't reflect the 21st century. It doesn't take into account special skills and talents. It doesn't allow us to attract the world's best and brightest. In fact, it doesn't allow us to keep the world's best and brightest, many of whom are students in our universities who learn from our best schools--that our taxpayers are paying for--and when they are done learning, we ask them to leave and take what they have learned here and use it somewhere else to compete against us. It makes absolutely no sense.

Let me start by saying that if there wasn't a single illegal immigrant in the United States, we would still have to do immigration reform because the immigration system is broken. I am pleased this bill we have offered as a starting point reforms our legal immigration system in a very serious and profound way. It turns it into a merit- based system that takes into account skills, talents, and job opportunities. It creates a system where agriculture can get the workers into this country legally--by the way, workers who feed not just our families but the world. It allows our business community, in times of labor shortages where there is very low unemployment, to be able to provide for themselves the kind of guest and seasonal labor some industries depend upon but to do so in a legal way. These reforms are significant.

By the way, in the high-tech industry, where we are not graduating nearly enough people in the high-tech fields--science, engineering, technology, and math--shame on us as a country that more of our children are not graduating with the skills they need to do those jobs. We have to change that.

In the meantime there are thousands of jobs that are going overseas because we can't fill them here. These companies in the high-tech industry are creating these jobs, but then they are taking them somewhere else because that is where the workers are. It is pretty simple: They go to a university, they interview the students, they find someone they like, and if they can't hire them in the United States they will hire the same person in some other country. And that is terrible for America.

So this bill modernizes our illegal immigration system--something we would have to do even if there wasn't a single illegal immigrant in the United States.

Next, the bill actually enforces our laws. It begins by creating a universal entry-exit tracking system.

You may not know this, but 40 percent of the people who are illegally in the United States didn't come illegally. They came on a visa, on a permit, and then the permit expired and they stayed--40 percent. We have no idea who they are because we don't track people when they leave. We only track them when they come in. This bill will change that.

We all understand the magnet for illegal immigration. It is jobs. It is pretty simple: There is a supply of people willing to work, there is a supply of jobs on this side of the border we can't fill domestically, and those two are meeting. They are just not meeting legally.

This bill will require every employer in America to comply with E- Verify, to basically check the documents their workers are providing against the national data base that provides employment eligibility information. The next thing it does on enforcement is the border region--let me say this about the border. The border is not just about immigration. It is about national security. It is a national security risk. The border must be secured.

This bill requires the Department of Homeland Security to come up with not one but two plans--a border plan and a fencing plan--to achieve 100 percent ability to be aware of the entire border and 90 percent apprehension, that we apprehend 9 out of 10 people who are illegally crossing. We give the Department of Homeland Security 5 years to reach that goal.

If they do not reach the goal in 5 years, then the issue is turned over to a commission made up of State officials, local officials on the border to take care of the job themselves--and they will. If the Federal Government refuses to secure the border, the States of New Mexico and Texas and Arizona and California, through their Governors and their leaders, will finish the job.

The next thing this bill does is deal with the millions of people who are in this country in violation of our immigration laws. Let me begin by saying this: No one has a right to illegally immigrate to the United States. There is no legal right to be here illegally. As a sovereign country we have a right to enforce our immigration laws.

If we do something to accommodate those who are here illegally, we don't do it because we legally have to. We do it for two reasons: First, because it is in the best interest of our country. When we debate this immigration issue, we need to understand that when we talk about millions of illegal immigrants, this is not a theory, this is a reality; they are here now. We are not talking about bringing these people in; they are already here and they will be here for the rest of their lives. So we have to deal with that reality. It is in our national interest to deal with that reality.

The second reason we are dealing with it is because that is who we are. We are a compassionate people. We are not going to deport 11 million people, so we have to deal with this. We believe we handled this in a very professional and effective way.

If there are people in this country illegally who entered here before December 2011, they have to present themselves. They will undergo a background check. If they have committed serious crimes in the U.S., they will be deported. If they have not, they will have to pay an application fee, a fine. They will have to start paying taxes, and they will receive a permit that will allow them to work in the United States and pay their taxes.

They will not qualify for any Federal benefits--no welfare, no ObamaCare, no food stamps--but they will have a chance to work and will no longer have to hide. They are going to have to remain in that system for 6 years, and then they have to go back and get their permit renewed. It is not a permanent grant of a temporary status; it is a temporary grant of a temporary status.

In 6 years they have to go back and apply again for this permit. When they reapply, not only do they have to pay another fine and another application fee, but they are going to have to prove they have been paying taxes the last 6 years and that they are gainfully employed in a way that means they are not going to wind up on public assistance.

If the border plans have been completed, if E-Verify is in place, if the entry-exist system is in place, assuming their permit is renewed, after 10 years has gone by, then the only thing that happens is they are given a chance to apply for a green card just like everybody else does, not a special process. They are at the back of the line. Everyone who applied before them legally goes first.

The only thing that happens after 10 years goes by and the border is secured, E-Verify is in place and the entry-exit system is in place, we don't give them anything. All they have now is the opportunity to apply for a green card.

By the way, during the first 5 years of a green card under existing law, people don't qualify for Federal benefits either. The point is, this is a reasonable way to deal with a real problem that faces our country.

The alternative is to do nothing, which leads me to one of the points that people are using, and we will be talking a lot about this issue. One of the arguments against this is how much money it is going to cost.

First of all, over the first 10 or 15 years, all these things about the fence and the things we are doing are paid for in the bill. Beyond that, as far as the economy of the United States--a couple points.

First of all, we can't compare this bill to nothing. We have to compare it to what we have now, and what we have now is worse. What we have now is costing our economy. We have people in this country illegally. They get sick, they go to the emergency room, and the taxpayer pays for it.

We have people in this country who are having children who are U.S. citizens and they go to our schools; they are driving on our streets without a driver's license, which means they have no car insurance, which means all of us have to pay more in car insurance as a result. This is obviously not good for them, but it is not good for us.

What we have today is devastating and horrible for our economy. We can't continue to have this. We have to fix this problem, and we have to fix it in a way that is fair to the people who have done it the right way and fix it in a way that makes sure this never ever happens again. I believe the bill we are working on does that, and I look forward to the input that my colleagues have.

One more criticism I hear is that it is being rushed through. That is just not true. Just yesterday we voted on a series of amendments that I had less than 12 hours to review, and these amendments dealt with a fundamental right to Second Amendment constitutional rights. This bill has been online for 48 hours. The Committee on Judiciary would not even begin to consider amendments to this bill until next month. People are going to have 3 to 4 weeks to review it. It is posted on my Web site. People can go on there now and see it. It will be available all these weeks. Then it is going to go through an extensive committee process. Then it will be brought here, hopefully, to the floor of the Senate where we can debate it openly as well.

I am not claiming the bill is perfect. I am sure it can be improved, and I hope my 99 other colleagues will work hard to improve it because we have an opportunity to do something important.

My last point, and I address many of my fellow Americans who share my deep commitment to upholding the Constitution of the United States, to limiting the size and scope of government, to encouraging the free enterprise system as the best way to create economic opportunity. America is a nation of immigrants, but both Republicans and Democrats have failed to enforce our immigration laws and, as a result, we have millions of people here illegally. We are not going to deport them. So let's secure the border and let's identify these people. Let's have them undergo a background check, get in the back of the line, pay a fine, and pay taxes. No Federal benefits.

We all wish we didn't have this problem, but leaving it the way it is is amnesty. We have to solve this problem, and I hope we will.

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

Mr. President, I support budgets that make tough but necessary spending reductions, save our safety net programs, and preserve our commitment to protecting Americans and our interests at home and abroad.

Facing our current debt disaster, there should be no sacred cows in the Federal budget. If there is waste, it should be eliminated. If government dependency is depressing individual initiative, we must reform those programs. Where important and valid programs are destined for bankruptcy, we must save them.

Senator Paul deserves lots of praise for taking our debt problem seriously and coming up with a plan to solve it. While there are many objectives I support in his budget--including the repeal of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, allowing the Keystone Pipeline to move forward, and bringing our regulations under control through the REINS Act--I could not support it tonight.

One of the most solemn promises I made to Floridians was to work to save Social Security without implementing personal accounts, which would actually make it harder to get the programs finances in order. This budget plan calls for Social Security personal accounts, something I do not support.

On national security issues, we also can't walk away from our commitments abroad, which this budget would do by drastically reducing the size and scope of the U.S. military by ending agreements with foreign partners, closing many overseas installations, and bringing troops home from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Military reductions would also result from a policy of attrition, a concerning factor because it means we would not be not be replacing the officer corps that leads our brave men and women.

Whereas the current fiscal year 13 budget for the Defense Department is $614 billion, this budget would be $546 billion, with $554 billion in fiscal year 14--figures that would further strain readiness and impair force projection.

Especially during this dangerous time when our enemies would be emboldened to see us abandon our allies around the world, I cannot support a budget that would make the world less safe place because the U.S. defense capabilities and our ability to influence events around the world are diminished.

This is a very interesting debate. It is a very interesting topic to talk about. I have talked to a few Members who have had this debate internally with their staff, and from an intellectual perspective it is a very interesting issue. But I want Members to understand what they will have to explain to people in their States.

If something like this were to happen, there will be businesses in your State that at the end of the year will have to be audited by or interact with States across the country, on the other side of the country; places where they don't know anybody, places where they don't have a lawyer or a lobbyist or anybody representing them. They will have to deal with States they have nothing to do with. That is what Members will have to explain to the businesses in their States.

The businesses in your States are going to have to comply with laws and courts and regulatory agencies and others they have nothing to do with, other than the fact that someone who lived there happened to buy something from them. So try explaining that. It sounds great here, but try to explain that to a business man or woman in your community or in your State, and I guarantee you are going to get puzzled looks.

Here is another thing I will tell my colleagues, because I understand there is an exemption for businesses with $1 million in revenue, but depending on what you sell, it may or may not be that much. I would say that over time, that figure is going to be less and less in terms of who doesn't have to comply.

I dealt with this issue when I was in the State legislature in Florida, especially the last 2 years when I was the Speaker. I will be frank. This is about the fact that according to some, there is $23 billion of what they claim is uncollected sales tax receipts across the country. You don't think that gets their attention? You don't think that is what this is about? That is what this is about. I am not saying that on the retail side they are not interested in the way the business is conducted and what it means in comparison to their competitors, but I promise my colleagues from the governmental side this is about the money they think they can get their hands on and what it would mean for their government and their ability to function.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 292.

Mr. President, abortion is a divisive issue in this country, and I deeply respect everyone's opinions with regard to this issue. But there is one thing that is not dividing us. There is one thing we are united upon as a people, and that is the idea that parents should know what their children are being involved in, especially when it comes to a medical procedure of this magnitude. That is why so many States have passed parental notification laws that require parents to be notified before their child--a minor--undergoes an abortion.

Unfortunately, in this country there are people who are transporting these children across State lines in order to avoid these notification laws. This sense of the Senate is based on a bill I have filed, and others have supported in the past, that makes that illegal, that does not allow that to happen.

You will hear arguments against this in terms of maybe the child is living in a very unstable environment or a dangerous environment. Maybe one of the parents--God forbid--is involved in the pregnancy that led to this, and that is why there are judicial overrides at the State level, so they can go to courts to override it. That is why this sense of the Senate is built on a bill that has exceptions for things like rape or incest or medical emergencies or a hostile home. So this is an important point, and I hope it can garner the support of as many Members as possible.

I move to waive the rule with regard to the applicable portion of the act and ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I thank Senator Sessions for enlightening us on this budget as he has been doing all day on the Senate floor.

I want to give some perspective about what we are debating. I think sometimes those of us who work in this building come to believe that Washington, DC, and government is the center of the universe or even the center of peoples' lives, and it is not. All this stuff we are talking about on the Senate floor, not just this day but every day, the reason it is relevant is how it impacts the lives of real people all over this country. What impact does this have on peoples' lives?

Ultimately, I know it is cliche-ish to say this, but it happens to be very true that we are sent here to work for people. We are sent here to work for the people who elected us from the States we come from. So all this stuff we are discussing is relevant to the extent that it impacts the lives of real people in our country and in some respects around the world.

When you talk about cutting spending, what matters is the spending you are cutting and how it is impacting real people, for better or worse. When you talk about raising taxes, those taxes have to be paid by somebody. They are not being paid by some anonymous thing. They are being paid by a person or a business, which is a collection of people. The point is these taxes are being paid.

Talk about the debt. The debt is not simply just a moral financial obligation. The debt also has to be paid. Someone is going to pay that debt one day. Every penny this government borrows someone is going to have to pay back one day. They are going to have to pay it back through higher taxes. If the debt is too high they are also going to have to pay it back through less opportunities. That is why this matters and why it is relevant. It is relevant because we have to view it through the lens of peoples' real lives, the lives of real people in the real world.

What do people want out of their lives? It is not that complicated. It is what all of us want. They want a job that pays them enough money so they can have a good standard of living, so they can afford to maybe buy a house and have enough time to spend with their families and have leisure activities, maybe take a vacation every year or so. People want that. People want to be able to pursue their dreams. Maybe you have a great idea about a new business you want to start and you want to live in a country where if that is what you want to do with your life, it is actually possible; you can actually do something that you love for a living and they pay you for it.

What everybody wants, no matter where you are in the economic strata, everyone wants to make sure their kids are better off than themselves. That is not unique to Americans. People all over the world want their kids to be better off than they were.

That is what this is about. It is about what role can we play making all these things more possible in this country. The fact that this has been more possible here than anywhere else is what has made us special. So in order to understand what we can do to make that possible we have to understand what makes that happen. How does prosperity happen? How does the kind of prosperity we Americans want for ourselves and our families, for our children, how is that possible? That is also not that complicated. It is largely a function of the private economy, and it is a cycle that is very well understood.

Someone has a good idea for a business, a new business, or growing their existing business. They somehow get access to money, whether it is their own money or money they borrowed or someone invests through them, and they open this business. There is no guarantee that business is going to work out, but they are willing to risk it. And the idea works. All of a sudden this business they started all by themselves out of the spare bedroom of their home now has five employees--and five employees is not just a number, that is five families who are taking home a paycheck. Those are five providers, mothers or fathers, who are bringing home opportunities to their children.

This is how prosperity is created. This is how every one of us has ever gotten a job or how our parents got their jobs. It is because he or someone else risked it and created a business opportunity that provided them a job. This is how prosperity is created.

When you view prosperity this way you come to understand that what we need to do here is to make it easier for that to happen and not harder. Government does have an important role to play in our society. It does.

For example, we believe in a safety net, not as a way of life but to help those who cannot help themselves. We are a society that is too prosperous and, quite frankly, as well as that, we are too humane and too compassionate to not take care of those who cannot help themselves. We always have and we always will. We also need to have a safety net to help those who have failed to get back on their feet and try again. But the safety net was never designed to be a way of life.

By the same token we need to have security. Government plays an important role in our security--our national security for sure, but also in combating crime and enforcing contracts and ensuring that the water we drink is clean, the air we breathe is safe. These are important roles for government to play. But the majority of the things that are going to impact prosperity creation in this country do not come from government. They come from the private sector, and the job of our government is to make it easier for that cycle of prosperity I described to happen.

The job of our government is to create an environment where people are encouraged to and it is easier for them to risk the money they have access to in order to start a new business or grow an existing business so they can hire more people and create more jobs for others. There are a lot of things government can do to help create that environment, but there are a few that are being discussed. I want to point to three.

The first is predictability. What do I mean by that? What I mean is when someone decides they are going to open a business, one of the things that encourages them to hire people is they know what tomorrow is going to look like. They know what the taxes are going to be, they know what the law is going to be, what the economy is going to look like, so they feel encouraged because they can plan and know what tomorrow is going to look like.

Imagine for a moment you are a businessman or businesswoman and you are deciding whether to hire five people next year. One of the first things you want to know is, Am I going to have customers to pay their salaries? How much am I going to owe on taxes and insurance? You want predictability and that is something that has not happened from Washington. There has not been a budget over the last 4 years out of this Chamber, and that creates unpredictability.

I am pleased there is a budget to debate; it is an important debate. Even though we do not agree on everything, I congratulate those who have prepared this budget on bringing it up for a vote on the Senate floor so we can have this debate, a vibrant debate. But part of the problem we have is this budget that is offered doesn't really address the debt. Why does the debt matter?

The debt matters. It matters as a moral obligation for sure. It is wrong to hit future Americans and our young people with this kind of debt, but it is having an impact right now. The debt is not something that is hurting us 20 years down the road or 10 years down the road alone, it is hurting us today. The problem is when people look at this economy and they look at this debt and they say there is no plan in place to fix it, there is no serious plan in place to deal with it, they are worried about risking their money and creating jobs in America.

They believe unless this debt is solved, we are going to have a financial crisis in this country. They believe unless this debt is solved, we are going to have dramatic increases in taxes, which is not going to make America a good place to do business. So there are jobs that are not being created right now because of the fear over the debt and no plan to fix it. This budget does not fix it. This budget does not fix it.

The first thing we need from government is to create an environment where private business can grow and create opportunity, which is predictability. This budget does not do that. The second thing is affordability. We all understand we have to pay taxes. How are you going to pay firefighters and police officers? How do we pay the men and women who defend our freedoms around the world? How are the lights on in this building? Of course we have to pay taxes. This is not about paying taxes or not paying taxes. This is about the fact that there is only so much money in the world. Every penny the government takes in in taxes is money that is not available to invest in a private business.

Every time you take a tax, what you are doing is taking money out of the economy. You have to do that at some point because you need a government, but if you do too much of it then there is not enough money for people to spend at your business. If someone is paying more in taxes, that means they have less money to spend where you work, which means you are going to make less money in tips or in salary or it may even cost you your job if the taxes are too high.

I tell you, we focus on Federal taxes here, but these are not the only taxes

people pay. Depending on where you live you are paying local and State and now Federal taxes. You add this up and there are people in this country paying close to half the money they make in taxes. How is that good for growing your economy?

So that is a problem.

This budget talks about raising taxes. It doesn't say how. That is one of the things I wanted to address because I am telling you right now, you can raise taxes 100 percent on the richest people in America, and you will not solve this debt problem. Some statistics say if you raise taxes 100 percent on millionaires it will pay for about 60 days' worth of government. What are you going to do for the other 305 or 304 days of the year? That is a problem. What happens when you run out of rich people to raise taxes on--or so-called rich people? You have to raise taxes on people who are not rich, and you have to raise taxes on the middle class.

That is why I am going to offer two amendments to this budget that I hope will pass. The first amendment says we are not going to get rid of the mortgage interest deduction to pay for new spending and new programs in government. If you want to talk about the mortgage interest deduction in the context of tax reform--I am not sure that is the best idea or bad idea. Let's have that debate. But if you want to talk about it in the context of we are going to take that money and use it in the context of lets grow government, we are going to have a problem because there are middle-class people in this country who already have it hard enough as it is. They are working twice as hard, and they are making half as much. They have paid their mortgage on time every month even though they are upside-down, but because they paid on time, now their bank will not finance them and they are stuck and they are upset and they have a right to be.

Now on top of that you are going to get rid of that mortgage interest deduction? I am not claiming that is what is being offered. I am just saying if no one is going to offer that, let's prevent that now. I am offering an amendment that is going to prevent that.

Here is another thing. We should not raise taxes on the middle class at all to pay for new government, and I will offer an amendment that prohibits that as well. So the second thing we need is affordability. No one is saying we don't need to fund government. Of course we do.

By the way, the best way to fund government is to grow your economy. If we could grow this economy at 4 percent a year for this decade, that would generate about $3, $3.5 trillion in new revenue. There is no tax increase in the world that can do that, at least no realistic one.

My last point on this is one of the things government can do is help people to help themselves. In the modern era there is nothing more important in that regard than education. The world has changed. When my parents came here in 1956 from Cuba, they did not have a lot of skills. My dad didn't really go to school. My mom didn't either. And they were able to achieve a middle-class lifestyle in this country as a bartender and a maid. That is almost impossible to do today. That is no one's fault; that is just the way the world has changed.

Today you need a certain level of skill because the information technology age has changed everything. The good news is the jobs that are being created, these new middle-class jobs have a lot more opportunity for better pay. The bad news is we have a lot of people who do not have the skills for those jobs.

We have a skills gap in America that needs to be closed, but the one I want to focus on is school choice. I think it is wrong that the only parents in America who cannot send their kids to the school they want are poor parents. I think that is fundamentally wrong. Middle-class parents can sacrifice and scrape and some of them--not all of them but some of them--can afford to send their kids to the school of their choice. Rich people can send their kids to any school they want, but poor parents in America are stuck.

Envision this for a moment. Envision this for a moment. You are a poor single mom or single dad. You are living already in a dangerous neighborhood in substandard housing, and on top of that you are forced by the government to send your children to a school that is failing and every year the politicians tell you they are going to improve these schools. They say: Give us a chance to pour more money in these schools. We are going to turn them around.

I hope they do. But in the meantime, while they are carrying out this experiment your kids are turning 5 and 6 or 7 or 8, and the clock is running and you can never have those years back. It is wrong. It is wrong that parents who do not have access to funds cannot send their kids to the school of their choice.

One of the things I want to try to do at the Federal level is replicate what we have done in Florida; that is, create an incentive for people to donate their money to private not-for-profit scholarship organizations that give scholarships to low-income families so they can send their kids to their parents' choice, not just to the school of the government's choice. That is important in terms of helping people acquire the skills they need in this new century because if we do not close that skills gap, we are going to have a huge opportunity gap in America, one that is already developing.

I hope we do not underestimate what is happening out there. We have working class people in America who are starting to wonder if this is still the place where if you work hard you can go as far as your talent will take you. They are starting to wonder if this is still the place where if you work hard, you can leave your children better off than yourselves. You have middle-class families who are starting to wonder who is fighting for them. The people who have made it--big companies, big corporations--have lobbyists all over this building standing up for them. They don't want to take anything away from the people who have made it. They see other people always arguing on behalf of government programs to help people who are struggling. Many of those programs are important. They don't want to take that away from them either. But who is fighting for them? Who is fighting for the people who have done it the right way, who did not take out mortgages they couldn't afford, who will take a job even if it pays half as much and requires them to work twice as long because they do not want to be dependent on government? Their pride will not allow it.

Who is fighting for them? And they are worried about the future. What about the people with the big ideas, the ones who are going to start the next American company? They are starting to wonder whether America is the place to do it when they hear some people basically describe financial success as wrong. They start to wonder whether government is an obstacle or ally in their hopes of opening their business here. This is a fundamental problem for us. This is not an economic debate; this is a debate about our identity as a country.

It is important for us to understand what makes America different from the rest of the world--and we are different. For those people who were born and raised in this country, as I was, it is easy to take this for granted. We should not. It is not like this everywhere. In most countries, a person can only do what their parents did for a living-- even today. In most places on Earth, children can only go as far as their family went--even today. This Chamber is full of people--and I am glad to be a part of it--who have gone further than their parents ever did.

If people in this Chamber had grown up in the Old World, they would not be here, nor would they be able to run a business. In the Old World, people were trapped doing what their parents did. What makes us special and different is that it doesn't matter what our parents do for a living. It doesn't matter if we are not well connected or famous. We can go as far as our talent or work will take us. If we lose that, we will lose what makes us special and different. That is what we should be fighting about, and in some ways we are.

I think we actually do have an agreement here. The agreement is that the only solution to our problem is growing our economy. We cannot tax our way out of this problem. We cannot cut our way out of this problem either. The only solution to this problem is to grow our way out of this problem, and I think we agree on that.

I hope the debate we are going to have is, how do we grow our way out of this? How do we create growth in the private economy? Do we allow government to spend as much as it wants until growth starts to happen? That is what one side is arguing. We have to ask questions, such as, do we embrace the principles of free enterprise and say: Look, government has a role, but it has to be limited. What we have to do is create an environment for the private economy to be incentivized to grow, and it will happen.

I want to have that debate. I want this budget to be that debate.

By the way, no one comes to this with clean hands. I will criticize my own party on this. No one can build up $16.5 trillion by themselves. This is a bipartisan debt. We have never seen anything like the last 4 years, I will say that. I have never seen anything like the last 4 years in terms of growing the debt. There are Republicans who are complicit in this debt issue as well. We should be honest about that. We should also be honest that at times some in my own party have focused so much on the trees of debt that we lost focus on the forest of growth.

The reason we should care about the debt is because it hurts growing our economy, and that is what the debate should be about. It should be about growth. Let's have a debate here about how we can get our economy growing at least 4 to 4.5 percent a year so we can pull millions of people out of poverty, pay down and stabilize our debt, and get people from the working class to the middle class and from the middle class and beyond. Let's have that debate. Let's argue about what is the best way to create growth. Do we create growth through more government or more free enterprise? Let's have that debate.

For those on my side of the argument, I hope we can have that debate because I like our chances. I like what history has to say about it. I think we can prove that the only nations in the history of the world that have ever accomplished the kind of economic exceptionalism and middle-class prosperity that Americans want and expect and deserve are the countries that have followed the path of limited government, effective government, well-run government, and free enterprise. Our country deserves once and for all to have that debate and stop hiding behind negotiations that it is rich versus poor or the haves versus the have-nots.

Let's have a debate about growth. If we grow this economy, we can protect America, and it will make the world a better place as well.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise to speak on the pending question, which is the Cruz amendment, to defund ObamaCare. I appreciate him offering the amendment on this very relevant issue. I am glad we are talking again about it.

When I ran for office 2 years ago, this was one of the central issues. There has been a court decision since then. We need to understand, court decisions are about the constitutionality of something. They do not speak to its policy wisdom. That is what this debate is about today. I think it is important because since the election--and even going into the election--we had lost some view on this.

But let me begin by saying health insurance is a problem in the United States. There is no doubt about it. I think that to be in opposition to the health care bill is not to say that we think nothing should happen. On the contrary, I know health insurance is a major problem for millions of Americans. Its affordability is a problem. Its access is a problem, the ability of people to get the kind of health coverage they want.

In fact, when I was speaker of the Florida House--I had the honor of being that for 2 years in Florida--we actually worked on some ideas that created a marketplace where the private insurers and others could come together and create creative packages for people. That is the kind of insurance you need. Not everybody needs the same health insurance. Let me give you an example.

A family of four with two children--I have four children--I promise you, you are going to wind up in the pediatrician's office quite a bit, for everything and all kinds of stuff. We are very blessed. My children, thank God, are very healthy. And even then, there are issues where you need to bring them, whether it is primary care, whether it is vaccinations, whether it is a cold that does not go away--whatever it may be. I think it is so critically important to have that. So families in that circumstance need a certain type of coverage.

Then there are other people, people I know who are in their mid to late twenties. They never go to the doctor. But if they ever get sick, it is probably going to be, unfortunately, something very bad. So those folks maybe would rather have a plan that covers them upfront with some primary care coverage--maybe a higher deductible that you could pay with a health savings account--but on the back end some catastrophic hospitalization costs so if you truly get sick, God forbid, you have the opportunity to have the kind of coverage you need.

The point is everybody needs different kinds of health care coverage. My hope is that this country and the Federal Government--to the extent it has a role to play in all this--would help incentivize the creation of marketplaces for those sorts of innovative health ideas.

As I said, not everybody needs the same health insurance. That is why there are some principles that should have guided us when this was debated before I got here and should guide us going forward.

For example, I think one of our guiding principles should be that Americans should be able to buy health insurance from any company in the country that is willing to sell it to them. Right now, health insurance is regulated at the State level. In essence, these States have mandates as to what insurance companies must offer in order to sell insurance in that State, and you cannot buy insurance if it does not have all of those. The equivalent would be of saying: You either have to buy a Cadillac Escalade or you have to buy nothing. Some people do not want a car that is that big and that fancy. They need something that is a little different.

The point is those choices are not available to consumers. We should start with an organizing principle by saying every American should be able to buy health insurance they want from any company in America that is willing to sell it to them.

Another part of that is you should be able to buy health insurance for yourself. Let me tell you why that is problematic. If your employer buys the health insurance for you, they do not have to pay taxes on the money. Taxes are not paid on the money that is used to buy that health insurance. But if you buy it for yourself, it is income, it is treated as income. You have to pay tax on it. That is problematic for a couple reasons. No. 1, some businesses and some employers would rather give them the health care money so they can go out and buy the plan they want. Others would want to buy you plans or give you options among different plans.

Federal employees know very well what that is like. Let me tell you what a Federal employee gets. A Federal employee gets a book. In that book you get to choose between--depending on where you live--a bunch of different plans. You go right down the graph, and it tells you: This is how much this plan offers, this is how much you have to pay in premiums per month, this is how much you are going to owe in copayments if you go to a doctor, if you go to a specialist, if you go to a hospital.

How many people in America get that choice? How many people in America get the same choices on buying health care that their Congressmen and their Senators get? Very few. To me, that is a serious problem.

The good news about this--imagine now, for a moment, a country where people control their health care dollars, where you got to buy the insurance you wanted from the company you wanted. Let me tell you what the market is going to do. It is going to react to that. What the market is going to do--when there are people out there who are going to have choices over how they spend their health care dollars--they are going to start creating insurance packages that people want to buy. They are going to realize: We have a bunch of 25, 27, 29-year-olds in the United States who do not get sick. We should create special packages of insurance for them. They are going to realize: We have a lot of families out there who can afford to pay ``X'' amount of money for a family coverage plan. We should go out and create a special plan for families like them.

By the way, along the lines of this level of flexibility, you could see where small businesses all of a sudden can get together with other small businesses. As an example, a small chamber of commerce in a midsize city somewhere can decide to bring all of those companies together. Together they can buy health insurance for their employees. It is hard to buy group coverage if you only have four or five employees. But if you can get together with a bunch of other companies that have three, four, five employees, all of a sudden you have a buying pool. That buying pool gives you leverage and power to go out and create plans for all of your employees.

There is no one size fits all. We should have that kind of flexibility in our insurance marketplace. We do not. These are not going to cure everything, but these are important steps forward.

By the way, I would be remiss in talking about medicine to not talk about the malpractice insurance rates, especially for specialties. Do not underestimate what a significant impediment that is for some people to go into the medical profession or to stay in the medical profession.

Right up front, let me tell you, if a doctor is negligent, if a doctor commits malpractice, you should have a right to recover your economic damages, and there should be some level of punitive damages to encourage people not to do that in the future and to be careful. The problem is it has gone beyond that. In many States we have a crisis when it comes to litigation and medicine. People are not just suing because, unfortunately, something went wrong. They are suing on outcomes. They are not just suing because the treatment was bad. The result is that doctors practice defensive medicine.

You go to a doctor, you go to a hospital, they order a slew of tests. It is not because you need them, but because they want to make sure they are covered; that if they ever wind up in a court they can be able to say to the jury: Look at all of those tests I ordered--even though most of them might not have been necessary. Who do you think pays for that? We do.

It is worse than that. There are places like in Florida where obstetricians do not even have coverage at all. They go bare. They hire lawyers to protect their assets so they cannot be sued. I know true stories of obstetricians who will not see certain patients anymore because they are afraid of the outcome of what may happen.

So I think we need to look at, perhaps, not as a part of the insurance situation but in health care across the States, a way to incentivize States to pass medical malpractice reform that protects patients. People should always have the right to access the court system for wrongdoing, and especially to be compensated for their economic damages. If a doctor commits malpractice and you cannot work anymore, all of those lost wages that you are not going to be able to work for in the future, you should be able to be rewarded for that.

If we allow doctors to continue to be sued in this country as an industry,

which is what it has become, people are not going to go to medical school.

Here is another problem we are starting to see. A lot of young people in medical school do not want to go into the complex issues anymore. They do not want to become brain surgeons. They do not want to become OB-GYNs. They want to go into some other specialty that in addition to offering better hours--your beeper does not go off if you are a plastic surgeon at 3:00 in the morning. In addition to that, they do not have to worry about liability. Let me tell you, that is a problem. In Florida, most of our cardiologists are over the age of 50. What does that mean 10 years from now? That means we are not going to have enough cardiologists. It is discouraging people from going into very important professions in medicine because they are afraid they are going to get sued--not for doing something wrong but because things did not turn out well in treatment.

Let me put on the record that I am not against people being able to sue a negligent doctor. In fact, I think negligent doctors should not only be sued, they should lose their license. I am just saying, if we go too far, like anything else in the world, you are going to lose people from medicine. They are going to decide not to go in it.

Let's talk about this issue for a moment and the amendment that is before us. The problem with ObamaCare is that it is a one-size-fits-all approach to the entire country. The health care needs of Americans are very different. No. 1, they are very different geographically depending on where you live; No. 2, they are very different depending on your family situation, your health situation, et cetera.

Now, some people are very sick. They are chronically ill. That is where we can have a conversation about high-risk pools because these people are very difficult to insure. If someone is sure to get sick, it is hard to find an insurance for them because you are guaranteed to be sick. So we have to find a solution for that problem. That is where conversations about high-risk pools at the State level are a valid thing to talk about. But beyond that, I think people should have flexibility. That is not what ObamaCare does.

I understand that people read the newspapers and say: This is good. We are going to get a health care plan. We are going to be able to buy insurance. My boss is going to be forced to give me health insurance.

That is not how it is going to work out, guys. That is not how things work out in the real world. We are already starting to see the impacts of it. What is amazing to me is as this law begins to develop, as people start to see the true impact and the unintended or maybe even the intended consequences of this law, I predict right now that the number of people who were excited about ObamaCare is going to dwindle dramatically.

The proof is how many groups have come here already and asked to be exempted. How many unions, how many other groups have raised their hands and said: Please do not make us live under the laws that we supported. Do not make us live under their laws that we held rallies for. Do not make us live under these laws that we bragged about because it has a negative impact on us. And some of them are coming to bear right now.

No. 1 is the cost. When this bill was passed, they said it would be about $1 trillion--$940 billion to be exact. Now we know it is $1.7 trillion in gross cost over the next few years.

How about tax hikes? Absolutely, because starting in 2014, the IRS is going to create a problem for millions of Americans and small businesses. Basically, if you are not buying health insurance of the kind they want, of the kind the law requires--not just health insurance, a specific kind of health insurance--you are going to owe the IRS a fine. Think about that for a moment. If you are a small business owner or an individual, and you are not buying the health insurance the government says you must have, you now are going to have to pay a fine every year to the IRS.

Some people are going to do the math. They are going to say it is cheaper to pay the fine than it is to buy the health insurance. That is problematic, but it is a cost.

We are trying to grow our economy. That is the only solution to our problems. Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to debate budgets, we are going to debate continuing resolutions, and the word ``debt'' is going to come up. We cannot tax our way out of this debt. There is no tax increase that gets us out of this debt. To my own party, I say while we always have to have fiscal discipline, you cannot cut your way out of this debt alone either. The only real solution to our debt problems--and the debt matters because it is killing jobs in America--the only real solution to our debt problems is a combination of two things: rapid, robust economic growth.

If we can grow our economy at 4 percent a year, we could generate $3 trillion for debt reduction over the next decade, and we would create millions of jobs and pull people out of poverty and strengthen our middle class, which is the source of our exceptionalism as a country.

The second thing we need is fiscal discipline on future spending. This bill violates both. This bill violates both. It hurts economic growth because the only way you are going to grow your economy is if you make America a better place to create jobs and start businesses. That is how economic growth is created. When someone takes money they have or money they borrowed or money someone invested in them, and they use it, they risk it to open a new business or to grow an existing one, as the idea works, they start hiring people, and those people now are making a middle-class salary. Those people are now buying things and spending money, creating jobs and opportunity for others.

That is the formula for growth and prosperity. This hurts that because what you are now saying is, in addition to everything else you have to put up with in America--all the State and local regulations, all the complicated Tax Code stuff, the natural downturn in the economy, globalism and the changes that it has brought--in addition to all of that, here is one more thing you are going to have to do: You are either going to have to offer health insurance of a certain kind or you are going to owe the IRS a fine.

I promise you that is not the kind of thing chambers of commerce put on their pamphlets when they try to attract businesses to their communities or their States. This is not going to help in job creation. The tax hikes are a big problem. It is especially bad for small businesses because they have this arbitrary number of people--50 employees or more--who have to do certain things. OK. So what do you think a lot of businesses are going to do? I know people. They have already told me about this.

If you have 51 employees, this is a huge incentive to only have 49 employees. So you think about that for a moment. If you own a small road-paving company with 50 full-time employees or 51 full-time employees, you sit down with your accountant to do your math for next year. Your accountant will tell you: By the way, if you get rid of a couple of employees, this is how much money this is going to save you because of ObamaCare.

So do we want to have an incentive in our laws to have businesses get rid of workers because it helps them avoid certain costs mandated by government? This is happening. This is not pie in the sky, this is going to happen. There are people planning to do that already. It is happening right now.

Here is another thing. How about part-time workers versus full-time workers. We have already seen evidence of this across the board. But I will tell you where you are seeing it already is in people who own a bunch of franchises. So you own a chain of Kentucky Fried Chickens or a chain of McDonalds, and all of a sudden you have incentive to move as many of those people as you can to part time because they do not trigger the ObamaCare mandates either. So now you have all of these businesses across America that have an incentive that we have created in this law--I say ``we,'' the people who were here when this passed--a perverse incentive to cut people's hours so they do not trigger the mandate. These are horrible consequences that are going to have an impact on our country at a time when we should be growing our economy and creating middle-class prosperity, not working against it.

So my prediction is that when they start to fully implement this over the next 12 to 18 months, it is going to be an epic disaster. Not because it was ill-intentioned, per se. I think the goal of providing an environment where everybody can buy affordable health insurance is something we should take very seriously and something we have to work on. You cannot have a strong, stable middle class if people cannot afford the cost of living. You cannot have a strong and stable middle class if people do not have access to quality health care at an affordable price. We should work on that. We should work on that very hard. But we have to do that with balance.

This is not balanced. This is an across-the-board application to the entire country that is going to hurt a lot of people. There are people in America who are going to lose hours at work because of this bill. There are people in America who are going to lose the health insurance they have which they are happy with because of this bill. There are people in America who are going to have to lay off people, and therefore there are people in America who are going to lose their jobs because of this bill. Our debt is going to grow.

I hope we will pass this amendment. I hope we will defund this program. It was ill-designed. As the true ramifications of this bill begin to apply over the next few months and the next couple of years, we are going to be right here on this floor trying to fix it because this country cannot be what it is meant to be if it has to deal with something like this hanging around its neck.

I yield the floor.

Let me say a couple of things--actually, a true world example. Here is the startling thing about it. A lot of people are not fully aware of what this means yet. This may surprise some of us who are here every day or the people who cover politics on a daily basis, but most Americans are not tuned into C-SPAN 24 hours a day. They get their news in tidbits in the morning when they are making their coffee. They have the radio on. They hear some stuff on the radio on the way to work. Then they go to work for 10, 12, 14 hours to run a business. They get home, they have to do homework with the kids, make dinner, put them to bed. Maybe they get to watch an hour or two of TV. They wake up tomorrow morning and they do it all over again. They are not in touch with all of this on a daily basis. They have lives to lead.

You will be surprised how many small business men and women and how many employees around the country are not even aware of this yet, do not even realize the decisions they are going to have to make next year. So if you are in a business that has anywhere between 45, 55, 60 employees, when you sit down at the end of this year with your planner--be it your accountant, your lawyer, whatever it is you use, your human resources people--and do next year's planning, they are going to tell you: OK, next year we have this new law. This new law says we have to offer this kind of insurance. Here are your choices: Option No. 1 is you can offer the insurance, and this is how much more it is going to cost than what you are paying right now. Option No. 2 is do not offer any insurance and pay a fine to the IRS every year from now on. Here is how much that is going to be. Option No. 3 is to let some people go so you do not have to do any of this.

I am telling you, a lot of these people are going to say: You know what. It breaks our heart; we do not want to do it; it is not good for our business, but of the three options, the only one that is going to allow us to survive is to let some people go. That is not good for us. That is not good for us.

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

Madam President, I rise today to speak about an amendment to the pending matter, an amendment I intend to file when it becomes procedurally appropriate to do so.

The amendment I intend to file is about foreign aid to the nation of Egypt. But let me start by talking about foreign aid in general because there is a lot of debate about that and a lot of concern around the country about foreign aid. In fact, a lot of places I go people ask me: With things so tough here in the United States, why do we give money to other countries? Why are we giving money to other countries?

That is a very good question to ask. First, I would say, and I would caution people, that foreign aid is not 20 percent of our budget. It is not 30 percent of our budget. It is actually, on some days, less than 1 to 3 percent of our total budget.

Secondly, I would say that foreign aid has a very useful role. Just to set the table, I think people need to understand that our foreign aid has accomplished a tremendous amount of good around the world. For example, the USAID programs to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa has helped save millions of people. Millions of people are alive today because of the generosity of the American taxpayer.

It has helped to alleviate poverty. I think you should look at some of the great examples of foreign aid like the Marshall Plan or the work we undertook to rebuild Japan and the alliances we have today as a result.

One of the great stories of foreign aid is South Korea, a nation that was long a beneficiary of foreign aid--and not just from the United States but from the world--and today it is a donor in many of these forums.

So that is the good news about foreign aid--and foreign aid is important because it increases our influence. It is part of how we can influence what is increasingly a global economy. I think it is important to understand when people talk about the American economy, we don't just live in a national economy anymore. We live in a world where, increasingly, things that happen to you on a daily basis--the price of things that you are buying--some of these things are set halfway around the world not just halfway down the street or halfway across the city. So foreign aid is important because it deals with America's influence around the world and, in particular, our ability to influence things toward our national interests.

Foreign aid is not charity. Although it may be charitable, and although it may be motivated by us and our efforts to advance our principles and the things we think are right, foreign aid is not charity. Foreign aid is designed to further our national interests. That means every single dime we give in foreign aid should be conditioned toward our national interests, should be about furthering our national interests. And I think that is true all over the world, everywhere we give it, whether it is military aid or economic aid.

I think today we have one example of a place where we should start to examine how we give our foreign aid and examine it in a way that allows us to maximize our national interests. That country I want to talk about today is Egypt, and there is a lot of concerning things happening in Egypt.

We have all been witness to the amazing Arab spring and all the changes that it brought about to the region, potentially democracy, et cetera. And Egypt, obviously, has been a prime example of that, a country where all this has been occurring. It has brought to power a government that largely is governed today by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Here is the good news. The good news is these changes have occurred, and, theoretically, there is a more open society. The bad news is some of the people who have been brought to power bring with them an ideology that at times is troubling and, in fact, in practice has been deeply troubling.

For example, we have seen efforts in Egypt to undermine democratic institutions. We have seen efforts in Egypt to undermine the judiciary. We have seen open examples in Egypt of the freedom of religion being undermined. We have seen women and women's rights regress. We have seen irresponsible economic behavior in Egypt. And we can talk about the causes of all this, but this is the reality of what is going on in Egypt.

In addition to that, we should be deeply concerned about Egypt's ability or willingness to live up to their security arrangements with their neighbors, particularly our strong allies in Israel. They have a commitment they made years ago to securing the Sinai, to preventing weapons and terrorists and others from crossing through the Sinai and into the Gaza Strip and into Israel. This is a commitment and an obligation they have, and we should be

concerned about their unwillingness or inability, or both, to live up to these commitments.

So what I am asking for in this amendment is for us to reexamine the way we give foreign aid to Egypt, not to get rid of it because there is a real danger that we can start to lose some of these foreign aid programs. The American people are fed up with story after story of countries that are benefiting from our generosity, and then they open the newspaper and they read inflammatory comments that are made about us. They open the newspaper or turn on cable television, and they see reports from these countries where democracy is being undermined, where the rights of women are being trampled, where religious minorities are being persecuted, and they have a right to ask: Why are we giving so much money to these countries?

We actually have a record in Egypt of working very closely with their military organizations, and we hope that can continue. But we also want to ensure that Egypt continues to move toward a direction of true democracy.

Democracy is not just having elections. Having elections is one part of democracy. You have to govern like a democrat. You have to govern in an open process where you allow people to speak out, opposition parties to organize, have a court system that doesn't skew things in your favor and against the opposition. You don't just have to have elections to have a democracy; you need a lot more than that.

We saw last week where former Senator Kerry, now Secretary of State, awarded a sum--by the way, we have given over $70 billion of aid to Egypt since the 1940s. That is not an insignificant sum. But we look now at the $250 million in aid they received last week, and I believe that was unfortunate.

We have significant interests in ensuring that Egypt remains at peace with Israel, that the Morsi government does not undermine the democratic process, and that human and political rights of all Egyptians--including that of religious minorities and women--are respected, and our foreign aid should reflect that.

So what this amendment which I intend to propose does is a few things. Let me begin by saying this is not about canceling foreign aid to Egypt per se. This is about restructuring it in a way that lines up with the national interests of the taxpayers of the United States of America. I will have more to say about this amendment when the appropriate time to file it comes up, but let me just briefly describe it, and I hope to gain support from my colleagues and the public at large.

First, it would block the disbursement of additional economic support funds and new--not the existing but new--foreign military financing contracts until Egypt begins to enact economic reforms and the administration certifies that Egypt has done a few of the following:

It has adopted and implemented legal reforms which protect the political, the economic, and religious freedoms; it is not acting to restrict the political, economic, and religious freedoms and human rights of the citizens and residents of Egypt; it is continuing to demonstrate a commitment to free and fair elections and is not taking any steps to interfere with or undermine the credibility of such elections.

Another condition is that it has lifted restrictions in law and practice on the work and the funding of Egyptian and international NGOs--nongovernmental organizations--comprising those in human rights and democracy fields. Those include the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and Freedom House; that it is fully implementing the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty; that it is taking all the necessary actions to eliminate smuggling networks and to detect and destroy tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip--tunnels that are used to smuggle weapons and terrorists into the Gaza Strip-- and is taking all other necessary actions to combat terrorism in an increasingly ungovernable space of the Sinai.

The second thing it does is it begins to recalibrate the U.S.- Egyptian security relationship toward Egypt's actual security needs.

Now, let me say this: It does not appear--and I don't know of anyone who would disagree with this--that Egypt has any imminent threat of being invaded by any one of their neighbors. It is not going to happen. Egypt's real security needs are its ability, No. 1, to live up to its obligations to stamp out terrorism within its borders and, in particular, to secure the Sinai, to close those tunnels that lead to Gaza. But the second security need it has is internal--in particular, street crime.

One of the ways Egypt is going to be able to rebuild its economy is through tourism, and I am not a tourism expert, but I think muggings, murder, and kidnappings are not good for tourism. People don't usually visit countries where these things are happening. This is the actual aid that Egypt needs in terms of its security.

It doesn't need tanks, it doesn't need jet fighters. It is not going to be invaded by a foreign country. That is not its real threat. I understand their desire to have those things--and, by the way, there are existing contracts to give them those things. But their real security needs are largely internal, and we want to recalibrate our military aid in the future to Egypt to meet their actual needs.

To that end, the amendment would require an analysis of Egypt's security requirements, produced by the Department of Defense in consultation with the Egyptian Government, and to be shared with the relevant congressional committees both in the House and the Senate. We also want the administration to certify that the Department of Defense has allocated a portion of Egypt's foreign military financing--no less than $100 million--toward counterterrorism tools, including the equipment and training related to border security, and to address the instability in the Sinai.

We also want a report on all FMF contracts the Department of Defense has carried out over the last 10 years, as well as the Department's plans for contracting over the next decade. I think it is wise to look at what we have done in the past, to fully understand the contributions the American taxpayer has made to Egypt's security in the past. But we also need to see the contracts that are pending move forward. All of these need to be aligned so we can ensure the aid we are giving them isn't just what they want, but it, in fact, is what they need, within the confines of what is in our national security and in our national interests because, once again, this is our money.

We should begin to shift U.S. assistance away from military programs and increasingly toward civilian assistance. So what this amendment would do is require the administration to begin a dialogue with the Egyptian Government and with the Egyptian civil society about the need to rebalance our system away from its current, almost obsessive focus on military aid by reallocating economic funds not provided to Egypt during periods when certification is not in effect toward democracy and governance programs, including direct support for secular, democratic, nongovernmental organizations, as well as programming and support for rule of law and human rights, good governance, political competition, consensus building, and civil society.

We should look at transferring the interest earned in Egypt's account. They have an account where this money sits when we give them this aid. Those accounts have a lot of money and generate a lot of interest. We should be able to take that interest that is generated from these funds and make it available and allocate these funds for democracy and for governance efforts.

Last but not least, we should require the President to submit a report to the Congress describing the specific results of an Egyptian policy review that includes a dialogue with the Government of Egypt and also civil society on how to rebalance the U.S. military and economic assistance.

Now, as most of these bills will have in them, this is going to have a national security waiver. In essence, if the Secretary of State comes to us and says: It is in our national security not to implement or fully implement this amendment at this time, as they do with almost all aid programs, they would have the right to do that. But they are going to have to do it every 180 days, at least twice a year, so we can be sure we are keeping up with the transition that is going on in Egypt.

Let me briefly address a few of the arguments that are going to come

against this potentially. One is that we have this incredibly strong relationship with the Egyptian military, and we don't want to undermine that. This is not intended to do that. We value that relationship. We hope it will continue to grow stronger. But the reality of it is, No. 1, these are hard-earned taxpayer dollars. At a time when the United States of America really doesn't have a lot of money to throw away--in fact, it has no money to throw away--we have to ensure the aid we give is aid that is effective, that is actually doing what it needs to be doing, not simply going to a wish list of some general or military official somewhere. This is not about cutting off the Egyptian military; this is about recalibrating our relationship with them to ensure that what we are making available to them is not just what they want, but it is what they need. That is the first thing I would say in that argument.

The second argument I would have--and we hope this day will never come--but as Egypt continues to transition, we don't know what the Egyptian military is going to look like 2 years from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now. In fact, many of the top people we have been dealing with in the past aren't in those positions anymore. They have been replaced by the new government. And I would tell you, history is a lesson.

If the Morsi government and the Muslim Brotherhood take Egypt in a direction that is not in our national interests, that is not in the best interests of the region or our allies in the world, they are not going to be able to do that unless they replace the military leadership with people who agree with them on these things. So while we hope that never happens, we hope to do everything we can to prevent that from happening, we hope the Egyptian military will continue to be governed and run by professional men and women. But we can't guaranteed that, and we don't know what the Egyptian military will look like 5 years from now or 3 years from now.

That is why it is so important this waiver provision require the Secretary of State to do so twice a year, so we can keep up on the recent events. Who would have predicted 3 years ago that the events that happened in Egypt would have happened in our time? Yet they did. So we can't predict what Egypt is going to look like 3 years from now. We hope it will be better, but we don't know.

The other argument I have heard is, well, this is going to offend their sovereignty. They don't like us to tell them what to do with the aid we give them. The Egyptians are not going to take kindly to the idea of the United States dictating to them.

I, quite frankly, don't understand that argument because this is our money. They don't have to take our foreign aid. They don't have to accept it. But our foreign aid has never been--or should never have been--a blank check. This idea that somehow the money we are going to make available to people should be unconditional, quite frankly, doesn't make sense to me. This is our money. If they don't want the aid, they don't have to take it. But if they are going to accept our aid, we should have some say in it.

If it is the U.S. dollars of the U.S. taxpayer that are going toward this program, shouldn't the American people, through their elected representatives and their government, have some say--if not a predominant amount of say--over how these dollars are spent and on what these dollars are spent? And shouldn't we ensure those countries are headed in a positive direction, not in a direction that acts against our national interests?

I believe in foreign aid. I think foreign aid is important for the United States. But it needs to be done the right way. I think it needs to be done the right way across the board, in all of our aid programs. But this is one that is pressing, that is right in front of us.

I recently took a trip to the Middle East. I went to Jordan. I went to Israel. In many places where I went, I heard over and over again a lot of concern about the direction Egypt is headed. They are going through a balancing act right now, is what it appears. On the one hand, you have a deeply seated ideology that I think many people would find offensive. We have heard some of the past comments of the President of Egypt. We have heard some of the past comments of some of the leadership in the Muslim Brotherhood. It is downright offensive, and that is their ideology. We have seen some of that seep through in their public policymaking.

We also understand there is a pragmatic argument going on. They know they cannot survive in government and in power if they don't have an economy. They know--at least, I hope they know--they have to take steps to reform their economy. They have to take steps to increase their security so tourism will return. They know they need to do these things, and right now they are calibrating those two things: the pragmatism of needing to secure their country and needing to provide for economic growth versus their ideology.

In the ideological base of the Muslim Brotherhood that is calling for a rapid expansion of Islamist-type rule, you can see those pressures building within Egyptian society in and of itself. I think U.S. aid has an opportunity to tilt that conversation toward pragmatism. If we are smart about how we use our foreign aid, we can actually help tilt that conversation away from the ideology and toward pragmatism, toward security that is not designed to crack down on internal dissent, that is not designed to one day wage war against their neighbors in Israel or anywhere else, but in fact is designed to provide security against common street crimes, security against terrorism, to seal those tunnels in Gaza, to live up to their international obligations.

I think if we condition this the right way, we can help encourage them to take on the kind of economic reforms that Egypt needs to have the kind of economy they need. After all, that was the heart of the Arab spring, the heart of the Arab spring where hundreds of thousands of unemployed people--starting in Egypt particularly--were desperate for a better future and didn't think they could find it. Then they looked at a government that they saw as repressive and corrupt, and they wanted to replace it. But not with this.

The reason I feel so strongly about this is that as the Egyptian leaders are undertaking this cost-benefit analysis--should they lean more toward ideology or should they lean more toward pragmatism-- through our foreign aid we actually have an opportunity to push them, to nudge them, to encourage them toward pragmatism.

I hope I can achieve bipartisan support for this amendment. I hope people will find it to be thoughtful and insightful. In the days to come, I look forward to addressing more questions that my colleagues may have on it. We are going to put some releases out about this, and I hope my colleagues will become interested in helping us achieve its passage.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank my colleague for the opportunity. Let me begin by--I have been here a while. Let me give my colleague some free advice: Keep some water nearby. It is handy. Trust me.

Anyway, I thank the Senator for entertaining my question. Let me just begin by saying my question is about the motivation for being here on the floor today. What brought me here is I have been reading some of the accounts of what is going on and people are talking about the involvement of the Senator from Kentucky in a filibuster and some are already characterizing it as another Republican filibuster of one of the President's nominees. Just to be clear because, as I understand, the only thing I have heard the Senator from Kentucky say leading up to now about the primary issue in coming to the floor today is that the Senator from Kentucky asked a very straightforward question on an issue of constitutional importance. Yet he has not received a straightforward answer. Not only has the Senator from Kentucky not received an answer, but we saw testimony earlier this morning that, quite frankly--I watched the video two or three times and I personally do not understand why it was so difficult to basically just say yes or no.

So I wish to start out by asking, just to be clear, the motivation to be on the floor today is not to deny the President a vote on one of his nominees but the motivation is that the Senator from Kentucky has asked this administration a very important and relevant question and has been unable to receive a straightforward answer to that question?

Without yielding the floor, the followup question I have-- because I think this is actually a very useful exercise for the folks who have been snowed in today and there is nothing better to watch than C-SPAN and for the people who are able to be here today to actually understand the structure of our government and how it was designed, because it is my personal opinion we have gotten away from some of that.

Let me describe for a second my position that leads up to the question I am going to ask. I am actually a member of the Intelligence Committee, which means we reviewed this nomination. I have questions that I care about that were somewhat different than the valid ones the Senator from Kentucky is raising. As a member of that committee, I asked those questions and I am going to seek answers to those questions.

We have a job to do. I think that is important for people to understand. Members of the Senate have an important constitutional role to give advice and consent on these nominations. We have an obligation not just to pass these folks through but to actually ask serious questions to determine if they are qualified for the position they are going to hold. We want our Senators to be doing that in both parties, no matter who the President may be.

So I undertook that effort as far as the Intelligence Committee. I asked my questions. I got answers to my questions. I believe the nominee is qualified and I believe the President has a right to his nominees, even if they are not the people we would nominate. I believe ultimately these nominees deserve a vote. That is why I voted yesterday to move this nomination on.

Just as the President has a right to his nominations and ultimately to have a vote on those nominations, so, too, do Members of the Senate have a right to their role and, in particular, to ask relevant questions on issues of important public policy and get answers from the administration. This is not--I think sometimes this is being lost. We have different branches of government, but they are coequal branches of government. The Presidency, the executive branch, is it important? Absolutely, it is important. It is the Commander in Chief. It is the top single office in the Nation. But the legislative branch is a coequal branch with a job just as important. In order to do that job, we have to have access to information, the ability to ask relevant questions, and to get straight answers. To be frank, sometimes I feel when we ask questions of this administration, they feel as though it is beneath them to answer questions from us, from time to time. I think that is very unfortunate.

My question is--when the Senator from Kentucky is here today raising these issues, it is my opinion--and I would like to hear what the Senator has to say--this is more than just an issue of the constitutionality of this particular program, it is a defense of this institution. It is a defense of the legislative branch. It is a defense of the Senate as an institution. Irrespective of how one feels about the nomination or the program or where the Senator falls on this constitutional issue, it is a defense of this institution, and it is a constitutional--not a constitutional right, a constitutional obligation to ask relevant questions of public policy and to get answers, to ask questions so the people back home will know the answers to these questions. If we are not going to ask these questions, who is going to ask them? The press? Maybe in a press conference, but that is not what they are paid to do; that is what we are paid to do. That is what we were elected to do.

So I would like to hear the Senator's views on that, because my belief and what I am picking up from everything Senator Paul is saying, the Senator is actually on the floor today standing for the obligation this institution has to ask questions such as this and to be able to get straight answers to these questions.

This will probably be my last question. Before I get to it, let me say that all the other Senators--I know some of my colleagues have already come to the floor and some might be watching or some might be nearby. I would just say this, to think about this

for a moment. One may or may not agree with the position of the Senator from Kentucky on this issue. Maybe a Senator saw the Attorney General's answer and saw his testimony this morning and that Senator is satisfied with it. Maybe another Senator is not that concerned about this issue at all. I don't think that is the issue. I think what we need to remember is that all of us have something we care deeply about or multiple things we care deeply about, and the day will come when something you care about or some issue you are involved in or some question you have, you will try to raise that question, and it may be under a different administration. I think we have to remember the President will not be President forever. There will be a new President in 3\1/2\ years and after that and so forth and some folks may still be here. At some point in the future, all of us will have questions we want answered and we will have an administration or some other organization of government that refuses to give us straight answers. When that moment comes, you will want your colleagues to rally to your side, even if they don't agree with you, and defend your right as a representative of the people of your State to ask important questions, particularly questions of constitutional importance, and get straight answers to those questions.

It is my feeling--and the Senator may comment on this--if he had just gotten a straight answer to that letter, if he had just gotten a straight answer in the testimony today, this would not have been necessary. If they would have taken in the question, which I think is a pretty straightforward question, and answered it in a straightforward way, all of this could have been avoided and this nominee could have had a vote. But, instead, they decided to go in a different direction and it baffles me.

Here is a question I have. I think this is important also for the people watching back home. Often, they may say: Why do you have to do it this way? Why can't you just answer the question and not have to do this process of starting and stopping things from moving forward? My view is--and I want to share it with the Senator and get his impressions--twofold. No. 1, these are the tools that are at our disposal. That is why the system was created and designed this way. One of the things the Senate has at its disposal to preserve and protect its prerogative to ask important questions are the rules we have set up here. They don't protect just one Senator but every Senator here, even if I don't agree with others. One of the things that gives us the ability to ask and have questions answered is this role we have of confirming nominees.

Secondly, I would say this is not the Secretary of the Treasury, this is not some other unrelated Cabinet position, this is the Central Intelligence Agency, which is directly related to the program the Senator from Kentucky has relevant questions about. So I guess I wanted to hear from him a little bit more about why he chose this particular nomination and why and how it is relevant to the larger question he is asking.

Mr. President, let me congratulate the junior Senator from Texas on a fantastic question. In that question he used Shakespeare references; he used references to the movie ``Patton.'' I didn't bring my Shakespeare book, so let me just begin by quoting a modern-day poet. His name is Wiz Khalifa, called ``Work Hard Play Hard.'' That is how it starts.

If you look at time, I think it is a time when many of our colleagues also expected to be back in the home State playing hard, but we are happy we are still here working hard on this issue. It is actually pretty stunning. If you watch from home you hear the audience of people watching on the news or whatever, what is going on here. I think it is important to explain what exactly is happening here. What is happening is pretty straightforward.

The Senator from Kentucky has asked a question of the administration. It is a pretty straightforward question. Is it constitutional for the Federal Government to kill a noncombatant citizen in the United States? We all have strong feelings about that program. We all have strong feelings about the war on terror. These are all legitimate issues, but this is a very direct question that has been asked.

What would have resolved this hours ago, from my understanding--and if I am incorrect the Senator from Kentucky will correct me in a moment--my understanding is he has offered two ways to bring this to a resolution. One is just a clear, unequivocal statement from the White House that says, of course, it is unconstitutional. That is not going to happen. Unconstitutional. Just a straightforward statement of that magnitude.

I have been watching on television the last few hours. I saw the Senator from Kentucky say they have reached out to the White House. They have been, I believe, unable to get a direct response.

The other is I heard he made a motion to have a resolution heard that made it clear that was the sense of this body. The sense of this body would be that this is unconstitutional. Again, pretty straightforward.

Let's just say there are those among us who believe this is important. I don't know anybody in this body who believes a noncombatant U.S. citizen in the United States who is not doing anything of imminent danger should somehow be killed by the U.S. Government, nor do people at home believe that either. It was the sense of the Senate that this was the case, and in exchange for that vote, of course the vote on Mr. Brennan would move forward, and that has been rejected. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I actually went to a movie--one of the great American movies, ``The Godfather''--and there was a quote in that movie. I don't have the Patton quote, but I have ``The Godfather'' quote, and this is the best known one, ``I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.'' To me these are straightforward offers they can't refuse. Yet they have been refused. I think that is stunning.

The third thing I wish to say--I want you to imagine what this conversation would be like tonight if the President was George W. Bush and if this issue was about George W. Bush. Just imagine that for a moment now--if he had been asked this direct question and refused to answer--what this Chamber would look like and what the arguments being made would look like tonight. Imagine that for a moment.

That takes me back to another modern day poet by the name of Jay-Z from one of the songs he wrote: It's funny what seven days can change, it was all good just a week ago. I don't know if it was all good a week ago, but I can tell everyone that things have changed.

If the President was George W. Bush and this was the question asked of him and the response was the silence we have gotten, we would have a very different scenario tonight except I actually believe the Senator from Kentucky would make the exact same arguments he is now making on the floor.

I want everyone who is watching to clearly understand--and if I am wrong, the Senator from Kentucky is going to correct me--that what he is asking is a simple, straightforward response or, if we cannot get that, a simple and straightforward response from the Members of this body in a sense of the Senate resolution vote. Both have been rejected.

The last observation I would have tonight is that there have been pretty phenomenal legal analyses on the floor. That reminds me of the most famous quote from ``The Godfather'' that was never actually used in the movie. I don't know how that happened. Maybe they cut it out. Here is the quote: ``A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.'' I don't know how that is relevant to this, but I thought it was a very good quote. I thought I would bring it up because I went to law school. I am a lawyer. I was a land use and zoning attorney, which meant if I wound up in the courtroom, something went horribly wrong with the land use and zoning application.

The point is we have had good arguments on the constitutional issues with regard to this, and I think those are important to discuss. I am glad so much time has been spent on those. It is important for the people at home to fully understand the legal arguments here because I think they are important. They go to the heart of our Constitution. They go to the heart of our civil liberties. They go to the heart of the things that distinguish our Nation.

I think what is stunning to me--clearly the constitutional issue is important--is how simple and straightforward this issue is and how easily it could have been resolved. I don't know how many hours we are into this now--I think it is about 11 hours and 15 minutes--but we cannot get a straightforward answer. The Members of this body deserve that. The Members of this body deserve an answer. It doesn't matter what party you or the President is in. This is an important question that is being asked.

All of this could be over if we get a straightforward answer. I think that is something every Member of this body should care about. It is not a Republican question. It is not a conservative question. It is a constitutional question, a relevant question, and one that should be easy to answer.

They are refusing to answer it for some reason. I don't know if it is because of pride or it is beneath them or they have something else going on or the answer department was shut down. Either way I don't understand how they cannot answer this very straightforward question.

It reminds me of another line from ``The Godfather'' when Michael turns to Fredo and says: Fredo, you are my older brother, and I love you but don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again. That is kind of what is happening here. As an institution--as the Senate--we have a right to those answers. It doesn't matter who the President is. We have a job to do that we are held responsible for and that we are held accountable.

Thirty years from now, forty years from now, twenty years from now, ten years from now, these sorts of decisions will have ramifications long after we are gone. All of us here will be gone and there will be other people in these chairs. Maybe it will be our children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren who will visit this building, and they will read about the time we served here. If we make mistakes, history will record those mistakes and hold us accountable for those mistakes. If things are happening today that set the groundwork for future administrations--because that is the other thing we need to remember. No matter how anyone feels about the current President, he is not going to be President forever. The precedence he sets could very well guide what future Presidents do.

So the point is, if we are laying the groundwork and making mistakes by not asking certain questions, history will hold us accountable for that and that is all of us. It is not one of us, not five of us, not the Republican part of the Senate but all of us. We have a right to ask these questions and to get these questions answered. That is not being an obstructionist, that is not being partisan, that is being a Senator.

I have only been here 2 years, but I know enough of this process already to know that when the majority changes or when a new President is elected, at some point every single one of us is going to want to have an answer from the administration or some other branch of government and they are going to hold us off. They are going to give us the Heisman and stiff-arm us and not answer the question. I would sure hope at that moment--whether you agree with that person or not--that you would stand and defend their prerogative and right as a representative of their State to get legitimate questions answered in a straightforward way.

As I said earlier today when I came to the floor, this issue is about this institution as much as anything else. It is about the right of every single Member of this body to be able to ask legitimate questions of the administration or other branches of government and to get a straightforward answer.

I guess the question I have for the junior Senator from Kentucky is-- just to clarify my understanding--that this issue could have been brought to a resolution quite a long time ago if the White House had made their feelings well known in a statement. They could

just put that out in a 30-second statement, and it would be done. Just come out and say it, that it is unconstitutional to kill U.S. citizens that are noncombatants who are in the United States. That is one route.

The other thing that could have ended this is the unanimous consent motion he made to have this body vote on the sense of the Senate, and that would have brought it to a vote. Is that accurate? Are those the options before us?

Mr. President, I wish to echo my support for this amendment which is, basically, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Human trafficking is an issue which is shocking to people in its prevalence, both in our country and around the world. The idea of human slavery is something people think about as a historical issue, something that happened a long time ago. The fact is it is happening today all over the world, and it is happening in the United States. It is a tragic issue.

There is not just sex trafficking, which gets all the attention and, obviously, is something that is very bad, but there is also labor trafficking. There are people in this country who are brought here under false pretenses, and when they get here they don't get paid, they are mistreated, and on many occasions they are threatened that their family back home is going to be hurt if they go to the authorities.

We have had cases of this happening in Florida. We have seen horrible cases that have been documented in Florida. This is one of the issues I have become passionate about, and anyone could become passionate about, if ever a person meets any of these survivors, these young men and women who have survived some of the most brutal treatment one can imagine. So this is a great step forward in reauthorizing not just this bill but America's example to the world that we take this issue seriously.

I also think this is an issue of awareness. In the years to come, I hope we will continue to talk about this issue because there is still a lack of awareness in this country among many people about how serious this problem truly is. I am grateful we will, hopefully, be able to move forward, and I wish to thank the Senator from Vermont for offering this amendment.

Should I yield the floor?

Madam President, let me begin by thanking the senior Senator from the State of Florida, who a few moments ago made some very kind remarks about me, and I appreciate that very much. Let me just say he is the best python hunter in the Senate. For those who don't know what I am talking about, they can look it up in the newspaper accounts of Senator Nelson's endeavors of a few weeks ago in the Everglades. So I look forward to working with him, and I thank him for his friendship and his kind words.

Madam President, I wish to take a few moments. I have heard a lot of discussion here on the floor today. A moment ago, we were talking about the STEM visas and the need to reform that process. I would like to take a step back and talk a little about the immigration issue in general. There has been a lot of conversation about that here in the Senate, certainly out in the public. This is a contentious issue, and it is clearly important to understand where we stand today, what it is that is happening, what is not happening, and the way forward in that regard. I hope I can do that in under 10 minutes here this afternoon.

Let me begin by saying something that I think unifies all of us, and that is the belief that legal immigration is good for America. Legal immigration is a good thing for our country. The vast majority of Americans would agree with that. Legal immigration has been a critical part of our heritage, and it is a critical part of our future. We just discussed one aspect of legal immigration that is critical to our future, and that is in the technology field. I guarantee that if you go to the agricultural industry, they will tell you the same thing. Legal immigration is good and important for our country.

The second thing people will tell you is that illegal immigration is not good for America. I know both sides of this coin firsthand. I didn't read about this in a book. I didn't watch some movie last week about immigration. I live this issue on a daily basis. I live in a family of immigrants, married into a family of immigrants, in a neighborhood of immigrants, in a community of immigrants.

I see all the good things legal immigration has done for America, and I see the strain illegal immigration places on our country.

We have a fundamental problem in our country today; that is, we have a broken legal immigration system and we have a very serious illegal immigration problem. That is what we are trying to address in a commonsense way that is good for America.

What we saw yesterday was the release of some principles. It is not a bill,

it is some principles. It is basically the architecture of the work we hope to undertake in conjunction with every one of my colleagues here. It is not a secret group who will meet and force some issue upon us to take or leave. It is the beginning of a process we hope will lead to a real solution.

Part 1 of that process is that we need a legal immigration system that works. In fact, our broken legal immigration system is a significant contributor to illegal immigration. It is so expensive, it is so complicated sometimes to legally immigrate to the United States or to renew a visa that it is encouraging people to do it the wrong way. We have a system that doesn't reflect the reality of the 21st century, and that needs to be addressed. That is one of the top priorities of this system.

The second priority is this: This is a sovereign country. As a sovereign nation, the United States of America has a right to have immigration laws, and it has a right to enforce our immigration laws. That is important to point out. Sometimes we lose sight of this. We have 1 million people a year who immigrate legally to the United States permanently. No other country in the world is nearly as generous. There isn't even a close second. A million people a year wait in line and pay the fees and come here the right way, and if we don't enforce our immigration laws, we are undermining that effort. In fact, we are discouraging it, and we are being unfair to it. So we need to have immigration laws that work and that are enforced.

But we have a third problem; that is, right now, in this country at this very moment, estimates say that as many as 11 million human beings are in the United States without proper immigration documentation. Now, let me be clear: On the one hand, the vast majority of these folks are not victims. They knew what they were doing, and what they did was wrong. They do not have a right to illegally immigrate to the United States. There is no such thing as a legal right to illegally immigrate to the United States. On the other hand, these are 11 million human beings, 11 million people who, irrespective of how they did it, came here, and the vast majority of them in pursuit of what every one of us would recognize as the American dream.

As a policymaker, as someone who passionately loves this country, as do all my colleagues and everyone watching, I realize we have 11 million people here who are undocumented. What they did was wrong, but they will probably be here--almost all of them--for the rest of their lives with or without documents. So I want to deal with this. We need to modernize our legal immigration system. We have to deal with the 11 million people who are here now in a way that makes sense, not in a talking-point way. We have to make sure that this never happens again, that we never find ourselves back where we are now. I hope I never again in the future have to come back here and say: Guess what, folks. We have another 5 million people who are here undocumented. And let me be clear. I will not support--I personally will not support any immigration bill that does not prevent that from happening. But it all starts with dealing with the reality that we have 11 million human beings who will be here for the rest of their lives with or without documents. We have to deal with that.

What these principles say is, No. 1, let's modernize our legal immigration system. Let's have an agricultural program that works. Let's have a high-tech visa program that works. We have to have a 21st- century immigration system, which means we can no longer afford to have less than 10 percent of the people who come here based on skills. We need to change that, and not by undermining family-based immigration but by reforming the programs we use for skill-based immigration. We need to modernize it.

Secondly, we need real enforcement mechanisms. There are three things that work. No. 1 is securing and getting operational control of the border. And by the way, this is not just an immigration issue. The border is not just an immigration issue. I am not in favor of a housekeeper or a landscaper coming across the border illegally. I am not in favor of that. But what keeps me up at night are the terrorists coming across the border, and a porous border at the north or south leads to that possibility. So the border is as much about our sovereignty and national security as it is about immigration.

Third is a workplace enforcement mechanism. In the 21st century, we can't come up with a reliable way to verify whether the people being hired are here legally?

Fourth is visa tracking. We have all these people coming to the United States on visas. We track when they come in but not when they leave--or not successfully enough. So we don't know where they are or whether they are here. We have no idea. As much as 40 percent of our illegal immigrants, 40 percent of our undocumented folks are here on visa overstays. They didn't sneak across the border.

We have to deal with those four things as well. Then we have to deal with the 11 million, and the way to deal with it is not blanket amnesty. What my principles outline, what the group's principles outline is a process that works this way: If you are here undocumented, you must come forward. There will be a background check on you. If you have ever committed serious crimes in the United States, you will be deported. If you have not committed serious crimes in the United States, you will then have to pay back taxes and you will have to pay a fine. What you will then get is basically the equivalent of a nonresident visa that allows you to work here. You do not qualify for Federal financial benefits, so you are not a strain.

I have heard that concern raised--this is going to place a strain on our social services. As nonimmigrant visa holders, they do not qualify, under existing law right now, for Federal benefits.

What you get is a work permit, the ability to be here legally. We know where you are, we know where you live, we know where you work, you pay taxes, you have paid a fine--this is not amnesty--and you have a nonimmigrant visa. And there is nothing you can do with that nonimmigrant visa but stay here, work, and travel to visit relatives. But you can't turn that into citizenship. It is a nonimmigrant visa.

They will have to remain in this probationary phase for a significant period of time--not an unreasonable period of time but a significant period of time. After that period of time has elapsed and if they have complied with all the requirements of that probationary period and if it is certified that the enforcement mechanisms are in place and have happened--that is critical--then and only then do we then move to phase 2.

This is what phase 2 is, and it is very simple. Phase 2 is that we go to these folks and say: OK, you will now be given the opportunity to apply for a green card using the same process as anybody else anywhere in the world would use to apply--the same process.

In essence, all we are going to give them is a chance to do what they should have done in the beginning, to apply the way they should have applied in the beginning. Here is what is important: They have to get in line. People say: What is the big deal about the line? The big deal about the line is that all those people who have done it the right way, it is not fair to them to allow someone who didn't do it the right way to leapfrog them. In essence, we can't make it cheaper and faster to immigrate here illegally than it is to immigrate here legally. Ultimately, they will have to get in line, they will have to qualify for the visa they have applied for, and if all that works out, then they will get a green card. Once they get a green card, depending on how they got it, they will have to wait about 5 years before they can even apply for citizenship.

This is the process and these are the principles we have outlined. I have heard concerns, and they are all legitimate concerns. Just because someone raises concerns about our principles, that doesn't mean they will ultimately be against them. It means they have legitimate concerns. People say it is wrong to reward people who have done this the wrong way. We agree, and that is why we can't allow them to leapfrog anyone. That is why the line is important and the waiting period is important.

I heard Senator Sessions earlier say that we are not even enforcing our current laws. That is true. And one of the reasons they are not being enforced is

because the current system doesn't exist. It doesn't work. What we have now is de facto amnesty. If we do nothing, what we have is de facto amnesty because we don't know who the undocumented are. We couldn't enforce it even if we wanted to. That is why we have to deal with this issue.

We talk about the cost of social programs. If you are on a nonimmigrant visa, you don't qualify for the social programs by current law.

Look, there is a lot of work to be done. What we announced yesterday is not a plan, it is a framework. And that framework has to now be turned into legislative language. That is a lot of hard work, but I hope people will take this as an opportunity to come up with a solution to an issue that is solvable, that we can address and bring to a conclusion. It will have to be done the right way, and it will not be easy.

In a few hours the President will give a speech in Nevada, and early press accounts concern me. I don't want to turn this into a partisan thing, though, so let me just say this: If this endeavor becomes a bidding war to see who can come up with the easiest, quickest, and cheapest pathway to a green card possible, this will not go well. We now have a commonsense and reasonable set of principles. And I hope what the President will say today is he hopes that process succeeds. But if his intentions are to trigger a bidding war to see who can come up with the easiest process, this is not a good start. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt. I hope my colleagues will do the same.

I am deeply committed to the rule of law and to having an immigration system that works. I hope we can work together to accomplish that.

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

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, there has been a lot in the news over the last 24 hours about immigration as an issue that confronts our country. I wanted to put this in the context of that and then talk specifically about the details that are within this.

First of all, in the context of immigration reform, there are things I think the vast majority of Americans would agree. One is this: We have a legal immigration system that is not working for the country. I think that despite the debate which exists about illegal immigration and how to deal with that reality--and that is a real debate that needs to happen--one of the things everyone agrees on is that legal immigration is good for this country. It is an important part of our history and critical part of our future. The legal immigration system we have in place right now does not work for America, and it really does not work for the 21st century.

Let me be clear about one thing: I support family-based immigration. That is how my parents came to this country. I don't want us to do anything that undermines it. I also know that in the 21st century, we can no longer afford to have an immigration system where literally less than 10 percent of the people who come here do so based on the skills they bring to this country.

Think about this for a moment: If I said to my colleagues that the NBA should be a collection of the best basketball players in the world, who would disagree with that? If I said Major League Baseball should be a collection of the best baseball players in the world, who would disagree with that? How, then, can we disagree about that when it comes to our economy? How can we disagree that we should want the smartest, hardest working, most talented people on this planet to come here? I, for one, have no fear our country is going to be overrun by Ph.Ds. I have no fear this country is going to be overrun by nuclear physicists and inventors and entrepreneurs. We have to create a system where that can happen in a rational, organized, and legal way. That is what we are attempting to do because that is not what we have right now in the United States.

What we have, in fact, is a system--and Senator Hatch has discussed this. It was startling when I heard this. Yearly, our Nation has a demand for 120,000 computer science engineers, but our universities only produce 40,000 people a year. This is an indictment of our educational system. We need to fix that. We need to get to a point in this country where we have 120,000 people graduating to meet the demand. But in the short term--right now--we have to deal with the fact that if those 80,000 graduates for those jobs are not created here, those jobs are still going to exist; they are just not going to exist here. Those companies are not going to wait for us to produce more graduates. These countries are not going to wait for us to fix our immigration system. They have a business to run. If they can't find the people they need to fill these jobs, they will send those jobs to another country.

What that means in practical terms is these high-paying jobs in these industries will be paying the taxes in some other country, will be stimulating the economy in some other country, will be laying down roots in some other nation. Do people want to know why one of the reasons America is special? Because for over 200 years we have been a collection of the world's best and brightest, a magnet that attracts people here. Now we have an immigration system that in the 21st century is making that very difficult to achieve. That is what this effort does.

The other concern I have heard is what about the folks in this country now. This is a legitimate concern.

When people raise it, I don't get upset because it is a very legitimate concern: The kids who are born here and raised here and go into these industries, will they be hurt? As we have seen, the need far exceeds what we are producing, so that is not an immediate concern. But here is the other, and that is the startling figure that was used earlier; that for every 100 foreign-born STEM workers, we are creating 260-some-odd jobs. It is indisputable that these jobs create jobs for people right down the line in this process. If someone is an entrepreneur who is an immigrant, they create jobs for all kinds of people, and most of them were born here. If someone creates some new technology or develops it, they create jobs and opportunities for people who work here, live here, and were born here. This is a net positive for our economy. That is why this issue is so critical to be confronted.

By the way, as we talk about meeting the demand with our entire immigration system, we can't modernize America's legal immigration system if we don't have a way to get the world's best and brightest to come here in a way that is expedient and in a way that is cost- effective, in a way that is safe, and in a way that is legal. That is what we are attempting to do.

This bill is not in competition with any other effort; it compliments it. In fact, it is an indispensable part of it. We cannot comprehensively reform America's legal immigration system if it does not include VISA provisions for graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math.

My final point: It makes no sense to invite people to come to the United States, to study at our universities, to become the best and brightest in the world at their subject matter, and then ask them to leave. Think about that for a moment. We tell people: Come to America. We are going to let you go to our best schools and teach you everything we know and then we want you to go somewhere else and use the knowledge you gained here. That is crazy. That is not just nonsensical, it is crazy. We can't keep doing that. Hopefully, we will begin to change it now.

It has been a pleasure to work with all the folks involved with this effort. The leadership of Senator Hatch has been extraordinary, as well as that of Senator Klobuchar. We have a good group working together. Our final colleague who has been a part of this, and an indispensable one, who has also worked in the context of another piece of legislation which we are hopeful to get moving soon--startup 2.0--which is an issue for another day, we are obviously interested in hearing from Senator Coons from Delaware about this issue.

Mr. President, let the Record reflect I did not mean to offend hockey fans. On the contrary, we have two hockey teams, the Florida Panthers and the Lightning in the Tampa Bay area, which actually has won the Stanley Cup before, and the Florida Panthers were in the playoffs last year. So we like hockey too. We cannot play it outdoors in Florida. But in any event, I think the point is well taken that we do want the best and brightest.

The one point I wish to make is the one point I have picked up on, on the immigration issue, in general, over the last 24 to 48 hours; that is, how important it is that accurate information reach the American people about what it is we are working on and what it is we are not working on.

Immigration is a complicated issue. We hear a lot of discussion about immigration. I will have more to say about it later today. But immigration is a complicated process. The one we have now is complicated. It is important for people to understand what it is we are trying to do and what it is not. I think that is true for the entire issue of immigration but particularly important for this one.

To that end, I guess I wish to issue a public challenge to the companies that in the past have gotten engaged in the public discourse and in the public debate on issues that involve the issues of technology.

Just a few months ago--and it is a sore spot in some places, I imagine--we had this issue of SOPA and PIPA and all these other things that were going to impact the freedom of the Internet and the freedom of communicating online, and a lot of groups got involved to speak about that and to try to clear up the record about what they were for and what they were against.

I hope they will do the same thing on this. I hope they will use the platforms on this to openly discuss what this is about.

I guess this is a challenge to the Facebooks and the Googles and the Twitters of the world: Get engaged in letting people know what is at stake. If we like these innovations that have radically changed the way we live in this country--just think about this for a moment. If a decade ago we would tell someone we are going to Google them, they would be offended because that did not mean anything a decade ago. Now it means something. If we were to say a decade ago that we were going to tweet something, people would look at us funny. Now it actually means something.

These are innovations that happened in America that have not only changed the way we live and made our lives

more interesting and in some ways more productive but are transforming the world.

Think about the political movements here and around the world. There was a time when one could not even engage in public discourse in America if they did not have an organization to back them. Now any single individual can become the leader of a movement fairly quickly by using the platforms that have been created by innovators.

A disproportionate number of the people who develop this stuff are immigrants or the children of immigrants or children or people we have trained in this country who, thank God, we did not send back home.

We have a chance to do that, and I hope those who have a vested interest in this issue passing will use the platforms they own and operate to clearly inform the American people about what is at stake on the issue of immigration as a whole but in particular on this issue of high-skill immigration.

I guess for some additional thoughts, I wish to turn it over to Senator Coons, who has a unique insight into innovation. We worked on the Startup 2.0. I will plug it again because it is an important piece of legislation we would like to get done fairly soon. A lot of it is based on investor visas and things of that nature.

I think Senator Coons has more to add about our effort here today.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, there has been a lot in the news over the last 24 hours about immigration as an issue that confronts our country. I wanted to put this in the context of that and then talk specifically about the details that are within this.

First of all, in the context of immigration reform, there are things I think the vast majority of Americans would agree. One is this: We have a legal immigration system that is not working for the country. I think that despite the debate which exists about illegal immigration and how to deal with that reality--and that is a real debate that needs to happen--one of the things everyone agrees on is that legal immigration is good for this country. It is an important part of our history and critical part of our future. The legal immigration system we have in place right now does not work for America, and it really does not work for the 21st century.

Let me be clear about one thing: I support family-based immigration. That is how my parents came to this country. I don't want us to do anything that undermines it. I also know that in the 21st century, we can no longer afford to have an immigration system where literally less than 10 percent of the people who come here do so based on the skills they bring to this country.

Think about this for a moment: If I said to my colleagues that the NBA should be a collection of the best basketball players in the world, who would disagree with that? If I said Major League Baseball should be a collection of the best baseball players in the world, who would disagree with that? How, then, can we disagree about that when it comes to our economy? How can we disagree that we should want the smartest, hardest working, most talented people on this planet to come here? I, for one, have no fear our country is going to be overrun by Ph.Ds. I have no fear this country is going to be overrun by nuclear physicists and inventors and entrepreneurs. We have to create a system where that can happen in a rational, organized, and legal way. That is what we are attempting to do because that is not what we have right now in the United States.

What we have, in fact, is a system--and Senator Hatch has discussed this. It was startling when I heard this. Yearly, our Nation has a demand for 120,000 computer science engineers, but our universities only produce 40,000 people a year. This is an indictment of our educational system. We need to fix that. We need to get to a point in this country where we have 120,000 people graduating to meet the demand. But in the short term--right now--we have to deal with the fact that if those 80,000 graduates for those jobs are not created here, those jobs are still going to exist; they are just not going to exist here. Those companies are not going to wait for us to produce more graduates. These countries are not going to wait for us to fix our immigration system. They have a business to run. If they can't find the people they need to fill these jobs, they will send those jobs to another country.

What that means in practical terms is these high-paying jobs in these industries will be paying the taxes in some other country, will be stimulating the economy in some other country, will be laying down roots in some other nation. Do people want to know why one of the reasons America is special? Because for over 200 years we have been a collection of the world's best and brightest, a magnet that attracts people here. Now we have an immigration system that in the 21st century is making that very difficult to achieve. That is what this effort does.

The other concern I have heard is what about the folks in this country now. This is a legitimate concern.

When people raise it, I don't get upset because it is a very legitimate concern: The kids who are born here and raised here and go into these industries, will they be hurt? As we have seen, the need far exceeds what we are producing, so that is not an immediate concern. But here is the other, and that is the startling figure that was used earlier; that for every 100 foreign-born STEM workers, we are creating 260-some-odd jobs. It is indisputable that these jobs create jobs for people right down the line in this process. If someone is an entrepreneur who is an immigrant, they create jobs for all kinds of people, and most of them were born here. If someone creates some new technology or develops it, they create jobs and opportunities for people who work here, live here, and were born here. This is a net positive for our economy. That is why this issue is so critical to be confronted.

By the way, as we talk about meeting the demand with our entire immigration system, we can't modernize America's legal immigration system if we don't have a way to get the world's best and brightest to come here in a way that is expedient and in a way that is cost- effective, in a way that is safe, and in a way that is legal. That is what we are attempting to do.

This bill is not in competition with any other effort; it compliments it. In fact, it is an indispensable part of it. We cannot comprehensively reform America's legal immigration system if it does not include VISA provisions for graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math.

My final point: It makes no sense to invite people to come to the United States, to study at our universities, to become the best and brightest in the world at their subject matter, and then ask them to leave. Think about that for a moment. We tell people: Come to America. We are going to let you go to our best schools and teach you everything we know and then we want you to go somewhere else and use the knowledge you gained here. That is crazy. That is not just nonsensical, it is crazy. We can't keep doing that. Hopefully, we will begin to change it now.

It has been a pleasure to work with all the folks involved with this effort. The leadership of Senator Hatch has been extraordinary, as well as that of Senator Klobuchar. We have a good group working together. Our final colleague who has been a part of this, and an indispensable one, who has also worked in the context of another piece of legislation which we are hopeful to get moving soon--startup 2.0--which is an issue for another day, we are obviously interested in hearing from Senator Coons from Delaware about this issue.

Mr. President, let the Record reflect I did not mean to offend hockey fans. On the contrary, we have two hockey teams, the Florida Panthers and the Lightning in the Tampa Bay area, which actually has won the Stanley Cup before, and the Florida Panthers were in the playoffs last year. So we like hockey too. We cannot play it outdoors in Florida. But in any event, I think the point is well taken that we do want the best and brightest.

The one point I wish to make is the one point I have picked up on, on the immigration issue, in general, over the last 24 to 48 hours; that is, how important it is that accurate information reach the American people about what it is we are working on and what it is we are not working on.

Immigration is a complicated issue. We hear a lot of discussion about immigration. I will have more to say about it later today. But immigration is a complicated process. The one we have now is complicated. It is important for people to understand what it is we are trying to do and what it is not. I think that is true for the entire issue of immigration but particularly important for this one.

To that end, I guess I wish to issue a public challenge to the companies that in the past have gotten engaged in the public discourse and in the public debate on issues that involve the issues of technology.

Just a few months ago--and it is a sore spot in some places, I imagine--we had this issue of SOPA and PIPA and all these other things that were going to impact the freedom of the Internet and the freedom of communicating online, and a lot of groups got involved to speak about that and to try to clear up the record about what they were for and what they were against.

I hope they will do the same thing on this. I hope they will use the platforms on this to openly discuss what this is about.

I guess this is a challenge to the Facebooks and the Googles and the Twitters of the world: Get engaged in letting people know what is at stake. If we like these innovations that have radically changed the way we live in this country--just think about this for a moment. If a decade ago we would tell someone we are going to Google them, they would be offended because that did not mean anything a decade ago. Now it means something. If we were to say a decade ago that we were going to tweet something, people would look at us funny. Now it actually means something.

These are innovations that happened in America that have not only changed the way we live and made our lives

more interesting and in some ways more productive but are transforming the world.

Think about the political movements here and around the world. There was a time when one could not even engage in public discourse in America if they did not have an organization to back them. Now any single individual can become the leader of a movement fairly quickly by using the platforms that have been created by innovators.

A disproportionate number of the people who develop this stuff are immigrants or the children of immigrants or children or people we have trained in this country who, thank God, we did not send back home.

We have a chance to do that, and I hope those who have a vested interest in this issue passing will use the platforms they own and operate to clearly inform the American people about what is at stake on the issue of immigration as a whole but in particular on this issue of high-skill immigration.

I guess for some additional thoughts, I wish to turn it over to Senator Coons, who has a unique insight into innovation. We worked on the Startup 2.0. I will plug it again because it is an important piece of legislation we would like to get done fairly soon. A lot of it is based on investor visas and things of that nature.

I think Senator Coons has more to add about our effort here today.

Mr. President, today I recognize Bryan Almeida, a 2012 intern in my Washington, DC, office for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Bryan is a rising junior at the George Washington University. Currently, he is majoring in political communications and minoring in statistics. He is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Bryan for all the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize Olivia Barket, a 2012 intern in my Washington, DC, office for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Olivia is a rising junior at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. Currently, she is majoring in finance. She is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of her internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Olivia for all the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize Ryan Bass, a 2012 intern in my Washington, DC, office for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Ryan is a rising junior at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Currently, he is studying mathematics and political science. He is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Ryan for all the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize Marjorie Broffman, a 2012 intern in my Washington, DC, office for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Marjorie is a rising junior at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Currently, Marjorie is double majoring in government and international politics and economics. She is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of her internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Marjorie for all the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.