Floor Statements

Madam President, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 496, S. Res. 513.

Madam President, I ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I now ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 497, S. Res. 520.

Madam President, I further ask that the resolution be agreed to; the Murphy amendment to the preamble, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 498, S. Res. 522.

Madam President, I ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 503, S. 231.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration en bloc of the following resolutions which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 532, S. Res. 533, S. Res. 534, and S. Res. 535.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles, where applicable, be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, with no intervening action or debate.

I understand there are two bills at the desk and I ask for their first reading en bloc.

I now ask for a second reading and I object to my own request, all en bloc.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 11 a.m. on Friday, August 1, 2014; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, there be a period of morning business until 2 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, there will be no votes tomorrow. The next rollcall vote will occur at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, September 8.

Madam President, before we close the Senate before the August recess, I just want to speak for 1 minute.

We all heard the exchange earlier between the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Menendez, and Senator Enzi, and Senator Carper also participated, about appointing ambassadors. I think it is a sad day for America when our gridlock, the gridlock that the Congress has created, makes it to where we cannot appoint our ambassadors to go overseas to represent our great Nation and to be our representatives there in these countries, many of which are struggling, and many of which have a lot of tensions either with us, the United States, or their neighbors or other countries in the world.

I think our country is suffering because of the gridlock and I must say that the fault rests with all of us. We are elected to be leaders, and we are not showing leadership by not working through these difficult issues and allowing the basics of government, including our ambassadors to be appointed.

I must say there is a simple solution to all of this, and it is not something that is found in a new political science textbook, it is not something that some talking head on a TV show has proposed. There is some ancient wisdom that we all should follow, and that is the Golden Rule. We should do unto others as we would have others do unto us. If we would follow that, if all of us would take that to heart and apply that to our business here in the U.S. Senate and the business of the Nation, it would be revolutionary in how we conduct our business.

That is the only way to fix it. You have to approach this job as a public servant and to do what is right for the country, not for your party or not for some individual agenda. I hope when we are all home during the August recess we will hear some of that from our constituents and we will bring that back in September and we will rededicate ourselves to getting the business of the Nation done.

Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. President, I wish to speak very briefly about Medicare.

Before 1965, as the Presiding Officer and many others in the Chamber know, nearly half of America's seniors had no health insurance at all. Medicare made certain that seniors had access to affordable health care, and it has lifted millions out of poverty in this country.

Seniors earn their Medicare benefits; they are not given to them. Seniors earn their Medicare benefits through a lifetime of hard work because, as we know, for all of our working lives a portion of every single paycheck is deposited and is guaranteed for benefits for when we turn 65. This is a bedrock commitment. We pay into it and it should be there for all of us when we reach the age of 65.

Today we celebrate the 49th anniversary of Medicare, but I encourage my colleagues to hold the balloons and cake because over the past few years what we have seen down the hall in the House of Representatives is a group of House Members who try to continually chip away at the promise of Medicare. They want to turn Medicare into a voucher system. They even tried to raise the eligibility age.

These proposals in effect shift the cost on to those who can least afford to pay it. They will increase out-of-pocket expenses for our seniors on benefits such as wellness visits, cancer screenings, and lifesaving drugs. These plans will allow insurance companies to cherry pick who they want to cover, setting off a premium spiral that would leave sicker seniors with higher premiums and higher costs, leaving many American seniors without the care they need and the protection they have earned.

These proposals we see coming out of the House of Representatives undermine the integrity of the program. I think it is important for us in the Senate to not allow them to put the health and financial security of our seniors in jeopardy. That is why I have introduced the Medicare Protection Act. It is a responsible commonsense solution. It prevents budget schemes that would reduce Medicare benefits and restrict eligibility, and it sends a strong message that Medicare should not be dismantled, privatized, or turned into a voucher system.

The promise of Medicare is one we must keep. The Senate should pass the Medicare Protection Act. I ask that we keep Medicare strong and affordable for today's seniors and for future generations.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today I rise in support of the Bring Jobs Home Act. There has been some discussion on the floor about this act already, but I wish to lend my voice to that. This is a commonsense bill to bring good-paying middle-class jobs back to America.

When we look at the terrible recession this Nation went through a few years ago, we have seen that our recovery has been sluggish. One of the reasons it has been sluggish is because these good middle-class jobs in many cases just aren't here anymore. They have gone overseas. They have gone to China, Mexico, Vietnam, and other countries around the globe. They are not here.

We need to grow this economy from the middle. We have the statistics to see that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. That should concern everyone in this Chamber. I know it concerns economists and it concerns people all over the country. These are kitchen-table issues for people. We need to grow our economy from the middle. That is what this proposed act is all about.

My home State of Arkansas is a good example. We have seen good companies, such as Levi Strauss, Whirlpool, Fruit of the Loom--these are name-brand companies. Everybody knows these companies. We have seen them, one after the other, leave Arkansas, abandon our State and our Nation to go find cheap wages overseas.

To rub salt in the wounds, through their hard-earned tax dollars, these very same workers have helped pay for the companies to move their jobs overseas because the companies are able to write off the move overseas as a business expense. In effect, the U.S. taxpayer ends up helping to export jobs out of the United States. It is a policy that does not make sense. It is a policy we need to change. That is one part of the Bring Jobs Home Act that is critically important that we pass as quickly as possible. I think most of my colleagues will agree with me when they say this tax giveaway is counterproductive. In fact, it is outrageous that we continue to allow this to happen.

Fortunately, even though my State has lost some jobs, we have some very good job replacements as well. Last week I had the good pleasure and fortune of meeting with a man in Rogers, AR, named Bill Redman, the founder and CEO of a small toy company. This toy company has moved its operation from China to Rogers, AR, in the northwest corner of the State, because the economics of manufacturing now favor ``Made in the U.S.A.'' That is very positive.

We are seeing this with companies all over the country, and we would see even more of it if we passed the Bring Jobs Home Act.

A study shows that the $18.55-an-hour average wage created by this toy company I was talking about--created by his company in Arkansas-- will pump $3 million back into the local economy. So if he pays his people $18.55, the stimulative effect of that is $3 million into the local economy. It also shows that each job he creates will support four other jobs that provide services to what he is doing. These may be truckdrivers, they may be people who print the boxes or the labels or make the containers or whatever it is, but for every job he creates, there are four other jobs that are created. So there is a huge multiplier effect in bringing jobs home to America.

If we see that in Rogers, AR, we know we see that in the other 50 States of the Union. So if we want to keep America as a nation of makers--and that is in our DNA as a nation. We make things in this country. We have always done it. We have always done it better than anybody else in the world. If we want to keep America a nation of makers, we need more companies like Redman & Associates in Arkansas, but this will only happen if we tip the scale in the right direction, and that is what this Bring Jobs Home Act is all about.

The policy that we make here in the Senate or that we don't make here in the Senate has a huge bearing on what the future of the Nation will look like. So let's do the right thing. Let's end this tax giveaway for the companies that ship their jobs overseas to places such as Mexico and China and many other countries. Let's instead provide meaningful tax incentives for those jobs to come back home, to create these good- paying middle-class jobs right here in the good old U.S.A.

From my standpoint, this is good commonsense policy, it is good commonsense economics, and I hope my colleagues will join me as well as many others of us here in this Chamber in supporting this Bring Jobs Home Act.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that time be yielded back.