Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Marilyn Jones, who has served as a valued member of my staff and the staff of my friend and predecessor, Senator John Warner.

Though she was born in North Carolina, Marilyn has a long history of service to the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia. She is a remarkably compassionate woman who often worked tirelessly with our most vulnerable populations--our senior citizens and veterans. There are many extraordinary stories about constituents whose lives she has touched. One in particular stands out to me: Last year, we were contacted by the wife of a veteran whose husband was hospitalized at a private hospital because of an emergency. Unfortunately, he passed away the next day and the Department of Veterans Affairs refused to pay for his care. Marilyn successfully worked with the private hospital to make sure that the veteran's care in his final hours would not become a financial burden to his widow.

Marilyn joined Senator John Warner in 1981 as a correspondence management specialist and rose to the position of caseworker. When Senator John Warner retired, Marilyn joined my staff to continue helping the people of Virginia. Because of her diligent work, she was promoted first to constituent services representative and then constituent services director. Marilyn has also been a dedicated member of her community in Richmond. She attended Virginia Union University and is an active member of her church, New Jerusalem International Christian Ministries, where she has been known to knit items for fellow church members. She has one beloved daughter, Shannan Hester.

After over 30 years of working for the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Marilyn Jones is retiring. Marilyn, thank you for dedicating your career to public service and best of luck in the future.

Mr. President, hundreds of people in Virginia were sickened and 2 died from an outbreak of fungal meningitis last year that was traced to a single compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts. Hundreds more in several States became sick, and dozens perished. This public health crisis highlighted the critical need for better oversight of pharmacies that are producing compounded drugs.

The Compounding Quality Act and Drug Supply Chain Security Act, which the Senate will consider for final passage today, includes important provisions that ensures that patients and providers have access to safe compounded drugs.

This legislation also includes important provisions that deal with how to better monitor and track the drug distribution supply chain. It improves on patient safety by developing a workable pathway that will ultimately result in tracing for the entire country. Additionally, it strengthens licensure requirements for wholesale distributions and third-party logistics providers, and establishes nationwide drug serial numbers. Finally, this legislation works to address the growing problem of pharmaceutical theft, counterfeiting and diversion. The Compounding Quality Act and Drug Supply Chain Security Act is the most significant piece of legislation on drug distribution supply chain in 25 years.

I am appreciative of Senators Harkin, Alexander, and all members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension committees for their tireless work on putting together these smart, bipartisan provisions which will help improve the lives of countless Virginians and Americans.

I offer my strong support to the Compounding Quality Act and Drug Supply Chain Security Act, and encourage its swift passage.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a topic not debated nearly enough here on the Senate floor--making the Federal Government more accountable and transparent.

Today, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Carper and Ranking Member Coburn, passed important legislation that will expand Federal financial transparency and accountability in many important ways.

I sponsored this legislation--the Digital Accountability and Transparency, or DATA, Act--because it will significantly reform the way agencies report Federal spending, and for the first time provide checkbook-type spending data from across the Federal Government.

The Federal Government spends more than $3.7 trillion each year, with more than $1 trillion being distributed as awards. However, the public cannot clearly track where this money goes. We currently have a Web site--USASpending.gov--that is supposed to show taxpayers and policymakers where the money goes, but it is not accurate.

Most States already have an online portal so that taxpayers can track where their dollars are spent, and it is long past time for the Federal Government to move into the 21st century and adopt a similar system.

At a recent hearing of the Budget Committee Task Force on Government Performance that I chair, it was reported that over $900 billion of direct assistance data on USASpending.gov was misreported in 2011 alone.

No wonder the public has such little confidence in government--we can't even tell them where their tax money goes.

It seems to me that the data collected by the budget shops, the accountants, the procurement offices, and grant makers all needs to be combined, reconciled, and then presented in a relevant and transparent way.

These various systems should be able to work together based on financial standards so that policymakers and the public can track the full cycle of Federal spending clearly.

The DATA Act will help us move in that direction by making four specific improvements that I want to highlight today.

First, it creates transparency for all Federal funds. DATA will expand USAspending.gov to include spending data for all Federal funds by appropriation, Federal agency, program, function, and maintain the current reporting for Federal awards like contracts, grants, and loans. This is important because there is currently no place online to find and compare all government spending.

This expansion of USASpending.gov will allow policymakers and taxpayers to track Federal funds more clearly and to more easily link spending to budget priorities.

Second, the DATA Act sets government-wide financial data standards. Currently there are no consistent standards for reporting financial data to USAspending.gov, and it makes much of the data confusing and unreliable--especially if you want to compile and compare spending from multiple Federal agencies.

DATA tasks the Department of Treasury with establishing consistent financial data standards for the Federal agencies to support the USAspending.gov website.

Third, the DATA Act will actually reduce recipient reporting requirements. I have long been concerned about the compliance costs for the recipients of Federal funds. It appears that all the overlapping systems are frustrating and also create additional waste--especially for State and local governments.

For example, many universities file similar financial reports, multiple times, to multiple agencies on an annual, quarterly and monthly basis. If all this reporting redundancy were streamlined, we could direct more money to programs and less to administrative costs.

This legislation requires the Office of Management and Budget to review the existing Federal award recipient financial reporting to reduce compliance costs based on the new financial data standards.

Finally, the DATA Act will improve data quality. The inspectors general at each agency will be required to provide reports on the quality and accuracy of the financial data provided to USASpending.gov. Then GAO will then create a government-wide assessment on data quality and accuracy based on the inspectors generals' findings.

Being able to follow the money is critically important to running our government in a more efficient way and getting the best value for the taxpayer. The DATA Act will help us take steps in that direction, and that is why passing it is so important.

I want to close today by saying thanks again to my colleagues for passing the DATA Act out of committee. I am also pleased to be working with my friend, Republican Rob Portman of Ohio, as my Senate cosponsor of the DATA Act. We will continue working to make sure this important bipartisan legislation becomes law this year.

Mr. President, I also to want speak to the judicial nomination, but I want to first respond as well to the Senator from Arizona. Let me first of all say there are few people in this body I have more respect for, and there are few people in this body who have time and again shown the political courage he has to put country ahead of party. I share a lot of his views. It is odd, but I feel sometimes that I work in the only place in America where being a gang member is considered a good thing.

I have not served here during these times when my party was in the minority, and intellectually I understand Senator McCain's point, but I guess what I can't understand and what I can't explain to the folks all across Virginia when they ask me: Why can't you guys get anything done, is that on any historical basis, looking at the number of times these procedures have been used in the past--and clearly they have been used by both parties--it seems at some point, while the rights of the minority need to be protected, there has to be some level of common agreement for not exercising these tools to the extent they have been so that this institution becomes so dysfunctional we allow ourselves to do something that in my tenure both in public and private life was never as stupid as what we did during the first 3 weeks of October.

So I do appreciate the Senator's comments. And although I now want to speak to the extraordinary qualifications of Patricia Millett, someone from Virginia, I wanted to state that I believe in the Senator's good faith and I also hope we can avoid the kind of further breakdown that would further disappoint the American people. I thank him for his comments.

I do want to take a couple of moments to talk about something other Senators have come out to speak on, and that is the nomination the President has made of a fellow Virginian, Patricia Millett, to be part of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

I have had the opportunity as Governor to appoint people to the bench, and I took that responsibility very seriously in terms of reviewing the qualifications of the candidates. I had the opportunity as a Senator to recommend individuals to the courts for the President's consideration, and I can't think of a candidate who brings more qualifications, more evidence of bipartisan support, more deserving of appointment, than Patricia Millett.

We all know the DC Circuit plays an incredibly important role in our judicial system. We also know the court currently has 3 of its 11 seats vacant. I recognize that in the past this court has been the focus of some debate and discussion, but the idea that we are going to somehow change the rules midstream seems inappropriate. If there is a legislative reason why we should change the DC Circuit Court from 11 to some fewer number of judges, that ought to be fully debated, but we should not hold up the confirmation of an individual whose credentials I believe are impeccable.

Ms. Millett currently chairs the Supreme Court practice at Akin Gump. She went to the University of Illinois and Harvard Law School. She clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and she worked on the appellate staff of the civil division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

She has spent over a decade in the U.S. Solicitor General's office, serving both Democratic and Republican administrations. During her time there she was awarded the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award, and as has been mentioned by my other colleagues, during her career she has argued 32 times before the Supreme Court, which until recently was the highest number of cases argued by any woman in our history.

What is also remarkable--and the Senator from Arizona mentioned we need to move past some of these partisan divisions--is that this is an individual who is supported by both Democrats and Republicans.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter indicating that support.

Ms. Millett served seven former Solicitors General from all ends of the political spectrum. In the letter I just referred to, her nomination is supported by Democrats such as Walter Dellinger as well as Republicans such as Ted Olson and Ken Starr.

She has also been recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America, and has received the endorsement of the American Bar Association.

As mentioned by the Senator from California already, she has a remarkable personal story as well. She is active in our community in Virginia, she is a resident, and actually attends church in my home city of Alexandria. We saw earlier the picture of her and her husband, and as was mentioned before a picture is worth a thousand words. Her husband was deployed a number of times as a naval reservist in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and earlier this month the Military Spouse J.D. Network recognized Ms. Millett for her professional service and for her service as a spouse of an Active-Duty participant.

So this incredible lawyer, this incredible community servant, this individual who has the support of both Republicans and Democrats, should not be denied her appointment to the DC Circuit.

Again, I have not been here when we were in the minority, but as has been mentioned time and again, when John Roberts--who is now, obviously, our Supreme Court Chief Justice--was nominated for the DC Circuit, he was confirmed unanimously. Even though many Democrats did not share his judicial views, they viewed his qualifications as impeccable.

I heard constantly the same from my colleagues on the other side, that this is not a question of Ms. Millett's qualifications. Why should this individual be denied her appropriate representation on the DC Court of Appeals? So I hope, my colleagues, that we can avoid further threats and counterthreats. Let's vote this individual based upon her qualifications. On any indication of qualifications, Patricia Millett is ably qualified, uniquely qualified to serve on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and I urge my colleagues to vote for her confirmation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his voice throughout this debate. He and I and a number of other colleagues realized early on this self-inflicted crisis of putting our workforce in jeopardy was bad policy, bad politics, and bad for our country. I am very glad that the resolution it looks like we are approaching is going to make sure our Federal workforce gets back to work and to the job of helping America, and they are going to get compensated for it. But I would add that it is not going to make everybody whole.

I agree with the Senator from Maryland.

I was in the private sector longer than the public sector, and I have run companies. I have never seen a management style which would say to the workforce, ``We are going to ask you to do more with less money'' and then treat them as poorly as they have been treated repeatedly by some of the attacks the Senator from Maryland has laid out.

I wish to take a moment, as a number of my colleagues have, to state that it looks as if this self-inflicted political crisis may be finally coming to an end.

To paraphrase Charles Dickens, in a way, it may be the best of times and the worst of times.

In a certain sense, it may be the best of times because over the last couple of days we have seen the leaders of the Senate, Leader Reid and Leader McConnell, basically say: Let's put away some of the disputes and end this crisis. So I compliment their work and all the bipartisan efforts that have been going on to put this to an end. So in a certain sense perhaps it is the best of times. Yes, we are about to finally do our job. We are about to actually reopen the government and put our workforce back to work, and by a whisker we are avoiding default and the financial calamity which would ensue if we continued down that path.

But it is also the worst of times in that once again we took this conversation to the eleventh hour. We have inflicted damage on our economy and our reputation. And due not to a Republican or Democratic skirmish but really due to a small group of ``our way or the highway'' crowd, we have violated the first principle of governing or medicine, which says: First, do no harm.

Unfortunately, the actions of this self-inflicted crisis have done harm even if we reopen the government and avoid default. Economist Mark Zandi has estimated that the cost to our economy is at least $20 billion. Reopening the government and avoiding default isn't going to erase the $20 billion hit to an economy that has been struggling.

I wish those who advocated for this shutdown, who advocated for this brinkmanship would be willing to come down and explain to folks in my State or, for that matter, in their States--if you happen to be a government contractor and if some of your workforce was deemed essential, they may actually get paid, but for the portion of your workforce deemed nonessential, chances are they won't be paid. One company in Virginia with 5,500 people--30 percent of its workforce was deemed nonessential. The company has tried to pay those people through this period. Some will be paid, some will not. Those individuals, those families will not recover. I would like to have somebody come down and explain what all this was for in terms of the hurt in their personal lives.

I would like for some of the folks who advocated these tactics to come and explain to a restaurant owner in Hampton, VA--where the workforce at NASA Langley, which was 3,500 strong, was reduced through this furlough to 7 people--with the lost receipts for the restaurant over the last 2 weeks, how their tactics somehow improved the fortunes of that private sector business.

I would like for those who advocated that it was smart politics to shut down the government and take us to the verge of default to explain to the motel owner on Skyline Drive in Virginia who lost a couple of weekends of the peak fall foliage season and won't see any of those dollars come back, how it was in their best interest to shut down.

It is not just in Virginia. It is Yosemite in California and national parks in Texas. I would be anxious for some of those who advocated these tactics to explain to those private sector business owners who won't see those dollars come back. They are not going to get recouped.

I would like those who come to this floor and talk about trying to get rid of our debt and deficit and the burdens on the taxpayer to explain how these tactics of shutting down the government and bringing our Nation to the verge of default helps the American taxpayer. The American taxpayer comes out a giant loser from these tactics.

The Federal Government workforce rightfully is going to be repaid, so there is no savings there. As a matter of fact, the cost of starting and stopping any enterprise is enormous. Anyone who has run any kind of business understands that.

So I hope those who have advocated these tactics will come down and explain to the American taxpayers how this created a bigger deficit and explain why this made sense.

I would like for those who advocated these tactics to come down and not just talk to the American people but talk to the world and say how this helped America's national reputation.

America has been ranked by the credit agencies as the most secure credit in the world. That is why, when there are crises around the world, investors buy dollars. It gets into sophisticated finance, but it means everything we do in America is a little bit cheaper because we are viewed--to paraphrase a company term--like the rock.

We have gone through two of these self-inflicted crises. The last two or three of these crises brought us close to the fiscal cliff or close to default, and the last time cost us a downgrade from one of the rating agencies. We saw yesterday the second rating agency, Fitch, put us on negative outlook. As a former Governor of the State of Virginia, where we kept our triple-A bond rating, you don't get back your reputation overnight by saying: Oops. Never mind.

We will be paying the price for these kinds of tactics for months or maybe years to come.

I would like those who advocated these tactics to come down and answer the kinds of headlines we saw in the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal where countries that may or may not be that friendly to us--China and Russia and others around the world--were saying: We need to move away from an American-centered economy around the world, a dollar-centered economy around the world--how this hit to our reputation was somehow in the best interest of our country.

I am glad Leader Reid and Leader McConnell worked out what appears to be at least a short-term solution. I am glad many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle tried to find common ground. It appears we will reopen the government. It appears we will avoid defaulting and going into uncharted territory where we, candidly, don't really know how bad it could have been.

But before we celebrate too much, let's recognize that the reports are true as far as what the avoidance of this catastrophe will mean. It means we have 90 days before the government runs out of money again. We have 113 days until the debt ceiling might have to be raised again.

So my first hope as we move forward is that those who practiced the tactics of shutdown and threatening default will say: Never again will we put the full faith and credit of the United States of America at risk. Never again will we shut down our government, hurt our Federal workforce, hurt taxpayers, and hurt private businesses simply because we didn't get what we wanted in a political dispute.

I hope as well in the coming weeks we will recognize that the people who work for the United States of America, our Federal workers, deserve better; that when we come on the floor of this Senate or the other body and have our policy debates, we don't criticize the workforce the way it was repeatedly criticized; that we recognize that when we want to take a pound of flesh out of some program, we don't start with the Federal workforce because in the tight budget times we will face for the foreseeable future, we are going to have to ask that workforce to do more with less resources. Again, as somebody who has been in business longer than I have been in government, management 101 says that if you want your workforce to do better and do more with less, you start by acknowledging their challenges and rewarding them, not simply bashing them, not simply leaving this overhang of future furloughs or the kind of uncertainty that still seems to be around this place.

The second thing I hope we will go forward on is recognizing that sequestration was set up to be so stupid that no rational group of people would ever let it happen. Well, we have let it happen now for about 8 months so far. As challenging as it has been over the last 8 months, in this next fiscal year, which started on October 1, it is going to get exponentially worse.

I understand the concerns of my colleagues on the other side and my concern as well that we have to find a way to cut back on some of our spending. But there are smarter ways to do it than sequestration. So in this ensuing period, I hope we are able to work through that.

I do believe we need to take these next 90 days--or an even shorter period if we need a report back from the Budget Committee by mid- December--and recognize that this constant--every 3 months, every 6 months--manufactured budget crisis does our country no good.

If both sides will enter this next phase of negotiations with a little more sobriety, a little less willingness to call out each other by name, and actually recognize that we do have to get our balance sheet in order--if we want to avoid a repeat in January and February of these last couple of weeks--we have seen the damage we have done to our country--we are going to have to roll up our sleeves and recognize that we are going to have to deal with our entitlements. That means folks on my side of the aisle are going to have to think about how we preserve Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid in a way that is affordable over the long haul. My friends on the other side of the aisle will have to realize what kind of government we want and what kind of government we are going to be willing to pay for.

As somebody who has spent the last 4 years combing through these numbers repeatedly, I don't think we can pay for the level of government the American people have expected with our existing Tax Code, so we are going to have to find ways to close down some of these loopholes, make our Tax Code more progrowth, but at the same time generate more revenue than we currently have.

It is never over until it is over, as I have found in the Senate, but my hope and prayer is that we will not do any more damage; that we will put a halt to this hemorrhaging of the $20 billion we have already inflicted on our economy; that we will say to that motel owner that we are not going to be willing to shut down a national park again come January; that we will say to that restaurant worker outside the Federal facility: You are going to be able to predict that the Federal Government isn't going to be laid off willy-nilly; that we will say to our Federal workforce we are going to ask you to do more with less, but we are going to support you in a way we have not done to date; that we will say to the American taxpayer we are not going to deepen the deficit by taking irrational actions by shutting down government; and we will say to the world that once again you can count on the United States of America to pay its bills in an orderly and regular fashion, and never again will we put the full faith and credit of America in jeopardy.

I hope and pray we will use this period to actually put a fix in place. The incremental amount of additional revenues needed to be changed or the incremental amount of changes that need to be made to our entitlement programs are relatively small and can be phased in over a period of a decade or more. I agree with the Senator from Maryland that we also have to invest. But I cannot help but think the best jobs program we can have for an economy that is anxious and ready to recover is to make sure that we in Washington do not create and manufacture another political crisis that puts that recovery in jeopardy.

It is the best of times and the worst of times. I hope we celebrate that we have done our job and avoided this calamity, but let's make sure we never do this again. Let's make sure we take the 90 days before the next CR expires and the 113 days before the debt ceiling comes and really get our fiscal House in order and make sure we give the American public the confidence they need to move forward.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I first of all want to thank my colleague, the Senator from Vermont, for his comments and his relentless voicing of the concerns of folks who are not often heard in the halls of this institution. I thank him for his work and for letting everyone know who continues to be hurt by this absurd government shutdown.

I really think we are almost in a kind of era of the theater of the absurd at this point. We have a government shutdown for 11-plus days and are 4 days, 5 days from a default. What I keep wondering is--we hear about some of the least fortunate who are being hurt--how much of our economy is being hurt all across the board.

I received a call 2 nights ago from the chairman of a company from Northern Virginia with 5,500 employees. This company has been built by this first generation of Americans. He is extraordinarily proud of what he has done for his company, for his employees. His company serves our government as a so-called government contractor. A lot of these companies are not only in Virginia, in Maryland, but across this region and across this country.

When the shutdown started, 30 percent of his 5,500 employees were told they are not essential. So the company has been trying to make ends meet keeping these folks furloughed but not firing them, trying to pay them a little something during this period. The remarkable thing is that 70 percent of the employees that were deemed essential are not getting paid either--even though the government says they are going to pay them--because the folks who process the checks are furloughed.

Anybody who operates a business on a cashflow basis knows that when the money runs out, even if you have a potential IOU, if you can't go to the bank and borrow money, you shut down. This company, 25 years in the building, this CEO, this chairman, said if this goes on 1 or 2 more weeks, his life's work and--more importantly than his life's work, he said--the 5,500 people who depend upon this company's existence may very well disappear. That is just part of the government shutdown.

Today we are going to vote on an issue that I never thought in my time in the public sector or the private sector we would be seriously considering; that is, the default of the United States of America. I have spent more time in the private sector than I have in the public sector, but I never thought I would see the headline I saw this week in the Financial Times, an international financial newspaper, where the headline was that Japan and China and Russia Say: America, pay your bills. America, pay your bills. America, the largest economy in the world, the country that, because of our exemplary behavior for decades, has been granted the status of the reserve currency.

What does reserve currency mean? It means that every American business does a little bit better than every other business around the world because the dollar is the currency everybody else goes to when times are tough.

There are countries--not all of them friendly to us--that are saying that maybe the dollar shouldn't be the reserve currency anymore, and if we lose that status, it doesn't come back overnight. It is not where the tea party crowd can say: Maybe we made a mistake; we want to roll that back. Once it is gone, it could take literally decades to get it back.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has only been one industrialized country in the world that has defaulted since the year 2000--Argentina. America is not Argentina, but back in December 2001 Argentina defaulted. Prior to that time, Argentina--per capita income-- was the richest country in South America, way ahead of Chile, Brazil, and other nations in that region. Once Argentina defaulted, the value of its currency fell by 75 percent, inflation hit over 100 percent a year, and every Argentinean family lost over half of their net worth. Today, 12 years after Argentina defaulted, on an annual average income basis, it falls way below most of the countries of South America.

America is not Argentina. It may not be that catastrophic, but why would anyone take the chance? Why would anyone decide in this unchartered area to potentially threaten default? That is like playing Russian roulette with one bullet and only two chambers. No responsible nation would do that.

We have heard from some on the other side: Here is what we ought to do. Maybe we will kind of default, but we will pay our bonds and we will pay Social Security, pay our military, and then everything else will be put on hold.

That, to me, shows a remarkable, fundamental lack of understanding of how government or economics works. No government has ever tried that. But for the sake of argument, let's suppose that somehow that ``prioritization'' scheme might stave off America defaulting for 1 or 2 weeks.

Here is the other half of the story they don't acknowledge. Even if America pays its debt, on that list of prioritization does not appear Medicaid, education, transportation, law enforcement, and those dollars don't stay spent at the Federal level, they are spent at the State government level and the local government level.

I had the great honor of being Governor of Virginia before I came to the Senate. We worked really hard to keep a triple-A bond rating. The Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of Maryland, Louisiana--every one of these States, at least one-third of their State budgets are dollars that pass from the Federal Government down to the State level. We could see within a week or maybe even less every State government and every local government in

America either have a budget crisis or default. What is happening in Detroit could happen across every community in America--not because of mistakes made at the local level or the State level but because of the irresponsibility of a group of folks up here who don't understand the economics that you don't mess with the full faith and credit of America.

What other costs are we playing with? Many of the folks who have been most adamant about keeping the government shut--which, by the way, will cost the taxpayers more and will not save us a dime. Federal employees will be paid, but starting and stopping all these government contracts will hurt the economy, decrease tax revenues, and actually cost taxpayers more.

But what may be even more jeopardizing than those actions with this kind of irresponsible testing of the markets or brinkmanship is that we could see interest rates rise. Every 1 point of increased interest payment on our debt accounts for $110 billion of additional Federal Government payments every year. A 1-percent interest in the debt increase over a 10-year basis is an extra $1 trillion of government spending that has a priority over any other aspect of Federal Government spending. Talk about a tax hike that gets America nothing from a group who says: We don't want to increase taxes at any cost-- well, playing with the debt ceiling, 1 percent interest, a $110 billion tax hike on every American family and every American business, and again, you can't say a few days later ``oops'' and the market would then take back down our interest rates.

I know other colleagues are here and want to speak as well. In my business life, in my time as Governor, in my time as Senator, I have never seen an action nearly as irresponsible as the actions taken--and I don't think this is the majority of the colleagues on the other side--by a small cohort of ideologues who are willing to do whatever, including burn down the house, to try to achieve their goals.

We will have a chance here in the Senate in about 20 minutes to decide whether we will take off the threat of America defaulting. The Asian markets open within 40 hours. The world is going to see whether America is going to maintain its position as reserve currency, the world's largest economy, and the most stable financial basis. I hope we will take a step today to at least remove the threat of default, to encourage our friends on the House side to do that as well as reopen this government, and then, yes, let's get our fiscal house in order. But putting America's fiscal reputation and putting companies in jeopardy with the shutdown is not the kind of governance America needs at this point.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend the period of morning business for debate only until 7 p.m., and that all provisions of the previous order remain in effect.

Mr. President, I wish to follow up on the remarks of my colleagues and the Senators who have spoken before me.

It seems as though we have accepted this new normal, that shutting down the operations of the largest enterprise in America is acceptable. I concur with my colleague, the Senator from Alaska, about the real stories and real pain that is taking place because of this government shutdown. I commend some of my colleagues for their comments. When we read these tragic stories, whether it concerns NIH or it concerns our veterans or concerns our National Park Service, they say: Oh, but that part of the government we want to reopen. Does that mean that every other aspect of government remains closed until we can find that story?

I point out stories to my colleagues that were in both The Washington Post and The New York Times today--stories we should be celebrating about--three American Nobel Prize winners. Does that mean we should now reopen the NSF, because if the National Science Foundation isn't funded, there may not be a next generation of American Nobel Prize winners? Do we have to bring in a story about some child being hurt because their food or their meat or their fish wasn't inspected correctly?

I have to tell my colleagues, I spent a lot longer in business than I have in politics, and I have been involved in a lot of business negotiations. But I have never been involved in a negotiation that says during the negotiation we have to shut down the operations of our business and inflict pain not only upon our employees but upon the general economy across the board.

That is not the way to govern.

We have talked about stories about Federal workers. But I agree with the Senator from Alaska. It also hurts the hotel owners along the Skyline Drive in our State of Virginia and the government contractors who start and stop because they don't understand how government is going to operate. I heard a story this morning about a small business outside a government facility in St. Louis that is hurting as well.

This piecemeal approach to reopening government makes no sense. What might be better--as we hear from some folks who want to have this piecemeal effect--is to ask: What parts of the government should stay closed. This is not the way to operate. We ought to reopen this government, put our people back to work, get this economy going again, and continue the very real conversations we have to have about getting our fiscal house in order.

What makes this different to me, in the 4\1/2\ years I have been in the Senate, than previous discussions and debates is that we have this--the first in my tenure in the Senate--government shutdown which disproportionately is hurting Virginia and Maryland. But it is literally hurting every community across America. But we have this tragedy, this catastrophe merging now into a deadline that is going to hit us next week where there are certain Members of Congress who say: It is OK if America defaults.

I find that stunning.

When we look back, we find there has never been a major industrial country in modern history that has defaulted. As a matter of fact, the last major country to default was Argentina, back in December of 2001. In the aftermath of that default, they had over 100 percent per annum inflation. Every family in Argentina saw literally 60 percent of their net worth disappear within a few weeks. America is not Argentina, but why would we even get close to that kind of potential economic catastrophe?

It has been mentioned already that America holds a record as the reserve currency for the world. When crises happen, as have happened around the world recently in many countries, people and capital flow into the dollar. That is because the dollar and the full faith and credit of the United States has never been suspect. There has never been a question of whether we are going to honor our commitments. Next week, or very shortly after, that history is going to be put potentially in jeopardy.

I have heard those who say we can prioritize payments. There is no business group in America or no economist that I know of, from left to right, who believes that somehow America can partially default and prioritize payments. Are we going to pay interest? Are we going to pay our troops?

Those of us who served at State levels realize that sometimes our budgets are close to 50 percent passthroughs from the Federal Government.

The Presiding Officer was the governor of the great State of West Virginia. How long before West Virginia defaults if America starts prioritizing its payments? How many other Detroits will there be all across America if we were to take this type of irresponsible action? Even if there were some possibility that there might be some chance of some logic behind this partial payment scheme, it has never been tried before. No industrial country has ever gotten this close to a default. Why would we take the chance? Why would we play Russian roulette with only one bullet in two chambers? It is something that at this moment, for our national economy and the world economy, can be devastating.

I know we seem to all be repeating ourselves on both sides, but to me it seems very easy in a negotiation; we have differences. I would say to my colleagues I probably make folks on my side more angry than almost anyone else on these issues around getting our country's balance sheet in order. I am anxious to continue those discussions about tax reform, about entitlement reform, about bringing our debt-to-GDP ratio down. But that kind of negotiation hasn't happened while we have this government shutdown and the full faith and credit of the United States potentially in jeopardy.

So let's open the government, not just because we hear some tragic story about one component of the government, not just because we need to make the case about food inspectors, about the National Science Foundation, about NASA Langley where we do aeronautics research--3,500 people and 7 people were at work last week. China, India, other nations around the world are not stopping their research, not stopping their investments because we can't get our act together. Open this government. Take off the table the idea that America will default. Then I am anxious to join with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get our country's balance sheet in order. But to continue to hold this economy and these stories of these Americans lives in this limbo is irresponsible beyond words.

So I hope we will go ahead and--agreeing with my colleagues who have spoken already, let's get this government open. Let's take and make sure we are going to honor and pay our debts, and let's get to the very real, important questions of how we get our Nation's balance sheet right.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2013, at 10 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on October 8, 2013, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2013, at 3 p.m., to hold an African Affairs subcommittee hearing entitled, ``Security And Governance In Somalia: Consolidating Gains, Confronting Challenges, And Charting The Path Forward.''

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague, the Senator from Illinois for his comments on this issue. I will comment as well, but I also want to thank the chair of the Budget Committee for asking one more time and saying: Let's negotiate this.

I think it is important to note, as the Senator from Illinois mentioned, some of the folks who say this is not just about the 800,000 Federal workers who are going on without pay, it is about national security. Seventy-two percent of the folks who work in the intelligence community, who are civilians, are furloughed today. It means our troops in harm's way are in greater danger. Our embassies are in greater danger, and our country is in greater danger.

I also have heard some remarkable comments from some of our colleagues on the other side about the free enterprise system. I have to say I have spent longer in the free enterprise system than I have in elective office. I can never imagine two businesses that were negotiating saying: We are going to shut down our business rather than negotiate. I mean this really has entered into a new realm of the theater of the absurd.

We think about why so many of those Congressmen from Virginia have stepped up, and it is because this is not just about the Federal workforce. I point out that today, at NASA Langley, one of our premier research institutions in America, where there are normally 3,500 employees, there are only six working today. But this doesn't just affect NASA Langley. It affects the gas station nearby, where the folks who go to work at NASA Langley buy gas. It affects the shops and restaurants around there, where people go to eat.

I wonder what the folks who talk about the free enterprise system will say to that motel owner along Skyline Drive in Virginia or outside Yosemite who has a cancellation this weekend. That is not a government worker. That is part of the free enterprise system. No business leader in America, regardless of political stripe, thinks shutting down the Federal Government makes good business sense.

Earlier today, along with my colleagues from Maryland--Senator King couldn't be there, but he was very supportive--we brought in some--not faceless budgets but real folks who were directly affected by this shutdown. We had a woman who had worked for the National Science Foundation for close to 40 years, saying she had gone through a $2,500 hit from furloughs already and was unsure. She hadn't bought a car last week because this was hanging over her head. She felt she was going to be fine in some way, but she wondered what young scientist would come work in public service today. Again, in a free enterprise system--this is a competitive world--the rest of the world is not going to stop their science, their innovation, their creativity because America can't get its act together and keep its government operating.

I have been occasionally called by some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle too reflexively bipartisan. There is always both sides of an argument. But on this argument, with these facts, there is no lack of clarity in my mind that holding not just our Federal workforce but the economy of America hostage, and saying that until we get our way we are not going to reopen the largest enterprise in the world--the Federal Government of the United States--is more irresponsible than anything I have seen, not only in my political life but in my business life.

I have had some of the same conversations my colleagues have had, and I know there is a great deal of uneasiness on the other side. I actually don't believe this is Democrats versus Republicans. We have our bill over on the House side, and I believe, candidly, we will see the majority of the House Republicans join in reopening the government. Then let's have this kind of very real debate about health care, about tax reform, about getting our country's balance sheet right.

The notion that we are basically going to affect the lives of 800,000 folks who are furloughed, and countless millions of others who depend on those

services, or countless millions others in the free enterprise system who depend upon our workforce as their customers, is stunningly irresponsible. All of us here say we want our economy to recover. Well, let's get our balance sheet right. But in the meantime, let's open the government. Let these folks get back to their job, and let's have this conference that has been called for 18 different times.

I will close, and I know other folks have mentioned this. No matter what happens going forward, we are going to ask our Federal workforce to do more with less resources. Again, I have spent more time in the private sector than in the public sector. I have built companies. The last thing you do to your workforce, when you are asking them to do more with less, is disrespect them continuously the way we have done to the Federal workforce over the last 3 years--3 years without a pay increase, furloughs, being told that somehow they are riding in the wagon not driving the wagon.

Let me say, as somebody who got here because of a good public school, because of a student loan program, because I had a free enterprise system that allowed me to fail, but then succeed because there was a support system put forward by a Federal Government, I think those folks are pulling that wagon every bit as much as every other American.

I hope we will be able to get not only those folks in the House but others to be willing to say it is time to get this government bill, it is time to have a long overdue conversation about our balance sheet. I appeal to all of my colleagues, let's get this behind us. Please, don't bring somebody down here and say that under the free enterprise system somehow it is rational, logical, or makes good business sense to keep this government shuttered.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the very real effects sequestration is having. I want to speak about the people of Virginia, but I am sure it is equally true of folks in New Mexico and for that matter folks all across the country. I remind folks, sequestration was set up so it would be so stupid, so draconian, so outside the realm of possibility that no rational people would ever let it happen. We are actually seeing now that we did not pass that bar. Sequestration is happening. It is actually stupidity on steroids.

Earlier this week a group of us heard from Dr. Francis Collins, the head of NIH. NIH, as we all know, is America's premier health research institution. Dr. Collins told us of the real world impacts of sequester cuts. He gave heartbreaking examples of lifesaving medical research that is being disrupted, perhaps irrevocably, due to budget cuts and employee furloughs.

Two days ago I had the opportunity to chair a Budget Committee hearing about the impact of sequestration on our Nation's security. We heard policymakers talk about what sequestration was doing to military readiness. But what drove home the point to me was Virginia business owner Mark Klett who had actually been named as the Small Businessman of the Year back in 2011, who said this start-and-stop environment, where you did not have any predictability of whether your funding was coming through, was completely wrecking his business model and it already had caused him to bench over a third of his 60 employees.

In the last 2 weeks alone, since sequestration has started, I have received over 500 letters, e-mails, phone calls from Virginians who are bearing the very real brunt of our failure to do our job, with real consequences on real people with potentially devastating impacts on a dedicated, experienced Federal workforce. This is no way to run a business. It is no way to run an enterprise as large as the Federal Government.

One letter is from Virginia Beach. Hampton Roads and Virginia Beach are our most concentrated area of naval installations and Air Force and Army installations. This woman is from Virginia beach. Her husband is a retired Navy officer who is now furloughed once a week for the next 11 weeks. She writes that her husband came home with a letter about the furlough, that he felt his moral character and the oath he had taken to protect his Nation would not allow him to write, so she said she was going to write. She says:

It pains me to see what he has worked so hard to defend,

you're working so hard to tear down. This country is

deserving of good leadership and right now Congress is not

providing it.

Another Navy employee from the Fredericksburg area writes:

Three years of pay freezes followed by a furlough seriously

makes me question if this is where I want to spend the rest

of my career.

Think about the hours and dollars that we as a public have invested in getting these individuals trained to provide these services. They are now saying they are not sure this is where they want to work.

A woman down at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital writes:

Both my husband and I are DOD employees and will be taking

a 20 percent pay cut for 11 weeks.

She points out they may be able to get by but a lot of her coworkers do not know how they are going to make ends meet.

A Federal employee from Woodbridge, VA, down the road in Prince William County, says:

I want all my elected officials to know how disappointed I

am that we have been abandoned and let down by our

representatives in Congress.

I have three children in college, and I am paying for

college loans of two children who have graduated. Eleven

furlough days don't sound like much, but over the year a loss

of over $4,000 in income is crucial. If I ran my own budget

like this, I would have to fire myself.

This employee I do not think is going to get a sequestration discount on repaying those student loans.

A West Point graduate and Iraq war veteran says:

The failure of Congress is having a tangible and real

negative impact on people's lives and livelihood. I do not

see leadership, I do not see accountability, and I do not see

selfless service that rises above partisan politics.

Finally, a former Army officer who lives in Springfield, VA, says:

The morale in our agency is so poor that most workers who

used to work 10 or 11 hours a day are planning to work their

exact 8 hours [only].

So the 20 percent cut 1 day a week is actually cutting productivity in a much greater percentage.

I could stand here the rest of the afternoon and go through letter after letter that has the same theme. What strikes me about these letters--I am sure, again, the Presiding Officer is hearing from New Mexicans what we are hearing from Virginians--is that none of these letters talk about the red team or the blue team. None of these letters say this is all the Democrats' fault or Republicans' fault. None of these letters say this is a House problem; the Senate has the solution.

They are saying, regardless of party, regardless of whether you are in the House or the Senate, your job is to get this fixed. It is appropriately targeted at the entire Congress and, while our dismal performance recently may be great fodder for late night comedians, I think having a 90-percent-plus disapproval rating candidly undermines Americans' basic faith in our democratic institutions.

Let me try to respond. Here is what I have done and will continue to do. I will keep fighting for the significant Federal workforce that lives in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In the 4\1/2\ years I have been in the Senate, I have come down to the floor on a regular basis to celebrate the great work of individual Federal employees. I will continue to come down to the floor and appeal to my colleagues and provide real examples of the real impacts that this funny name-- sequestration--is actually having on people's livelihoods.

On a personal basis I am giving up 20 percent of my salary through the end of this budget year. I am donating it to the Federal Employee Education & Assistance Fund, which provides emergency loans as well as childcare assistance, scholarships, and other financial help for the families of Federal and postal workers.

I will continue to work with any colleague, Democrat, Republican, Independent, libertarian, vegetarian--it doesn't matter--who is willing to try to, yes, replace sequestration in a more rational way and get our debt and deficit under control.

I am proud of the fact that the 3\1/2\ years--I guess 4\1/2\ years I have been here, there is no issue on which I have tried to work harder. I am proud of the fact I was one of the founders of the so-called Gang of 6 that built on the very good work of the Simpson-Bowles plan. And I remind my colleagues, anyone who thinks there is any solution that is not going to involve raising additional revenues and starting to reform our entitlement programs either can't read a balance sheet or has not grasped the magnitude of this issue.

I will continue to advocate for a balanced bipartisan blueprint that will work on these issues: Raise the revenues, not to grow the size of government but to pay our bills, make sure the promise of Medicare and a Medicaid and Social Security are here, not just for today's generation but for future generations, in a way that is responsible.

We are soon coming up on another series of important fiscal and budgetary deadlines. I know many of my colleagues and the American public probably got to budget fatigue after the end of the fiscal cliffs and supercommittees and debt ceilings and thought maybe we were past a little bit of that.

Well, the economy is recovering and the size of the deficit is decreasing but our challenge is still in front of us. We are soon set to come to the end of this fiscal year which will present these issues again at the end of September. The debt ceiling will be not far after that. I have heard there are only slightly more than 20 legislative days left before the new fiscal year starts. It is incumbent upon us to recognize, to reflect the voices of these Virginians who, again, don't call out red team, blue team or House or Senate, but say to us in Congress, implore us to do our jobs.

We have been joined by my colleague, the Senator from Maryland. I think we could debate whether Maryland or Virginia is more ground zero for the negative impacts of sequestration. But whether it is NIH workers in Bethesda or civilian Navy employees in Woodbridge, the stories are the same. This is not fair. It is not right. None of these folks are getting a 20-percent discount on daycare, rent or, as the one person said, repayment on their student loans.

It is incumbent upon us to get this problem fixed and that is going to require the kind of hard work on revenues and entitlement reform so many of us have tried to avoid; otherwise we will not see an America that will stay as competitive as it needs to be and we will disrespect the literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of workers who work directly or indirectly to protect our Nation and are trying to provide the services that are so essential to our people.

Let's not do any more harm. Let's not waste any more time.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I thank the Senator from Maryland for his comments. Let me say no Senator has served with more distinction, both here in the Senate and prior to that in the House, in being a constant advocate for Federal employees and being willing to step up to protect them and rebut what we too often hear from some of our colleagues who, across the board, without distinction, demean and denigrate the extraordinary good work that so many countless unnamed Federal employees do.

I thank the Senator from Maryland for that work. I thank him for his continued willingness in conversations with me and others to talk about: Hey, we all have to stretch a little way to get things done. I know he is hearing the same thing in Maryland. People are not distinguishing red shirt, blue shirt. They want us to get this done. I thank the Senator for his good work and I look forward to working with him and folks on both sides of the aisle on this issue.

Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from New Mexico. As a former chief executive myself, it is remarkable to me that regardless of who is the President of the United States, he or

she ought to be able to get their team in place, with appropriate oversight and review. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be the case in this body.

Many of the other debates we have had are important, but in my 4-plus years that I have been here, this supersedes everything else that if we could reach some resolution on, I think might go further than any other action in both lowering some of the rhetoric and lancing some of the boil of partisanship in the Senate, as well as doing more for the kind of job growth that is still so desperately needed. That is getting our fiscal house in order, getting our balance sheet in order.

We have seen some good news as the economy recovers. We have seen our annual deficit numbers go down, although I have to look with somewhat jaundiced eyes when the press is saying: Hallelujah, this year our deficit may only be $746 billion. That is still not good enough, and the solution set we are looking for is not that far away.

I am going to make a couple comments and then ask my colleague, the chair of our Budget Committee, to once again make an offer to proceed with regular order, something that is in the backstop of this debate about rules, something our colleagues on the other side of the aisle-- perhaps appropriately--beat us over the head for 3 years about the fact that we ought to have regular order around the budget.

It has now been 110 days since the Senate approved a budget, after a marathon session that went to 5 in the morning--a session that I think even our colleagues on the other side who didn't vote for the budget would agree was open and appropriate to rules and everybody got the chance to have their say and offer their ideas.

Now, for the 16th time, we are going to come and ask our colleagues: Let's abide by regular order and go to a budget conference. Let's do the hard work that is necessary to make sure we finish the job of getting the kind of deficit reduction, getting our balance sheet in order, that will allow this economy to move forward and, quite honestly, allow us to get back to regular order on issues such as appropriations bills and a host of other things. I can't speak for everyone, but people in Virginia and I imagine people in Washington State--and I see colleagues from New Mexico and Florida--and elsewhere are saying: What are you doing? Why can't you get something done?

Every day that we remain in this paralyzed state, while it may be great late-night fodder for comedians about Congress's inability to act, at some point this dysfunction erodes the underlying confidence the American people have in our institutions. That is not good for American democracy, and it is not good as well for the ability of our economy to recover.

One of the things we have seen in press reports and what is starting to seep into consciousness is the actions that were set up in sequestration; that they don't seem to be as bad as people think. But let's remind ourselves that sequestration was set up to be the stupidest option possible, an option so stupid that no rational group of people would ever let it come to pass.

I have cut budgets as Governor. I have cut budgets in business. There is a smart way and a stupid way to cut a budget. We set up a process that was so stupid that no rational group would ever let it happen.

One of the reasons why I think our approval rating hovers around 8 percent is we didn't come together, we didn't let this budget process take place, and we allowed this sequestration to move forward.

I ask unanimous consent for a 5-minute extension.

I thank my colleague.

Budget Conference

I just want to point out the fact that we are now starting to see furloughs in the Federal workforce. There is no State in our Nation that is more ground zero, that is getting hit harder than the Commonwealth of Virginia with sequestration. There are real people who are being hurt.

We have talked about some of the numbers, whether it is in Head Start or NIH grants, but let me share some of the things I have heard in the last 2 weeks from Virginians.

Pat Hickman, who works at the Department of Defense in northern Virginia, says: ``I'm tired of hearing, `It's only one day,' and `it's only 20 percent.' ''

Pat is now starting to decide, because of these 11 days of furlough, whether she is going to have to start to curtail her contributions to her Thrift Savings Plan. Her retirement would be in jeopardy.

Another employee whose name didn't come forward said that if you have kids in school, during the summertime they are in daycare. This Federal employee spends $2,000 a month for daycare, and they are not getting a discount on these expenses that are built into their family budget. How could they have planned 1 year out that they were going to get furloughed 11 weeks in a row?

Craig Granville, who works down at the shipyard in Portsmouth, says that furloughing for the next 12 weeks will hit their expenses hard. He has a wife who is currently going for treatment for an illness and the insurance company only pays half. They have to decide do they cut back on the wife's treatment or do they go into their savings.

I have letters and comments from Virginian after Virginian urging us--begging us--to take off our Democratic and Republican hats and put the interests of our country first and foremost.

I know we have lots of differences on how we want to approach and bridge this gap. We are never going to get to bridge the gap in our differences on the debt and deficit and on the budget unless we can get to conference and try to work it out.

I say in strong support of our Budget chairman, I thank her for the great work she has done in getting a budget in a fair way, where our Republican colleagues had a chance to raise their objections. I hope and pray we will get to that conference so we can get this issue resolved.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Tennessee and I be allowed to engage in a colloquy and speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, it is a pleasure to be here today with my friend the Senator from Tennessee to talk about legislation that we and eight--actually now nine of our colleagues--bipartisan legislation that has been recently introduced to reform our housing finance system.

I came into office a couple of years later than the Senator from Tennessee, but I got here in January of 2009 when the entire future of our financial system was uncertain. We members of the Banking Committee rolled up our sleeves and tried to work together to prevent future crises. Well, history will determine whether we accomplished that goal.

The Senator from Tennessee and I worked strongly together on a couple of titles of what has subsequently become known as the Dodd-Frank legislation. While there are problems in that legislation, while there are problems still within our financial system, I think no independent observer would not say that our financial system today, in 2013, is stronger than it was after the crisis.

But one area that did not receive very much attention was the question of housing finance. We also know that in many ways our housing finance system, both from lack of underwriting, the process that then ended up allowing a lot of mortgages to get packaged off, securitized, with the assumption that there would never be a decline in housing prices or a significant decline in housing prices and that these securities would never be in jeopardy, in many ways led to part of that financial crisis. At the end of the day, those institutions--Fannie and Freddie--that had been the core of our housing finance system ended up acquiring $188 billion of taxpayer support to shore up those institutions so that the whole housing system would not collapse.

Well, it is now 5 years later, and we believe it is time to transform the failed model of Fannie and Freddie into a smarter, sustainable system with more private capital. We believe we can better protect the taxpayer and maintain broad access to affordable mortgage credit. But we need to act soon to prevent this issue from falling victim to election-year politics. And everyone--from the administration, to many of us here on the floor of this Senate, to many housing experts--knows the status quo is not sustainable.

So we have two important questions before we get into some of these principles about which I will engage my colleague the Senator from Tennessee: 1. Why do we need to take action now, and the second question is, why does Congress need to act?

I will take the first question. Why is the time now? Well, over the last 5 years since the housing and the overall financial crisis, we have seen--slowly, albeit--the housing market come back to life. Obviously this has been supported by a low interest rate environment that has permitted more refinancing and loan modifications. Rising home values have brought many home owners out from underwater mortgages. Housing prices have been a significant factor in Fannie's and Freddie's recent record profits. But now those very profits have somehow been wrapped into at least some of our colleagues' discussions about our debt ceiling debate.

I speak for this Senator and I think the Senator from Tennessee and, candidly, I think many Senators are not even engaged with us on this debate right now. The last thing we want is for Fannie and Freddie to virtually serve as a piggy bank for the pet projects of either side of the aisle. If we are not careful, that could happen.

Fannie and Freddie have been in conservatorship for 5 years. Before we become even more dependent upon this broken system, it is time for us to move forward. So I would like to ask my colleague the Senator from Tennessee, if now is the time, if he might share with us some of the ideas he feels and we feel about why it is important that Congress be involved in this process and not simply allow this conservatorship to go on ad infinitum into the future.

Mr. President, I wish to return the same compliments to the Senator from Tennessee. He brought a greater breadth of background in housing finance and the public finance sector than I did. But together, working with our other colleagues, I think we have all built a series of critical points.

Again, echoing what the Senator from Tennessee said, there are always ways to improve on legislation, but the first and foremost point was that we need to make sure there is taxpayer protection. We need to make sure the taxpayers are fully repaid that $188 billion. We need to make sure as well--and we spend a great deal of time working with industry and others--that there continues to be broad access to market credit.

I think one of the challenges we both felt with Fannie and Freddie was there was not only a combination of a private sector gain, public sector loss with this kind of hybrid model, but layered on top of that was a social purpose. I, for one, believe very strongly that we have to make sure there is affordable housing, that there is good access to market credit. But when you layer that on a quasi-private entity, as we did for years with Fannie and Freddie, you end up where you are not sure whether those entities are performing that necessary securitization and financing purpose to maintain the overall housing financing sector or whether they are allowing certain loans that maybe shouldn't have gone into this process because of the social purpose.

So we have said: Well, we have to make sure there is the appropriate private sector taxpayer protection: 10 percent capital--very important. We also said: Let's go ahead and split off that public sector role, clearly identify it, make sure that for those loans that get securitized, a small transaction fee--not a tax, a small transaction fee--is charged. Those funds are then set aside to promote rental housing, access to credit, low-income housing. Have that audited, stand alone, perform that important function.

As we said as well, doing this, as the Senator from Tennessee has mentioned--he has been quite strong on this--we are going to make sure the government role is clearly defined but much more limited. There are some who say we can do this totally on the private sector side. Well, we hope there can still continue to be the 30-year fixed-mortgage product that I think the American public has come to expect. We can privatize more, but not having the ability to have the government backstop would remove that very essential component of our current housing financing system. So a more limited government role but still the ability for our American consumer to have the kind of access to the financial products they have come to expect. Again, it has been mentioned--making sure that we expand private sector capital and make sure that they take care of that underwriting and credit assessment that, quite honestly, the old model did not really provide.

I would like to ask the Senator from Tennessee this because this is one on which we went around and around. I again thank him and his staff and my staff and the staff of our now nine cosponsors of this legislation. One thing that was quite important to us was that if you are going to create this new model, how do we make sure that--while we want more competition, private sector competition, while we want institutions to be able to go ahead and provide this important issuance and securitization function, how do we make sure that those small banks--that community-based bank or that credit union, that small bank in Knoxville or that small bank in Martinsville, VA--still gets access to the same kind of ability to issue mortgages, have those mortgages securitized, and not be at a disadvantage of some of the mega- institutions?

So I would ask my colleague, the Senator from Tennessee Mr. Corker, why doesn't the Senator speak to that issue because it did take us a lot of work to try to get this right, and there may be even further refinement. But I think this is an area--again, with the reaction we have seen from the credit unions, the community-based banks--where I think we have made a great first step.

Mr. President, I know our time is about up, but I want to close and then I will turn it back over to the final comments of my colleague, the Senator from Tennessee.

I want to say to my colleagues and their staff and those interested in this issue that this was the one piece of unfinished business in our financial system reform. While there are some today who say: Well, things have gotten better, we should allow the status quo to continue-- well, I don't think, from the administration on down, there is anyone who thinks the status quo simply continuing--with private sector gain and public sector losses--is the right model.

We ought to take the lessons we have learned over the last 5 years-- some of the very good work in terms of the standardization that is being done at the FHA right now--and set up a new model. As the Senator from Tennessee said, make sure we get that taxpayer protection.

I would simply add that housing is a critically important part of our overall economy, and on any piece of legislation--and let me not say all these groups have endorsed this legislation but they have all been generally supportive, they all have had areas they wanted to see improvement in--when you have realtors and homebuilders and mortgage bankers and large and small banks and community organizations and groups who are concerned about low-income housing and rental housing all saying we are in the ballpark in an area that is so important to our economy and so complex, I think we have taken a great first step. So I would urge colleagues to join with us.

The Senator and I will be happy to come and make presentations. We have found, as we have sat down with many Members and walked them through all the processes and all of the kinds of protections we have built into this legislation, that the presentations have been one of the reasons we have had such success with nine members of the Banking Committee--almost half of the Banking Committee, without all of them even having had a full presentation--pledging their support.

I again thank my colleague, the Senator from Tennessee, for his great work and leadership. He has been the lead sponsor. I am proud to be his wing man on this as we continue to work through it.

My sense, though, is this is the time. It is my hope the Banking Committee will take up this piece of legislation and make their improvements on it. It would be a huge mistake, with interest rates at this kind of record low, with this housing market coming back, and with us putting in place a 5-year appropriate transition time, not to act now. If not now, then when would be the right time to do the kind of meaningful housing finance reform that I think so many experts across the ideological spectrum have all called for?

I look forward to working with my colleague, the Senator from Tennessee, and I thank him for his good work, and I am happy for him to close out our comments today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak at this time, followed by the Senator from Ohio and the Senator from New York.

Mr. President, I am disappointed the Senator from Iowa didn't accept the proposal of the majority leader and let us continue making improvements to this bill. But I have watched this debate and I wish to add my voice to those who came out and complimented the good work, the bipartisan work the Gang of 8 has performed in their efforts to forge a bipartisan compromise on an issue that is of remarkable importance to this nation--to our economic growth, to our security and, quite honestly, to who we are as a country.

I look forward to voting in favor of this legislation. I will not recap all of the components and the path of how we got here. Suffice it to say this piece of legislation includes protections for American workers, improves border enforcement, puts in a place a more effective identity verification process, improves our entry exit system, as well provides a reasonable earned pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants who already live and work in America. Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office has indicated that immigration reform will also help decrease the deficit.

As well, it includes key priorities I have championed in the Senate, including sensible and necessary reforms to our high skill and employment based visa programs. It makes sure that as we continue to train and educate the world's best and brightest--STEM and PhDs from Brazil or the Czech Republic or India--they can stay here in America. Unfortunately, because what happens now is that when they get their degree, we send them home to compete against us. Canada, the U.K., and Australia have changed their laws, so now these high skill individuals don't go home, they simply move across the border to Canada and take those high-paying jobs and support jobs with them.

This legislation will also makes important strides to ensure DREAMers--those young people who were brought to this country at a young age, through no fault or choice of her own, who are caught in this limbo at this point, where many jurisdictions, including unfortunately, my State, sometimes don't allow them to finish their education--have the opportunity to contribute to the only country they know.

As a matter of fact, during this year's State of the Union Address I was proud to invite Ambar Pinto. Ambar is a 19-year-old incredible young woman who was born in Bolivia, has grown up most of her life here in Virginia, and I was proud to invite her to be my guest at the State of the Union Address. I know Ambar will be able to contribute to her community, to Virginia, and to the United States, and this legislation will make sure she gets the same kind of fair shot in this country that I had and other Americans have had.

Let me also say--I know there are other Senators who wish to speak-- this legislation is about the character of our country. Senator Alexander from Tennessee said something the other day I have quoted him on a number of times. In this immigration debate, we discuss the character of our country. If I move to China tomorrow, I will never be Chinese. If I move to India tomorrow, I will never be Indian. If I move to France, I will never become French. It is only in America that someone from anywhere around the world, if they play by the rules, accept our democratic principles and our free enterprise system, can come here and get the fair shot and not only can they become Americans, but their children will be Americans for generations to come. Our country is at its best when it welcomes hardworking immigrants into the national fold. That American tradition is reflected in the tenants of this legislation.

This path has been circuitous. We are long overdue. The last immigration reform was more than 20 years ago. Our current system is fundamentally flawed and broken. It is time to pass this legislation with an overwhelming majority, get it to the other body, get

it out, and get this bill to the desk of the President for his signature.

I am proud of the work that has been done by Members from both parties on this important legislation. I look forward to its successful conclusion, I hope, tomorrow, and I look forward to the fact that the Ambar Pintos and so many others who have lived in the shadows for so long, will be able to pursue the American dream.

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

Mr. President, I was not able to vote on final passage of the farm bill today due to an urgent personal matter, but I want the record to reflect my strong support for the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act. Last year I voted in favor of the farm bill and would have once again supported this bipartisan legislation. S. 954 gives Virginia's farmers the certainty they need, supports the economies of our rural communities and also improves current farm programs. I am proud that the bill contains two of my priorities: ensuring farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed get a fair share of conservation funding and reforming broadband financing programs to provide greater accountability and transparency. I would like to thank the chairwoman and ranking member for their tireless efforts, and wish I could have been there to cast my vote for this important, bipartisan legislation.