Floor Statements

Mr. President, I wanted to be afforded this opportunity to address the Senate. I recognize I may be all that is standing in front of the Presiding Officer and the folks who do such a good job of maintaining order in the Senate and adjournment so I will try to make my remarks relatively brief--relatively.

I rise again today to honor another great Federal employee, Michael Smith. As the Director of the Strategic Source Program Office within the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, Mr. Smith has saved U.S. taxpayers an estimated $750 million over a 3-year period by merging the buying power of 22 different components within DHS.

Mr. Smith recognizes--which I also recognized as Governor and I know the Presiding Officer did when he was the Governor of the great State of West Virginia--that centralized procurement operations is a critical step to creating efficiencies and savings in government.

As Governor I fostered development of the State centralized procurement system, eVA, and mandated that all of the State's entities use that system for

purchases. For example, we were able to reduce what we paid for lightbulbs in Virginia from 38 cents to 23 cents each. That didn't close a $6 billion shortfall by itself, but we buy a lot of lightbulbs in Virginia, and I know they do in West Virginia as well.

Mr. Smith has taken a similar approach at the Federal level, and his accomplishment was no small feat. After analyzing the purchasing data at DHS, he identified several critical security problems and services that could be consolidated for purposes of purchasing, such as ammunition, uniforms, and communications equipment.

He brought together the program and acquisition staff of 22 DHS components, including the Transportation Security Administration and Customs and Border Protection, to agree to work together. Mr. Smith's supervisors said that he listened to the different needs of the DHS components and was able to lead them to common solutions to meet all their individual requirements under a new contract.

According to Nick Nayak, the DHS chief procurement officer, ``Mr. Smith led a new way of doing business where agencies provided a letter detailing their financial and policy commitment to initiative to obtain the business pricing for the government.'' Mr. Smith's collaborative approach has been so successful that the White House has asked him to introduce his methodology to other larger agencies.

I hope my colleagues will join me in honoring Mr. Smith for his excellent work. I am also proud to recognize him as a Virginian, a Marine Corps veteran, and someone who has dedicated the past 28 years to public service.

Mr. President, before I relinquish the floor, I do want to take a couple of minutes on two other items. No. 1, as the Presiding Officer this morning, I heard a number of Senators come forward and recognize, as others have over the last few days, that we are approaching the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

I am sure all of us here remember where we were that Tuesday morning. I personally recall I was in a campaign for Governor at that point. I had just gotten a haircut and a big debate was 3 days away when I first got the news. Suddenly the big debate didn't seem that terribly important. Within an hour I had been at my campaign headquarters, saw the plane crash into the Pentagon with smoke billowing out.

In the last 10 years I think this country has made remarkable strides in making sure Americans are safer than they were 10 years ago. We have seen a whole new series of collaborations between our intelligence service agencies. We have seen greater collaboration here at home amongst our law enforcement.

As we all come together on Sunday and reflect back on the last 10 years and the horrors that were brought to this country, I hope we will all say a little prayer for those members of our military and those members of the intelligence community for the magnificent work they have done making our country much safer.

I think, as well, as we see reports even today of possible threats, we recognize we can never be 100 percent safe. I remember during my tenure as Governor, within the first year, we in Virginia and the District and Maryland were caught in almost 3 weeks of remarkable terror with what later became known as the sniper incidents. For a lot of that time we didn't know whether this was a possible terrorist incident or was it what it turned out to be, two deranged lone-wolf assassins wreaking havoc across most of the mid-Atlantic.

We need to bear in mind that while we and our government will do everything possible to keep us safe, we also have to rely upon individuals in collaboration with law enforcement as they spot incidents that seem unusual.

But even with that collaboration, there may be times that someone, whether home-grown or foreign, someone, a lone-wolf type assassin or terrorist, could slip through, and I think it is important that, 10 years after that enormous tragedy, we as a people be more resilient. We cannot allow a single act of terror to change the way we live, our freedoms, our civil liberties, because, candidly, there is no way any terrorist can inflict so much individual harm that it can do permanent damage to our country. But if they do spread fear or make us as a people change the way we interact, change the kind respect we have for each other, the respect we have for our freedoms, then they will be more successful than with any single incident of harm.

I know the Presiding Officer and many of the folks who work here and many of the young pages, as we go into this weekend of reflection--and I hope many of the folks who are listening today--will take a moment and not only reflect back on that 10th anniversary but also do an act of service. I think this is a great time for us as Americans to show service back to our communities.

I know I will be in the Pentagon Sunday morning, where we were hit in Virginia. The Pentagon is a national institution, but we in Virginia are proud it resides in the Commonwealth. I will be in the Pentagon Sunday morning to be with some who lost loved ones on that day. But I will also be doing acts of community service throughout this weekend as well, to make sure we show that great spirit of America.

Mr. President, I also wish to take one final moment, and I will be very brief. I want to echo something my colleague from Tennessee said. It is something the Presiding Officer has been very active with over the last few months. We all heard the President last night. Some of us may agree or disagree with all the actions the President laid out. I think there are things we can do as a government targeted to help spur economic growth and job creation that needs to be our top priority.

I do think we have to recognize there is not a single silver bullet, that the major tools the government uses during a period of economic turmoil we have actually already used. The central government can lower interest rates. The government can use federal stimulus. We have used both of those. There can be certain additional things we can do around the edges, but one of the most important things we can do to get this economy restarted is generate confidence, confidence amongst the American consumers and the American people that we in Washington are not going to mess things up any worse, confidence amongst our business community, particularly larger businesses that are sitting on $2.5 trillion, and they are in a financially better position today than they were back in 2008 when we first experienced the beginnings of the financial crisis, to get that money off the sidelines and reinvest it in America.

One of the most important things we can do--and the President touched upon it last night, but there has been a group of bipartisan Senators that has been working on this for a long period of time--is to recognize that unless we get our long-term debt problems under control, then I don't think we will see the resurgence of confidence this economy and this country needs.

I look forward to working with the President and Members of both parties and targeting investments. I hope, as well, with the Presiding Officer, with my friend from Tennessee, with my friend, the Senator from Georgia, and others, that we can work with this so-called new supercommittee to urge them to be bold, and that if they will be bold and we put in place over a 10-year frame a long-term deficit reduction plan, I hope we reduce the deficit by at least $4 trillion, encompassing what we have already done. That plan phased in over a decade will do as much to generate job creation in the short term as any other action. I look forward to that work ahead.

I look forward to reflecting back with all my fellow Americans upon both the sacrifice and tragedy, but also the amazing resilience of the American people in the last decade, and I compliment Mr. Smith and so many federal employees for the work they do.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Banking Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1239, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, I want to take a moment and add my voice to the voices who spoke earlier--the Senator from Maryland and the Senator from California--about this situation with the FAA.

I would imagine if you are a visitor to our Nation's Capitol and have come to see a little Senate debate, it is a pretty interesting day to be here. It was great news that the country avoided default today. Although it was an imperfect compromise, I was glad to vote for that. We still have obviously a long way to go on debt and deficits.

There is another issue that has not gotten as much attention as the debt ceiling debate, although it is clear that at almost any other time in our history this issue would be on the front page of every newspaper around the country and on every nightly TV newscast. I am talking about the fact that the Federal Aviation Administration--the entity that ensures the safety of our skies, the safety of our airplanes, the maintenance of our airports--has been in partial shutdown mode for over a week.

Close to 4,000 FAA employees, many from the Virginia/DC area, have been

furloughed. These folks do not know when they are going to get a paycheck or when they are going to be able to go back to work. And they have not been furloughed as a result of anything they have done. This situation is not the result of complaints about the quality of service or about safety of the FAA. In fact this shutdown is the result of a dispute over a small FAA program that protects rural airports.

Only in Washington would a dispute over service to small rural airports force the shut down of all ``nonessential services'' in the Federal Aviation Administration. Only in Washington would we would put 4,000 people out of work, and affect the lives of tens of thousands of other folks who are depending upon FAA funding for needed improvement projects at airports around the country.

We have a number of airports in Virginia where construction has basically stopped as a result of this political standoff. With the FAA partially shut down, the airlines, which traditionally charge passengers a small tax to help fund the FAA to build, maintain, and keep airports safe, are no longer required to collect the tax. So, during this shutdown, especially if we go through the next month and do not enact an extension, the U.S. Government would lose $1.2 billion as a result of political back and forth about a program to support rural airports--a program that, in total, costs $14 million.

If people are scratching theirs head with this math, they have a right to scratch their heads. Only in Washington can not collecting over a billion dollars in airport ticket taxes because of a dispute about a program that costs $14 million make any sense.

The overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats and Republicans alike say we have to go ahead with an extension. We are saying if we have issues to dispute let's work those out. But let's not put nearly 4,000 FAA employees out of work and let's not, as the Senator from California said, halt the projects of tens of thousands of construction workers.

So it is my hope that, once again, cooler heads will prevail. I thank the chairman of the committee, Senator Rockefeller, and the ranking member, Senator Hutchison, and both Democrats and Republicans for working together to try and get this resolved. I know the American people have looked at Congress--understandably--in the last few weeks and have scratched their heads and said, what are these guys doing? Why can't they get their act together and negotiate a compromise, so they don't put our country into default?

We managed to dodge that bullet in a way that is a fixed but not a long-term solution. We will continue that discussion. As everybody heads back to their home States, dodging the debt and deficit bullet, how are we going to look as we leave town with 4,000 workers furloughed, tens of thousands of construction workers without the ability to continue projects that are needed, and the U.S. Government $1.2 billion deeper in debt--not because of a dispute over of too much tax or whether to collect but because we could not reach an agreement over a rural airport program?

I have cosponsored legislation--and I am sure the Presiding Officer supports it--to make sure that when the furloughed workers get back, they have to get paid. How can we leave town for a few weeks and leave this issue hanging out there?

I hope those folks in the House--and the chairman and the ranking member of the committee are working on this issue--will get this done. As the Senator from California said--and this is some of the technical process stuff that people scratch their head about--the House is in pro forma session, so there is a path here to resolve the issue.

We have to make sure we do our job not only for the public to make sure their airlines and airports stay safe, but also for the furloughed workers who need to get back to work. We've got to do our job so that airports all over the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can implement their much-needed airport improvements. The money has already been appropriated. It is not as though it is new dollars. Anybody who can read a balance sheet knows we shouldn't end up blowing $1.2 billion over a dispute for a program that costs $14 million total.

I hope we get this resolved this afternoon in a way that shows this Congress is more up to the task than we have been, unfortunately, over the last few weeks.

A closing comment. I know the Presiding Officer has worked hard on the debt and deficit issue as well. I will close with the statement that my hope is that we did take a step today, with about $1 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years, and we need to make sure those cuts don't slow down the economic recovery the Nation is still struggling with. But we have to recognize that even with this new supercommittee being created--and the Presiding Officer would be a great member of that committee when it is chosen--but even if that committee meets its goal of $1.5 trillion in additional cuts, that still doesn't get our country's balance sheet back in order. We didn't create this debt overnight. We will not get out of it overnight. It is not one party's fault. Both parties have unclean hands on this.

Candidly, a lot of our debt and deficit problems are due to the fact that we are all getting older and we are living longer through advanced medicine. The challenge we have before us is that we have to urge the supercommittee to look at something that will get us all out of our comfort zones. We have to recognize how do we make sure our entitlement promises we made to seniors with Social Security and Medicare and the least fortunate in terms of Medicaid--I know two-thirds of the seniors in nursing homes are on Medicaid. How do we preserve those programs? These programs need some reforms, because with an aging population--for example, in Social Security, there used to be 17 workers for 1 retiree. Now there are three. It is nobody's fault, but that is a fact. How do we make sure that promise exists?

We have to deal with entitlement reform, and we also need to deal with tax reform. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if we are spending 25 percent of GDP in Federal spending, that has to be brought down. If we are collecting revenues at only 15 percent, which is a 70-year low, we are never going to get that 10-percent differential, unless we find some way to generate more revenues and make cuts in spending. Along with entitlement spending, which is the fastest growing part of the budget, we have to do tax reform in a way that will generate more revenue. There are ways we can do that which will lower rates and cut back on some of the tax expenditures. It will take some hard choices.

My hope is that while this step of avoiding default was important-- and it is a good day when America doesn't default, but we have much more work to do--the work of all the previous commissions that have been set up--and they have all kind of come out in basically the same scope of the problem--and, frankly, with about the same kinds of recommendations. A lot of that work of the so-called Simpson-Bowles commission, the President's deficit commission, the Gang of 6--or my hope would be the ``mob of 60,'' at some point in the not too-distant future--that was the framework we worked on, and we put everything on the table.

I say to the Presiding Officer and any other colleagues who may be still around, I urge them to join this effort. We have to make sure this supercommittee actually takes on the big issues and that we don't default back to a series of cuts come next year that, frankly, are not well thought through, or well planned, across the board, without regard to effectiveness. The only way is, yes, by additional cutting but doing entitlement reform and tax reform.

With that, I yield the floor, and with the hopes that we will see not only the hard work on the debt and deficit, but also the resolution of the FAA issue in the coming hours. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, let me, first of all, compliment my friend and colleague, the Senator from Kansas, for his comments and for his approach. He made a few comments we haven't heard much of in this Chamber or in the other Chamber in the last few days. He said before he was a Democrat and before he was a Republican, he was an American. I want to compliment him on those sentiments, and I want to rise in that same vein because whether you are somebody from Kansas or somebody from North Carolina or folks I hear from Virginia who keep saying to me: Why can't you guys get this thing done? Why can't you both be willing to give a little to put our country first? As somebody who has had the honor of serving as Governor of Virginia and somebody who served as a businessman for 20 years, I never thought that I would be standing on the floor of the Senate 6 days, 5\1/2\ days away from the United States of America potentially defaulting on our obligations. Yet most of the debate and, Lord knows, almost all of the press conferences have been less about solutions and more about who is to blame.

Whether they are sitting in the gallery or they are watching at home or, like most Americans, trying to get through an unbearably hot summer, they wonder who are these folks they hired to get the people's business done.

I have been involved with a group of Senators over the last 9 months who have done something I didn't think was extraordinary, but unfortunately today is pretty extraordinary. There is a group of Democratic and Republican Senators who have said the most important issue we face in our country is to get our debt and deficit under control, and who have said that the only way we can get that under control is to sit together for hours on end, reason together, argue, and do something as basically American as compromise.

After months and months of going back and forth, last Tuesday, when we revealed the so-called plan--which, frankly, the Gang of 6 has built upon the work of a previous year's work of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and business leaders, the President's deficit commission--a remarkable thing happened for a couple of days in this body. Instead of everybody coming out and saying why this couldn't happen, they said: Hey, this isn't perfect, but this would actually lower our deficit by close to $4 trillion, take on tax reform, take on entitlement reform, and cut spending. It might just be a path out.

Well, that lasted a couple of days, and then we got back to who was going to score points in the next 24-hour news segment.

Well, I desperately hope and pray that at this moment in our country we will rise to the task and make sure, with the eyes of not only the Nation but the world on us, that we do our basic job. Let's make sure the United States of America doesn't default next Tuesday.

The only way I think we are going to get there is if we lower the rhetoric, lower the finger-pointing, and recognize it is going to take ideas from both sides. It is going to take a change in attitude from some.

There is a Congressman who gave a press conference sometime in the last day or two who paraphrased Winston Churchill. He said:

We're going to fight you on the beaches. We're going to

fight you at sea. We're going to fight you in the air to make

structural changes in the way this place known as Washington,

DC, operates.

Who is the ``you'' he is going to fight? Is he going to fight people who say maybe America and Americans want us to actually work together and compromise? I mean, this kind of sentiment goes beyond the pale in a moment when our Nation is in this kind of crisis.

There has been a lot of talk recently--particularly coming from the other body--that the only way to solve this problem is an amendment, a constitutional amendment. Well, I would point out 49 States have that kind of amendment. They have to balance their books. My State, Virginia, and the Presiding Officer's State, North Carolina, meet that goal. There are an awful lot of States that have that kind of amendment in place. I don't know what kind of accounting they use, but I have not heard many folks point to the California State budget and say: That is a balanced budget.

So some kind of process argument isn't going to solve the problem. We have to make the hard choices. We have to cut spending. We have to reform our entitlements. We have to reform our Tax Code to generate additional revenues.

The numbers don't lie. We are spending at an all-time high, 25 percent of our GDP. We are collecting revenues at only 15 percent of GDP. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out any time our Nation's budget has been in relative balance is when we have been with spending and revenues at 19.5 percent to 20.5 percent. Why can't we come together to put a plan in place that does that?

Folks who are watching are saying: Well, there is actually a plan. More than one-third of the Senate has said: We will be with you--about an equal

number of Democrats and Republicans. But instead we are going back and forth, ping-pong, who is going to have which plan? Who is going to win each day? It is also pretty remarkable at this moment in time--I don't know who this Congressman is, but when we have roughly one-fifth of the House who at least on record saying they will never vote to increase the debt limit, I wonder when they took the oath to uphold the laws of our country, which said we have to pay our bills, how that commitment matches with those promises or those political positions.

My sense is they want to have an amendment to the Constitution. What they are advocating, this we will never change, our way or the highway approach, the amendment they ought to talk about is basically restructuring our whole Constitution and turning our government into a parliamentary system. There are a lot of places around that if you win an election, you get to choose the chief executive. You get to control the legislature. You can pass anything you want. Yet these very same folks are the ones who say they want to support the Constitution.

Well, the Constitution and the genius of our Constitution was the fact that the Founders said the most basic American principle was checks and balances. We have a House, we have a President, and actually they have to work together. Somehow the attitude of some of these Members in the House, do it our way or let's drive our country over the cliff, is dramatically as un-American as anything I have ever seen.

At the same time, we hear other Members who say: Maybe we just need a little more economic shock to make us do the right thing. What are these folks thinking of? The stock market closed down 200 points today. It has been down about 400 points this week. There are an awful lot of Americans who only now are starting to recover from the financial crisis of 2 years ago. There are an awful lot of retirees who saw their 401(k)s plummet 2 years ago, who slowly have seen that nest egg that is going to get them through rough times recover.

Now 400 points--how much more stock market decline do we need before we all have the courage to do the right thing, 1,000 points? Do we need to put another 1 million Americans out of work? Do we need to throw more people out of their homes because of the tax increase that will result--the real increase that will result with the rise in interest rates that will happen next week?

There are others who say: Let's do it short term. Let's kick the can down the road for a short while, something that is being discussed in the House. It doesn't matter whether it is Democrat or Republican. It matters because that approach will result in a lowering of our debt rating. I know people's eyes glaze over when they hear about debt ratings. Unfortunately, debt ratings matter--and we are the only country in the world with a AAA debt rating. That means we are kind of the gold standard.

If we have that debt rating reduced, it is not only a black eye for America, it not only means that what we have to pay in interest rates will go up, not just for government but if you have a school bond, if you have a State bond, the prices are going to go up. You have an auto loan, a home mortgage, you have a student loan, you are a business trying to expand, the cost of that is all going to go up.

The very same folks who say they will never look at raising more revenues don't seem to mind at all that if we have to have an interest rate rise because of a default or downgrade of our debt, doesn't that take more money out of Americans' pockets? I just don't get it.

Frankly, as the Presiding Officer knows, I have been pretty obsessed about this issue for months on end. I hope that we will check our Democratic and Republican hats and go with what my colleague, the Senator from Kansas, said and recognize when we get out of bed tomorrow morning we get out of bed as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans; that we not only get over the debt limit, which, hopefully, through some convoluted process we will, but we also recognize that getting past August 2 doesn't mean, OK, we are done, everybody go have a nice August. All that does is buy us a bit of time to decide whether we are going to come back to the really hard issues of not only how we start with some spending cuts, which will be part of our down payment, but how we really make sure the entitlement programs--important to so many of us on both sides of the aisle, but particularly on this side of the aisle--are actually there 10, 20, 30 years from now.

The notion that they are not going to change, that they cannot continue to be sustainable at the current rate, it is not Democratic or Republican.

Thank goodness a lot of us are living a lot longer. When I was a kid there were 15, 16 people paying in for every Social Security retiree. Now there are 3. We have to make sure that for my kids, your kids, that there is Social Security in their framework. At the same time we have to have our colleagues on the Republican side recognize that we have to reform our Tax Code in a way that makes it simpler, flatter, and, yes, generates some additional revenue.

The only way we are going to get there, if and when we get past this August 2 date, is if we combine that effort with long-term debt reduction. I am more than open to any valid, balanced comprehensive bipartisan plan that is around.

For the effort of the so-called Gang of 6, a third of the Senate said, yes, this is worth considering. It isn't perfect, I can assure you. Some would even say, from some of the descriptions I have heard, that it may not meet all of those. But I will tell my colleagues three things it is: It is comprehensive, bipartisan, and, under any analysis, it does what our country desperately needs: It starts to drive our debt-to-GDP ratio in the right direction, which is a fancy way of saying we can maintain our books on a path to lead us to fiscal stability. Frankly, what that would also allow us to do is get back to what we should be spending our time on, which is creating growth in this economy and starting to unleash American creativity and innovation. But that is not going to happen if we spend all of our time pointing fingers back and forth about how we got here or which short- term plan best meets the short-term interests of the next 5 or 6 days.

I, for one, believe the plan Senator Reid has laid out is not perfect, but it gives us the time to deal with this debt and deficit problem in a serious way. It gives us the ability to ensure that we don't have a credit downgrade. Unfortunately, the plan being debated in the House right now may have some merits, but the one thing that is clear is that it will lead to a downgrade--not my words, but the words of all the rating agencies. Whether we like them or not, they are the folks who set that standard.

Again, I urge folks who are making statements such as ``We are going to fight you on the beaches, we are going to fight you at sea, we are going to fight you in the air,'' to consider your fellow Americans here. If you don't like our system of government, then be honest and propose a change to a parliamentary system. If you do honor and respect the Constitution which we all took an oath to uphold, recognize that it is a Constitution that puts in place checks and balances to have us all work together, give a little, and recognize that when we get out of bed in the morning, we are not a Democrat or a Republican but an American first and foremost.

I hope and pray we will find the path through these next 5 days and that we won't do the unthinkable. I have said on a couple of occasions--I am sure it will come back and bite me--that if we don't do this we should all get fired, because the fact is the most basic promise we make is to uphold the laws and rules of our country. Frankly, I can't think of anything that is more quintessentially American than making sure we pay our bills and that we honor our obligations. So let's get that done, and then let's work together to make sure we put in place the long-term, comprehensive, bipartisan approach that is needed so we can get this Nation back on the right fiscal path but, more importantly, back on the right path to ensure that everybody gets that fair shot for that economic growth we all seek so much.

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

Mr. President, I call to the attention of my colleagues two amendments that Senator Webb and I have filed to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for 2012.

Each of these amendments relates to the Navy's proposal to build a new nuclear pier facility to support east coast aircraft carriers. With annual recurring costs, this new project would likely cost just shy of a billion dollars.

At a time when our Nation is in a severe fiscal crisis and the Navy cannot pay to maintain the infrastructure it currently owns. As Admiral Mullen has said, the greatest challenge to our national security is our mounting debt.

Together, these amendments would save nearly $15 million for an unnecessary Navy military construction project at Naval Station Mayport, FL. We are awaiting completion of an independent GAO assessment of the strategic risks to our carrier fleet which include manmade and natural disasters. It would also consider the cost and benefits of what other measures we can take to mitigate risk.

This is not a small project, the Navy estimates its homeporting plan will cost nearly $600 million, but that cost could escalate to up to $1 billion during the eight years ahead. Tack on to that more than $20 million in annual maintenance costs currently estimated for an additional homeport and we are signing the taxpayer up for a big bill, much of which is not funded. It is in the ``outyears'' as they say.

The justification for a new homeport is the mitigation of the risk of a terrorist attack, accident, or natural disaster occurring at the nuclear handling facility at the existing carrier homeport at Norfolk,

Mr. President, I commend my colleague, the Senator from Illinois, for his comments. I affirm his sentiments.

We have two problems in front of us right now--one intermediate problem: raising the debt ceiling. If we have a downgrade in our debt, there will be a tax increase on every American family, every American business, in the cost of higher interest rates. We have to get that raised, which is something I have been advocating for over a year.

We have to take a second step--to put into place the long-term deficit reduction plan. The Senator from Illinois and I and others have been working on this. The Senator from Georgia and I started this over a year ago. We had I believe virtually half of the Senate who came and said it is not perfect, but this makes sense as a way to move forward. We have to do our jobs.

I particularly thank the Senator from Illinois, who has worked so hard on preserving the safety net in these discussions.

Some of my colleagues on the Republican side have recognized that we have to sort through a way to reform our Tax Code in a meaningful way. These are acts of political courage, and I commend them both.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce an important new piece of legislation--the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or DATA Act.

Sine I have been in Washington, I have been frustrated by the lack of transparency and useful spending information to help inform the decision-making process. Our taxpayers deserve to clearly see how their tax dollars are spent.

As Chairman of the Budget Committee's Task Force on Government Performance, I have been working to improve the outcomes and results of our Federal investments.

Last year, we passed the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act to more frequently track government outcomes and to help reduce overlap and duplication. Today, I will introduce the DATA Act to help bring a new level of transparency to our Federal spending.

I want to start by acknowledging the work of the administration and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board--this legislation was built off the important work they have been leading to reduce waste for the Recovery Act investments.

Under Vice President Biden's leadership, supported by the Recovery Board Chairman Earl Devaney--they have established a new standard for government accountability. The results are impressive.

Out of more than 200,000 Recovery Act fund recipients--there are only 7 recipients that have not filed their required financial reports.

I also need to mention the leadership at the Office of Management and Budget--including director Jack Lew and our chief performance officer Jeff Zients. OMB led the charge with the Recovery Board to ensure the accountability of the Recovery Act funds and have made transparency an important goal government-wide.

The administration, the Recovery Board and OMB have proved that government can respond to the demand for more transparency and accountability. Now we need to expand the Recovery Act model across the whole government. The DATA Act does just that.

First, this legislation will require recipients of Federal funds and government agencies to report spending data into one transparent online portal. Much like they did for Recovery Act funds.

This data will be analyzed and compared proactively in order to identify and prevent waste, fraud and abuse before it happens. There are tremendous opportunities to reduce improper payments by applying the Recovery Board's fraud prevention tactics to the entire Federal Government.

This legislation will also create a new Board to oversee transparency efforts and set consistent standards for data across the entire Federal Government. Board membership will be comprised of a select group that will include senior OMB officials, agency Deputy Secretaries and Inspectors General.

All this information will be made publicly available so the American people can track taxpayer funds more closely.

This legislation will create a new structure that could help coordinate and reduce duplicative reporting requirements and burdens felt by many governments, nonprofits and businesses.

Finally, this legislation is an example of how Washington should work. It builds off the work of the administration and the Recovery Board, the work of Chairman Darrell Issa in the House and now with the introduction of this legislation in the Senate. By working together in a bipartisan way, we will have the strongest proposal that is poised to change the way the government does business.

I must thank Chairman Darrell Issa of California for his leadership on developing this legislation. He has been working tirelessly on improving transparency for years--even starting a House Caucus on Transparency to rally his colleagues on the subject.

I am pleased to be his partner in offering this legislation.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and with the administration to make refinements to this legislation and to move forward with this bill.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce an important new piece of legislation--the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or DATA Act.

Sine I have been in Washington, I have been frustrated by the lack of transparency and useful spending information to help inform the decision-making process. Our taxpayers deserve to clearly see how their tax dollars are spent.

As Chairman of the Budget Committee's Task Force on Government Performance, I have been working to improve the outcomes and results of our Federal investments.

Last year, we passed the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act to more frequently track government outcomes and to help reduce overlap and duplication. Today, I will introduce the DATA Act to help bring a new level of transparency to our Federal spending.

I want to start by acknowledging the work of the administration and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board--this legislation was built off the important work they have been leading to reduce waste for the Recovery Act investments.

Under Vice President Biden's leadership, supported by the Recovery Board Chairman Earl Devaney--they have established a new standard for government accountability. The results are impressive.

Out of more than 200,000 Recovery Act fund recipients--there are only 7 recipients that have not filed their required financial reports.

I also need to mention the leadership at the Office of Management and Budget--including director Jack Lew and our chief performance officer Jeff Zients. OMB led the charge with the Recovery Board to ensure the accountability of the Recovery Act funds and have made transparency an important goal government-wide.

The administration, the Recovery Board and OMB have proved that government can respond to the demand for more transparency and accountability. Now we need to expand the Recovery Act model across the whole government. The DATA Act does just that.

First, this legislation will require recipients of Federal funds and government agencies to report spending data into one transparent online portal. Much like they did for Recovery Act funds.

This data will be analyzed and compared proactively in order to identify and prevent waste, fraud and abuse before it happens. There are tremendous opportunities to reduce improper payments by applying the Recovery Board's fraud prevention tactics to the entire Federal Government.

This legislation will also create a new Board to oversee transparency efforts and set consistent standards for data across the entire Federal Government. Board membership will be comprised of a select group that will include senior OMB officials, agency Deputy Secretaries and Inspectors General.

All this information will be made publicly available so the American people can track taxpayer funds more closely.

This legislation will create a new structure that could help coordinate and reduce duplicative reporting requirements and burdens felt by many governments, nonprofits and businesses.

Finally, this legislation is an example of how Washington should work. It builds off the work of the administration and the Recovery Board, the work of Chairman Darrell Issa in the House and now with the introduction of this legislation in the Senate. By working together in a bipartisan way, we will have the strongest proposal that is poised to change the way the government does business.

I must thank Chairman Darrell Issa of California for his leadership on developing this legislation. He has been working tirelessly on improving transparency for years--even starting a House Caucus on Transparency to rally his colleagues on the subject.

I am pleased to be his partner in offering this legislation.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and with the administration to make refinements to this legislation and to move forward with this bill.

Madam Speaker, colleagues, friends and others, I remember one time attending a graduation as a speaker; and as we walked down the aisle, ``Pomp and Circumstance'' was playing, and the heart was infused with enthusiasm. I had a sheaf of papers under my arm; and a young student jumped up, one of the graduates, and pressed into my hand a little piece of paper and said, ``Please read this.''

So in the course of the invocation I read it, and it was some of the most prosaic and valuable bits of wisdom I ever received. It simply said, ``Blessed are ye that are brief, for ye shall be reinvited.''

Whether I am invited or not, to have this moment to stand on this floor and, mind you, I believe, I am almost positive in the 30-plus years that I was here I never did it before. It seems to add to me and my family and all others a very significant chapter in my humble opportunity to serve this Nation in many ways.

Madam Speaker, if I may be personal in addressing the presiding officer, it would not have happened without your tenacity and drive and skill in ramming this nomination through. I thank you.

I should recount the many things that the presiding officer and I did. For my colleague, Steve Symms, we represent the Senate, the two of us, we were together many years in that institution.

But dear friends, at moments like these you are struck with humility, but you reflect back on all those who served with you, and you also reflect upon those serving today and tomorrow; and I hope that the individual and collective accomplishments of each of us shall always serve as a guide for those to follow.

Because this country, in my 84 years of life, has never faced a more complex situation, be it with regard to our own internal and external security, as well as our domestic economy, and we need the finest of minds to sit in this Chamber and the other body to try and reach solutions for this Nation because we are becoming more and more the object of derision and less envy than the years in which we were so proud to serve in this institution and America was all powerful.

But we also must be mindful that each of us got here by a certain amount of initiative and drive, but we got here because a lot of others helped us along the way.

Fellow colleagues in Congress and those when I was in the Department of Defense, I learned, I listened and learned and followed their guidance to perform the duties that I was undertaking in those chapters of public service. My years in the Pentagon were during some of the most stressful years in Vietnam; and how well I remember, as Secretary, the evenings when I returned home to sit down and write the notes to the families that had lost a loved one in those battles.

So here we are today, having plucked from the many, another, to stand in that long line of distinguished individuals who so proudly and so humbly have accepted this award. So, once again, let us hope that our contribution has laid a foundation for those who now occupy these seats and those that will follow to guide this great Nation.

I thank you again. I thank you very much. I thank the dear Lord for the guidance that he has given me through these many years.

As I said, blessed are ye that are brief, for ye shall return.

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

Mr. President, once again, I come to the floor to celebrate and recognize the contribution of our Federal employees. I do this on a regular basis because while we debate the issues of the day and grapple with issues around the debt and deficit and the circumstances that will require us to cut back on government spending, I think it is important to remember the literally millions of Americans who work in one form or another for our Federal Government day-in and day-out. From our armed services, to folks who work within this Capitol Complex, to folks who work within Health and Human Services, to those who work in research, to those who make enormous contributions to our Nation, we should not lose sight of them as we grapple with the debt and deficit and a host of other issues we deal with in this body.

So today I rise to honor another great Federal employee, Rafat Ansari. Mr. Ansari is a senior scientist and leading innovator at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. He has been recognized for developing a safe, noninvasive laser device that could drastically improve the early detection of cataracts and improve people's lives in the process.

Cataracts are the leading cause of vision loss and blindness in the United States and in the world. They affect over 22 million Americans over the age of 40, and over $6.8 billion is spent annually in the United States on cataract treatment.

Mr. Ansari was motivated to help cataract patients after his father was diagnosed with the disease. He began researching the disease and realized that cataracts are caused by proteins in the lens that cluster abnormally, a process similar to what he was studying in his space experiments.

Lacking the necessary financial resources, he began conducting research in his home kitchen using a light-scattering device which was able to identify clustered proteins in the eye lens. These kitchen experiments ultimately led to Mr. Ansari's invention of an innovative eye-scanning device and procedure that is at least two or three times stronger than any device on the market.

His invention also has the potential to significantly improve the ability to detect early signs of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, and many other diseases. The procedure is currently used by NASA to study the long-term consequences of space travel on the vision of astronauts.

Mr. Ansari's personal story is a testament to all that continues to make our Nation great. Born in Pakistan, Mr. Ansari always dreamed of working for NASA. Not only was he able to realize his dream of working for our government, working for NASA, but in the process he has made discoveries that could have a big impact on the lives of millions of people not only here in the United States but around the world.

I hope my colleagues will join me in honoring Mr. Ansari and those other great scientists and engineers at NASA for their excellence and service to our Nation.

So, again, I wish to acknowledge not only Mr. Ansari but all of our Federal workers. I think it is important. As somebody who has been very involved--and hopeful to do more--on this issue of debt and deficit, I know we will have to make substantial cutbacks in how government spends and operates. But I think we need to remember, as we talk about some of these cuts, that we are affecting the lives of literally millions of good Americans who try to keep the functions of this government working on an efficient, honest, and ethical basis day-in and day-out.

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

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

Madam President, I rise, as I try to do on a regular basis, to honor another one of our great Federal employees. I know in the great Empire State of New York there are literally thousands of folks who oftentimes work anonymously to make sure, day in and day out, our Federal Government functions. This is a recognition I took over from our colleague, Senator Ted Kaufman, after he served in the Senate, and I am proud to continue this tradition where, on a regular basis, we come forward and honor one of those Federal employees who contributes to making our Nation safer, making our Nation more efficient, allowing many of us in America to enjoy the benefits of our country, oftentimes, again, without a lot of recognition.

The individual I am recognizing is Robert Harris, who is the Deputy Legal Advisor at the U.S. State Department.

Mr. Harris has played a critical role in advancing American foreign policy around the world. He has served as the lead negotiator on several important bilateral and multilateral agreements on antiterrorism, extradition, and global environmental protection. He also provides advice on issues ranging from treaties to law enforcement and intelligence.

But it is Mr. Harris's work to advance human rights around the world that sets him apart. In recent years, the United States had fallen out of compliance with five global human rights treaties, making it difficult for our Nation's diplomats to press other nations to fulfill their human rights obligations--something I know the Acting President pro tempore has a particular interest in. Mr. Harris oversaw five major reports documenting U.S. human rights activities and got our country back on track with the rest of the world.

Mr. Harris is also leading the U.S. delegation in the U.S.-China Legal Experts Dialogue, which provides an opportunity for both countries to exchange expertise and discuss reforms on a variety of issues.

Mr. Harris has successfully engaged the Chinese to implement an existing law--an existing Chinese law--that reduces prison terms and to more frequently grant parole to individuals serving for nonviolent offenses--again, advancing human rights in China.

Michael Kozak, a senior aide at the State Department, commented that Mr. Harris's negotiations have ``done more for concrete advancement of Chinese human rights than any previous human rights dialogue that I've ever seen.''

Mr. Harris also supervised the legal team that supported the President's signature on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009 and guided the administration's legal approach to handling a U.N. conference on racism. More recently, he led U.S. and international efforts at the United Nations to prosecute pirates engaged off the coast of Somalia.

As a 25-year veteran of the State Department, Robert Harris's contributions have gone a long way to advance American foreign policy and preserve our Nation's record as a leader in human rights. I hope my colleagues will join me in thanking him for his service.

(Mr. FRANKEN assumed the chair.)

Again, Mr. President, as you see me on this floor--and I know you share this commitment to those Federal employees who work in the great State of Minnesota--too often, when we have our political dialogs here, we get closed and sometimes cavalier attitudes toward shutting down our Nation's government and the economic consequences it would have on our overall economy and the private sector and also the immediate consequences it would have on the literally hundreds of thousands of great Americans who serve us as Federal employees. Today we take a moment to celebrate Mr. Harris's service, particularly in the area of human rights.

I think it is a record of service of which we can all be proud. We sometimes come down here and have tendencies to trash the Federal Government. I sometimes believe we do that at the expense of these people who work oftentimes for less pay, longer hours, and without a lot of recognition. This is some small way we are trying to recognize Mr. Harris and countless others who serve our Nation day in and day out.

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