Floor Statements

Mr. President, it is my understanding that the other side will not have their speakers use the last minutes, so we will start on our side.

I ask unanimous consent that we be allowed to do a colloquy and have several Senators join in.

Mr. President, we are going to talk about Medicare today and the way the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cuts into Medicare, destroys Medicare.

Two years ago the President wanted a health care bill in the worst way, and that is exactly what he got, and that is exactly what America got.

Anybody out there on Medicare or about to be on Medicare or young enough that someday they will be on Medicare should be very concerned about what happened under this act. All of you, I am sure, are aware of somebody who is on Medicare who has already been denied a doctor; they are being denied because they are not being paid what they ought to be paid.

To call it the ``patient protection'' and ``affordable'' care act is a major mistake. It neither protects Medicare patients nor makes it more affordable. In fact, one of the things we will bring out today is that there has been a theft of $500 billion from Medicare to fund other parts of the program. There is some fraud in it because it was spent, but it still shows up in the account. That is how they show that this really doesn't add to the debt. To solve the whole thing, they have a whole new board of unelected bureaucrats to make additional cuts to Medicare to make it look as though it is OK. And then there is the accounting sleight of hand. I am one of the two accountants in the Senate now, and you have to pay attention to see it. It goes back to the fraud because if this same sort of thing were being done in the private sector, people would go to jail.

There are a number of ways that we will bring out how that is not just budget gimmicks and sleight of hand but is actually taking advantage of seniors.

The Chief Medicare Actuary said that Medicare will go broke in 2024. That is 5 years earlier than last year's report by the Chief Medicare Actuary. He is the guy who works for Medicare; he doesn't work for us. He has to figure out each year how much in the hole it is and what needs to be done to fix it.

My contention, of course, is that you can't steal $500 billion out of a program that is already going broke and expect it to be fine. We warned about that as we were going through the passage of this Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which, as already mentioned, was passed 2 years ago tomorrow. It could have been fixed. There were three plans on the Republican side that would have done what is claimed to be done by this act. Those ideas were largely rejected.

Today we are going to talk about some thefts, fraud, unelected bureaucrats, and accounting sleight of hand. I have some people here who want to respond to some of the things that have been said.

Senator Coburn has listened to some comments made on the other side celebrating this great day.

But that board was made essential by decisions that were made in the health care bill. In the health care bill, we took $500 billion--$\1/2\ trillion--that should have stayed with Medicare to solve Medicare problems.

The doc fix is one of the big problems we need to solve. It is up to about, I think, $230 billion that we need to do that. That would be a pretty good chunk out of this. And unless that is done, people won't be able to see a doctor.

I keep saying, if you can't see a doctor, you really don't have health insurance, and that is what we are going to be doing to our seniors. We cut $135 billion from hospitals, we cut $120 billion from the 11 million seniors who are on Medicare Advantage, we took $15 billion from nursing homes, and we took $7 billion from hospices to spend on programs that have nothing to do with Medicare or those things. That is fraud, and it shouldn't have happened.

The CBO Actuary and the Chief Medicare Actuary have acknowledged this reality. Incidentally, the Chief Medicare Actuary says the program is going to go broke in 2024, and CBO says it will happen in 2016. Now 2016 is pretty short term to be fixed. I think 2024 is short term. So whichever estimate you want to take, Medicare is in trouble and $500 billion should not have been taken out of it. That $500 billion should have been dedicated to fixing Medicare.

We still have to fix Medicare, and the only solution we have come up with is the one Senator Coburn mentioned, which is to form this new board, with surprising powers, that is going to be able to cut some more in Medicare so it doesn't look as though we stole $500 billion from Medicare.

Senator Burr is on the committee. He has had to sit through a lot of the hearings and a lot of the amendments that were never passed from our side that would have fixed this, and I am sure he has some comments.

I think the Senator too would be interested in the accounting and some of the sleight of hand involved in the prescription Part D. We put a prescription Part D in so people would have a little better chance of paying for their prescriptions--a very difficult program. It was very expensive.

I know in my State we were looking at only two people who were selling

pharmaceuticals to seniors. I thought, boy, when this program goes in, there probably won't be any. But when it was opened to a wide choice, I found out there were 46 companies that wanted the business in Wyoming, and it turned out to be a very successful program at helping people.

In this affordable care act, of course, they do some things with the doughnut hole which are a little sleight of hand, because some of the companies that sell brandname prescription drugs agreed they would reimburse people for a part or up to all of their medications while they went through that doughnut hole, knowing when they got out of the doughnut hole they would stay with that brandname and it would cost the whole program a lot more.

So in an area where we were saving money and could have fixed it so seniors had a better chance at it but not giving an advantage to the brandname drug users would have actually saved some money in the program, but that didn't happen. I know since my colleague is involved a lot in the pharmaceutical area, and has done a tremendous job at making sure we are safe from terrorist attacks and pandemic flus and worked with vaccinations, and is probably the foremost person at both ends of the building at knowing how to do that, he may have some comments on this prescription Part D.

So that prescription Part D actually drove down the cost of medication, and now we are ending up in a situation where part of that will be in trouble because of what has happened to Medicare, with $500 billion being stolen.

I see we are joined by Senator Lee of Utah, and I know that Utah has had a health care system that has been a model for other States and now is possibly in jeopardy. I don't know if the Senator would care to comment on Medicare or on that, but we appreciate his coming.

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. President, I thought I had 2 more minutes. I appreciate the comments.

This is the 2-year anniversary of passing what is the so-called affordable patient care act. The Supreme Court has chosen next week to begin the deliberations on it, and they are going to take three times as long as they do on any case so that they can divide this into pieces, and that mandate piece will be the second one.

One that they probably won't be going into is this Medicare problem. We are going to have seniors who are going to be without care because we have taken $500 billion out of Medicare when it needed a doc fix and it needed a whole bunch of other things, and particularly in rural areas where there are critical access hospitals, rural health clinics. Can any reasonable person believe that you can cut $\1/2\ trillion from a program and not affect its impact on patient care?

I wish to have more time to show that there is a theft of this $500 billion, there is fraud involved, that there are bureaucrats and accounting sleight of hand.

Mr. President, I greatly appreciate having this opportunity to join my colleagues in expressing our congratulations to Barbara Mikulski as she reaches another great milestone in her career of service to the people of Maryland in the United States Congress.

Senator Mikulski is now the longest serving woman in the history of the United States Congress. Although outstanding in and of itself, it is an achievement that represents far more than the number of years she has served in the nation's Capitol. It is also a testament to her outstanding public service and her commitment to our future that has made it possible for her to help to make our great Nation both stronger and more secure.

Back home, Senator Mikulski's constituents have come to appreciate her more and more as they have seen how hard she works to represent them every day. That is why they always come out in such great numbers every election day to make sure she will continue to do so. They can see the difference she has made all around them and they appreciate the way she has made their cities and towns better places to live.

I have often heard Senator Mikulski referred to as the Dean of the Senate women, a title she has earned that was conferred upon her with the great admiration, affection and appreciation of those with whom she has served. Over the years so many of them have acknowledged the difference she has made in their lives with her support, her encouragement, her guidance and her direction. She has been such a great mentor to them because she has always led the best way--by example. It is another mark of distinction that has come to her as, each day, she has helped to write another chapter of the history of Maryland and this great Nation of ours.

Looking back, she has played an active role in a long list of changes that have come to our country over the years. Because she has been at the forefront of so many of them she has been a role model not only for those with whom she has served, but for those who have been watching her in action back home. I have no doubt, in the years to come, many more women will serve in the House and the Senate who will credit Senator Mikulski for first giving them the idea of serving in the Congress. Her own record of success then assured them that it would be possible for them to do the same if they were willing to work hard and take their case to the people for their consideration.

In the end, that is what our service in the Senate is all about-- doing everything we can so that the current generation will have the tools they will need to succeed and then take their place as the next generation of our nation's leaders. Thanks to good people like Barbara Mikulski the people back home know that someone cares. She has given them a voice and it is heard and heard clearly whenever she takes to the Senate floor to make their concerns known.

I have often heard it said that the meaning of public service is found in the definition of the word ``service.'' That is why we are taking a moment today to thank Senator Mikulski for putting her principles and her beliefs into action all these many years for her beloved Maryland and the United States of America. If I may paraphrase the words of Abraham Lincoln, it isn't so much her years of service that matters so much as the service of her years. Through the years she has made a difference in so many ways that will be long remembered and celebrated.

Congratulations, Barbara. You are setting a record pace here in the Senate. From this day on, you will be setting a new record every day. Thank you for your service, but most of all, thank you for your friendship. Diana and I have appreciated having the chance to come to know you and to work with you.

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

Mr. President, first, I want to say how important roads and bridges are. We are on the highway bill, and that is one of the main advantages the United States has had--having excellent transportation. Of course, that is particularly important in my own State because we want people to be able to get to the first national park, which is Yellowstone National Park, and another gorgeous park, the Grand Teton National Park, and a place called Fossil Butte National Monument, where people can actually fish for 60 million-year-old fish. We have a spot in the middle of the State where people can help dig up dinosaur bones--and if you dig one out by yourself, you get it named after you-- or the first national monument, Devils Tower, which is up in the northeast corner. And, of course, we are a corridor between those Western States too. So we know how important roads and bridges are. We need to do that, and we need to do it now, but we should do it the right way.

So I want to refer to an amendment I have filed, No. 1645. My amendment is very simple and straightforward. It would allow the gas tax to be adjusted with inflation--not with the price of gas, with inflation. This is not a new idea, and it certainly is not a very popular discussion point, but this is the debate the Senate needs to have.

The long-term viability of the highway trust fund is incredibly important to our States. The underlying proposal the Senate is debating would pay for transportation and infrastructure projects and programs for the next 2 years, but it does not address the future of these programs, nor do the financing proposals fit within the timeframe of the bill. I have serious objections to paying for 2 years of spending with 10 years of revenue.

Let me stop on that issue for a moment. We are spending money in 2 years that it will take us 10 years to generate. How can we tell the American people we are serious about the deficit and serious about spending when we allow money to be spent five times as fast as it comes in?

If the Senate wants to keep the highway programs viable through a trust fund instead of subjected to the general fund, which any accountant or banker would say is bankrupt, we need to either cut spending or generate more revenue. Those are the two choices.

A lot of work has gone into the bill before the Senate. Four committees have worked on it. Four committees have filed amendments that have been included in the version we are seeing. I appreciate that many of my colleagues are trying to reduce the mandates on the States as well as consolidate and eliminate programs. That is good. Those are steps we need to take. Even with some serious streamlining, however, the highway trust fund will not have the revenues needed to meet the current obligations of the fund. We can certainly give States more flexibility in how they prioritize the Federal funds they receive.

We should not and cannot ignore that with this bill we are just buying time. Buying time is something the Federal Government has been doing for decades, and that has gotten us into this serious financial mess. We are buying time with borrowed money. The borrowing is pretty dubious, and some of it is from countries we would rather not be borrowing from.

I want to share some charts with you. You may only be able to discern what I say, and what I say is what appears in the Senate Record, not the charts.

These have a lot of numbers on them. I am an accountant, so I get excited over numbers. Too many numbers, but it still makes the point. What we have is the highway trust fund balances, starting in 1993, which was the last time we passed the gas tax. That was 18.3 cents. This column shows the total revenue received. For the most part they have been going up, which means more gas has been bought.

But here are the expenditures, and you will see what effect that has had on the closing balance in the trust fund. We have had quite a few years when there was some money in there--right after 1993 when the gas tax more closely matched the cost of construction, and as we get out here in 2001, we can see that it drops significantly and keeps dropping. At balance, at the end of 2012, it is going to be $11.4 billion. Of course, we are spending more than that just in this one bill.

So next year it will be a minus $2.8 billion and $18.7 billion, and then $34.7 billion. Those are deficits I am talking about, deficits in the trust fund, which means in those years we are going to have to get the money from somewhere else. It winds up in 2016 at being a $50.7 billion deficit to the trust fund. That is what we are doing generally with all of our accounting, but it shows up here in something that I do not think anybody in America denies is absolutely necessary. We have to have roads and bridges.

So if my amendment were enacted, what kind of an adjustment to the tax rate would we see? If this amendment had been enacted last year, in 2011, this January--the tax does not go into effect until the year after the inflation is measured. This January the tax would have increased by one-half of one penny--one-half of one penny. The price of a gallon fluctuates more than that on a daily basis. In fact, I was watching on television the other night, and the lady was showing the high price of gas, and she showed a sign out in front of the pumps. Just as she was about to leave, she said: Wait a minute. While I have been talking, the price has gone up 20 cents.

So we are seeing some huge changes there, but not with the gas tax. If we had enacted the indexing in 1993, the last time Congress adjusted the gas tax, there would have been an increase of 11 cents in the gasoline tax over 19 years. Excluding the one-tenth of 1 cent that is added to the base tax rate for the leaking underground storage tanks, the rate would adjust from 18.3 cents a gallon in 1993 to 29\1/2\ cents per gallon today.

That is what this chart shows. It shows the amount of inflation there was each of those years, so the amounts the gas tax would have gone up in each of those years to provide a fund that would actually help us with building the roads and bridges, and it would be at 29.5 cents per gallon today.

In that same timeframe gasoline prices have risen from $1 per gallon to $3.50 per gallon or more. It was $4 in the example I was giving off the television. If we had enacted indexing in 2005 under the last highway bill, there would have been only a 3\1/2\-cents-per-gallon adjustment. I estimate there would have been increased revenue in the highway trust fund by over $18 billion from the gas tax alone.

So this is the chart that shows what would have happened if we had indexed it in 2005, what the CPI index would have been and what the adjustment would have been. So that would have been a change of 3.5 cents per gallon, hardly noticeable in the price of gas we have today. But the trust fund would have had $18 billion, which we need to be able to spend. Very important.

In 1993 the gas tax of 18.3 cents was included in the $1 of gas, and there was

also State taxes included in the $1 gasoline price, 18 cents out of a dollar. Now the 18 cents is part of $4 a gallon.

Don't you think construction costs have increased based on the cost of a gallon of gas alone? Remember, the gas tax is what paid for roads and bridges but cannot anymore, causing us to use very bad financing methods--stealing from pension funds with no way to pay it back, using 10 years' of projected revenue to pay for 2 years' of construction.

What do we do for the money in 2 years? Roads and bridges will always need construction. Our economy runs on construction. The construction industry has mixed feelings about my proposed amendment. They are for it as long as it does not bring the bill down. My intent is not to bring the bill down but, rather, to make it a viable bill. Of course, my amendment will not make it a viable bill all by itself. The Bowles- Simpson Commission deficit report said we needed to increase the gas tax by 5 cents a year for 3 years to have a viable fund.

Here are the quotes from that deficit commission. The President appointed the deficit commission. They looked at everything, and on highways and bridges alone, this is what they came up with: 15-cent- per-gallon increase in the gas tax over a 3-year period; limit spending to match the revenues the trust fund collects. That is what we are failing to do with this current bill.

Once fully implemented, a 15-cent increase would generate an additional $24 to $27 billion per year for the highway trust fund. Each 1-cent increase would generate about $1.6 to $1.8 billion per year. That is from that deficit commission that was trying to figure out how to get ourselves out of the hole we are in right now. This is what they came up with just for the highway fund.

So with my amendment, it indexes with inflation. It does not start until next year. It is just a way to test the waters to see if there is enough courage in this body to take a very minimal step. My amendment does not solve the shortfall of the highway trust fund, nor would it fully pay for this legislation. It is just a small step in the right direction. It is a step in getting the highway trust fund back to what it was created to be, a dedicated pot of money to pay for the roads, funded by those who use the roads.

We need to take this step and a lot of other steps if we are going to fix our money problems and fund programs as intended. The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform--that is that Simpson- Bowles Commission--supported a 15-cent increase in the gas tax to be gradually adjusted over a 3-year period. Once fully implemented, a 15- cent increase, as I said, would provide $24 to $27 billion per year. That is what we need for roads and bridges.

The Commission also recommended that Congress enact a limitation so that the spending could not go beyond revenues. That seems like a fairly commonsense approach. Spend only what we generate. We could use that around here. Of course, that principle is something we need to enact in the overall budgeting in Washington.

Let's be clear. The tax rate and gas prices are two very separate issues. Folks might think that as the price of fuel goes up, so does the Federal gas tax. That is not true. Whether the price of gas is $1 per gallon or $4 per gallon, the Federal tax remains the same. Again, the fund collected 18.3 cents from every dollar of gas in 1993. Construction costs have increased, and now we only collect the same 18.3 cents for a $4 gallon of gas. If we were being successful with some alternate means of transportation, the amount of gas would go down as people used those other ones, but it is not.

I am sensitive to the fact that the gas prices are high right now. I am always looking for ideas on how we can work to bring those prices down. With the distances we have to travel in Wyoming alone, high fuel prices have a disproportionate effect on the residents of my State.

The President said there is not a silver bullet to bring the prices down. That is certainly true if we look at his administration's policies, having done everything possible to increase the price of fuel. While there might not be a silver bullet, there are a number of actions that will make a real difference.

One reason gas prices are high is that the supply is limited, and tensions in the Middle East have further strained that supply and encouraged speculators.

To fix the supply problem, we should be producing American energy wherever it is possible. Instead of blocking production the President should be encouraging us to develop American energy in Alaska and off the Outer Continental Shelf and on Federal land. Yes, production is up, but it is not from Federal lands. That is shut down. It is coming from private land where a permit does not take a lifetime of investment and delay. Federal lands are down 12 percent in production. We should be enacting policies that encourage energy production on public lands in Wyoming and other Western States rather than relying on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela.

President Obama should approve the Keystone XL Pipeline so we can get as much supply as possible from friendly nations such as Canada before they feel forced to sell it all to China, who is buying up energy worldwide. China understands that in 20 years the country with the energy will have the power. I am not talking about electrical power; I am talking about world power.

Gas prices are high because of the regulatory uncertainty created by the administration's relentless pursuit of policies that are designed to make energy more expensive under the guise of halting climate change. Rather than arguing over new taxes for the oil and gas industry, we should be working to rein in the Environmental Protection Agency to stop those regulations that make it impossible for businesses to plan.

We have a permitting problem. When I hear the lecture about the number of acres leased for exploration but not being drilled, I get angry. I am usually not angry. Leased parcels include land that has no oil. When you buy a lease, you buy a package, and then you drill where the oil or gas is within that package. Also, there are millions of acres ready to be drilled, but the leaseholder cannot get the bureaucrats to turn loose the permits.

Of course, Energy Secretary Chu recently confirmed that his energy policy is to create conservation by having our gas prices reach the same level as Europe. Well, unless we do something with the gas tax at his desired $7 a gallon, we will still only get 18.3 cents a gallon for the critical highway fund.

If we were really trying to match cost to construct with revenue, the radical suggestion would be for the gas user fee--and it is a user fee. If you do not drive on the roads, you do not need to buy the gas. You do not need to pay the tax. So it is a user fee. But it would be a percentage of the cost of a gallon of gas if we were really being radical.

But be clear, we are not doing that. We are probably not doing any of this. We need to do everything we can to lower gas prices. I am working to do just that. In fact, we are debating some of these issues on this legislation because the majority refuses to debate them using regular order. However, the issue of gas prices is entirely separate from the issue of determining how we should pay for highways.

We have set up a trust fund that is supposed to take care of road and bridge needs. I might mention that changing the formula to miles driven would just be to increase the gas user fee while hiding the increase. That is not the way to do it. We should be honest about whatever kind of an increase we are putting on this user fee. That is the wrong way to do it. If we do not add more revenue to the trust fund, we should cut our spending to the amount of money we have in the trust fund. That is, again, what the Simpson-Bowles report said.

I know there a lot of sensitivities in talking about the rate of gas tax or any other tax. There is no doubt that individuals and businesses are still stressed in this economy and are struggling to make ends meet. People in rural States such as Wyoming have few options. They have to drive long distances for many of their needs. Several of my colleagues have said to me: This just is not the time to be talking about the gas tax.

I must ask: When will the time be right? Members of Congress do not want to tackle this topic when the economy is strong nor do they want to tackle the topic when we have economic challenges. When revenues to

the highway trust fund were meeting the needs of the highway program, no one wanted to consider that there might be a time when the revenue could not keep up with the needs to maintain our highway system.

We are pennies away from insolvency of the highway trust fund. When is the right time to talk about the revenue stream for the highway trust fund? We need to start today. My amendment is a small step to address the long-term viability of the highway trust fund. It is a small step to get us moving toward living within our means and maintaining our roads with the money we have not the money we wish we had.

I probably cannot get a vote on this minimal increase, but it does test the water. I would be happy to revise my amendment to any reasonable level that Senators would support. We cannot continue to kick this conversation down the road for another 2 years. We cannot lie to our constituents about the state of the highway trust fund. We should not steal from other trust funds, and we should not do unapproved long-term financing for short-term projects. We have a mechanism to pay for the road programs, a dedicated funding stream paid for by those who use the roads.

I hope my colleagues will take a hard look at my amendment, take a look at the plan under Simpson-Bowles, and study the numerous ideas out there. Let's have a real debate on how to preserve this dedicated funding for our roads.

In Wyoming, we have an optional sales tax for projects by communities and counties. The construction project is stated, and the people get to vote for this increase in their taxes. As long as the money is used to pay for the promised projects, the voters continue to approve additional projects with additional taxes. It has happened for 30 years in Wyoming. People will allow focused taxes for what they know they need if they believe that is what it will be spent for. And I say they know the needs for roads and bridges.

When is it the wrong time to do the right thing? I believe most everyone in this Chamber knows this is the right thing. Most of our constituents will see it that way too. A vocal few won't, but the reason congressional approval is at a record low is because so many live in fear of taking the votes that will fix the problems. We have a chance to change that with this amendment. I hope my colleagues will take a serious look at it and fund the highway fund the way it was intended.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that James Ward from my office be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Enzi pertaining to the introduction of S.J. Res. 36 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I rise today after introducing a Congressional Review Act Resolution of Disapproval to stop the National Labor Relations Board's unfair and unnecessary ambush elections rule. I am pleased that 43 fellow Senators have cosponsored this resolution. I know it will draw more support on the Senate floor as people learn the details of the new rule.

This administration's National Labor Relations Board has done a lot of controversial things, but the ambush elections rule stands out because it is a politicized and unjustified effort to make a fair system less fair, and it is being rushed into effect over tremendous objection.

The National Labor Relations Act, which the National Labor Relations Board enforces, is a carefully balanced law that protects the rights of employees to join or not join a union and also protects the rights of employers to free speech and unrestricted flow of commerce.

Since it was enacted in 1935, changes to this statute have been rare. When they do occur, it is the result of careful negotiations with all the stakeholders. Most of the questions that come up under the law are handled through decisions of the board. Board decisions often do change the enforcement of the law significantly, but they are issued in response to an actual dispute and an actual question of law. In contrast, the ambush elections rule is not a response to a real issue because the current election process for certifying whether employees want to form a union is not broken.

This rule was not carefully negotiated by stakeholders. Instead, it was rushed into place over just 6 months, despite the fact that it drew over 65,000 comments in the 2-month period after it was first proposed.

Had the board held the comment period open longer to allow more input from the regulated community, which was clearly quite engaged on the proposal, it would certainly have received even more comments. Yet this relatively small agency reported that it gone through all 65,957 comments in just the 7 weeks they took to release a modified rule, which was then finalized. The rule was finalized just days before the board lost its quorum with the expiration of Member Becker's recess appointment term. Under any circumstances, a rulemaking this hasty looks suspicious. In this case, there is simply no justification for the rush.

Today's secret ballot elections occur in a median timeframe of 38 days. Unions win more than 71 percent of elections--their highest win rate on record. The current system does not disadvantage labor unions at all. But it does ensure there is fairness for the employees whose right it is to make the decision of whether or not to form a union, to pay union dues, and to have some of their dues go into political campaigns and have the full opportunity to hear from both sides about the ramifications of that decision--to have the time to get full disclosure.

There is supposed to be a poster that notifies employees of their right not to have their money go into political campaigns, but this administration has taken that off of the poster so they are no longer informed of that right.

This principle of law has been upheld over nearly seven decades. It was Senator John F. Kennedy who argued during the debate over the 1959 amendments to the law, saying:

There should be at least a 30-day interval between the

request for an election and the holding of an election . . .

in which both parties can present their viewpoints.

Frankly, whenever I hear a government decision that aims to limit information available to citizens and depress free speech, I am very concerned. It was that sort of agenda that was behind the card check legislation which was defeated in the Senate. Let me repeat that. It was that sort of agenda that was behind the card check legislation that was defeated in the Senate. I am afraid this rule has been hatched in the same laboratory, and I hope it will meet the same fate.

The ambush elections rule eliminates the 25-day waiting period to conduct elections in cases where a party has filed a preelection request for review. It effectively eliminates the opportunity for parties to voice objections and settle issues before the elections and limits the ability to address them after elections as well.

What are we trying to hide? The effect of these changes will be union certification elections held in as few as 10 days. Union organizers will hand-select members of the bargaining unit, and any review of the appropriateness of the unit makeup or status of employees who may qualify as supervisors will be postponed until after the election-- something always done before the election. Employees will be voting on

whether to form a union without any idea of who will actually be in the bargaining unit.

Employers will be caught off guard and potentially flying blind with regard to their rights under the law, particularly small businesses. Union organizers spend months, if not years, organizing and spreading their message to the employees, unbeknownst to the employer. So when a union files a representation petition, employers are already at a significant disadvantage in educating employees about their views on unionization. Employers also use this time to consult with their attorneys to ensure their actions are permissible under the law. Shortening the time period will increase the likelihood that employers will act hastily, opening themselves to unfair labor practice charges that have very severe consequences.

I am particularly concerned about the small businesses that will be ambushed under this rule. Instead of focusing on growing and creating more jobs, they will be swamped with legal issues, with bargaining obligations, a less flexible workforce, and increased costs across the board. Most small businesses likely have no idea about the changes being made by the National Labor Relations Board because the rule was rushed into place so hastily.

Instead of directing the National Labor Relations Board to focus on enforcing current law rather than ambushing small business job creators and their employees, President Obama has stacked the Board with unconstitutional recess appointees and requested a $15 million increase in their budget. He simply doesn't understand. He doesn't get it.

By passing this resolution through both the House and Senate, we will strike a victory for those on the side of job creation and fairness to employees. It will also send a very important message to a runaway agency. Under this administration, the National Labor Relations Board has been more controversial than most observers can ever remember. They have flouted the intentions of Congress repeatedly.

The President has redefined a recess appointment in order to keep it going. There is no law that allowed that. There is no change that has been made that would allow a President to do something different than has ever been done before. But he did it. He redefined the recess appointment in order to keep the Board going.

A few weeks ago, National Labor Relations Board Chairman Pearce announced that he intends to push through even more controversial changes to the elections rules before the end of the year. He is planning to require a mandatory hearing 7 days after a petition is filed. Employers would be forced to file a position statement on important legal questions at the hearing or lose the right to subsequently argue those issues. He plans to require employers to provide personal employee information to union organizers, such as e- mail addresses, within 2 days. Do you think the employees want to be harassed with e-mails? I doubt it. These changes would completely cripple any employer's ability to have a voice in the decisionmaking process, let alone a small employer's.

Enacting a resolution of disapproval of the ambush elections rule would prevent Chairman Pearce from promulgating these destruction changes. It would not roll back any rights or privileges, it would simply return these workplace rules to current law. Current law. Not current rule, current law. It just returns it to the workplace rules we have under current law. I will remind my colleagues that current law is a fair system under which employees retain the right to decide by secret ballot election whether to form a union. Elections occur in a median of 38 days, and unions win 71 percent of the elections.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters of support from a number of groups.

Mr. President, I look forward to the opportunity to debate this resolution on the floor, and I thank the Senators who have joined me as original cosponsors.

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

Mr. President, I rise today after introducing a Congressional Review Act Resolution of Disapproval to stop the National Labor Relations Board's unfair and unnecessary ambush elections rule. I am pleased that 43 fellow Senators have cosponsored this resolution. I know it will draw more support on the Senate floor as people learn the details of the new rule.

This administration's National Labor Relations Board has done a lot of controversial things, but the ambush elections rule stands out because it is a politicized and unjustified effort to make a fair system less fair, and it is being rushed into effect over tremendous objection.

The National Labor Relations Act, which the National Labor Relations Board enforces, is a carefully balanced law that protects the rights of employees to join or not join a union and also protects the rights of employers to free speech and unrestricted flow of commerce.

Since it was enacted in 1935, changes to this statute have been rare. When they do occur, it is the result of careful negotiations with all the stakeholders. Most of the questions that come up under the law are handled through decisions of the board. Board decisions often do change the enforcement of the law significantly, but they are issued in response to an actual dispute and an actual question of law. In contrast, the ambush elections rule is not a response to a real issue because the current election process for certifying whether employees want to form a union is not broken.

This rule was not carefully negotiated by stakeholders. Instead, it was rushed into place over just 6 months, despite the fact that it drew over 65,000 comments in the 2-month period after it was first proposed.

Had the board held the comment period open longer to allow more input from the regulated community, which was clearly quite engaged on the proposal, it would certainly have received even more comments. Yet this relatively small agency reported that it gone through all 65,957 comments in just the 7 weeks they took to release a modified rule, which was then finalized. The rule was finalized just days before the board lost its quorum with the expiration of Member Becker's recess appointment term. Under any circumstances, a rulemaking this hasty looks suspicious. In this case, there is simply no justification for the rush.

Today's secret ballot elections occur in a median timeframe of 38 days. Unions win more than 71 percent of elections--their highest win rate on record. The current system does not disadvantage labor unions at all. But it does ensure there is fairness for the employees whose right it is to make the decision of whether or not to form a union, to pay union dues, and to have some of their dues go into political campaigns and have the full opportunity to hear from both sides about the ramifications of that decision--to have the time to get full disclosure.

There is supposed to be a poster that notifies employees of their right not to have their money go into political campaigns, but this administration has taken that off of the poster so they are no longer informed of that right.

This principle of law has been upheld over nearly seven decades. It was Senator John F. Kennedy who argued during the debate over the 1959 amendments to the law, saying:

There should be at least a 30-day interval between the

request for an election and the holding of an election . . .

in which both parties can present their viewpoints.

Frankly, whenever I hear a government decision that aims to limit information available to citizens and depress free speech, I am very concerned. It was that sort of agenda that was behind the card check legislation which was defeated in the Senate. Let me repeat that. It was that sort of agenda that was behind the card check legislation that was defeated in the Senate. I am afraid this rule has been hatched in the same laboratory, and I hope it will meet the same fate.

The ambush elections rule eliminates the 25-day waiting period to conduct elections in cases where a party has filed a preelection request for review. It effectively eliminates the opportunity for parties to voice objections and settle issues before the elections and limits the ability to address them after elections as well.

What are we trying to hide? The effect of these changes will be union certification elections held in as few as 10 days. Union organizers will hand-select members of the bargaining unit, and any review of the appropriateness of the unit makeup or status of employees who may qualify as supervisors will be postponed until after the election-- something always done before the election. Employees will be voting on

whether to form a union without any idea of who will actually be in the bargaining unit.

Employers will be caught off guard and potentially flying blind with regard to their rights under the law, particularly small businesses. Union organizers spend months, if not years, organizing and spreading their message to the employees, unbeknownst to the employer. So when a union files a representation petition, employers are already at a significant disadvantage in educating employees about their views on unionization. Employers also use this time to consult with their attorneys to ensure their actions are permissible under the law. Shortening the time period will increase the likelihood that employers will act hastily, opening themselves to unfair labor practice charges that have very severe consequences.

I am particularly concerned about the small businesses that will be ambushed under this rule. Instead of focusing on growing and creating more jobs, they will be swamped with legal issues, with bargaining obligations, a less flexible workforce, and increased costs across the board. Most small businesses likely have no idea about the changes being made by the National Labor Relations Board because the rule was rushed into place so hastily.

Instead of directing the National Labor Relations Board to focus on enforcing current law rather than ambushing small business job creators and their employees, President Obama has stacked the Board with unconstitutional recess appointees and requested a $15 million increase in their budget. He simply doesn't understand. He doesn't get it.

By passing this resolution through both the House and Senate, we will strike a victory for those on the side of job creation and fairness to employees. It will also send a very important message to a runaway agency. Under this administration, the National Labor Relations Board has been more controversial than most observers can ever remember. They have flouted the intentions of Congress repeatedly.

The President has redefined a recess appointment in order to keep it going. There is no law that allowed that. There is no change that has been made that would allow a President to do something different than has ever been done before. But he did it. He redefined the recess appointment in order to keep the Board going.

A few weeks ago, National Labor Relations Board Chairman Pearce announced that he intends to push through even more controversial changes to the elections rules before the end of the year. He is planning to require a mandatory hearing 7 days after a petition is filed. Employers would be forced to file a position statement on important legal questions at the hearing or lose the right to subsequently argue those issues. He plans to require employers to provide personal employee information to union organizers, such as e- mail addresses, within 2 days. Do you think the employees want to be harassed with e-mails? I doubt it. These changes would completely cripple any employer's ability to have a voice in the decisionmaking process, let alone a small employer's.

Enacting a resolution of disapproval of the ambush elections rule would prevent Chairman Pearce from promulgating these destruction changes. It would not roll back any rights or privileges, it would simply return these workplace rules to current law. Current law. Not current rule, current law. It just returns it to the workplace rules we have under current law. I will remind my colleagues that current law is a fair system under which employees retain the right to decide by secret ballot election whether to form a union. Elections occur in a median of 38 days, and unions win 71 percent of the elections.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters of support from a number of groups.

Mr. President, I look forward to the opportunity to debate this resolution on the floor, and I thank the Senators who have joined me as original cosponsors.

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

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about a bill I am introducing today, the United States Job Creation and International Tax Reform Act of 2012. The name says it all. This is a bill that would incentivize American companies to create jobs in the United States while at the same time leveling the playing field for U.S. companies in the global marketplace. This bill would reform and modernize the rules for taxing the global operations of American companies and would help America become a more attractive location to base a business that serves customers all over the world.

Unfortunately, our current tax rules do just the opposite. In fact, many businesses could be better off if they were headquartered outside the United States. That is not right, and Congress should fix it. This bill would do that.

I wish to thank Senator Hatch and members of his staff who have been helpful in working through the complexities of this international tax.

I also wish to mention Eric Oman, a member of my staff and a CPA, who worked with me in developing this legislation. He has lived overseas and worked with the U.S. tax laws overseas. That is the kind of expertise we need to reform international tax law.

I wish to thank all who testified before the Finance Committee, especially Scott Naatjes, who is the vice president and general tax counsel of Cargill. This man has dealt with the complex accounting of foreign earnings and the money to be repatriated to the United States, an actual practitioner whom we relied on. He gave us insight into years of records that have to be reviewed for a single item in the complex web of the current international tax system in order to bring the money back to the United States.

Finally, I wish to thank Dave Camp, the chairman of the House, Ways, and Means Committee, who kick-started the discussion on tax reform when he released his discussion draft last October.

Enacted in the 1960s, our current international tax rules have passed their expiration date. Many of the U.S. major trading partners, including Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and most of Europe have moved to what are called territorial tax systems. That is actually a word for a global tax system. These types of tax systems tax the income generated within their borders and exempt foreign earnings from tax.

The United States, on the other hand, taxes the worldwide income of U.S. companies and provides deferral of the U.S. tax until the foreign earnings are brought home. Deferral of the tax until the earnings are brought home encourages them not to bring the money home. It actually incentivizes them to leave their money abroad and to expand over there. Because the United States has nearly the highest corporate tax rate in the world, companies don't bring those earnings back and, as I said, reinvest outside the United States. That certainly is not a recipe for U.S. growth and U.S. job creation.

The dominance of U.S.-headquartered companies in the global marketplace is waning. Thirty-six percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies were headquartered in the United States in 2000. In 2009, that number dropped to 28 percent. That is from 36 percent to 28 percent among the Fortune Global 500 companies headquartered in the United States. Clearly, America is losing ground and our current international tax rules are a big part of the problem.

The bill I am introducing would help to right the ship by pulling our international tax rules into the 21st century so U.S. companies are not at a competitive disadvantage with foreign companies because of American tax rules that are outdated by changes most other countries have already made. The bill would give U.S. companies incentives to create jobs in the United States and undertake activities in the United States in order to win globally.

First, if the foreign earnings have already been subject to a tax in a foreign country, this bill would provide a 95-percent exemption from the U.S. tax on those foreign earnings. This would allow for American- managed capital to be put to the most productive use and help stabilize our economy.

Second, this bill would allow foreign earnings that are currently sitting overseas to be brought back to America at a reduced rate--not a zero tax rate but a greatly reduced rate--and with the ability to pay that, the taxes that are owed in installments. That gets the cash back now and still gets some taxation for us instead of leaving it all overseas. This provision would serve as a transition to the new territorial system by allowing U.S. companies to unlock a significant amount of capital currently being held offshore and quickly move into the new territorial system, and that means more jobs and a better economy. It also emphasizes one of the things I talk about with any of the tax changes--as one of the few accountants--we have to transition into these things if we want the companies stable enough that they can exist through the change in the Tax Code, and that provides for a transition as well.

Third, this bill would reduce the U.S. tax burden on income generated by American companies from ideas and innovations. This bill would encourage companies to develop and keep rights to ideas and inventions in the United States. When families tune in to ``60 Minutes'' on Sunday evenings, they would hear fewer stories about how U.S. companies are moving their profits to tax haven countries and avoiding U.S. tax on those earnings. Families would hear fewer stories about how the U.S. multinational companies set up post office boxes in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland without a single employee or officer of the company anywhere on site and attribute a significant portion of their foreign earnings to those jurisdictions.

Instead, families would hear more stories about how U.S. companies are generating the ideas and inventions of tomorrow right here in America.

This bill can be a first step in tax reform. We have a lot of work to do in many other areas of tax law in order to make it simpler, fairer, and more transparent. We need to be looking at the individual tax system, the corporate tax system, and particularly how we tax the passthrough entities such as partnerships and S corporations that have to pay the tax on the money when it is still invested in the business.

I also recognize, as we move forward in these other areas, it may be appropriate to make changes to this bill. This is exactly how the legislative process should work, and I look forward to getting back to conducting the Senate's business in regular order, where we work through the issues in the committee first and offer amendments to improve the bills that ultimately come to the Senate floor, where there is a shot for everybody else to make amendments.

But today with the introduction of this bill, we move from discussion to action with respect to a single piece of the tax reform. The Simpson-Bowles deficit commission recommended a move to a territorial system, and I am glad to be moving the conversation forward on this recommendation with the introduction of this bill. I hope this bill will begin a discussion, a discussion of fairness that needs to begin yesterday.

I hope Members and their staff will review the bill and the detailed explanation we have prepared. I also ask that all interested stakeholders review the bill and reach out to my staff and the staff of the Finance Committee to discuss what they like, what they don't like, and their suggestions for improvements. That is the way bills are supposed to work.

The international tax rules are not easy or simple and reforming them will be a heavy lift. But those things are worth doing, and when they are worth doing, they are rarely easy or simple.

I look forward to joining with my colleagues to pass international tax reforms that our American companies and our country desperately need.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about a bill I am introducing today, the United States Job Creation and International Tax Reform Act of 2012. The name says it all. This is a bill that would incentivize American companies to create jobs in the United States while at the same time leveling the playing field for U.S. companies in the global marketplace. This bill would reform and modernize the rules for taxing the global operations of American companies and would help America become a more attractive location to base a business that serves customers all over the world.

Unfortunately, our current tax rules do just the opposite. In fact, many businesses could be better off if they were headquartered outside the United States. That is not right, and Congress should fix it. This bill would do that.

I wish to thank Senator Hatch and members of his staff who have been helpful in working through the complexities of this international tax.

I also wish to mention Eric Oman, a member of my staff and a CPA, who worked with me in developing this legislation. He has lived overseas and worked with the U.S. tax laws overseas. That is the kind of expertise we need to reform international tax law.

I wish to thank all who testified before the Finance Committee, especially Scott Naatjes, who is the vice president and general tax counsel of Cargill. This man has dealt with the complex accounting of foreign earnings and the money to be repatriated to the United States, an actual practitioner whom we relied on. He gave us insight into years of records that have to be reviewed for a single item in the complex web of the current international tax system in order to bring the money back to the United States.

Finally, I wish to thank Dave Camp, the chairman of the House, Ways, and Means Committee, who kick-started the discussion on tax reform when he released his discussion draft last October.

Enacted in the 1960s, our current international tax rules have passed their expiration date. Many of the U.S. major trading partners, including Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and most of Europe have moved to what are called territorial tax systems. That is actually a word for a global tax system. These types of tax systems tax the income generated within their borders and exempt foreign earnings from tax.

The United States, on the other hand, taxes the worldwide income of U.S. companies and provides deferral of the U.S. tax until the foreign earnings are brought home. Deferral of the tax until the earnings are brought home encourages them not to bring the money home. It actually incentivizes them to leave their money abroad and to expand over there. Because the United States has nearly the highest corporate tax rate in the world, companies don't bring those earnings back and, as I said, reinvest outside the United States. That certainly is not a recipe for U.S. growth and U.S. job creation.

The dominance of U.S.-headquartered companies in the global marketplace is waning. Thirty-six percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies were headquartered in the United States in 2000. In 2009, that number dropped to 28 percent. That is from 36 percent to 28 percent among the Fortune Global 500 companies headquartered in the United States. Clearly, America is losing ground and our current international tax rules are a big part of the problem.

The bill I am introducing would help to right the ship by pulling our international tax rules into the 21st century so U.S. companies are not at a competitive disadvantage with foreign companies because of American tax rules that are outdated by changes most other countries have already made. The bill would give U.S. companies incentives to create jobs in the United States and undertake activities in the United States in order to win globally.

First, if the foreign earnings have already been subject to a tax in a foreign country, this bill would provide a 95-percent exemption from the U.S. tax on those foreign earnings. This would allow for American- managed capital to be put to the most productive use and help stabilize our economy.

Second, this bill would allow foreign earnings that are currently sitting overseas to be brought back to America at a reduced rate--not a zero tax rate but a greatly reduced rate--and with the ability to pay that, the taxes that are owed in installments. That gets the cash back now and still gets some taxation for us instead of leaving it all overseas. This provision would serve as a transition to the new territorial system by allowing U.S. companies to unlock a significant amount of capital currently being held offshore and quickly move into the new territorial system, and that means more jobs and a better economy. It also emphasizes one of the things I talk about with any of the tax changes--as one of the few accountants--we have to transition into these things if we want the companies stable enough that they can exist through the change in the Tax Code, and that provides for a transition as well.

Third, this bill would reduce the U.S. tax burden on income generated by American companies from ideas and innovations. This bill would encourage companies to develop and keep rights to ideas and inventions in the United States. When families tune in to ``60 Minutes'' on Sunday evenings, they would hear fewer stories about how U.S. companies are moving their profits to tax haven countries and avoiding U.S. tax on those earnings. Families would hear fewer stories about how the U.S. multinational companies set up post office boxes in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland without a single employee or officer of the company anywhere on site and attribute a significant portion of their foreign earnings to those jurisdictions.

Instead, families would hear more stories about how U.S. companies are generating the ideas and inventions of tomorrow right here in America.

This bill can be a first step in tax reform. We have a lot of work to do in many other areas of tax law in order to make it simpler, fairer, and more transparent. We need to be looking at the individual tax system, the corporate tax system, and particularly how we tax the passthrough entities such as partnerships and S corporations that have to pay the tax on the money when it is still invested in the business.

I also recognize, as we move forward in these other areas, it may be appropriate to make changes to this bill. This is exactly how the legislative process should work, and I look forward to getting back to conducting the Senate's business in regular order, where we work through the issues in the committee first and offer amendments to improve the bills that ultimately come to the Senate floor, where there is a shot for everybody else to make amendments.

But today with the introduction of this bill, we move from discussion to action with respect to a single piece of the tax reform. The Simpson-Bowles deficit commission recommended a move to a territorial system, and I am glad to be moving the conversation forward on this recommendation with the introduction of this bill. I hope this bill will begin a discussion, a discussion of fairness that needs to begin yesterday.

I hope Members and their staff will review the bill and the detailed explanation we have prepared. I also ask that all interested stakeholders review the bill and reach out to my staff and the staff of the Finance Committee to discuss what they like, what they don't like, and their suggestions for improvements. That is the way bills are supposed to work.

The international tax rules are not easy or simple and reforming them will be a heavy lift. But those things are worth doing, and when they are worth doing, they are rarely easy or simple.

I look forward to joining with my colleagues to pass international tax reforms that our American companies and our country desperately need.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the issue I raised during my maiden speech on the Senate floor in 1997; that is, the need to pass a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.

I am disappointed that we were unable to pass a balanced budget amendment in 1997. I commend Senator Hatch for his efforts then. We got within one vote. We had 66 votes and we needed 67. Had we gotten that, we

wouldn't be in this mess today. In 1997, our national debt was $5.4 trillion. Today, it is an astonishing $15 trillion. Without immediate action, that number will continue to increase to a level that is even more unsustainable.

Time and time again, the Federal Government has proven it is incapable of the fiscal discipline needed to spend within its means. Time and time again, the Federal Government has spent more money than we brought in. It has led to the situation we currently face where we are borrowing more than 40 cents on every dollar we spend and where we are being threatened with further downgrades in our credit rating.

In fiscal year 2010, the government brought in slightly more than $2.2 trillion in revenue. At the same time we collected $2.2 trillion, we spent $3.5 trillion. In other words, we overspent by $1.3 trillion. That is $1,300 billion. That is an astonishing amount of spending, and it cannot be sustained. I encourage everybody to write these numbers out with all of the zeroes sometime and see what we are talking about. We have a spending addiction that must be controlled. For years we have tried to hide it, disguise it, or ignore it. We have acted as if it is OK to keep spending money we don't have. We no longer have that option. The world today is different from the world of 1997.

We have seen riots in other nations where their fiscal situations were out of control. If we don't act now, we could see similar events in this country. We can either balance our budget or go broke--even more broke than we already are.

Balancing the budget is not a revolutionary idea. Responsible families balance the amount they spend with the amount they make or they go bankrupt. Businesses balance the amount they spend with the amount they bring in or they go bankrupt. Most States have amendments requiring them to balance the amount they spend with their revenue. Wyoming's Constitution requires a balanced budget each and every year, and they do it. If people in Washington understood budgeting the way Wyoming does, we would be in a much better place right now. If families, businesses, and States can balance their budgets, there is no reason the Federal Government cannot balance its budget.

There are two options the Senate is considering today, and I am pleased there is consensus from both sides of the aisle that a balanced budget amendment would help us. Although that is the case, there is no doubt in my mind that the version introduced by Senator Hatch is far superior to the version introduced by Senator Udall.

The Republican balanced budget amendment gets to the heart of the problem, which is the need to rein in out-of-control spending. The Republican resolution requires that we get spending down to historical revenue levels and forces us to make the tough choices about which programs will no longer be necessary. It also prohibits Congress from raising taxes until a supermajority of Members support such a tax increase. This is an important provision because the default solution for our out-of-control spending should be cutting spending, not raising taxes. This bill also goes into effect 5 years after ratification, which gives us the ability to transition to a balanced budget.

I have a penny solution bill out there, a 1-cent solution where we cut 1 percent from every dollar we spend for 7 years. At the end of 7 years, the budget would balance. So it is not something that is undoable. We can balance the budget.

While I am pleased that my Democratic colleagues have a balanced budget amendment, the alternative they offer does not address the heart of the problem. It does not include a spending cap to ensure that we move spending to an acceptable level. It does not include a requirement for a supermajority to raise taxes, which will allow proponents of tax increases to more easily work to balance a budget on the backs of the American taxpayers. And the American taxpayers are only 49 percent of the people working right now. The American people are not the ones who cannot get spending under control. They should not see tax increases simply because Congress can't do its job.

We need to pass the Hatch amendment, and we need to pass it now, because I must also remind my colleagues that passage of a strong balanced budget amendment is the first step. If we pass a balanced budget amendment, it still must be ratified by the States. Three- fourths of the States have to pass it for it to become a part of the Constitution. That will take time, and with a $15 trillion debt we don't have a lot of time left. There is speculation that 2 years might be the outside. This isn't going to balance for 5 years. Two will create some substantial cuts and tax increases.

Passage of the balanced budget amendment by three-fourths of the States is a tough test. Because of the magnitude of what we are trying to do, it should be. However, we need to give the States this opportunity to force the Federal Government to come to grips with its finances, as the State governments are required to do.

Why should we give the States the opportunity to ratify a balanced budget amendment? Because I found that the best decisions are made closest to the people. State governments are closer to the people than the Federal Government and they are generally better at addressing the needs of the people of their State. Giving the States the opportunity to ratify the amendment will bring the budget closer to the people and would allow the American people to decide how they want Washington to spend their hard-earned money. Most of the American people get it and they are asking us to get it and do a balanced budget amendment.

Amending our Constitution is an extraordinary measure. It is not something I take lightly. We are in an extraordinary time. We have a budget deficit that is out of control and a national debt that is ballooning to levels that are unsustainable. We need a balanced budget amendment so we can begin to get our Nation's finances back in order.

I commend Senator Hatch for his bill and appreciate him offering it. I hope my colleagues will support it. It is essential for our country.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for whatever time I might use.

Madam President, I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you what has been keeping me awake, and I am sure, if I explain it well enough, it will keep you awake as well. Misery loves company. This is misery that is going to affect your future, and the Senate has to make some changes to have a future for this country.

For 14 years, I was the only accountant in the Senate. I have been joined by Senator Johnson of Wisconsin, who is an accountant, and these kinds of numbers always bother us a little bit. I have put together a couple of pie charts here. This one on the left represents the spending we are doing; the one on the right represents the revenue we are receiving to do the spending. These are proportionately correct. This is the spending; this is the revenue to do the spending. Dramatically different. The revenues are dramatically lower.

There are a number of pieces to this that I think probably will reveal more. The spending, incidentally, is $3.456 trillion. We are spending $3.456 trillion. We are taking in $2.2 trillion. That is $1.3 trillion less than we are spending. So we are spending a third more than we are taking in.

How long can you do that? There is no end in sight. What is that made up of? Well, one of the things we worry about is Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. I have the revenues represented here for Social Security and other social insurances, and we are taking in $865 billion a year to support these programs. This piece of the pie is what we are having to put out for those same programs. We are having to put out $1.494 trillion; so $865 billion versus $1.494 trillion.

When we say these programs are going broke, I think that fact is pretty evident. If you don't make any changes, this kind of spending will eliminate a program that seniors rely on. I used to say when we are spending at this rate, we are stealing from our grandkids. Now we are to a point where we have spent so much, it is no longer our grandkids we are stealing from, it is our kids. And in a matter of months the bill could come due.

Europe is having some difficult financial times, and they are changing the way money is going to be available to secure the bonds that allow us to do this kind of spending. These actions could have widespread implications for the United States very soon. We also took Social Security money and put it in a trust fund. I always say, don't trust the trust funds. What we did is put IOUs in a drawer and we spent the money. We are spending some of the money twice. How long can you spend the money twice?

Let us take a look at some of the other parts of this pie, because we always talk about the nondiscretionary spending. Well, to cover our discretionary spending, which includes Defense and all of the nonmandatory items, we are spending $1.349 trillion. And the income? Individual income tax is paying $899 billion. Corporate income tax pays $191 billion. I bet people thought there was a lot more corporate tax than that.

Part of the reason for this corporate number is that a lot of people have single proprietorships, partnerships, or small business corporations. If a business is in one of those three categories, the money their company makes goes straight to their tax line, even though hardly anybody in business can take

out all of the money they make. If they do not reinvest that money into the business, it business would go broke. So they do not get to take the money out, but have to count it through the individual tax code. That goes in this $899 billion of individual income, as opposed to the corporate tax of $191 billion. There is also an excise tax of $67 billion. These are the kinds of numbers that have to fund $1.349 trillion of spending.

We have discretionary spending of $660 billion and we have military spending of $689 billion. I mentioned Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, but besides that we have other mandatory spending adding another $416 billion in spending. That $416 billion accounts for the other items we have said will definitely be paid no matter what kind of shape the Federal Government is in. There are all sorts of programs included in that tally.

This little yellow sliver here, a very important one, is the interest we have to pay. That is mandatory as well. We don't have an option on whether we are going to pay the interest on the bonds that we owe. Those interest costs come to $197 billion a year and that is at the lowest interest rate in the history of the United States. What happens when that goes up? As European countries have more trouble trying to sell their bonds, they are going to have to pay a higher rate to be able to sell those bonds. When they have to pay a higher rate, we will have to pay a higher rate. We are all competing for the same dollars, and there aren't enough dollars out there to fund this kind of an increase in spending each and every year. How do we make up the $1.2 trillion more we are spending than we are taking in? It's a huge difference we aren't coming close to addressing.

I hope people can grasp the difference between spending and revenues. If you look at your own personal budget, your spending better be lower than your revenues, or at least no greater than the revenues. We haven't grasped that concept here yet. We did eliminate earmarks for the most part, and that helps, but it was still a rather small amount and we are still adding programs.

Sometimes we add programs as a demonstration project. A group of Senators get together and they say, our five States could do something beneficial with this new program we have devised, so we will put a little money in the budget and draw up the criteria so just those five States can receive these monies. And the purpose is to see whether the program is effective. In my 14 years here, I have rarely seen one of these types of tailored programs that wasn't effective. I suppose there are some I never heard reported on, but I yet to see one that isn't effective. This means the following year the same group comes back and says, we just had this revelation, this marvelous experiment that happened in our State. It was spectacular and it ought to be expanded to every State in the Nation. Well, if it is that good, it probably ought to be expanded to every State in the Nation. But with whose money? With what money? We are already spending more than we are taking in.

We can't do the demonstration programs on new ideas unless we can eliminate some of the old ideas, which brings up another problem. Another thing we do around here is we say we are going to eliminate this program, and over 10 years it will bring in the $5 billion needed to fund a new program. Well, that savings is accrued over 10 years, but the money on the new program is going to be spent over 1 year or 2 years at the most. That is pretty bad accounting. That is how you get to a situation where you have the current spending level versus the current revenues, by using creative accounting to pay for that new program.

Well, you can't bind a future Congress, so there is no assurance that the current method of getting the revenue will stay around. There is also no assurance we won't use that same pot of revenue two or three times. We will probably be told this is not the case, but I have seen some instances around here where revenue has been spent more than once.

One of the other problems we have around here is that we have too many spending decisions to make. There isn't a business in the world, with the exception of a business like Wal-Mart, that spends $3.456 billion in a year--1 year. There aren't many businesses that comes close to that. And they have a bevy of accountants figuring out how to make expenditures, cuts, and balance the budget for the year.

What we do here in the United States Senate is an appropriations process. We have broken that process down into 12 pieces to make it more manageable, but 12 pieces doesn't cut it. You can't get into the detail for spending the billions. One of those numbers is $689 billion. How long would it take to go through the expenditures on $689 billion? We have to trust some of the past spending and some of the past obligations, but we can't be as conscientious and detail-oriented as we should be.

So what do we do about it? Well, we do omnibus bills. That is where we look at what we spent last year, and we put everything into one package and hurry up and pass it so the government can continue to operate. Before that happens, we might do a series of continuing resolutions. We say, we can't shut down government because there are so many things people need that we have already approved--to the tune of $3.456 trillion--so we have to keep government operating. What we end up with is a continuing resolution.

A continuing resolution allows a government agency to spend one- twelfth of what they had the previous year each month until we get a funding agreement for the remainder of the fiscal year. In 2008, we spent 27 percent less than we spend right now. I think a lot of the agencies would be delighted to have us keep continuing one-twelfth of their last year's allotted spending each month this year. That is what we have been doing, and it's not getting us anywhere.

I think there ought to be a penalty, which would be reflected in every one of the budgets. I think every time we pass a continuing resolution there ought to be a reduction in the amount spent each month until we get a final resolution. That could be 1 percent or \1/2\ percent or \1/4\ percent, but there should be some kind of a reduction if we are ever going to reduce spending and pay down our debt.

There is another responsibility, and that is for appropriators to figure out how to get this spending circle down to the size of the revenue circle. This is the only part that the Appropriations Committee has worked on--this little third of the square that contains discretionary spending.

What we are going to have to do now is come up with some solutions. I have some solutions. I am not going to go into those today, but what I want people to do right now is to think about how much we are spending versus the revenue we have. Every person in America needs to be thinking about the way the programs they are involved in can be a part of getting the spending circle down to the size of the revenue circle. It is everybody's responsibility.

What we continually run into are the groups--particularly from our States--that come in and say: I have this fantastic program and we just need a little increase for inflation because it is such a phenomenal program. For years, we have been able to do that. That is how the balloon got this big. We are not going to be able to do that anymore.

What would be helpful is if people could suggest how, in their program, they could make it better for less money. It is either going to have to be better for less with a little pain right now, or wait a couple years and have it worse for less with a lot of pain.

We are at a point right now where we reduce spending 1 percent for each of 7 years and get to a balanced budget; that is, 1 percent true cuts. That isn't 1 percent less growth. It is 1 percent true cuts each and every year, and it has to cover the whole circle, not just the discretionary part of the spending circle--which is what we usually concentrate on--and then have some discretionary capability on it. The fact is, the largest amounts we spend in this whole piece of the pie is spent on mandatory spending, and it is conversely funded by a much smaller amount. We can't do that for long. We are going to have to propose solutions.

Instead we have been in scenario where people come in and say we need a little bit more money or don't cut my program; keep it the same size. I ask for suggestions on how we could keep this practice going in light of our disproportionate revenues and expenditures. The usual approach is to tell me

and my fellow senators there are a couple of other programs that we ought to eliminate. We are looking at those too.

We looked at them in the Health and Human Services areas, Senator Coburn and I did, and found there was $9 billion of duplication. Do we need duplication? I would hope not. Senator Coburn got so excited, he did this same study for the entire Federal Government and found $900 billion in duplication. Does that mean a whole lot of other agencies were a whole lot less efficient than Health and Human Services? No. It means we have duplicative programs in every single agency.

We also have financial literacy programs in every single agency. If we are spending $3.456 trillion and only getting $2.2 trillion in revenue, is the financial literacy in our government working? I don't think so.

When I first got here, there were 119 preschool education programs. Preschool is important. The start children get from when they are first born until they go to school makes a huge difference in their growth and development for the rest of their lives. However, we had 119 programs and once we took a closer look, we found many of them, according to their own evaluation, were failing. We now have that number down to 69 programs. Do you know why we can't go below 69? My jurisdiction as Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is over the Department of Education, which only has 8 programs--8 of 69 preschool programs. The Department of Agriculture has the most preschool programs.

That's why, when Senator Coburn is talking about duplication and looking at the complete picture of everything the Federal Government does, there is duplication in each and every agency. What we are going to have to do is pick out those that operate with the most efficiency and results, give them a little more funding and eliminate the other duplicative programs. Getting rid of duplication is a surer way of solving the problem than some of the other ways that have been talked about.

One other avenue we keep talking about is waste, fraud, and abuse. Yes, there is waste, fraud, and abuse. We need everybody in America to help us find that waste, fraud, and abuse, but in reality, the total cost of waste, fraud, and abuse is a rather elusive number. Does anybody know how big that is? Everybody is guessing. It is only a guess how much there is. We need to find it, and we need to be taking the money from eliminating these actions before we spend it.

We will sometimes attempt to use the waste, fraud, and abuse numbers as the pay-for for a new program. We aren't able to spend that money until we actually have it, but what happens it is used as pay-for and the program goes into effect, but nobody follows up to go out and dig up that waste, fraud, and abuse. Instead, the waste, fraud, and abuse money ought to go into a fund before it can be spent on something else.

However, when I am talking about duplication, the $900 billion worth of duplication, I am talking about numbers that we can go to the Federal budget and look up. We can find out exactly how much those programs are spending. In its duplication, we wouldn't eliminate all of them, but we ought to be able to eliminate half of them. Madam President, $450 billion alone, half of Senator Coburn's total duplication findings, would be a huge change for this country.

I hope we look at some of those ideas to cut spending. I have a 15- page speech that would explain some ways we could solve this problem, but what I am trying to do is get people to grasp the concept that our Federal tax receipts, and total revenue, is far outweighed by the circle that shows what we are spending. As a family, people know they can't budget this way. As a government, we can't do it for very long, even if we print our own money. Somehow we are going to have to shrink the spending circle down until it is that size or grow the revenue circle until it is--they are comparable in size, or a combination of the two. As I said, I will give some other speeches to outline some of my other ideas. In the meantime, I hope everybody will take a look at the chart I have shown today.

We can't look at it and say don't touch Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, we can't have $\1/2\ trillion of extra expenditure spending in that category alone for long. There is another $416 trillion in mandatory spending in that same category. How long can we keep spending at this rate? What happens if interest rates go up? This piece of the spending pie can become much bigger and probably will. I don't know how long we can keep interest rates as low rate as they are now. If they go up, it will help some seniors because they have some investments in cash that would get higher interest rates, but for the country as a whole, rising interest rates that already make up 6 percent of our budget will only be more cause for worry. When that one expands above the 1 percent we are spending right now--and it is going to expand in the next couple of years because of what is happening in Europe--we had better be worried about it.

This is the kind of picture shown by the deficit commission that Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson chaired. I was hoping we would repaint this picture a number of times between the time they released their report 1 year ago and now, because we have to get America to understand. Actually, I can tell you the people in my State understand this. I don't need to explain it to them. They know how much more we are spending versus what we are taking in. They can even tell you the numbers. They are concerned, and they need to be concerned. We all need to be concerned.

I am open to suggestions on this. I will have some speeches I'll give later reiterating this definite problem we are in. I have said a number of times our country has maxed out its credit cards.

A couple weeks ago during a trip to Wyoming, I checked into a hotel and I used my Senate credit card. The lady a few moments later, very embarrassed, said: ``I am sorry, but your card is being rejected.'' I said: ``I guess the Federal Government is in worse trouble than I thought,'' and used my own card and it went through.

We had better be worrying about it now because we do have a problem. We have maxed out our credit cards, and there are not any other places we can go for money. We have been the bastion of money for years.

Keep in this in mind. Start thinking of ways we can actually make some cuts and increase some revenues. I have ideas for both in speeches I'll give in the future. We are in a crisis. It will be a more immediate crisis any time and we are no longer spending our grandkids' money; we are spending our kids' money, and it is about to come due on us. When I say ``on us,'' I am even including myself and the seniors in that count. The day of reckoning is not far away.

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

Mr. President, I have introduced this resolution to prevent the labor dispute between our Nation's railroads and their labor unions from delivering a knockout punch to the U.S. economy just before the holiday season. The contract renegotiation that has been ongoing for some time has been through the National Mediation Board process and recommendations put forth by the Presidential Emergency Board selected by President Obama have been accepted by the majority of the unions. In fact, 10 of the 13 unions have reached agreement, and I congratulate both sides for coming to the table and working it out. Unfortunately, the threat of a nationwide rail strike still remains and that is something our economy simply cannot bear at this time.

I have heard from numerous U.S. manufacturers about the negative consequences this strike will have on them. They are concerned not just for their companies but for the employees who may have to be laid off if they are unable to ship product and for the customers who will not be able to get supplies they need. A rail strike may start on December 6, but the impact of this threat is already being felt. As someone who comes from a State that relies on commercial rail for much of its economy, I know how serious this is and that is why I have introduced this resolution.

I urge the Senate, the House and the President to act quickly to avert this manmade national disaster.