Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to support the Chambliss-Shelby derivative substitute, and I am very pleased to indicate that I am a cosponsor of that amendment.

There is no doubt, when you are talking about derivatives, you are talking about contractual obligations that are as complicated as any financial industry in our system. So going about trying to figure out how best to regulate them is no easy task. I think that is acknowledged on both sides.

Both the Banking and the Agriculture Committees have wrestled with what is the best approach to regulating this market that, to date, has been somewhat unregulated, to say the least. I regret to say that the current derivatives title that is in the bill being debated--if you study it--is overregulation 101.

I worry about the host of unintended consequences that will beset our economy if it passes in its current form. It is not accidental that there has been article after article pointing out how much heartburn there is on both sides of the aisle relative to the current proposal that is being debated.

The Chambliss-Shelby derivatives substitute is a sensible approach. I have talked to dozens and dozens of those impacted. I have to tell you they are very concerned about the downside impact on our economy.

They say it is unnecessary with the new, robust clearing regime that is in place. Yet the Dodd bill has an exchange requirement.

Why would we not enact meaningful clearing regulations and then add another layer on top, if necessary?

Additionally, I worry about the trickle-down effects for community banks that hedge their interest rate risks with large banks. I come from the State of Nebraska. I don't even think there is a Wall Street in the State of Nebraska. We are basically small community banks. I have had some of our smallest banks warn me about the dangers of the Dodd proposal.

If these larger institutions are banned from engaging in swaps, as the Dodd bill would do, who will work with the community banks to keep interest rates low for our farmers, ranchers, and small businesses?

Furthermore, banning banks from engaging in derivatives isn't going to stop the practice. We don't pass laws for the world. We pass laws for the United States. All we are going to end up doing is sending this $600 trillion market out of this country. In fact, I had a small community banker in my office recently who said to me: Mike, these products are absolutely essential to what I do.

If they are forced to another part of the world, we will be forced to acquire that product from another part of the world.

Driving this activity back into the dark--which is what we would do if that were to happen--and actually increasing our risk and putting it in an economic climate outside the United States is a meltdown recipe.

The underlying bill treats farm credit system institutions similar to the big Wall Street firms. It doesn't exempt them from coming up with costly capital and margin requirements. Does anybody believe for a second that isn't going to hurt farmers and ranchers and the cost of their loans? I was the former Secretary of Agriculture. Please, believe me, you cannot do this and not expect to have a very negative consequence on farmers and ranchers and small businesses.

Farm credit institutions, our farmers, and farm cooperatives had nothing

to do with this financial meltdown. Yet they are being dragged down with the ship.

Finally, certain trades are simply so unique but so necessary and so specialized that the clearing requirements simply don't work. That doesn't mean they should not be transparent or that they should not be disclosed, but we should recognize the uniqueness of that situation. Why punish these trades that may pose no systemic risk by imposing higher capital requirements? Yet that is what the Dodd bill does.

The bill before us has the potential to have very negative impacts on our economy. It is simply an overreach. I am not the only one here today who has serious concerns.

The White House, the Federal Reserve, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, and the Chair of the FDIC have raised similar concerns relative to this approach.

On April 30, 2010, in a letter from FDIC's Sheila Bair, she says this:

If all derivatives market-making activities were moved

outside of bank holding companies, most of the activity would

no doubt continue, but in less regulated and more highly

leveraged venues.

A Federal Reserve staff memo says this:

The prohibition would not promote financial stability or

strong prudential regulation of derivatives or derivatives

dealers; would have serious consequences for the

competitiveness of U.S. financial institutions; and would be

highly disruptive and costly, both for banks and customers.

My point exactly. Finally, Chairman Volcker also expressed concerns with the derivatives title of the bill:

The provision of derivatives by commercial banks to their

customers in the usual course of a banking relationship

should not be prohibited.

I worry that at some point the Senators are going to come to the floor and pass this mess, and we are going to be stuck with it.

The Shelby-Chambliss amendment is a thoughtful and reasonable approach. It will increase transparency and government oversight of the derivatives market. If we do what is proposed with this Dodd bill, we will push derivatives right back into the shadows. They will be unregulated and they will occur in another part of the world and we will bear the risk and the cost of that.

These individuals simply used derivatives--these people I am talking about are farmers, ranchers, farmers co-ops--to protect themselves from risk. They are not Wall Street speculators.

This proposal from the Shelby-Chambliss approach simply says: Let's use common sense when it comes to the derivatives market. It brings the current unregulated over-the-counter derivatives market into the light where transparency is paramount.

This is an enormous departure from current law. In fact, it is a 180- degree change. It attempts to bring swap trades onto a clearing platform. Yet it also recognizes that companies across our country use these complex products as part of their business activity every day to protect themselves from unreasonable risk.

Look who is supporting this proposal. This approach has gained the support of the National Association of Manufacturers. That can hardly claim to be Wall Street insiders.

The alternative recognizes the negative consequences businesses would face with too rigid a law. Those dangers are obvious--loss of jobs, jobs moving overseas, constriction in liquidity, lack of credit, higher interest rates for farmers in my State, and higher farm input costs.

It also distinguishes that these businesses were not part of the economic meltdown. They are not the AIGs of the world. Instead, they are the companies that use derivatives to manage their finances to keep down their costs, to control interest rate fluctuations, to manage currency volatility and other risk mitigation tools.

The recent prices revealed how inadequate our oversight of derivatives was and how complex this area is. But if we adopt this blanket approach on the rhetoric of punishing Wall Street, what we will do is punish our farmers, our ranchers, our small business people. We will punish the people who are working this area by literally eliminating their jobs.

I thank Senators Chambliss and Shelby. They understand what is at stake. This is a reasonable approach and an approach I am glad to support.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am just going to speak for 2 minutes this morning, but I would like to stand to take a moment to voice my support for the Tester-Hutchison amendment.

This amendment will ensure that banks of all sizes pay their fair share by broadening the assessment base that is used by the FDIC. The FDIC would determine bank premiums by basing it on total assets, not just domestic deposits. For far too long, community banks have paid a disproportionate share of the deposit insurance premiums.

This amendment levels the playing field. It is a good piece of policy. It will put community banks on a more equal footing with the large bank conglomerates. So I urge my colleagues to vote for this commonsense amendment.

Let me wrap up by saying, the Independent Community Bankers have looked at this amendment. This amendment would reduce assessments for 98 percent of the banks with less than $10 billion in assets, keeping nearly $4.5 billion in the banks--much needed capital to make our economy grow.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to discuss the consumer protection piece of the financial reform bill we have been debating.

Let me start by expressing my appreciation for the good work of Chairman Dodd and the good work of Ranking Member Shelby and others who are making their way through a thoughtful process to try to get an overall bill that will work.

This piece of the bill, though, in my judgment, needs a tremendous amount of effort, attention, and work yet. The consumer protection piece has generated a lot of debate. We have all asked the question in Banking Committee hearings and on the floor: What is the best way to protect consumers? Let me underscore that. This has not been a debate about whether we do or not. No one is talking about ignoring this piece of the legislation. No one is advocating that we do nothing on consumer protections. What we are trying to focus on is the best way of doing it. We need to keep that perspective in mind as this debate unfolds and motives and words get distorted and stretched.

The bill before us establishes a consumer protection regime that is going to be housed at the Federal Reserve. But let me emphasize, that does not mean it is under its supervision. It functions like a stand- alone agency.

This new ``bureau'' will have what I would describe as unprecedented powers. It will reach into nearly every area of our economy with power over nearly everything. Anything that resembles the term ``financial in nature'' will come within the purview of this bureau.

I must admit, as this debate was going on, I found it surprising, if not shocking, that folks such as car dealers, accountants, and lawyers were showing up at my office to talk about the impact on them. It is no wonder that so many business groups have come out in opposition to this current piece of this legislation. I am not talking about banks. I am talking about business groups.

The Chamber of Commerce sent a letter outlining concerns on April 28 on behalf of--and I am using their language--``hundreds of thousands of nonfinancial services businesses.'' These hundreds of thousands of businesses--many of them small businesses--had absolutely nothing to do with the last crisis. Yet with this new bureau, I believe they will be punished or, at a minimum, tied up in redtape.

There are many pieces of this on which I could spend a lot of time talking on the floor, but what I have tried to do today is to encapsulate my thoughts into five areas, five concerns, if you will.

The first area is the unlimited rulemaking authority provided for in this legislation. Because the term ``abusive'' was added to the unfair and deceptive acts or standards, there is virtually no limit to the kinds of rules this new bureau can write.

We also know that the term ``abusive'' is entirely subjective. So how do you determine abusive? Will you make each customer take a financial literacy test? Is abusive different for Mike Johanns than it is the next customer? Because ``abusive'' can be defined so differently from one customer to the next, we can see the unlimited problem that is created.

The second area, no veto power. I consistently said that it is a mistake to separate consumer protection from the issues of safety and soundness of the institution. If a proposed rule will have a negative effect on the safety and soundness of financial institutions, then we need some kind of checks and balances. Checks and balances are good. In this bill under debate, this new agency only has to list the regulator's concerns, not take them into any kind of meaningful consideration.

The third area, privacy rights. While there are a lot of privacy concerns here, two major ones come to mind.

Let me go to the language of the bill itself. Section 1022 mandates the bureau to:

. . . gather information . . . regarding the organization,

business conduct, markets, and activities of persons

operating in consumer financial services markets.

A person is defined in the bill as an ``individual.'' So do you follow me? What this means is the bureau can look into the business conduct of the average person out there.

Section 1071 requires any deposit-taking financial institution to geocode customer addresses and maintain records of deposits for at least 3 years.

As Jim Harper from the Cato Institute described it:

Think of the government having its own Google map of where

you and your neighbors do your banking.

Is that what Americans want out of this bill?

The fourth item is the preemption standard. The current bill really changes current Federal law under the guise of giving States more power over their consumer protection laws. This worries me. This will wreak havoc for financial companies operating in more than one State. What we would be saying is they will have to comply with a patchwork of 51 State laws, and State AGs will have the power to enforce State and Federal laws against national banks. If this were the way since the beginning of time, one might say: Well, they have adapted to it. But to put them in this kind of regimen is literally to say to them: You are going to have to chew up mountains of capital to try to comply with all these various rules and regulations and laws of the various States.

The fifth item I wanted to mention is the expansive reach. This bill includes what I regard as an overly broad definition of ``consumer financial product or service'' and ``service provider.'' Specifically, section 1027 will subject numerous merchants to the regulation of this new bureau just because the business provides the ability to their customers to repay in four installments.

Imagine that you order a camcorder for the holidays off a home shopping network. This company provides you with the flexibility of making four installment payments. This new company could be swept under this new bureau. How long do you think companies will continue to provide that kind of flexible option to consumers if they are going to be buried in regulation? That is why the dentists, the lawyers, the advertising agencies, the accountants, and even florists are concerned with this bill and are showing up in our offices saying: What are you doing? I don't know about anyone else, but I can make the case without any hesitation that my local florist doesn't come to mind when I think about the players who brought our economy to the edge.

In response to this expansive and unfettered bureau, I am proud to announce my support for an alternative. This alternative, led by Senator Shelby, is well thought out, is a reasonable approach and I believe a compromise to a very difficult issue in this legislation. It would establish a consumer protection division within the FDIC, which I believe is a natural fit since this agency is already tasked with protecting consumer deposit accounts. This new division would have authority to make rules relative to consumer protection. All rules, regulations, and

orders would receive the approval of the board of the FDIC--an important check and balance. This is a very important distinction in terms of what we are debating today. Board approval will ensure that actions taken by the division appropriately consider safety and soundness of the financial institution, while ensuring that consumer safeguards are in place. While it allows primary supervision and enforcement to exist with the existing regulators, it does not bring in nonbank mortgage originators for supervision.

I will end on a final thought. Many have claimed that these mortgage insurers acted unfairly and that they preyed upon unsophisticated borrowers during the last crisis. This ensures the mortgage broker operating out of his garage or whatever is going to be regulated.

Finally, this new agency will be able to go after the bad actors, and that is what we should be doing. Anyone who shows a pattern of material violations will be brought under this new FDIC division.

Let me wrap up where I began. I applaud all my colleagues who have spent so much time and energy focusing on the consumer piece of this regulatory reform. Chairman Dodd led us through hearing after hearing trying to figure out the best way to protect consumers. Senator Shelby, our ranking member, worked on those issues in concert. We can get this right, but in my judgment, where we are today, the proposed legislation on the floor does not get it right. Let's focus on getting it right, getting the bad actors.

I believe the approach that is being championed by Ranking Member Shelby is a reasoned one that elevates consumer protection while keeping safety and soundness as a paramount consideration. I ask my colleagues to support the alternative.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise for a few minutes to talk about S. 3217, the financial regulatory reform bill. I focus, if I could, my comments today on why the cloture vote on financial reform is such an important key vote.

My colleagues from the other side have talked about this vote, and it is often referred to as a procedural vote to begin debate. Almost in the same sentence, I think both sides of the aisle recognize that notwithstanding the good work that has been done by Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby, there is still much to be done on this bill, and there are still some significant flaws within the bill.

The argument goes on to say: Don't worry, these problems can be worked out on the Senate floor. We will have a robust debate, and we will have floor amendments. So get the bill to the floor--the argument goes--and the promises made to fix it will then happen.

But that is where the logic goes into the ditch. Once this bill does get to the floor of the Senate, we all recognize it is going to be very difficult to change it. Look at the health care bill to see how difficult it was to make changes. Let me make that comparison because I think it is a fair comparison.

During the health care debate, let me remind my colleagues, there were 488 amendments that were filed. Of those 488 amendments, only 28 received a vote--28 out of 488. Of those 28 amendments, only 11 amendments passed. This being said, only 2 percent of all the health care amendments filed actually got passed.

If we look at the partisan nature of this bill, it even becomes more blatant. If we look at the Republican amendments, we come to the conclusion that there was a serious problem. Only one Republican amendment passed. So the death knell of the amendment depended upon whether it had an ``R'' or a ``D'' behind the name.

The notion that we will be able to fix a bill--and again, everybody is acknowledging it is a flawed bill--on the Senate floor is pure folly. History is our greatest teacher. Instead, I respectfully suggest that what we need to do is get serious about reaching a bipartisan compromise.

I have said publicly, and I will say on the Senate floor every opportunity I get, that with a sufficient amount of work, this bill can get 70 or 80 votes. We have worked on this issue on the Banking Committee for months and months, trying to understand what went wrong and how best to fix it. The American people want Members of the Senate to work together on the bill. They wonder what on Earth has come of Congress when they see us holding the exact same cloture vote on the exact same legislation day after day.

They ask a simple question: Why can't you just sit down and work through these differences of opinion?

I am mindful of the fact that this is probably clever messaging--a clever messaging ploy by Washington's standards. But by Nebraskan standards, we are tired of Washington cleverness and the partisan rhetoric that goes with it. I can tell you that people want a bill that will end too big to fail and protect our economy from financial meltdown. What they don't want is a bill written so broadly that it impacts businesses in segments of our economy that play no part in the economic collapse. I want these same things.

I still believe we can accomplish this. My hope is that we can quit making this an issue of political gamesmanship and talking points and start working toward a solution.

I have consistently stated that the issue of regulatory reform isn't a partisan exercise. The issue just doesn't cut on ``R'' or ``D'' lines. We can get a broad, bipartisan bill if we stop the attacks and focus on trying to solve the differences that still exist on this bill--important policy differences.

Stop the daily cloture votes. I understand the political theater of that, but it doesn't lend itself to solving problems. What we need is a bipartisan effort, where people sit down and work through these differences of opinion.

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

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize an outstanding young Nebraskan for her spirit of community service and for her dedication to making a difference in the lives of others.

Jordan Somer is currently a junior at Central High School in Omaha, NE. At Central High School, she is a member of the school's dance team and is involved in student clubs.

Jordan's vision was to create a pageant for girls and women with disabilities. In 2007, she founded the Miss Amazing Pageant. Now in its fourth

year, the annual pageant encourages girls and women with disabilities to develop their public speaking skills and to build a positive self- image.

The Miss Amazing Pageant not only provides girls and women with disabilities with opportunities to shine, but also makes a clear difference in the community. Each participant in the Miss Amazing Pageant is asked to donate four cans of food. This food is then given to people in need. Jordan's pageant also gives back the money raised through ticket sales and silent auctions. Since 2007, Jordan's pageant has generously donated $15,000 to various community organizations.

I am pleased to recognize Jordan as a winner of the National Youth Service Award for Global Youth Service Day. It was a special honor for me to nominate someone so deserving of this award. Her service and leadership through the Miss Amazing Pageant has made a difference in the lives of individuals with disabilities and in Nebraska communities.

I want to express my personal congratulations to Jordan on her National Youth Service Award. I commend her for the worthy example she is setting for other young people and wish her all the best in her future endeavors.

Mr. President, let me start my comments today by thanking the senior Senator from Illinois. It has been an honor to join with him on this important resolution.

I rise today to pay my respects to the people of Poland, to acknowledge the great work of their President, President Lech Kaczynski, to acknowledge the death of his wife and 94 other Poles who died in the plane crash in western Russia this last Saturday, April 10.

They were traveling to Katyn, Russia for a memorial service to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet killing of more than 20,000 Polish officers in 1940.

Among the Polish leaders killed in the plane crash last Saturday were dozens of members of Parliament, revolutionary heroes from 1989, senior military commanders, and the president of the national bank. This is a terrible, heartbreaking loss, not just for Poland but for its close friend and ally, the United States.

The tight bond that has been forged between Poland and this country has been one of the most welcome results of the end of the Cold War. Since the fall of communism, in which the Polish Solidarity movement played a major role, Poland has led the way in building a pro-United States free market democracy. Poland's access to NATO in 1999 has led to invaluable Polish contributions to peace and stability around our world. Polish soldiers have fought side by side with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, including in key coalition leadership positions. We have suffered together when our troops took casualties, and today we grieve together.

The foundation of our close partnership was laid by many Polish immigrants to America. Today, over 9 million Americans of Polish descent reside in the United States, including the State of Nebraska. I am very proud to be one of them. My grandparents immigrated here from Poland many decades ago.

The Polish are an important part of this great country and have been since the earliest days of our Nation when they helped settle Jamestown, VA. I am very pleased to introduce this resolution along with the senior Senator from Illinois. The senior Senator may not know this, but he represents some of my relatives in Chicago, and represents them well. I joined with him and all of our colleagues in a moment of silence, as we have done today. I want to pay our respects to the Poles, both in this part of the country and across this great Nation, as well as in Poland. I also acknowledge the great contributions they have made to our country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to a great Nebraskan and great American. Last week, we lost a visionary figure who, through years of service, made lasting contributions to our society: former University of Nebraska chancellor and later U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Clifford Hardin.

I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Cliff Hardin. His lifetime of service both in government and academia provides a shining example of the impact one person can have.

As chancellor of the University of Nebraska, Cliff was the steady hand that guided the University through a turbulent era. He was appointed to the position in 1954 at the age of 38--the youngest university president in the country at the time. His tenure at Nebraska lasted 15 years.

In reading the many tributes to Cliff over the last week, I was touched by one particular story that showed his true colors. Upon learning that a rival university had plans to place Nebraska's Black football players in one hotel and the White players in a separate hotel, he refused to let the team even board the plane to go to the game. It wasn't long until the other school changed course and offered the same accommodations for all players.

As Secretary of Agriculture, Cliff was a results-oriented advocate for farmers and ranchers in my home State of Nebraska and across the country. He put a premium on bipartisanship, and his

distinguished record of accomplishments set a wonderful example for me during my time as Secretary of Agriculture. As Congress works this year to reauthorize child nutrition programs, his impact is still felt. It was then-Secretary Hardin who established the Food and Nutrition Service within the Department of Agriculture to administer nutrition programs.

I extend my deepest condolences to the entire Hardin family. Cliff leaves behind a legacy of service and leadership. He will be missed but not forgotten.

Mr. President, I am proud to rise tonight and follow, first of all, Senator Sessions. He has come to the floor many times on this issue and talked about the crisis that is building in our Nation relative to the spending and the debt. He always speaks with such eloquence.

I also want to say thank you to my colleague, Senator Coburn, for giving me an opportunity to come down tonight and offer a few thoughts in the

time that we have. I appreciate it immensely.

Senator Coburn puts himself in a very difficult situation by standing on principle because, of course, he makes himself a target of somebody who wants to say he is not caring about the people who are out there and looking for work. I know him and very much that is the opposite. But here is the point. Here is what we are facing in this Nation. We are literally getting to a stage in our history where the cascading amount of debt is like a huge snowball that now is gaining enormous momentum as it comes down the mountain. It is just growing bigger and bigger.

I am going to head back home to Nebraska tomorrow. I am going to have an opportunity to get across the State. I have some--we call them community coffees but townhall meetings. I am going to talk to the people of Nebraska. I will guarantee that one of the first things on their agenda will be to raise concern about the spending and the debt they see going on here in Washington.

Let me, if I might, take a moment and talk about the ethic of the State that I come from because I think it is enormously important in terms of what we are doing. I might add, I have had an opportunity as county commissioner, as city council member, a mayor, and a Governor to represent this great State.

In my job as mayor of Lincoln, I was a strong mayor, so I was the guy responsible for the budget. Here is how we did it. There was only so much money that was available, and what we would do is we would put a list down, page after page, of very important priorities for the community. At some point on this list there would be a line drawn and my budget director would say to me: Mayor, if you want to go below that line and fund some of these other important priorities, you are going to have to look above that line and figure out what you can live without because it is at this line that we have to quit spending. Otherwise, our bond rating will be in jeopardy. Otherwise, the economic stability of this community will be in jeopardy.

You know what. We made some very hard choices. We had some things we would have loved to have done, but we began to realize we just couldn't fit them into the budget.

Then I had the good fortune of becoming the Governor of the State of Nebraska, and it didn't change anything. The Nebraska Constitution says we can only borrow $50,000. Maybe at some point in our State's history that was a handsome sum of money, but in effect what the constitution says is we cannot borrow money.

While other Governors were balancing budgets by issuing bonds and debt, we did not have that alternative. I had really three choices: raise taxes, which I did not like and opposed, cut spending, or do both. And I cut spending.

You could look at many places in that budget and say, well, Mike, why did you choose this versus that? And you could have a great debate about why this priority versus that priority. But in the end, what we were doing was trying to choose the priorities for our State without borrowing money, without putting our State in debt, while maintaining economic stability.

I want to share that our State has fared as well as any State in the country during this very tough economic time. Our unemployment rate is about 4\1/2\ percent. We value our businesses, we create jobs, and we do not spend money we do not have.

I came out here a year ago--a little more than a year ago--to join the Senate. I am as proud today as I was then to be here on the Senate floor. But here is what I will tell you: I am worried about where we are headed with this budget. You see, this $9 billion is very manageable. We want to provide unemployment insurance to the people who need it. We all do. We want to help these people. But we have a multitrillion-dollar budget here, and in effect what we are saying to the American people is that we cannot find $9 billion to offset the cost of that.

We can do better than that because, if that is what we are acknowledging, that we cannot find $9 billion to offset the cost of that important priority, then, my goodness, how will we ever deal with a budget deficit that is over $1 trillion annually--annually--as far as the eye can see.

I see I am running out of time, but I want to end with this thought. I had a wonderful group of schoolkids from Nebraska in today, from Superior, NE. I have been to Superior many times. It is a great community. And these kids are great kids. As I was talking about the various things that had happened here, I said something to them that I hope made the point of the need to take responsible action on this budget. I said this year I will celebrate my 60th birthday. God will not keep me on this Earth long enough to pay the debt that has been incurred.

It is no consolation to Nebraskans that I go home and say to them: I have been here over a year, and I figured out who is at fault, because, you know what, they are not caring about who is at fault. They are saying: Mike, we elected you to go back there and lend your voice to try to fix these problems.

It will be of no consolation for me to go home and say, well, it was the Democrats or it was the Republicans. It will be no consolation.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell.) The Senator has used the time that has been yielded to him.

I said to those kids: I will not be on Earth long enough to pay this debt. I said to them: That means that will fall to you.

Do you know what I am saying to those kids? I am saying that the quality of their lives will be impacted by the fact that we could not take responsible action to deal with this debt.

I would like to say to them: You will not have any more wars. But they will have their own wars to fight. They will have their own pandemics to deal with. They will have their own recessions they have to somehow fund and finance. And they will have their own challenges they will have to deal with. You know what. If we do not start coming to grips with this debt, they will not have the resources to manage their way through those challenges.

You see, tonight is not about unemployment insurance. We want to help those people. Tonight is about making the statement that we have to take control of this because it is taking control of the future of those young people.

I yield the floor and the remainder of my time to Senator Coburn.

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business, and I would also like to lock in, if you will, that Senator Landrieu will follow me.

I rise today to discuss the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Identification System. Over the past several years, USDA has administered a system called the National Animal Identification System, NAIS.

The ultimate goal of the system was to keep track of animal movements so that we could trace back animals in the event of a disease outbreak. The first step under animal ID was to register farms where animals are housed, also known as premises, and that registration was to occur in a database.

After registering a premise, a producer could identify individual animals or groups of animals that moved to or from a premise, each given an individual ID number. This system worked for those who wanted to use it. But no one was forced to participate. In other words, it was a voluntary system.

If producers wanted to participate in the program so they could keep track of an animal's movements or because a trading partner might be more inclined to buy their product, or for any reason that worked well with their operation, then it was there for them. It was at their disposal.

But as long as NAIS was in existence, it was a voluntary program. Now, recently, on February 5, 2010, USDA announced it was doing away with that and developing a new framework for animal disease traceability in the United States.

It caught my attention as a former Secretary of Agriculture. The Obama administration completed a series of listening sessions held by USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service--we refer to them as APHIS--and those were done just last year.

Having held farm bill forums across the country as the Secretary of Agriculture, I applaud any effort to hear directly from farmers and ranchers. I applaud USDA for seeking input on NAIS. I was very appreciative that, at my request, one of those animal ID listening sessions was, in fact, held in my own home State of Nebraska.

But I must admit, after the listening sessions I was very surprised at the new framework that the USDA has developed. USDA says the new program is not a mandatory program except for animals that travel to a different State from where they were born.

Think about that. With that little caveat, that basically means the program is a mandatory program for a whole lot of livestock in the United States. You see, anybody who has any farm background or agricultural experience will tell you that the vast majority of animals in this country move to a different State in their lifetime.

It is just simply a fact. Additionally, the program is mandatory not only for premise registration but for the actual tracking of the animal. Here is the real kicker. State governments will be tasked with keeping track of the livestock under the new system.

It is almost like this administration realized how much opposition there was to a mandatory system--and, believe me, there is--and decided to hand the hot potato to the States. But in doing that, they said, thou shalt do it but keep the headache off our desks.

States are genuinely and rightfully concerned about this new program potentially being dumped on them. I am already hearing from officials and producers in my home State, and they are enormously concerned by this proposal. Some groups are even urging the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, which would be tasked with administering the program, to refuse to participate. And, believe me, this is not the last State that will weigh in on this very controversial proposal.

Later this week, there is a meeting of State departments of agriculture, State veterinarians, and other interested parties to further examine this issue. That is why I am on the Senate floor. I am going to be very anxious to hear their input and to hear the outcome of that meeting because there is great concern in farm country for this proposal. My hope is that conference participants can get some answers to some basic questions.

Consider this: Let's say a Nebraska farmer buys a Nebraska calf with no tracking number and puts it out in a Nebraska pasture. So that is in state. That is pretty clear. No need to comply.

Sometime later, after that calf has gained some weight, it is then taken to the auction barn, the sale barn. At this point, in the sale barn, there are multiple buyers from all over the country typically. There could be buyers from Nebraska and Kansas, Iowa, and other States. They are all in the arena to bid on their calves.

But apparently only buyers from Nebraska could make bids even though other buyers from other States might offer more money. Let's say by chance a Nebraska feedlot is the highest bidder and buys the calf, still in state, can feed that calf out--still no need to comply with the animal ID program. But now, some months later, the steer is ready to go to the packing plant, but the plant is on the other side of the river in another State, and they will pay more than a plant instate for that animal. Wait a second. Can the feedlot owner sell to the Iowa meat processor? Apparently not because the two owners prior to him chose to not participate in the program.

The bottom line: Many livestock auctions attract bidders from in state and States all over the country. So one can assume all animals sold through an auction barn will be required to have animal ID. For those who have been to these sales, can you imagine literally the auctioneer stopping the sale and saying: These animals are not registered; only Nebraska purchasers can buy the animals. If they were not ID'd, auctioneers would literally have to stop the bidding and announce where the potential seller resides for each animal without a tracking number. Then many of the buyers must sit on the sidelines, visit the bathroom, go to the vending machine, anything but bid on their calf. Can you imagine. It just doesn't make any sense. What will be the viability of the cattle operations in this country for that sale barn? What about the rancher who sells some of his cattle in state and some of it goes to facilities in other States? Will that person be required to tag some of the animals in the feedlot but not others? He or she is going to spend more time trying to figure out how to comply with the USDA program than he or she will spend ranching. Producers are basically going to be forced to fully participate in the program. I think the USDA knows it. If a potential buyer is from another State, there can be no deal unless the animal has the tracking number.

This looks like a backdoor mandate that is being packaged as something else. Worse yet, the package is being delivered and dropped on the doorstep of our States. Let's face facts. This so-called new animal ID plan is a mandatory system, when it was promoted as a voluntary one. In my judgment, to be blunt, this is a wolf in sheep's clothing, but America's farmers and ranchers are not going to be fooled. They know better than anyone that the vast majority of agricultural commerce occurs across State lines and even country to country. They deserve better.

Let me be clear. I did not come here to be critical of the fact that USDA is considering new approaches. In fact, I acknowledge that when I was the Secretary, I called a timeout to fully understand the complexities of the animal ID and to hear from producers. I openly said: I am considering making this a mandatory program. I thought a mandatory approach might be necessary, and we listened and studied it very closely.

Then we went to the countryside. We listened to farmers and ranchers. What we heard overwhelmingly is: Mike, do not make this a mandatory program. We realized that producers already comply with a laundry list of Federal regulations. In this administration, it grows by the day. They take numerous steps to ensure the safety of their animals. That is their livelihood. Mandating an animal identification system would have been one more costly burden dictated on the rancher by the Federal Government.

I appeal to my friend Secretary Vilsack. We were Governors together. I know where you are coming from. I went down that road too. I can tell you, Mr. Secretary, it is a dead end. On one hand, USDA has acknowledged the broad and deep opposition in the countryside when the administration seemed to say: We are going to go forward anyway. Our producers themselves have spent years trying to understand what NAIS is about. There is no repackaging that will convince them another Federal mandate is a good idea. Does this administration think States will embrace this hot potato with all the costs and the unanswered questions that go with it? I don't see it. The old NAIS system was not perfect. We always acknowledged that. This is hugely complicated. But calling it voluntary and then leaving producers no real choice is far from perfect, and, most importantly, it is not a solution.

I urge the USDA to reconsider.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to offer a resolution supporting increased access for U.S. beef and beef products to the country of Japan. Let me step back and set the stage for this resolution.

On December 23, 2003, one cow was discovered in the United States with BSE, the disease sometimes referred to in a kind of slang way as ``mad cow disease.'' Even though that animal was actually born in Canada, the reaction of our trading partners around the world was swift and devastating. Almost immediately, Japan and other countries closed their markets to U.S. beef. Virtually with the snap of a finger, we lost over 90 percent of our export market. It just disappeared. At the time, Japan was the largest export market for U.S. beef. It had a value to our producers of $1.4 billion.

We began work to address BSE in this country dating all the way back to 1988, when the Department of Agriculture established a BSE committee to make recommendations on appropriate regulatory controls. Our government has developed and implemented a multilayered system of interlocking safeguards to ensure the safety of American beef. After the 2003 BSE discovery, we added even more safeguards. These efforts by our government, in coordination with U.S. cattle producers, have paid off. A 2006 study by USDA found that BSE was virtually nonexistent among the 40 million adult cattle in our country. Again in 2007, the World Organization for Animal Health, the internationally recognized standard-setting body, also known as OIE, classified the United States as a ``controlled risk'' country for BSE. This classification simply means that because of the expansive system of safeguards that are in place, U.S. beef is safe for export and for consumption.

Interestingly enough, that is the identical classification the OIE gave to Japan just last year. So as Japan asked their trading partners to treat them fairly under OIE standards, we are asking them to reopen their market for our beef.

Seven years have passed. We have proven, time and again, the effectiveness of our safety system. The Japanese still restrict most U.S. beef products. Japan's actions are not consistent with fair trading practices, nor with the U.S. treatment of Japan's imports. That is why I agreed to meet last week with the Japanese Ambassador to discuss this matter. I asked the Ambassador: What would happen if the United States said it doesn't want any more car parts from Japan until they can assure us that there are absolutely no defects? That is essentially what it has done to our beef industry. If we in the United States said we would never do anything in response to the current Toyota situation that they have not already done to us, that would not be a good deal for Japan when it comes to exports. Their treatment of our beef has cost our Nation's beef industry billions of dollars and has been economically devastating to States such as mine, the State of Nebraska. If we treated their products the same way, it would be equally as devastating to Japan because we are a major importer of Japanese goods. Over the last 6 years, the United States has purchased, on average, over $132 billion in Japanese goods annually. In 2009 alone, even in the midst of a global economic downturn, the United States purchased $95.9 billion of products from Japan. Cars led the way. We purchased $31.5 billion in vehicles and parts. Beyond that, we bought $19.5 billion in nuclear reactors, machinery, and parts. Just over $15 billion worth of electronics we bought from Japan, another $5 billion in optic, photo, medical or surgical instruments, and dozens and dozens of other products that add up to another $25 billion.

I wish to make something clear. I am not advocating that the United States close its borders to Japan's products. Japan is a valued friend. But what I do say I say directly and with the resolution: Sanctions on our beef do not represent the act of a friend nor that of a fair trading partner. There is simply no scientific justification for their restrictions, none whatsoever, a point my friends from Japan cannot deny. Quite honestly, Japan's standard of accepting only beef from cattle aged 20 months and younger was pulled out of thin air. It is nothing more than an economic sanction.

I have been dealing with this issue for nearly 7 years, first as the Governor of Nebraska, then as our Agriculture Secretary, and now as a Senator. My confirmation hearing before this body to become Secretary of Agriculture was dominated by one topic: Opening Japan's borders to our beef.

I come forward to offer this sense-of-the-Senate resolution. The resolution does not say we want to keep Japanese products out of the United States. It is in the interest of neither the United States nor Japan to arbitrarily restrict market access for friends and close partners. We are both with Japan. Trade between the United States and Japan should be conducted with mutual respect and based on sound science, something we haven't seen from Japan in this area in the last 7 years. My resolution does say that both Japan and the United States should comply with science-based standards. It also states the Obama administration should insist on increased access for U.S. beef and beef products to Japan.

Very simply, it is time for fair treatment from our friends in Japan. I will continue to press this issue. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting a resolution that basically says trade should be fair.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak to the Senate health care bill and to talk a little bit about some of the issues related to that bill, in terms of financing and scoring and, to be very candid, about some of the accounting gimmicks that try to hold this bill together. I will be joined by Senator Wicker and Senator Barrasso in this colloquy. Let me get started.

If you start to study the bill, and for many of us who have served in other capacities--myself as Governor and as a mayor--the first thing you want to do is ask yourself: Does it work? Is the financing of this bill such that it makes sense? Is it an honest portrayal of the income you expect and the expenses you expect? Certainly, that is where I start and, I suggest, many of my colleagues start.

The one thing about this health care bill that struck me immediately and struck others is, first of all, there are 10 years of tax increases. They total over $\1/2\ trillion--a massive amount of tax increases.

The second thing you see is, there are 10 years of Medicare cuts, again about $\1/2\ trillion total. You do those things and some other things and it pays for 6 years of spending because even though some of the issues relative to this health care bill kick in initially, the vast majority of it does not kick in for 3 or 4 years.

When you put that all back together, you begin to realize what you have is a health care bill that costs about $2.5 trillion over a 10- year score.

Then you start working through a whole bunch of other issues. You have a Senate bill that takes $52 billion in higher Social Security taxes and revenues and counts them as offsets. That would be money normally reserved for the Social Security trust fund. You look at the CLASS Act. One Member of this body--a Member who is very respected for what he has done relative to budgeting--called this a Ponzi scheme.

The CLASS Act was initially opposed by our friends on the other side or by leading Democrats. But it is back alive. It is included in the Senate bill. It is another Federal entitlement that is going to create an insolvency problem very quickly. It takes money from premiums that are supposed to go for benefits and uses them as offsets and pay-fors.

CMS experts have looked at this, and they reached a conclusion that is reliable. They said the CLASS Act faces ``a significant risk of failure,'' and then said, and may lead to ``an insurance death spiral.''

Our friends on the other side claim the bill will simultaneously extend the solvency of Medicare and then magically decrease the deficit. But the reality of that, again, comes from CMS actuaries who say: Well, wait a second here, that is double-counting. You can't use the same dollar twice. You can't count it twice. CMS concludes that the Medicare cuts in the legislation cannot be simultaneously used to finance other Federal outlays, such as coverage expansions under this bill or to extend the trust fund.

So when you cut all the way through this and see what is happening here, it doesn't hold together. This is a financial plan that is built upon sand, and you can almost guarantee it is going to collapse.

So let me, if I might, ask my colleague, Senator Wicker, what he thinks of all of this. Can he offer some thoughts as to where this bill is headed and the financial mechanisms of this bill?

This is exactly what I am hearing at home in Nebraska, Mr. President.

As a former Governor, as the Senator from Wyoming points out, you deal with these programs every day. You are trying to figure out how to fashion a State budget that deals with Medicaid. I said a few weeks ago that I don't know whom the folks who wrote this bill were talking to because if you look at the expansion of health care to people in this bill, really what they are doing is expanding Medicaid by about 15 to 18 million individuals.

The Senator from Wyoming hit the nail on the head. You already have serious access problems with Medicaid. What do I mean by that? As the doctor, Senator Barrasso, said, doctors cannot practice on the Medicaid reimbursement. They would literally go broke. Our little hospitals in all of our States, our critical access hospitals, would say: We cannot keep our doors open on Medicaid reimbursement. They can't do it on Medicaid or Medicare reimbursement. So what is the solution? Well, the solution certainly isn't adding 15 to 18 million more people who will walk into a hospital or a doctor's office and who will hear: Sorry, we don't take Medicaid patients because we can't afford to do that.

The other thing I want to mention, if I might--and then I am going to ask Senator Wicker to comment on some of these questions also--because this is a very important point, is that all of a sudden we are starting to hear a lot of discussion from the White House on down about how we have to get a handle on cost. And I think they have communicated that well because, quite honestly, the American people get it. They understand that if you don't have an impact on cost, you are not going to get anywhere with health care reform.

My colleagues will remember that we sent a letter to the CMS Actuary--this is an actuary employed by the Federal Government--and we said: Take a look at this bill and tell us what you think in these respects, and one of the respects was health care costs. Let me quote from that report:

Overall health expenditures under this bill would increase

by an estimated total of $222 billion.

Compared to what? Compared to doing nothing. If we did nothing, we

would have a better impact on health care costs than this bill is going to have.

After spending $2.5 trillion, after cutting $\1/2\ trillion out of Medicare, after raising taxes over $\1/2\ trillion, the CMS Actuary says to us: After you have done all those things, the overall health expenditures under this bill would increase by an estimated total of $222 billion versus doing nothing.

I ask Senator Wicker, is that the kind of health care reform he is hearing the people back home want?

I believe the Senator is correct. Let me offer a thought, if I might. I think others--maybe I will turn to Senator Brownback next. If this were a great bill, if this were the kind of legislation you wanted to take home and go out there and champion and maybe, if you are up for election, campaign on, then you would not have to go through all these gyrations and gimmicks and somersaults and cartwheels to try to get this darn thing passed. But that is exactly what is happening.

I cannot wait to get up in the morning and run down and turn on the computer and see what the latest is, because they are, over there at the House, but they finally figured out that the only way to get this terrible policy enacted is to pass the Senate bill with all its warts and moles and ugliness and special deals and whatever. They have to pass it without pulling a dotted ``i'' out or a crossed ``t.'' They may be able to say back home: Folks, I didn't support that. What I wanted was the reconciliation package that would fix all these things. All I can say is reconciliation was never designed for this. This is not what reconciliation was designed for. Reconciliation was designed to bring down the budget deficit. What is happening over in the Senate are more somersaults, more gyrations, more cartwheels to figure out how to shoehorn this terrible piece of policy into a rule for which it was never designed.

Now you are going to end up this day, I guess, where we all show up and literally you have rulings on what you can do with reconciliation and what you cannot do. So no House Member can go home and say I voted for this awful piece of legislation, but we are going to be saved by reconciliation. Do you know what. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. The reason why that question cannot be answered today is because reconciliation was never designed to take control of one-sixth of the economy; it was never designed to do what folks are trying to do.

Let me wrap up with this, and then I would like to hear Senator Brownback's thoughts. Enough of the somersaults, enough of the cartwheels, enough of trying to figure out how many angels fit on a pin and what size razorblade is going to divide the hair. This is craziness. This is terrible policy. Please stop now. The country is begging us to stop and start over with a thoughtful process.

If there were a great bill, we would not be going through this. There would be bipartisan support such as there has been on many tough issues through the decades of our history. But, you see, this is not a good bill. This is a terrible bill. The bottom line is, they are going to try to fix it with a process that was never designed for this purpose.

I would like to hear the thoughts of Senator Brownback.

If my colleagues will permit, let me offer a few closing thoughts. I so appreciate the opportunity to be on the floor with them. It was not that long ago that our President of the United States actually was a Member of this body. He was a Member of the Senate. It just seems, from time to time, we are asked to comment on the 60-vote rule. He was asked to comment on that. Here is what he said. ``Removing the 60-vote threshold would change the character of the Senate forever.''

He went on to say having majoritarian absolute power on either side was ``not what the Founders intended.''

The thing about reconciliation is this: It limits debate, it is a very abbreviated process, and it just comes in and says you are only going to get 20 hours of debate. Very limited. The second thing is it only takes a majority vote.

From time to time this issue pops up. But you do not have to study the history of this great Nation very long to understand what our Founders were doing. The House is a majority body. Now, States such as Kansas and Nebraska do not fare very well in that. We do not have a lot of Members. We are never going to have as many Members as California, New York, or New Jersey. So literally on every vote you could find yourself losing.

Our Founders understood that. They came up with an idea for a very unique body, a body that would be an equalizer. Every State got two. Every State got two Members. But the important thing about this body was this: that as issues were passed on the House side by majority vote, over on this side it was anticipated that something more would be required to cause the Members to come together and try to work through the Nation's difficult problems.

Initially there was no way to stop debate. Then about 1915 it was decided that a two-thirds vote would stop debate. Then, in the mid- 1970s that was changed to 60 votes. That 60 votes is an important limitation on the power of the Federal Government to impose its will upon the people.

I will wrap up my comments today by saying this: The will of the people here is very clear. They do not want this bill. They see this as a massive government takeover of their lives. They have spoken very clearly and eloquently in our townhall meetings, in elections that have occurred, and they have said: We want you to go back and work through your differences and come up with a bipartisan approach.

Yet if reconciliation is used, you will not only change the character of this body, you will change how our government operates. If you can pass this bill through a reconciliation process, you can do anything, and you end up with literally a system that is vastly different than was ever intended and a system, in my judgment, that is not good for the future of our great Nation.

With that, let me wrap up and say again to my colleagues, I appreciate the opportunity to be on the Senate floor with you today.

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burris.) The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak for about 10 minutes about the health care debate that continues to be in front of us. For much of our country, the health care debate has been a long and confusing trail. As details have emerged over the last weeks and months, constituents ask me: What is going to happen to my health care? Will I be able to continue to see the doctor I have always seen? They heard both sides argue the merits and the detriments of various pieces of legislation. Citizens are understandably skeptical and perplexed by the debate that has transpired.

One of the things I suggest that is very clear, one situation that is clear as a matter of policy and conscience is that Americans are against the Federal funding of abortion, whether they support or oppose the bill. Unfortunately, the Senate-passed health care bill allows taxpayer funds to fund abortion.

The current Senate language says people who receive a new government subsidy could enroll in an insurance plan that covers abortion. Nothing would stop them from doing that.

Some say: Yes, but States could opt out. What I point out is that in those States that opt out, the taxpayers would still see their tax dollars funding elective abortions in other States.

Additionally, the Office of Personnel Management can provide access to two multistate plans in each State, and only one of them would exclude abortions. OPM's current health care program, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, now prohibits any plans--any plans-- that cover elective abortion. For the first time, a federally funded and managed health care plan will cover elective abortions.

Those who have looked at this language have said very clearly that it is woefully inadequate. I say that. It does not apply a decades-old policy--an agreement really--that was reached many years ago that was embodied in the Hyde amendment. The Hyde language bars Federal funding for abortion except in the cases of rape and incest or where the life of the mother is at stake. The public has clearly rejected advancing the abortion agenda under the guise of health care reform.

Yet as we have seen the language of the Senate bill proceed, it seems very clear my colleagues are refusing to listen. They seem bent on forcing this very unpopular bill upon us via a rather arcane process called reconciliation.

The important point to be made today is this: Reconciliation will not allow us to fix the egregious abortion language.

This is not the first time I have come to the floor to speak about this issue. Last November, I came here to urge pro-life Senators to vote no on cloture if they wanted any chance to address the Federal funding of abortion in the Senate bill. I said then that if the language was not fixed before the debate began, there would be no way to fix it. We would not have any leverage to fix it.

I wish I were here on the floor today to say that I was wrong about that. Unfortunately, though, I was not wrong. Unfortunately, when an amendment was offered to match the Stupak language in the House bill with the Senate bill, only 45 Senators supported it.

The sad reality is that this Senate, as a matter of the majority, is not a pro-life body. There are not 60 Senators who are willing to vote for that.

Back in November, some of my colleagues disagreed with my assessment. There was a big debate. They said: Whoa, wait a second. We can fix this provision via an amendment, they said. But they were wrong. When the dust settled, we were left with a Senate bill that allows Federal funding of abortion.

The House is now being asked to vote on the Senate bill. You see, that is going to be the pathway: vote on the Senate bill so any fix on other provisions can come through a reconciliation sidecar.

According to the National Right to Life committee, the Senate bill is--and I am quoting their language--``the most pro-abortion single piece of legislation that has ever come to the House floor for a vote since Roe v. Wade.''

They go on to warn:

Any House Member who votes for the Senate health bill is

casting a career-defining pro-abortion vote.

There is talk that Democratic leaders might try to appease pro-life House Members by promising to change the Senate bill through a separate bill or the reconciliation sidecar I mentioned.

I urge pro-life supporters and pro-life House Members to think through this very carefully. Don't be fooled. Don't be lulled into thinking there are 60 votes in the Senate that will somehow rescue this situation. There are not. You do not have to take my word for it. It is in black and white in the Congressional Record. It is the same situation we faced in November.

The Senate specifically rejected the amendment that would have blocked Federal funding for abortion. Nothing--nothing--has changed to suggest the Senate would have anywhere near 60 votes to support it now.

It was recently reported that some in the pro-life community support adding pro-life language in the reconciliation sidecar or maybe in a separate bill with the hope and the promise that somehow the Senate will swoop in and waive the rules and keep that language there. Let me be abundantly clear. As much as I might want that to happen, it will not happen here, as demonstrated by November's vote.

If the Senate rejects it again, the language in the Senate bill would become law. Current law would be reversed, and taxpayer dollars would, in fact, fund abortions.

There was recently a column in the Washington Post. It issued a warning to pro-life Democrats to be wary of this strategy. I am quoting again:

The only way they can ensure that the abortion language and

other provisions they oppose are eliminated is to reject

reconciliation entirely--and demand that the House and Senate

start over with clean legislation.

I come to the Senate floor again to encourage my pro-life colleagues in the House to recognize the reality in the Senate. I tell them what they know already, and that is that many innocent lives are depending on their courage.

This issue should not be an issue of political gamesmanship, especially when the game is so rigged against pro-lifers. This is an issue of conscience. On this one, you are pro-life or you are not.

Agreeing to a strategy that is guaranteed to fail, one that has failed already in this health care debate in November, in my judgment, is not leadership at all. It is surrendering your values.

I leave the floor today, and I pray that my House colleagues will have the wisdom to understand this in their decisionmaking.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to speak about the same topic the last Senator spoke about. Let me, if I might, start my comments today by complimenting Senator Sessions. I look at that graph that was just up and the one thing it points out to me in very vivid detail is that spiraling cost, that straight-up cost, is only to pay the interest. It does not even start to pay down the principal.

I stand here today before offering some comments about this further, thinking how much we would unleash the potential of this country if we just sent a signal that we were getting serious about our spending, our debt load, and we were intent on addressing that.

That is what brings me to the floor of the Senate today. I rise today to speak against raising the debt ceiling. This is a decision that should not be taken lightly. No one in this body should take this decision lightly. It is a serious matter, enormously serious. Our country has debt, and it is important that we start to deal with these commitments and the spending that is just out of control.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: ``Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.'' Yet I could not support increasing the amount that the Treasury can borrow by $1.9 trillion--it is the largest increase ever contemplated--in the current environment of spending the people's money as if it meant nothing. You see, what is missing for me, to get to a point where you could raise the debt ceiling, is a commitment, a plan, a serious plan, a roadmap on how we get our spending under control.

The orchestra, sadly, continues to play oblivious to our government barreling down on this entitlement-and-spending iceberg which is coming our way. There is just no doubt about it.

If this increase passes, the debt limit will have increased about 35 percent in the last year. Think about that: 35 percent in the last year. We are not talking about a few million dollars or billion dollars. We are talking about trillions of dollars.

Let me repeat that. Since this administration took the reins, our debt ceiling will have increased by over one-third.

We as parents teach our children, we say: Money doesn't grow on trees. How many times did I tell my kids that? But it seems as if the U.S. Government has missed this sage lesson. The latest proposed increase is undoubtedly the largest increase in history, more than double the previous record of $984 billion.

Since arriving here I have consistently argued for setting priorities and against wasteful spending. I would like to say again, and I have said this on the Senate floor, as my time as Governor of Nebraska went on I realized there were no easy choices in balancing the budget, but we had a constitutional mandate to balance the budget back home in Nebraska. What is more, our State constitution prohibited us from borrowing money.

What did that mean? I couldn't balance the budget by issuing debt. This whole idea of the Federal Government issuing more and more debt was a foreign concept back home.

When I came out here to join the President's Cabinet, I did not have to turn to the last Governor and say: I am sorry about all that debt I took on for the State. There is no debt in Nebraska. We pay our bills. Since arriving here, though, I have begun to realize this government tries to be all things to all people every day and all day. The U.S. Government simply cannot continue on that path. We believe back home that less government is better government.

Many of my colleagues would probably come to the floor and stand and disagree with that. They may believe that you have to literally spend your way out of these problems, you have to spend your way to wealth. But there is nothing in our heritage that would lead me to the conclusion that is the right approach.

Even if you disagree, we can have a respectful debate. I am hard pressed to find anyone, though, who would argue with the reality of the numbers. I used to tell my cabinet when I was Governor, when we were dealing with tough budget issues: Look, folks, this is not magic; it is math.

And the numbers do not lie. The numbers tell us that the Nation's fiscal course is not sustainable. By the end of this year, our debt held by the public will be more than 60 percent of the gross domestic product. Think about this. Among internationally recognized economic thresholds, 60 percent is generally known as the tipping point toward an unsustainable nation. The European Union actually treats it that way. You cannot even be a member of the European Union if your debt exceeds 60 percent of your gross domestic product. Think about this. This great Nation would not be eligible to join the European Union.

Looking down the road, within 10 years our publicly held debt will approach the 90-percent mark. You see, once that snowball gets going down that mountain, good luck of ever stopping the avalanche.

We will not be able to catch up with this runaway debt if we do not start dealing with it now. We are, in my judgment, on the verge of a vicious cycle that requires more taxes, more debt to be taken on by American families and sent overseas to foreign creditors. If we allow our country to slip into this cycle--and we are dangerously close to it now--then that shining city on the hill former President Reagan would often speak about is more dim, if not dark.

Instead of voting to increase the debt limit and simply kicking the fiscal can down the road, we need, first, to devise some concrete interventions. Unfortunately, the President's 2010 budget proposes a $1 trillion deficit, on average, for each of the next 10 years. With that vision, debt limit increases are going to be very commonplace around here. The cost of bearing such debt will swallow up our Nation's resources. It will diminish productivity.

I know the temptation is great--I saw it last night in the President's speech. I say this very respectfully--the temptation is great to say, you know, folks, these are the last guy's problems. This is the problem I created. All I can say is this: What that reminds me of would be like me becoming the mayor of Lincoln--and I served two terms as mayor there--and this time of the year, you have terrible pothole problems. It would be like me saying: Those potholes there were caused by the last guy. I will fix the ones that arose during my tenure.

I think what the American people are asking us to do is to start working together to solve the problems. But, unfortunately, these are not just potholes in the road of our Nation's history, these are massive problems that are going to seriously impact our children and grandchildren and bring down their quality of life.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to speak in support of a pending amendment. This amendment is called the Erasing Our National Debt Through Accountability and Responsibility Plan. I wish to start out today by saying I am very proud to be a cosponsor of what I consider to be a very commonsense amendment.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program, known as TARP, was enacted in the fall of 2008 for the U.S. Treasury to buy toxic assets, primarily mortgage-backed securities. It was sold to Congress as having a sole purpose of getting bad assets out of the market. It was sold as an idea of stabilizing the economy. At the time this was sold, this was it. This is what we told people this was going to do. Supposedly, it was going to be a one-time, very narrowly focused program during a time of the worst economic crisis we had seen in decades. Lawmakers at that time were warned that if we do not act now, if we do not take this action, the failure to act is going to be devastating. Yet Washington, after it got approval of this plan, almost immediately threw out the original game plan. Money was not used to buy those troubled assets. Instead, it was given to large banks with very few strings attached. The government hoped banks would generate small business loans, and would

send the money out to allow people to do auto loans and mortgage loans. That simply did not happen. There is plenty of finger-pointing going on as to why that did not happen, but the bottom line is that consumers were left to battle the credit crunch alone, and they felt abandoned in their fight. What did Washington expect when it gave away practically free money? From the get-go, the TARP rule book was simply tossed out the window. Since then, TARP has morphed in so many ways that most people cannot even remember, cannot even think about its original purpose.

The American people have unquestionably lost faith in the $700- billion taxpayer-funded boondoggle. They expected it to get the economy up and lending. Now they feel duped, and I do not blame them. Instead of jump-starting lending in the economy, what this has turned into is a revolving slush fund for unrelated spending projects. It just goes on and on.

Let me run through a sample of what TARP has been used to fund:

No. 1, buy General Motors. Who knew that the U.S. Government would spend about $50 billion of TARP buying not only an ownership interest in General Motors but a controlling interest? Back home in Nebraska, when I have talked to Nebraska citizens about this, I say to them: If I had come out during my campaign and suggested that the President of the United States would literally over a weekend have the ability to buy General Motors without any kind of congressional approval, no one--no one--would have believed me. Yet that is exactly what happened.

No. 2, there is a plan called cash for caulkers. We all know about that plan.

No. 3, the House passed a second stimulus--$150 billion in TARP to fund more unrelated spending. Let me give a few examples: $800 million for Amtrak; $65 million for housing vouchers; $500 million for summer youth employment; $300 million for a college work study program.

No. 4, the doc fix--$\1/4\ trillion in TARP that will never be paid back, an immediate loss to the taxpayers.

No. 5, off-budget highway funding.

I could go on and on. The list just does not end. The projects being funded out of this now new slush fund do not seem to have an ending point. Some of these projects might be quite meritorious. One might look at them and say: Gosh, in the normal budgetary process, I would want to be a part of voting for those projects. I might support some of them in the normal budgeting process but not through some no accountability slush fund.

TARP has spiraled out of control, and it needs to end today-- immediately. TARP was never intended to finance a wide array of spending programs where the taxpayer literally was going to be the loser. We must find a way to pay for government spending, not try to disguise it in TARP.

I am asking my colleagues to adopt the Thune amendment and end the no-accountability TARP slush fund. This amendment would immediately stop the Treasury Department from spending more from the TARP funds. It would repeal the administration's ill-advised extension of TARP through October 2010. It would require TARP repayments to reduce our national debt. There would be no clever statutory interpretations to get around the debt reduction requirement. A payment comes in, the debt ceiling goes down. No more reckless spending. No more Russian roulette with taxpayers' money. Not only is this common sense, but it is good fiscal sense, and it is the right thing to do.

One thing is absolutely obvious: Taxpayers are asking us to work together to get deficit spending under control, to find solutions to problems that trouble this great Nation. This amendment, in my judgment, is absolutely the first step, a good start to get a handle on out-of-control spending, to start restoring faith with the American people. If TARP is ended, we show the American people that we are listening and that Congress is, in fact, serious about protecting taxpayers' money.

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