Floor Statements

Mr. President, with the fiscal cliff fast approaching, I feel the need to point out something this morning that is perfectly obvious to most Americans but which Democrats in Washington still don't seem to grasp. I am referring to the fact that any solution to our spending and debt problem has to involve cuts to out-of-control Washington spending.

I know that might sound obvious to most people, but for all the President's talk about the need for a balanced approach, the truth is he and his Democratic allies simply refuse to be pinned down on any spending cuts. Americans overwhelmingly support some level of cuts to government spending as part of a plan to cut the Federal deficit. Yet the President will not commit to it. He refuses to lead on the issue. The President seems to think if all he talks about is taxes, and that is all reporters write about, somehow the rest of us will magically forget that government spending is completely out of control and that he himself has been insistent on balance.

A couple of weeks ago we saw his plan. After four straight trillion- dollar deficits and 2 years of running around calling for a balanced approach to bring those deficits under control, we saw his idea of balance--a $1.6 trillion tax hike, new and totally unprecedented power to raise the Federal debt limit at his whim, and a $50 billion stimulus for infrastructure; in other words, even more spending.

So when it came to offering his idea of a balanced approach, the President was vague about cuts but very specific in his request for more government spending--something no reasonable person had publicly contemplated previously. It raises the question: Do Democrats even believe their own rhetoric on spending? Or, contrary to the clear wishes of the majority of Americans, do they just want more tax revenue to fund a government without any limits--any limits whatsoever--which keeps getting bigger and bigger with every passing year?

Think about it. The Federal Government spent $1.8 trillion in 2001, and last year--10 years later--$3.6 trillion. These are nominal dollars, I realize, but by any measure the size of government has grown well beyond its means. Government spending is completely and totally out of control and we need to start acting like it.

Yesterday the Government Accountability Office revealed that government workers and private contractors are doing the same exact work on Medicaid claims, leading to billions in waste. Meanwhile, Senator Coburn has shown all of us some of the ridiculous things taxpayers are paying for with their tax dollars--some of the things that caused us to spend a trillion dollars more than we take in every single year.

Last year he put out a report showing how we could save more than $100 billion--about one-tenth of the annual deficit--by eliminating duplicative and overlapping government programs. We have 94 Federal initiatives aimed at encouraging green building through 11 different Federal agencies. We have 14 programs with the sole purpose of reducing diesel emissions.

A few weeks ago Senator Coburn issued a study that showed taxpayers are funding Moroccan pottery classes, promoting shampoo and other beauty products for cats and dogs, and a video game that allows them to relive prom night.

Taxpayers also just spent $325,000 on a robotic squirrel named Robo- Squirrel. The President just sent us a 73-page report detailing how $60 billion in Sandy funds would be spent. Don't you think he could put together a list of spending cuts that would at least include Robo Squirrel?

We are still waiting. Why? Because for Democrats apparently every dollar in Federal spending is sacred; once secured, it can't be cut. That is why we have trillion-dollar deficits. The truth is, until the President gets specific about cuts, nobody should trust Democrats to put a dime in new revenue toward real deficit reduction or to stop their shakedown of the taxpayers at the top 2 percent. As one liberal lawmaker put it last week, that's just the beginning.

When it comes to deficit deals, the taxpayers need to trust but verify. On cuts, that means specifics.

Richard Lugar

Mr. President, as we enter the final weeks of the 112th Congress, one of the toughest tasks for me is saying goodbye to colleagues who will not be with us at the start of the next Congress.

I would like to kick it off this morning by spending just a few minutes bragging on my longtime friend and neighbor to the north, Senator Dick Lugar.

Let me start by saying I am grateful to have served alongside this good man and to have had a front-row seat for much of his illustrious career.

To give an idea of the kind of career Dick Lugar has had, consider this: He was an Eagle Scout, first in his class in high school, first in his class in college, a Rhodes Scholar, Naval intelligence briefer, corporate turnaround artist, and big-city mayor. That was all by the age of 35. He has excelled at everything he has ever done. Most incredibly, he has done it with perfectly smooth elbows. Walk into any office on Capitol Hill and you would not find a single person who would say a bad word about Dick Lugar. He has earned the respect and admiration of everyone who ever crossed his path. I assure you, in the world of politics, that is nothing short of a miracle. Now Dick has decided to press his luck. He is moving into the only line of work where rivalries are even more vicious than in politics--he is becoming a college professor.

Dick and I go all the way back to my first Senate race in 1984. He was the head of the NRSC at the time. He took a chance on me, and I have always been grateful. He has been a friend ever since.

A lot of Hoosiers cross the Ohio River every day to work in Kentucky, but it is not often a Hoosier Senator crosses it to help a Kentuckian making his first bid for the Senate. Since we are from neighboring States, our work in the Senate has often overlapped over the years. I truly lucked out. Dick has always been helpful and cooperative and a perfect gentleman.

With his six terms in the Senate, Senator Lugar is the longest serving Member of Congress in Indiana history. He ranks 10th on the list of Senators who have cast the most rollcall votes.

As the longtime chair or ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, he has become one of America's most respected voices on matters pertaining to foreign policy. Indeed, Senator Lugar commands the highest respect not only from his peers in the Senate but around the world, for his deep knowledge of foreign policy, national security, agriculture, and trade.

To a lot of liberals, he is a walking contradiction: a Republican intellectual. He has always worn that reputation lightly. Anyone who has ever been on a CODEL with Dick has seen his method. He stuffs his carry-on to the point of bursting with memos, newspapers, magazines, journals, reports, survey data, you name it. Apparently, Trent Lott sat next to him on the plane once and was horrified at the way he tore out the pages and scribbled notes on them. We all know Trent would never be so indelicate.

Senator Lugar has always had a global view. It started during his days as a Rhodes Scholar and an intelligence briefer in the Navy and he brought that global view back to Indiana. After the untimely death of his dad, Dick and his brother took over the family business and reinvented it from a struggling domestic operation to a global leader in the manufacture of baking machinery.

He went from success to success, moving from a seat on the Indianapolis school board into the mayor's office, and then, in 1996, on to the Senate. What a Senate career it has been.

For my part, I think Senator Lugar's achievement in passing the Nunn- Lugar Cooperative Threats Reduction Program in 1991 was a great achievement, not just for himself but for the entire world.

The Nunn-Lugar program provides assistance to former Soviet states such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus in helping them dismantle and destroy their nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, in order to prevent them from coming under the control of terrorists.

As of 2011, Nunn-Lugar has deactivated over 7,600 strategic warheads, 791 intercontinental ballistic missiles, 669 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 32 nuclear submarines, and 194 nuclear test tunnels. It has neutralized 1,395 metric tons of chemical weapons, and it has certified that the countries of the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus--which once held the third, fourth, and eighth largest nuclear arsenals in the world, respectively--are now nuclear-free. What an incredible legacy.

After the September 11 attacks, Senator Lugar called for and helped pass the expansion of the Nunn-Lugar approach, resulting in the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which aims to prevent chemical and biological weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists. He has been a leader in Congress on the issue of ensuring food safety and supply internationally for years.

It is the mark of a leader that he thinks not only of his own moment in time but of the future of his community and of his fellow man, here and around the world. I think it is safe to say few Senators embody that spirit as fully as Senator Lugar. That is not just my opinion. For his work to make the world a safer place, Senator Lugar has been justly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Senator Lugar was first elected to the Senate in 1976 and has served for six terms. He is beloved in his home State of Indiana and in bordering Kentucky too. There is not only a lot of admiration but a lot of affection for this giant of the Senate just south of Hoosier territory.

Senator Lugar has put his extraordinary talent to the service of this institution and his fellow countrymen, and I have no doubt he will be remembered as one of the best.

Senator Lugar would probably tell us his greatest achievement was marrying Char. They have been married now for more than 50 years. They are proud of their four sons and their 13 grandchildren, and they can be proud of the great teamwork they have had together over the years, from their time as co-presidents of their senior class at Denison University. Char and the boys were involved in all his campaigns. The Senate family is sad to see them go as well.

Senator, you are a treasure to the Senate and a model of the public servant. We are sorry to see you go, and I am sorry to lose your wise counsel. I know that whatever you turn to next, you will be a great success, and I look forward to hearing all about it. Thank you for your tremendous service to this body, to the State of Indiana, and to the Nation.

Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a good friend of mine and a distinguished citizen of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Mr. Michael B. McCallister, the highly respected chief executive officer of Humana, will retire from that position at the end of this month. He has served as Humana's CEO for the past 12 years.

Mike has spent his entire career with Humana, Kentucky's largest publicly traded company. After receiving his bachelor's degree from Louisiana Tech University in 1974, he went to work at Humana as a finance specialist. He has steadily risen up the ranks ever since. In 2000, he was named president and CEO of the Louisville-based company.

Humana employs more than 11,000 in Kentucky; thousands of those jobs have been created under Mike's tenure. Mike led the company in innovations such as going all digital to eliminate the use of paper for transactions in 2001, well ahead of the rest of the industry; and in creating consumer-driven products that allowed customers to make more of their own decisions about their health care plans. Under Mike's leadership, in 2004 it was ranked by Business Week magazine as one of the top-performing companies in the United States.

Mike has also been very active in civic and philanthropic endeavors, to the benefit of Kentucky and Louisville, the city we both call home. He headed the most successful communitywide fund drive in the history of the Louisville Metro United Way, raising $30 million in 2006. He was the communitywide chair of the Greater Louisville Fund for the Arts in 2003. He has also served on the board of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy. He is the current chairman of the Workplace Wellness Alliance.

Mike's generous spirit of service has also influenced his company as a whole. Under his leadership, the Humana Foundation has donated more than $50 million to education, health, and arts initiatives in Kentucky and across America.

I know my colleagues will join me in extending congratulations and best wishes to Mike as well as his family: he and his wife Charlene have a daughter Megan, and a son Ryan. I am sure they are very proud of him and look forward to seeing more of him. It is my understanding that Mike has promised he will not golf more than twice a week. Also, Mike will not step away from Humana entirely: He will retain a position as its nonexecutive chairman.

Mr. Michael B. McCallister has set a remarkable example of dedication and service to the people of Kentucky. I wish him every success in his next endeavors in life.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Yesterday afternoon I came to the floor and offered President Obama's proposal on the fiscal cliff to show that neither he nor Democrats in Congress are acting in good faith in these negotiations.

With just a few weeks to go before a potentially devastating and entirely avoidable blow to the economy, the President proposed a plan that members of his own party won't even vote for. So I think it is safe to say at this point that the President actually isn't interested in a balanced agreement, he is not particularly interested in avoiding the fiscal cliff, and he is clearly not interested at all in cutting any spending.

What the President is interested in, as we learned yesterday, is getting as much taxpayer money as he can, first by raising taxes on small businesses that he believes are making too much money, and then on everybody else. This is not so he can lower the debt or the deficit but so he can spend to his heart's content. For months the President has been saying all he wants is to raise taxes on the top 2 percent so he can tackle the debt and the deficit.

However, yesterday he finally revealed that is not his true intent. By demanding the power to raise the debt limit whenever he wants by as much as he wants, he showed what he is after is assuming unprecedented power to spend their dollars without any limit at all.

This isn't about getting a handle on deficits or debt for him. It is about spending even more than he already has. Why else would he demand the power to raise the debt limit on his own? And by the way, why on Earth would we ever consider giving a President who has brought us 4 years of trillion-dollar unchecked deficits the authority to borrow? He is the last person who should have limitless borrowing power.

Look, the only way we ever cut spending around here is by using the debate over the debt limit to do it. Now the President wants to remove that spur to cut altogether. Of course, it gets in the way of his spending plans. Well, I assure you it is not going to happen. The American people want Washington to get spending under control, and the debt limit is the best tool we have to make the President take that demand seriously. The American people want us to fight to cut spending. It is a fight they deserve and a fight we are happy to have.

Unanimous Consent Request

Mr. President, I indicated to the majority leader that I was going to propound the following consent. I am prepared to ask for consent to allow the Senate to vote on the President's debt limit proposal. I would ask this either as an amendment to the Russia PNTR measure we will vote on this afternoon or as a freestanding bill, if that is preferred. Therefore, I now ask unanimous consent that it be in order to vote on an amendment, which is the President's debt limit extension proposal that I just described, prior to the passage of the Russia PNTR bill today.

Mr. President, my friend indicates that there is some confusion about who the quarterback is on the Republican side. Of course, that is quite common when you don't have a White House. But there is no doubt about who the quarterback is on the Democratic side. The quarterback on the Democratic side is the President of the United States. Unfortunately, he keeps throwing interceptions, and we are moving backward and backward and backward away from the goal line. We have $4 trillion in annual deficits, and my friend from Nevada still wants to blame that on George Bush? And now the President is asking for unlimited--unlimited--authority to borrow whenever he wants to for whatever amount he wants? If the majority leader supports that proposal, I would hope we could work together and get a vote on it to give his Members a chance to express themselves as to whether they think that is a good way forward for our country--to give this President or any other President unlimited authority to borrow as much as he wants at any time he wants from the Chinese or anybody else. That is the question.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, what we are talking about is a perpetual debt ceiling grant, in effect, to the President. Matters of this level of controversy always require 60 votes. So I would ask my friend, the majority leader, if he would modify his consent request to set the threshold for this vote at 60?

Yes. I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, last week, Secretary Geithner brought up for the President an offer that was so not serious it makes me wonder what the point of it was. In light of that offer, I would like to see if our Democratic friends are willing to support it. It includes a $2 trillion tax increase over 10 years, which would be the biggest real-dollar tax increase in U.S. history. It increases taxes on nearly 1 million small businesses and increases the taxes paid by family farmers and small businesses at death in the middle of a jobs crisis.

Most outrageous of all, it gives the President of the United States unilateral power--unilateral power--to raise the limit on the Federal credit card, the so-called debt ceiling, whenever he wants, for as much as he wants.

I don't think we should have to speculate how Democrats might feel about this. I think we should give them a chance to demonstrate for themselves how serious the President's plan was and how serious they are.

I would like to ask consent to offer an amendment to the Russia trade bill--this is Secretary Geithner's proposal right here--an amendment to the Russia trade bill that gives our friends on the other side of the aisle a chance to vote on this proposal Secretary Geithner brought up last Thursday. It gives the President's proposal to solve the fiscal cliff, as delivered by Secretary Geithner and outlined in the President's budget, an opportunity to be voted upon.

I should note I would be happy to have this vote right here or as an amendment to the next bill or as a stand-alone. It will not slow down what I hope is swift passage of PNTR for Russia. If this proposal was made in good faith, our friends on the other side, I am sure, would be happy to vote for it.

Let me just say I expect my good friend, the majority leader, to decline this chance to support the President and this laughable proposal because they know it couldn't even pass if it was sent to their majority.

Mr. President, I would add one comment about the consent I just offered. I think it would not be inaccurate to assert that the proposal the Secretary of the Treasury brought up last Thursday would not have passed the House when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker. This was an unserious proposal. And I can understand why my good friend the majority leader would rather not vote on it because I can't imagine that it would get many, if any, votes here in the Senate as well.

Having made that point, with regard to PNTR for Russia, when the two parties first sat down to discuss the so-called fiscal cliff, it was widely assumed among Republicans that President Obama and Democrats actually wanted to avoid it. That was the premise on which any possible agreement hinged. That was the common goal--or so we thought. Over the past couple of weeks, it has become increasingly clear to many of us that we were simply wrong about that. Incredibly, many top Democrats seem perfectly happy--perfectly happy--to go off the cliff. That is why the President has been more interested in campaign rallies than actually negotiating a deal, and it explains why the President is now stubbornly insisting on raising tax rates when he himself said just last year that you could raise more revenue from capping deductions and closing loopholes.

Look, this isn't about the deficit for them or balance. It is about an ideological campaign most Americans thought would have ended on November 6. And that is also why the President sent Secretary Geithner up here last week with a proposal so completely ridiculous it wouldn't have passed the House, as I indicated earlier, if Nancy Pelosi were still Speaker. It was more of a provocation than a proposal, to be perfectly frank about it. It was a message that the President really doesn't want to deal at all.

To date, not a single Democrat has come forward to support the Geithner proposal, and anybody who looks at the details would certainly understand why. As I just indicated, it includes a $2 trillion tax increase over 10 years--the biggest real-dollar tax increase in U.S. history. It increases taxes on nearly 1 million small businesses in the middle of a jobs crisis. According to Ernst & Young, this type of rate hike would cause more than 700,000 Americans to lose their jobs. It raises taxes on investment income, harming economic growth even more. It includes tens of billions of dollars in more Washington spending in a deal supposedly to cut the deficit. And most outrageous of all, it gives the President of the United States unilateral power to raise the limit on the Federal credit card--the so-called debt ceiling--whenever he wants, for as much as he wants.

While I am flattered that the administration has taken to calling this the ``McConnell provision,'' they seem to have forgotten how this provision worked in the Budget Control Act. Yes, we gave the President the authority then to request a debt ceiling increase, but that was only after the White House agreed to $2 trillion in cuts to Washington spending and agreed to be bound by the timing and amount set by Congress.

This time, the request is for the President to have the ability to raise the debt ceiling whenever he wants, for as much as he wants, with no fiscal responsibility or spending cuts attached. This is an idea opposed by Democrats and Republicans alike. It is a power grab that has no support here, and so it is not only completely dishonest, it is juvenile to compare it to last year's debt ceiling agreement. It would also be incredibly irresponsible since history shows that the only major deficit-cutting deals we ever do around here--ever--come after debates over the debt ceiling. It may be a good idea if you don't care about the debt, but it is a nonstarter for those of us who do. It also represents a dangerous attempt by the President to grab more power over spending--power Congress must not and will not cede.

Beyond these details, not only would the President's plan raise taxes on certain individuals, it would also cap their ability to deduct donations they make to charities, the interest they pay on mortgages, the contributions they make to retirement accounts, and the value of employer-based health insurance. Don't get me wrong, you have heard me say that if Democrats insist on getting more money to Washington, capping these deductions is a better way to raise revenue, but capping deductions and raising taxes is a recipe for economic disaster.

The President's proposal would also subject tens of thousands of small businesses and family farms to a massive tax hike to be paid by the family upon the deaths of the owners. It would impose a crushing tax increase on industries that employ millions of Americans, including manufacturers in my State, businesses that operate abroad, the insurance industry, and would raise the price at the pump by targeting the oil and gas industry for special tax treatment.

It is so ridiculous, as I have said repeatedly, it wouldn't have passed the House under Speaker Pelosi, and that is why even the most liberal Members of Congress, the President's most ardent supporters, haven't come forward to support it. So for the White House to demand a response shows they are just playing games at this point.

If you don't believe me, ask yourself this: How many Democrats would vote for this bill? Not many. But I didn't think we should have to speculate. I still think we should give Democrats a chance to demonstrate for themselves just how serious the President's plan was and how serious they are.

That is why I just asked consent to offer an amendment to the Russia trade bill that gave them that opportunity. As I noted, I would be happy to have this vote here or as an amendment to the next bill or as a stand-alone. It will not slow down what I hope is swift passage of PNTR for Russia. If the President's proposal was made in good faith, our friends should be eager to vote for it. So I am surprised the majority leader just declined the chance for them to support it with their votes. I guess we are left to conclude that it couldn't even pass by a bare majority of votes and they would rather take the country off the cliff than actually work out a good-faith agreement that reflects tough choices on both sides.

To be fair to the Secretary and to the President, we didn't just put together a bill that included his $2 trillion tax increase, we also added the almost $400 billion in new tax stimulus measures he wanted as well. This bill contains a continuation of the payroll tax holiday, a 10-percent credit on new wages that will go to businesses large and small, and it included a fix to one of the many flawed provisions of ObamaCare, an expansion of the tax credit for businesses that no one uses. This proposal reflected exactly what was in the President's budget and his various submissions to Congress. I, for one, was eager to see this vote, to see if Senate Democrats were ready to support it. I think folks should know who actually wants to raise taxes on family farmers and manufacturers and who thinks we can solve our fiscal problems without doing anything serious to our real long-term liabilities.

Our Democratic friends are so focused on the politics of this debate that they seem to forget there is a cost. They are feeling so good about the election, they have forgotten they have a duty to govern. A lot of people are going to suffer--a lot--if we go off this cliff. That is why we assumed Democrats would have preferred to avoid it. We thought this was the perfect opportunity to do something. Apparently, we were wrong.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, during the past couple days, we have discussed the plans of the Democratic majority to make the Senate more ``efficient'' and to do it by breaking the rules of the Senate. It is what my Senate colleagues roundly criticized during the Bush administration as ``breaking the rules to change the rules.'' It is something Senate Republicans thought about but wisely chose not to do.

The Senate has two great traditions, two great rights of Members and, by extension, the citizens they represent; the right to amend and the right to debate.

Yesterday and last week I talked about the first of these great Senate rights and how the Democratic majority has sought systematically to marginalize the minority in its exercise of this right.

I noted how the Democratic majority has bypassed committees to an unprecedented extent, how it has blocked members of the minority and members of the majority, too, from offering amendments on the Senate floor before cloture is invoked and how, when that didn't shut out the minority, the majority used a bare majoritarian means to change Senate procedure to bar the minority from offering motions to suspend the rules after cloture was invoked.

This systemic effort to marginalize the minority stands in stark contrast to the trend in the House under the Republican majority. It has allowed the minority in the House more chances to amend legislation on the House floor than existed under previous majorities.

In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, last year, the House held more votes on amendments on the floor than it did during the 2 previous years combined, when congressional Democrats were in the majority.

When one compares the amendments and the motions voted on in the House this year with those voted on in the Senate, as the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has done, the difference is truly startling. The House minority has been able to offer 214 such motions and amendments, compared to only 67 for the Senate minority, which is more than three times as many motions and amendments, but the minority in the House has had three times as many votes as the minority in the Senate. In terms of protecting the right of the minority to represent their constituents through amendments on the floor, the House is becoming more like the Senate used to be, and the Senate is becoming more like the House used to be.

But what about the second great right in the Senate, the right to debate? How has the exercise of this right fared under the Democratic majority? The short answer is not so great. The filing of cloture under the Senate rules is the beginning of the process to end debate, and the wielding of this powerful tool is in the hands of the majority leader. If one wants to simply equate the filing of cloture, if one wants to equate the filing of cloture with a filibuster, there is the potential for the majority to generate a lot of filibusters with a quick trigger on the cloture motion.

My friends on the other side of the aisle have painted a picture where cloture filings are needed to overcome an obstinate minority. Cloture is needed, so we are told, because of Members of the minority who refuse to stop delaying.

But does filing cloture on a matter, be it on a bill, an amendment or a conference report, on the very same day the Senate is considering that matter, indicate a minority that is prolonging debate or does it indicate a majority that is eager not to have a debate at all? To me, a habitual effort to file cloture on a matter as soon as the Senate begins to consider the matter indicates the latter.

What do the numbers show about the use of cloture by this Democratic majority? According to CRS, the current Senate majority has filed cloture on a matter--exclusive of motions to proceed to a matter--on the very same day it considered the matter three and a half times more often than the Senate Republicans did when they were in the majority.

According to CRS, Senate Republicans filed same-day cloture on a matter just 30 times in 4 years. The current Democratic majority has done so well over 100 times. Put another way, Senate Democrats are much more apt to try to shut off debate on a matter as soon as the Senate begins considering the matter than were prior majorities including, most recently, Senate Republicans.

The desire of my Democratic colleagues to shut down debate before it begins in these instances has nothing to do with overcoming resistance to the Senate taking up a bill because, as I have just noted, this analysis specifically excludes--excludes--same-day cloture filings on a motion to proceed.

It is not just the right to amend that has taken a hit under the Democratic

majority but the right to debate as well. All Senators and all Americans are disserved when these rights are systematically marginalized.

This is not the ``golden rule'' we were promised when the Senate Democrats assumed the majority in 2007--far from it.

Rather than continuing to diminish the great tradition to the Senate, rather than breaking the rules to change the rules, we need to strengthen those rights and traditions. As Senator Byrd noted, majorities are fleeting. One can wake after the first Tuesday in November and find oneself in the minority.

I say with respect, I hope our Democratic colleagues are mindful of that as we continue this discussion and are prepared not only to live under the rules they would change but to live with a precedent they would establish by making those changes.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to my good friend the mayor of Paducah, KY, Mr. Bill Paxton. Mayor Paxton has been a vital partner of mine in our efforts to bring economic development to the Paducah region, improve the quality of life for its residents, and represent their interests in public service. Paducah could not ask for a finer mayor than Bill Paxton.

Now it's my sad duty to report to my colleagues that after 12 years in office, Mayor Paxton is retiring. And although Kentuckians will miss his steady hand at the helm of leadership, no one can say Bill Paxton has not given more than his share of dedication and commitment to the people of his city. And we all certainly wish him the very best as he leaves the mayor's office and moves on to his next endeavors, where I am sure he will find much success just as he has in public service.

It would take too long for me to describe everything we've worked on together over the years, but I'll mention a few. For several years we worked together to bring economic growth to downtown Paducah with a new riverfront marina development. After a long road marked by the occasional setback, the Paducah Riverfront and Marina groundbreaking ceremony took place last month. The new riverfront will spur job creation and serve as a public space for all of Paducah's residents to enjoy.

For years, Mayor Paxton has been indispensable on a host of issues affecting the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant and its hard-working employees.

Bill has also been crucial in efforts to create the Paducah River Discovery Center, improve the Paducah Area Transit System, and upgrade local law-enforcement and safety resources such as the Public Safety Mobile Data System, which allows police and other emergency personnel to share and coordinate information.

And I can't forget Bill's leading role in designating the National Quilt Museum, located two blocks from the Ohio River in downtown Paducah, as the National Quilt Museum of the United States. As one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Bluegrass State, it regularly brings over 100,000 visitors yearly from all 50 States and 40 countries.

One of Bill's biggest successes over the last 12 years is the Lower Town revitalization project. Lower Town, a Paducah neighborhood that is rich with history but had become dilapidated with neglect, became the focus of renewal for city government under the mayor's vision.

Revitalization efforts focused on creating an awareness of Lower Town as a cultural center for the arts and an accessible retail environment friendly to local businesses. Now, a decade later, this project has been successful, yielding much renovation of local historic buildings and new construction, luring more than 75 new artists and businesses to Lower Town, and bringing over $30 million in private investment in the area.

Bill was born and raised in Paducah. Prior to serving three terms as mayor, he was elected to Paducah's city commission in 1998. It was a family tradition, as his father, William F. Paxton Jr., had also served on the city commission. As a private citizen, Bill worked for 30 years in the banking industry. Bill is also one of the few mayors in Kentucky to serve two terms as head of the League of Cities, proving his talents are appreciated not just in Paducah but across Kentucky.

I have been pleased to get to know both Bill and his wife, Lucy, over the years and am proud to call them close friends. I am sure that Lucy; their two children, Christina Paxton Cassetty and William F. Paxton IV; and many other beloved friends and family members join me and Elaine in saying we are proud of Bill Paxton's record of accomplishment as mayor, and we wish him the best in his well-earned retirement. He is one of Kentucky's most distinguished citizens and public servants.

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

Mr. President, I will proceed under my leader time.

Mr. President, we have been discussing the plans of the Democratic majority to repudiate its clear commitment to respect the rights of the minority, which is a hallmark of the Senate, and instead to break the rules to change the rules. That is how my friend from Nevada repeatedly described it when Republicans were considering doing something similar several years ago. Of course, Republicans never did break the rules to change the rules, but Democrats are contemplating doing so in the name of ``efficiency.''

Last week I noted how my Democratic colleagues seek to minimize this major change in how the Senate governs itself by calling this heavyhanded power play ``tiny'' and a ``minor change'' and adjusting the Senate rules just ``a little bit.'' But this eleventh-hour rhetoric stands in stark contrast to what they have previously said and what they have systematically done.

My friend the majority leader told one of my new Members, in essence, that even if this new so-called ``tiny'' rules change removed all chance that this new Member would have any recourse to get an amendment to a bill, that new Member could simply ``vote against the bill.'' And my friend told Senator McCain this fall that ``the amendment days are over'' in the Senate. That was the majority leader to Senator McCain earlier this year.

But, of course, it is much more than what has been said that is at issue, it is what the Democratic leadership has systematically done to marginalize the voice of the minority. As I noted, it has used, to an unprecedented extent, Senate rule XIV. This rule allows the majority to bypass committees and write bills behind closed doors--doing so, of course, to deprive all of us, Republicans and Democrats, of the chance to have their committee work matter.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the majority has used this rule to bypass committees nearly 70 times. When Republicans were last in the majority under Senator Frist, we used that rule less than half as often--only 30 times. And when a bill that has bypassed committee goes straight to the floor, under the current majority there often isn't an opportunity to participate there either. Again, according to the Congressional Research Service, the current Democratic leadership has blocked Senators from both sides of the aisle from offering amendments on the floor 68 times--68 times. No amendments at all. This is 70 percent greater than the number of times the six prior majority leaders combined--combined--shut their colleagues out of the amendment process.

Now, the majority leader dismissed this unprecedented practice, saying it ``has no bearing on what is going on around here.'' Well, maybe it doesn't to him, but he is the only one who, under this unprecedented amendment blockage, is picking amendments. It is a little bit bigger deal to the other 99 of us who are shut out from representing our constituents by having our ability to offer any amendments on their behalf blocked.

By the way, that is not how the majority leader viewed this practice when he was in the minority. When Senator Frist, as majority leader, blocked his colleagues from offering amendments a relatively modest 15 times in 4 years--15 times in 4 years--my friend from Nevada said it was ``a bad way to run the Senate'' and a ``very bad practice'' and it ran ``against the basic nature of the Senate.'' That is when Senator Frist did it 15 times over 4 years. This majority leader has done it nearly 70 times in his tenure. What would be a fair way to describe that record?

But the current Democratic leadership hasn't been content to stop there in marginalizing the minority. They have prevented the minority from offering amendments in committee, they have prevented them from offering amendments on the floor before cloture, and then they changed Senate procedure with a heavyhanded majoritarian motion to stop the minority from offering motions after cloture was invoked. Since such motions to suspend the rules require 67 votes to be successful, I gather that having even to deal with such motions interfered with ``efficiency,'' as did allowing bills to be marked up in committee, as did allowing Senators of both parties to have amendments on the floor. So our Democratic colleagues have shut out the minority there too.

But even that is not enough. Now the same Democratic leadership wants to take away the right to extend a debate on motions to proceed to a measure. Throughout its history, the unique role of the Senate has been to protect the voice of the minority, expressed through the equal rights of all Senators to debate and amend legislation. This has stood in contrast with the House of Representatives, where a simple majority rules. So it should be startling--literally startling--to every Senator and to the people who elected us to represent them to look at the facts.

How does the Senate compare with the House of Representatives? This is something we have not discussed before in this debate. How does the Senate compare with the House of Representatives? At the same time the current Senate majority is finding every way it can to marginalize the minority, the majority in the House is moving in the opposite direction--in exactly the opposite direction.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the majority in the House was ``giving lawmakers more opportunity to amend bills on the floor'' and that ``even some Democrats acknowledged that the GOP leaders have done a better job than their predecessors.'' According to the article, last year the House held more votes on amendments on the floor than the two previous years combined when congressional Democrats were in the majority. How does that compare to the Senate? According to the Congressional Research Service, this year the majority in the House has given the minority in the House 214 occasions to affect legislation on the House floor through amendments and motions to commit or recommit. That is what they have done in the House this year. By contrast, the majority in the Senate has only allowed the minority in the Senate 67 occasions to affect legislation on the Senate floor in the same way.

So listen to this, Mr. President. This is astonishing. The minority in the House has had more than three times

the opportunity to express its views and to represent its constituents than the minority in the Senate. The minority in the House has had more than three times as many opportunities to record its views than the minority in the Senate. It appears that in terms of respect for minority rights and the constituents the minority represents, the House is becoming more like the Senate and, unfortunately, the Senate is becoming more like the House.

Now, it doesn't have to be this way in the Senate, of course. Senators Levin and McCain are reminding those of us who have been here a while and showing those who haven't that it is possible for the Senate to actually legislate. We are in the process of doing that right now.

Despite the fact that the Senate has devoted much less floor time to the Defense authorization bill than is historically the practice and many fewer amendments than are historically the practice, the majority is allowing amendments to receive votes and the minority, for our part, is not insisting that we get to vote on every single amendment we want. We need to get back to conducting business that way again, and the majority leader and I need to discuss how to achieve that.

But what the Democratic majority must not do is change the Senate by using a bare majority to ram through a rules change as if this were the House. Such a rules change will not do them any good in the short term--the House is in the hands of the Republicans. But it will do the institution irreparable damage in the long term and will establish precedent in the Senate for breaking the rules to change the rules that our Democratic colleagues will have to endure when they are in the minority again, which will certainly happen.

We should work together, instead, to resolve our differences. As I said last week, that is what the Standing Rules of the Senate anticipate and that has been how changes to the Senate rules have occurred in our history.

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

Mr. President, throughout the week, I have raised questions about the President's level of seriousness and engagement when it comes to resolving the short- and long-term fiscal challenges we face. I have done this because, as I have said repeatedly, the President is the key to success in all of these discussions. So I am hoping that when Secretary Geithner comes up to the Capitol today, he brings a specific plan from the President that the two parties could agree to for the good of the country. I hope to hear the administration's specific plans for protecting jobs and promoting economic growth for middle-class Americans, while reducing the debt by strengthening entitlements, reducing Washington's spending, and preventing a tax hike on every American taxpayer.

Up until now, the White House has preferred talking points and an appeal to the hard left to a serious discussion about how we fix the economy, reduce the Federal debt, and return the country to a path of growth and prosperity for all. They are stuck on the same old tired slogans, and it is really completely counterproductive. So this morning I would like to address one of these recurring talking points in a little more detail in the hope that the White House puts it aside and starts talking in a way that suggests they are actually serious over there about finding a solution. I am referring to the oft-repeated assertion by the White House and reporters alike that those of us who insist on not raising income tax rates on anybody are doing so to ``protect the rich.'' I assure you, that has absolutely nothing to do with it. Check the polling data. The super-rich vote for the Democrats. We are not insisting on keeping tax rates where they are to protect some tiny sliver of the electorate; we are insisting on keeping tax rates where they are first and foremost to protect jobs and because we do not think government needs the money in the first place.

The problem, as I have said, is not that Washington taxes too little, but it is that it spends too much. But if more revenue is the price Democrats want to exact for supporting other necessary reforms, then we should at least agree that we do it in a way that does not cost jobs and disincentivize work, as we all know raising rates would do.

A lot of people around here seem to have forgotten that we are still in the middle of a jobs crisis. I can tell you that lots of folks are hurting in my State of Kentucky. National unemployment is still just a hair below 8 percent, and millions of Americans are still looking for work.

So if it is an iron law of economics that you get less of what you tax, why on Earth would we want to raise taxes on work? Rates matter because they affect behavior. The higher the tax rate, the higher the disincentive to work. This isn't just Republican orthodoxy, it is basic economics. As the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently put it, ``Increasing revenues by raising marginal tax rates on labor would reduce people's incentive to work and therefore reduce the amount of labor supplied to the economy.''

That is the CBO, not the Republican National Committee. They go on to say over at CBO, it would, by itself, ``decrease output in the medium and long term.''

In the middle of a jobs crisis, that is the last thing we ought to be doing. Shouldn't we at least agree on that? The negative effect raising rates has on labor is so widely acknowledged that the Joint Committee on Taxation actually has models that incorporate the effects of doing it. They also know that higher rates increase the incentive to shelter income from taxation. When rates are higher, the people paying them try even harder to keep the government from taking what they earn.

In short, raising rates means less labor, less investment, and more incentive for the wealthy to waste money in an attempt to shelter what they have earned. We can quibble about the magnitude of these effects, but everyone agrees they exist.

The problem is particularly acute for those thinking about taking a second job in a household, which in many cases unfairly targets married women looking to supplement the family income or someone considering a promotion or starting a new venture.

Instead of raising rates, Republicans have proposed capping deductions through tax reform instead. If the only way to get Democrats to agree to progrowth tax reform and meaningful entitlement reform is through more revenue, a smarter way to do it is by capping deductions. Capping deductions, or tax expenditures as some people call them, is a far less painful, more economically sound, way of closing deficits. The Congressional Budget Office agrees. As the Congressional Budget Office recently put it:

Increasing revenues . . . by broadening the tax base would

probably have a smaller negative effect, or even a positive

effect, on the amount of labor supplied.

The White House likes to say you can't come up with a realistic plan to reduce the deficit without raising tax rates. It is not true. Not only are there plenty of ways to do it, there are ways to do it that minimize the disincentive to work, and they can be found right in the President's own budget. In the President's own budget he proposes three different ideas that, combined, dwarf the $442 billion revenue his own Treasury estimates he could grab from increasing two rates. All of them cap the amount that higher income Americans can deduct from their income taxes, and all of them do it in a way that is far less damaging than raising those tax rates while protecting middle-class taxpayers.

Look, I don't like any of these ideas. They all hurt somebody. The government spent way too much money as it is. Frankly, I don't think the Democrats are any more interested in using new revenue to lower the deficit now than they have ever been. But don't tell me you have to raise rates to do it. It is not true. The longer Democrats keep saying it, the longer it is going to take to come up with an agreement.

The only reason Democrats are insisting on raising rates is because raising rates on the so-called rich is the holy grail of liberalism-- the holy grail of liberalism. Their aim isn't job creation; they are interested in wealth destruction--not job creation but wealth destruction.

The President needs to realize that he wasn't elected President of the hard left wing of the Democratic Party. He was elected President of the United States. He is the steward of the Nation's finances. He has a responsibility to everyone to work out an agreement, and that means he has to come up with something that can get through a Republican House of Representatives.

We are waiting on the President. We can still get there, but he is going to have to lead. He can start by putting the campaign talking points on the shelf. I know that whacking the rich works politically. It worked pretty well for him in his campaign; I get it. But the election is over, and it is time to lead.

Tribute to Tom Jurich

Mr. President, yesterday was an extremely happy day for my alma mater, the University of Louisville, and I want to talk today about an extraordinary individual who has achieved an incredible success at my university over the last 15 years. It has been my privilege during my career to get to know a number of people in all walks of life who have been highly successful. However, I am hard pressed to think of a more conspicuous example of success than what Tom Jurich has accomplished for the University of Louisville in athletics in the last 15 years. Membership in the ACC, announced yesterday, is the culmination of his extraordinary leadership.

Tom Jurich has for 15 years served as the athletic director for the University of Louisville, and yesterday it was announced that UofL, as I indicated, will be joining the Atlantic Coast Conference. The ACC will be a great home for UofL and the school's commitments to academics, groundbreaking research, and top-ranked athletic teams.

Under Tom Jurich's leadership, student athletes at UofL have been making and breaking records and stirring excitement deep in the hearts of Cardinal fans all across Kentucky and all over the world. Since joining the Big East Conference in 2006, Cardinal teams have won 50 championships, with 10 of those in the 2011-2012 season alone, 10 championships just this year.

Our men's basketball team ranks No. 2 in the Nation in total attendance records. Our women's basketball team ranks No. 2 in the Nation for average attendance per game. I think it is safe to say Cardinal fans love their basketball.

Tom Jurich masterminded the hiring of legendary men's basketball coach Rick Patino, who has led the Cardinals to three Big East titles and two Final Fours, including one last season. Now ranked in the top five nationally, this year's Cardinal team is well poised to make another run for the Final Four.

Tom was also responsible for hiring head football coach Charlie Strong, a legend in the making, who has revitalized the Louisville football program by leading the Cardinals to two bowl games and a share of the Big East championship in his short tenure there. Now in Coach Strong's third year, the Cardinals are 9-2 and have been ranked in the top 10 nationally this year and have a chance to win the Big East title in a nationally televised game against Rutgers tonight.

Under Tom Jurich's tenure, Cardinal teams have been brought home championships in sports as diverse as baseball, field hockey, men's soccer, women's soccer, volleyball, men's cross country, men's golf, women's golf, softball, men's swimming and diving, women's swimming and diving, men's tennis, women's indoor track, and men's and women's outdoor track and field, an extraordinary list of accomplishments.

Tom Jurich has grown the school's physical facilities to be, in my view, the best in the country. Under his leadership the men's and women's basketball teams began playing in a new state-of-the-art KFC Yum! Center in downtown Louisville in 2010. It is an arena equal to any college basketball facility, college or professional, in our country.

Under Tom Jurich, an expansion of Papa John's Cardinal Stadium was completed in 2010, giving UofL football fans one of the best stadiums in the country in which to watch a game, seating 55,000. Tom Jurich also oversaw the construction of an extensive sports park that includes new softball and field hockey stadiums, a soccer field surrounded by a track, fitness trail, and playground.

Tom has increased participation for women's athletics, upgrading funding and support staff for existing women's programs and adding four new women's sports: softball, golf, rowing, and lacrosse. He transitioned field hockey and women's soccer and baseball to

fully funded programs. For his accomplishment, he received the Citizens for Sports Equity 2000 Sports Leadership Award.

For his success as an athletic director, Tom was honored as the Louisvillian of the Year in 2005 by the Louisville Urban League, and he was nationally recognized in 2007 as Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal and Sports Business Daily Athletic Director of the Year. The university also recognized his enormous contribution to the institution by appointing him vice president for athletics in 2003.

Yesterday, the totality of Tom Jurich's accomplishments was recognized when the ACC voted unanimously to accept the University of Louisville as its newest member. This is an exciting time for Cardinal sports fans. We relish the opportunity to play in the strongest league in the Nation and show that Cardinals are able to compete and beat anybody.

To my good friends from the fine States such as North Carolina, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Georgia, Massachusetts, and South Carolina, I say ``look out.''

I have been pleased to get to know Tom well over the years, as well as his wife Terrilynn and their wonderful family. I don't think I have ever met anybody who has done a better job building an enterprise than he has, given what he had when he came to the university in 1997, and then look at it today. He has built an athletic department that boasts a budget in the top 20 in the country, championship football and basketball teams, record-setting men's and women's basketball attendance at our new downtown arena, and enormous success for all the other school sports that may not get as much attention but are just as vital to the students and the community in Louisville. He has done all this while increasing academic success for student athletes with a record 21 of 23 Cardinal athletic teams producing a 3.0 or higher grade-point average in the most recently completed semester.

It is a truly extraordinary accomplishment. I am proud of my friend Tom Jurich and what he has done. I want to extend to him my heartiest congratulations from the Senate floor.

Go Cards.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, over the past few weeks Americans have started to really focus on the debate we are having here in Washington about how the two parties can work together to prevent a short-term economic crisis in January and an even bigger budgetary crisis later on. So it may come as a surprise to many to see that with just a few weeks to go before a hard deadline on solving the short-term issue, President Obama has decided to hit the road--hit the road--this week to drum up support for his favored approach. It is hard to believe, really. I mean, every week he spends campaigning for his ideas is a week we are not solving the problem. It is completely counterproductive. The election is over. He won. Congratulations. We have a hard deadline here, however. He is still out on the campaign trail kind of celebrating. This is a problem.

If the President really wants to reach an agreement, he needs to be talking with the members of his own party right here in Washington, trying to broker an agreement, not out there firing up crowds and giving speeches. He is the only one who can do it, the only one who can bring folks together to broker a consensus solution that can pass a Democratic-controlled Senate as well as a Republican-controlled House. This has been my message for weeks. I reiterated it on Monday. I repeat it today.

There are some important points to keep in mind as well. Yesterday I came to the floor to remind folks that we did not get here by accident. The only reason we are even facing these twin crises right now is because Democrats have spent taxpayer money with total abandon over the past 4 years and done nothing to address the main drivers of the debt.

Our Democratic friends like to say we cannot simply cut our way to prosperity. Well, leaving aside for a moment the fact that no one is actually proposing we do that, we cannot spend our way to prosperity either. That is exactly what Democrats have been trying to do for 4 years. We have been trying to spend our way to prosperity. It has not worked yet and is not likely to work in the future.

This is not complicated. We are not in this mess because Washington taxes too little, we are in this mess because Washington spends too much. The American people know that. And we are not going to get out of it until Democrats get serious about real spending cuts and meaningful entitlement changes. So this morning I would like to speak in a little more detail about why it is that we need to strengthen and protect these entitlement programs through reforms that match them up with the Nation's changing demographics.

Democrats like to pretend they are the great protectors of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They make solemn pledges all the time about how they will not even entertain a discussion about reform. What they do not say is that ignoring those programs is the surest way to guarantee their collapse.

All we are calling for is an honest conversation. We all know these programs are in trouble. Let's figure out a solution. When it comes to entitlements, Republicans are guided by a simple principle: We do not want Americans to age into a system that no longer exists. We do not want Americans to age into a system that no longer exists. We want to protect them and to protect people's investment in them. But we can't do it alone. Reform is something that can only be done by both parties together. That is the reality. And there has been a scandalous lack of leadership on this issue for years among Democratic leaders in Washington because they think it is a winner politically.

What I am saying is that the Democrats just won the election. Congratulations. Turn off the campaign and recognize the opportunity that divided government presents to actually do something to strengthen these programs and protect them for future generations. That is all Republicans are asking for. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are critical to the economic and health care security of millions of older, lower income, and disabled Americans. We want to make sure they remain viable not only for today's seniors but for their children and their grandchildren and that they do not consume so large a share of Federal spending that we do not have the money to pay for other necessities.

Here are the facts, just the facts. Longer lifespans and Federal spending patterns threaten the viability of all of these programs as well as the economic well-being of our country and our children. Think about it. The number of Americans over the age of 65 will increase from 40 million in 2010 to 54 million at the end of this decade and then 72 million a decade after that. Americans are living longer, more productive lives. That is great and a testament to modern health care here in the United States, but it creates obvious challenges for which we need to prepare. We cannot just let seniors age into promises that can no longer pay promised benefits. It is not right. Yet already Medicare and Social Security are both paying out more benefits than they take in from taxes. Medicare and Social Security are paying out more benefits than they take in from taxes now--not some other day, now.

The problem is particularly urgent in Medicare, which paid out nearly $30 billion more than it took in last year and which is on the road to bankruptcy in about 10 years--10 years from now, a bankrupt Medicare. This is not alarmism. It is math. It is a fact. And the studies that illustrate the gravity of the problem come from members of the President's own Cabinet who serve as the Medicare trustees.

In discussing the Medicare Part A trust fund, for example, the Medicare trustees report that expenditures for this program have exceeded income every year since 2008, and projected expenditures continue to do so every year until the fund becomes exhausted in 2024, which is not that far away.

What do the President's own trustees think we should do about all of this? This is from their report:

The financial projections in this report indicate a need

for additional steps to address Medicare's remaining

financial challenges. Consideration of further reforms should

occur in the near future. Not some other day, now.

Again, these are the President's own trustees. They are the ones saying we need to do something about the problem; not just me, the Medicare trustees.

Yet Democrats are telling those on the hard left, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. They won't do anything to reform and protect theses programs. For some reason these groups all applaud, as if this is some kind of an achievement--as if this is some kind of an achievement, allowing entitlements to crumble. That is the kind of leadership vacuum we have had on this issue from Democrats in Washington literally for years. Here is a concrete example of what I mean.

The Medicare Modernization Act requires Medicare trustees to send a funding warning letter whenever Medicare begins to rely on the Treasury for more than 45 percent of its financing. The law then requires the President to submit a plan to Congress on how he plans to address the shortfall. The trustees issued their first such warning back in 2007, and they have continued to issue one every year since. President Bush submitted his plan. This President has ignored the warnings every year he has been in office, every year.

Here is another example. In 2010 the Director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned that ``the single greatest threat to budget stability of the Federal Government is the growth of Federal spending on health care.'' Yet how did President Obama and his allies respond to these warnings about overspending on health care? He increased Federal spending on health care by $580 billion. That was their response, to increase spending on health care by $580 billion. That was their solution.

As for Social Security, the only thing we hear from Democrats is that they don't want to talk about it. Don't want to talk about it? Why in the world wouldn't they want to talk about the fact that this vital program started spending out more than it took in in 2010 for the first time in nearly 30 years, and that its trustees now estimate that it will keep spending more than it takes in for 75 years unless we strengthen it?

But, again, it is not just a question of when these programs go broke, it is also about the strain they continue to put on the rest of the Federal budget on their way to going broke. Look, I understand that when it comes to government spending, those on the hard left have no limiting principle. No limiting principle. They don't think about this. They think every dollar secured is sacrosanct forever and forever, amen. But when you are in charge, when you are the steward of the Nation's finances, you don't have that luxury. You are actually responsible.

These are just a few of the ways in which Democrats have been slowly undermining the very programs they claim to champion, making it even harder for us to reform and strengthen them in the future. The good news is these challenges are neither unprecedented nor insurmountable. We have done it before. When a President of one party has decided to sit down with leaders of the other party in Congress, we have faced up to challenges such as these and made the tough choices necessary to resolve them.

In 1983, President Reagan worked with Tip O'Neill to reach an agreement that increased the retirement age and laid the groundwork for preserving Social Security for decades to come. In 1997, Medicare faced total insolvency by 2001. President Clinton, working with a Republican Congress, reached an agreement that added decades to the life of the Medicare trust fund.

We can do this. We can do this. But the President, as I have said, has to lead. That is the issue. It is that simple.

Rules Changes

Madam President, we have been having a spirited discussion this week over the plans of the Democratic majority to break the rules to change the rules. That is how my friend from Nevada repeatedly described it when Republicans considered doing something similar several years ago but wisely chose not to.

At the end of the following year, my friend was poised to become Senate majority leader, which was back in 2006. With the experience of having served in the minority in his mind, the majority leader, the soon-to-be majority leader, the Senator from Nevada, made a commitment to practice the Golden Rule, as he put it, by running the Senate with respect for the rules and for the minority rights the rules protect.

Unfortunately, he appears to have repudiated that clear commitment. Unfortunately, he no longer recognizes, as Senator Byrd did, by the way, that the Senate was not established to be efficient but to make sure minorities are protected.

Then my friend recognized that is what the Senate is all about. That is what he said back then. Now he says the primary consideration is ``efficiency.'' He seeks to minimize concerns about this majoritarian power grab by characterizing the effect as ``tiny,'' just a little change, a ``minor change,'' as changing the rules just a little bit.

But when one of my new Members asked the majority leader if this change occurred what recourse he would have to ensure he ever got an amendment to the bill, the majority leader quipped, ``You can always vote against the bill.'' In other words, my friend from Nevada acknowledged that if this change occurred, the minority will no longer have any ability to ensure that it and those whom it represents have a meaningful voice in the legislative process.

My new colleague was surprised, but I can't say I was. After all, the majority leader brazenly told Senator McCain that ``the days of amendments are over.''

The record of the Democratic leadership, of course, backs this up. It is engaged in a systemic effort to use and abuse Senate procedures to marginalize the voice of the minority in the legislative process. Let us review the record.

It used to be unprecedented to use Senate rule XIV frequently. This rule allows the majority to bypass committees and write bills behind closed doors. Doing so deprives all Senators, Republicans and Democrats, of the chance to have their committee work actually make any difference.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the majority has used this rule to bypass committees nearly 70 times--70 times. When Republicans were last in the majority under Senator Frist, we used that rule less than half as often, only 30 times to be specific, which is a much lower rate, proportionately speaking.

When a bill that has bypassed committee goes straight to the floor under the current Democratic leadership, there often isn't an opportunity to participate there either. In fact, according to the Congressional Research Service, the current Democratic leadership continues to break records there as well. It has blocked Senators from both sides of the aisle from offering amendments on the floor 68 times--68 times. That is a conservative figure in which the majority has simply made it impossible for any Senators to offer any amendments on the floor. For if the Democratic leadership indicates it won't let us offer any amendments to a bill, and in response we don't allow the majority to get on the bill, then there is no tree to fill that shows up in the statistics, but there is a filibuster. Of course, the filibuster statistic doesn't indicate the reason for the filibuster in the first place. Let me say that again. The filibuster statistic doesn't indicate the reason for the filibuster in the first place.

But even this conservative figure is 70 percent greater than the number of times the six prior majority leaders combined--combined--shut their colleagues out of the amendment process. Our friend, the majority leader, cavalierly dismisses this unprecedented blocking of Senators of both parties from offering amendments. He said this behavior has ``no bearing on what's going on around here.'' It has ``no bearing on what's going on around here.''

Well, maybe in his mind it doesn't, but that is a pretty convenient and, frankly, self-serving attitude coming from the one who is picking the amendments. It is a little bit bigger deal to the other 99 of us who don't get to offer any amendments, when our constituents elected us to be a meaningful voice for them.

Of course, that wasn't the majority leader's view when he was in the minority and had to live under that procedure. Senator Frist as majority leader blocked his colleagues from offering amendments a relatively modest 15 times in 4 years--15 times in 4 years. Do you know what the reaction of my friend from Nevada was when Senator Frist did this a relatively modest number of times over 4 years? He said it was ``a bad way to run the Senate.'' He said it was a ``very bad practice.'' He said it ``runs against the basic nature of the Senate.''

Well, if it was a bad way to run the Senate, if it was a very bad practice, if it ran against the basic nature of the Senate to do it 15 times in 4 years, what would be the fair way to characterize the practice when it happened nearly 70 times on bills, especially when many of those never went

through committee? Is it fair to conclude that this sort of stewardship of the Senate might be more than just a few tweaks shy of how this institution, which is supposed to protect the rights of all Senators, including those in the minority, is supposed to function?

But the current Democratic leadership wasn't content to stop there in marginalizing the minority. Because the minority isn't allowed to offer amendments in committee and isn't allowed to offer amendments on floor, some of our Members began to put forth legislative ideas by moving to suspend the rules.

This wasn't exactly a level playing field for us because of the requirement in the Senate rules that motions to suspend the rules receive 67 votes to prevail. But even if the deck was stacked against us, it was a chance for us to put our ideas and those of our constituents before the body.

Well, of course, that was even too much, too much legislative freedom for the majority. Even if the majority started with a 27-vote built-in advantage under the rules to defeat these motions, having to bother with them was just too much, just too much of a bother. It got in the way of efficiency. So the majority leader used a simple majority to change Senate procedure to shut down the minority there too.

Even that is not enough. That is not enough. The same Democratic leadership now wants to take away the right to extend the debate on motions to proceed to a measure. Don't worry, they say. Don't worry about it. Trust us, they say. We would never take away the right to extended debate on the measure itself.

Really? Really? In light of the systemic effort to marginalize the minority at every turn, are we supposed to believe that the current majority won't subsequently cite ``efficiency'' as a reason to take away that Senate rule as well? Are we supposed to believe this assurance when the Democratic leadership so easily discards past unequivocal commitments to respect the rights of the minority?

On the record of this Democratic leadership, there is no basis, none, to believe that the proposed changes are ``tiny,'' that they are ``minor,'' that they would affect the Senate just ``a little bit'' or that they would stop there. To my colleagues who have never served in this body in the minority, who have never served under different leadership, this is not how the Senate is supposed to function.

To my Democratic friends in particular who have never served in the minority but no doubt will at some point, are you prepared to live under the rules you are now demanding? Are you prepared to be shut out from even offering amendments when the shoe is on the other foot?

We in the minority cannot fairly expect the majority to allow us to offer every amendment we wish to a bill. I understand that. We need to exercise self-restraint and good judgment as well. We know we will not get every amendment we wish to offer. But the majority cannot prevent us from offering amendments in committee, block us from offering amendments on the floor before cloture, and change Senate procedure so it can rule out of order motions we want to offer after cloture and then turn around and assert that these systemic practices ``have no bearing on what's going on around here.'' That is an abdication of responsibility.

I would encourage my friend the majority leader not to employ a heavy-handed procedure. With the House of Representatives in control of Republicans, it is important to note here, what short-term advantage would be gained by all of this nuclear option activity? The House of Representatives is in the hands of my party. So you will have degraded the Senate, created a bad precedent for the next time you are in the minority, and sent measures to the House nowhere. But in the long term it will establish a precedent for breaking the rules to change the rules that our Democratic colleagues will have to endure when they are next in the minority.

Now, what we should be doing, Madam President, is we should work together on a bipartisan basis to resolve our respective differences. That is what the Standing Rules of the Senate anticipate, and that has been how changes to Senate rules have occurred in the past. We can reach agreement, as previous majority leaders have done, without making the Senate irrelevant.

The time for the majority leader and myself to discuss these matters has come.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Reservation of Leader Time

Mr. President, yesterday I came to the floor to discuss what is known as the fiscal cliff, a mix of automatic tax hikes and defense cuts that are set to hit at the end of the year, jeopardizing our security as well as our economy. My message was pretty simple: A solution is possible.

Republicans have been reasonable, and the President needs to lead. He is the only one who can get us to a solution. If that is what he wants, we will succeed. So it was with some concern that I read this morning that the President plans to hit the road next week to drum up support for his own personal approach to the short- and long-term fiscal challenges we face. In other words, rather than sitting down with lawmakers of both parties and working out an agreement, he is back on the campaign trail, presumably with the same old talking points with which we are all quite familiar.

Look, we already know the President is a very good campaigner. We congratulate him on his reelection. What we do not know is whether he has the leadership qualities necessary to lead his party to a bipartisan agreement on big issues such as we currently face. So let me suggest that if the President wants a solution to the challenges of the moment, the people he needs to be talking to are the members of his own party so he can convince them of the need to act. We are not going to solve this problem by creating villains and drumming up outrage. We will solve the problem by doing the hard work of sitting down and figuring out a solution that involves tough choices on all sides.

That gets at another point I made yesterday. In the past, Democrats have demanded tax hikes now for spending cuts that never actually happen. Not this time. A balanced approach means real spending reductions now. And I am not saying this because it is the Republicans' position, although it is. I am not saying this because I have anything against the government, which I do not. I am saying this because it is the only approach that has any chance of working. No credible deficit reduction plan we have seen over the past few years excludes real cuts. If we want to prevent this crisis, Democrats need to be as serious about cutting spending as they are about spending. It is that simple.

By the way, this is an approach Americans overwhelmingly support. According to a recent AP poll, voters prefer spending cuts to tax hikes 62 percent to 29 percent--a more than 2-to-1 margin. Now, there is a reason for this. The American people are not stupid. They know the problem with Washington is not that it taxes too little but that it spends too much. They also know the only reason we are even talking about a looming fiscal crisis right now is because the Democrats have spent the last 4 years creating it.

That is what I would like to focus on this morning--how we got into this mess in the first place--because amidst all of the talk about plans and proposals, it is easy to forget that we did not get here by accident; we got here because Washington Democrats, from the President on down, have done two things exceedingly well over the past 4 years: spent other people's money and kicked the can down the road--spend other people's money and kick the can down the road. For 4 years, Democrats spent money we did not have in the misguided hope that it would help the economy. They have borrowed trillions of dollars to keep unemployment pretty much right where it was when they started. And here is what we have 4 years later: a mountain of debt and a looming national budgetary crisis.

Republicans are happy to talk about how to solve this mess, but make no mistake, we will also talk about how we got here. The reason we are having these negotiations is because Washington Democrats have spent money without any care for the cost or the future and refuse to do anything to protect long-term spending programs, such as Medicare, a failure that is among the biggest single drivers of our debt.

All this reflects a very clear philosophy: For Washington Democrats, every dollar that has ever been secured for anything is sacred--every dollar that has ever been secured for anything is sacred--and they will defend it to the death regardless of what it means for jobs or the economy. But those days are over because you do not eliminate trillion- dollar deficits by taxing the rich--not even close. It may be an effective talking point, but as a matter of policy it is a minor deal, and the Democrats know it. So, as we move into the final stretch, it is time, as I have said, to put the talking points away and get serious about striking a deal.

The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. If borrowing more than 40 cents for every dollar you spend does not convince you you have a spending problem, frankly, I do not know what will. If Democrats cannot admit we have a spending problem, they need to talk to their constituents more. They need to get real. That means changing the way things have been done around here for the past few years.

Independent budget experts have been telling us for ages that our long-term budget deficits are driven by the unsustainable health care entitlements. What was the administration's response to that? Their response was to add trillions more by creating an entirely new health care entitlement program. We were promised that the President's health care law would reduce health care costs. What did it do? We are now told health care costs will rise as a share of our economy and the taxpayer's liability. By one estimate, those costs will go up by more than $\1/2\ trillion over the next 10 years.

We know the number of Americans 65 or older will increase by one- third over the next 10 years. According to the Census Bureau, there were 40 million older Americans in 2010. There will be 54 million of them a decade after that, and more than 72 million older Americans a decade after that. What are the Democrats doing to ensure the programs they rely upon will actually be there? We cannot ignore the facts. We need to prepare for the demographic changes we know are coming. Medicare is simply too important for millions of seniors to let it continue down the road to insolvency. We must preserve it for today's seniors and strengthen it for those who will retire in the years ahead.

As Congress looks for savings, we need to look at the new health care entitlements too. While Democrats and Republicans may disagree on ObamaCare, it is ridiculous to suggest that we make changes to Medicare and Medicaid while leaving $1.6 trillion in new ObamaCare spending untouched.

For 4 years Democrats have been completely unbalanced in the way they have spent paper dollars. Yet now that the crisis is upon us, they solemnly advise us that we need to be balanced in

our solution. This is how you ensure the expansion of government. This is how you end up with $16 trillion of debt, but it is not how you get out of it. It is not how you solve the problem. You solve the problem by taking tough medicine and tough votes. You solve it by doing something different than what you have been doing all along. You solve it with the help of a President who is willing to lead his party. You don't just change your rhetoric and your talking points while telling your base behind closed doors you aren't going to give any ground. You change your behavior. For Democrats in Washington, as I have said, that means getting serious for a change about cuts. The time for campaigning is over. It is time to act.

Nuclear Option

Mr. President, yesterday the majority leader and I had a rather spirited discussion about his intention to change the Senate rules outside the process provided in those rules.

When he was in the minority, my friend from Nevada objected strenuously to the very procedure he now wants to employ. He called using a simple majority maneuver to change Senate procedure the ``nuclear option'' and described it as breaking the rules to change the rules. Now that he is in the majority, he says the ends justify the means. He says we have to make the Senate more efficient and we have to violate the Senate rules to do that so he and his colleagues in the majority can implement more easily their vision for America. According to him, these minor changes won't affect anyone who has the thought of making America better.

Let me say that again. The majority leader said these minor changes won't affect anyone who has the thought of making America better. Of course, in the majority leader's world, it will be just he and his colleagues who determine what makes America better.

In short, according to my friend from Nevada, the means by which he wants to achieve his ends don't matter, only his ends matter. That is pretty convenient if you happen to be in the majority at the moment. I say again, at the moment. But convenience or efficiency, as my friend has described it, is not what the Senate has been about.

My friend the majority leader may have put it best in 2006 when he made the first of his commitments to respect the rights of the minority. This is what the majority leader said:

As majority leader, I intend to run the Senate with respect

for the rules and for the minority rights the rules protect.

The Senate was not established to be efficient. Sometimes the

rules get in the way of efficiency. The Senate was

established to make sure that minorities are protected.

Majorities can always protect themselves, but minorities

cannot. That is what the Senate is all about.

My friend from Nevada then committed that he was going to ``treat my Republican colleagues the way I expect to be treated'' and that he would do everything he could to ``preserve the rules and traditions of the institution that I love.''

Inaccurately describing the essence and wise purpose of the Senate, the majority leader sounded a lot like our former colleague Robert C. Byrd. So I was quite surprised to hear our friend from Nevada assert that Senator Byrd would actually support the heavy-handed tactic he intends to employ.

I am not going to correct all the inaccuracies my friend made yesterday, such as saying four times that it takes 10 days to get out a bill. I don't know what version of Riddick's my friend has been reading, but if it actually took 10 days to get on a bill I might actually support some rule changes myself.

But I must disabuse my friend from Nevada about how Senator Byrd would view the heavy-handed tactic he intends to employ. Unlike the majority leader, I recall when our late colleague spoke on this topic at a Rules Committee hearing the last time the majority leader entertained ``breaking the rules to change the rules.'' Senator Byrd was unequivocally against violating Senate rules to change the rules the way the current majority leader is proposing.

Senator Byrd began by noting that ``Our Founding Fathers intended the Senate to be a continuing body that allows for open and unlimited debate and the protection of minority rights. Senators have understood that,'' he stated, ``since the Senate first convened.'' That is Senator Byrd on the history of the Senate.

Senator Byrd also noted that at the Constitutional Convention, James Madison reported that the Senate was to be ``a necessary fence'' in order to ``protect the people against their rulers,'' and ``to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.''

How did Senator Byrd view the filibuster in the role of the Senate? How did it relate to the Senate as a ``necessary fence''? Senator Byrd said, ``The right to filibuster anchors this necessary fence.''

Senator Byrd acknowledged that this right should not be abused, and that ``there are many suggestions as to what we should do'' if it is abused. He recounted procedures that currently exist under the rules--I say again, procedures that currently exist under the rules--to address it if it is.

As I suggested yesterday, Senator Byrd also indicated that simply working a full week such as most people do--I mean, most people in America have a 5-day work week--by simply working a full week we could address some of these concerns. Senator Byrd bemoaned the fact that ``the Senate often works 3-day weeks.'' In other words, if you want the Senate to be more productive, start working more. It is not rocket science here. That is what Senator Byrd was saying.

But Senator Byrd was clear about what we should never do. He said, ``We must never, ever tear down the only wall--the necessary fence-- this Nation has against the excesses of the executive branch and the result of haste and tyranny of the majority.''

Senator Byrd, as we know, was a historian. He was a skillful majority leader who understood the unique importance of the Senate and the need of a majority leader to keep his commitment. But he was also a political realist who had been around enough to understand that political majorities are fleeting, and if you break the rules to suit your political purposes of the moment, you may regret having done so when you find yourself in the minority. Senator Byrd specifically said:

I strongly caution my colleagues as some propose to alter

the rules to severely limit the ability of a minority to

conduct a filibuster. I know what it is to be majority

leader, and wake up on a Wednesday morning in November and

find yourself a minority leader.

To make sure there was no doubt as to his views on the subject, Senator Byrd concluded by unequivocally objecting to the use of the nuclear option that the Senator from Nevada is now proposing. He said:

The Rules Committee must, however, jealously guard against

efforts to change or reinterpret the Senate rules by a simple

majority, circumventing rule XXII where a two-thirds majority

is required.

My friend the majority leader is no more correct about Senator Byrd's views on the nuclear option, on the idea of breaking the rules to change the rules, than he is about taking 10 days to get on a bill.

I will conclude by reading what are likely the last words Senator Byrd spoke on the subject of the nuclear option, and I encourage my colleagues to reflect on his wise counsel. This is what he said:

As I have said before, the Senate has been the last

fortress of minority rights and freedom of speech in the

Republic for more than two centuries. I pray that Senators

will pause and reflect before ignoring that history and

tradition in favor of the political party of the moment.

Mr. President, I certainly agree the Senate isn't working. We get a few days in between recesses, rarely work at night, and almost never do anything on Thursday. That is entirely within the purview of the majority leader.

It is true that a few years back, when my party was in the majority, we contemplated changing the rules, but cooler heads prevailed and we didn't. The fundamental issue, as my friend lays out, is that he wants to break the rules to change the rules. In other words, he and I are not negotiating on these issues. He is deciding what will be the rule in the Senate. He will break the rules in order to change the rules. That is all anybody listening to this debate needs to understand. What the majority leader is going to do is he is going

to break the rules to change the rules--one party only.

We ought to be negotiating rule changes. Rule changes ought to be proposed by the majority leader and the minority leader together that would surpass the 67-vote threshold, if it is designed to protect the Senate from the whims of new majorities. There is always a temptation when a party is in the majority to want to change the rules to benefit themselves at the expense of others. It is particularly absurd to do it right now because anything Senate Democrats would gain out of that would go nowhere in the House. So there is no practical purpose served by this. All it does is put on record that Senate Democrats are willing to break the rules to change the rules. That is the fundamental issue. Rules changes ought to be negotiated by the two leaders, as they have been down through the years, and then proposed together.

As I have indicated on several occasions--and I will say again--I think the frustrations the majority leader has had could have been easily solved by putting some of his young Members in the Chair and breaking down some--one person--trying to make it difficult to get on to a bill. All this could have been fixed. Rather than complaining about it, just do something about it. That is what I would have done, if I had been in his shoes. He has chosen not to do that.

Rather than point fingers and continue to campaign--look, the campaign is over. You guys had a pretty good day. You are in the majority. But you can't seem to turn the campaign off. You just keep running it forever. So here we are with this explosive nuclear option being thrown into the Chamber at a time when we ought to be turning the election off and trying to come together to solve the biggest problem, which I talked about first, which is the fiscal cliff and the Nation's seemingly hopeless debt and deficit situation. That is what we ought to be doing. Instead, my friends on the other side just can't keep from continuing to celebrate the election. You won. Now, why don't we govern. The way to govern is to try to bring this body together.

The Senate has been built over the years on collegiality. We have always had some personalities on both sides who made it a challenge for whoever the majority leader was. I can remember back when we were in the majority and Howard Metzenbaum from Ohio would sit out here on the floor and read every bill. He was a royal pain in the you know what to whoever the majority leader was at the time. The Senate survived all that. We didn't engage in a rules change dictated by whoever was in the majority at the moment.

This is exactly the wrong way to start off on a new year and to end an old year with a ton of problems that we have to deal with. Here we are, as a result of this suggestion that we employ the nuclear option, arguing about arcane rules changes when we ought to be sitting down together and trying to solve the Nation's huge deficit and debt problems.

But the fundamental issue is this: Is the majority going to break the rules to change the rules? That is the issue before the Senate. Are we going to break the rules to change the rules--employ the nuclear option, fundamentally change the body, not have a negotiation between the two leaders about what adjustments might be appropriate to make the Senate work better. Oh, no, we are going to do it on our own.

I think it is a huge mistake not only for the Senate, but it will impact obviously our short-term ability to come together and to work on the big problems the country sent us to solve.

Would the majority leader yield on that point?

Did the Senate majority at that time, made up of Republicans, choose to go forward and do that? We did not do it. We did not use the nuclear option. There was a lot of discussion about it which related to judicial appointments, but in the end the majority chose not to do it.

We keep quoting Senator Byrd back and forth, but I think it is appropriate to look at what he said in 2010. He said:

I believe that efforts to change or reinterpret the rules

in order to facilitate expeditious action by a simple

majority are grossly misguided. The Senate is the only place

in government where the rights of the numerical minority are

so protected.

I said in my prepared statement earlier what Senator Byrd said before the Rules Committee:

The [Rules] Committee must, however, jealously guard

against efforts to change or reinterpret the Senate rules by

a simple majority, circumventing rule XXII where a two-thirds

majority is required.

I keep coming back to this because it has to do with the way any rule change is implemented. That is the point. The majority leader has suggested, and I think it is appropriate, that we talk

about rule changes together. But that is not what he is suggesting he is going to do. He says he is going to break the rules to change the rules and employ the nuclear option.

That is not a negotiation with the minority over rules changes. What we ought to be doing is talking to each other about what adjustments in the rules we could advocate together, and not one party with a majority today--that might be in the minority 2 years from now--breaking the rules to change the rules for some kind of misguided short-term advantage. That is the problem.

So I would be happy to talk to the majority leader about these issues, but I vigorously oppose--and I know Senator Byrd would vigorously oppose--breaking the rules to change the rules. He was very clear about that in 2010. I know he would object to it.

I hope somehow this nuclear option can be avoided. It seems to me to be an absolutely unnecessary distraction away from much larger issues confronting the future of our Nation.

Mr. President, as most Americans know by now, the next few weeks are critically important in the life of our Nation. Unless the President leads and Congress acts, the combination of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts will go into effect that could have a devastating effect on our national defense and on an already painfully slow economy.

What is more, the Nation's finances are teetering on the edge, threatening even greater hardship for literally millions unless we bring Federal spending into balance. The question is, What are we going to do about all of this? How do we face up to the fiscal irresponsibility and can kicking that got us here and finally do what is right for the country?

I do not think it is a secret that for our part the Republicans have shown a clear willingness to make tough choices in order to find a solution to the trillion-dollar deficits of the last 4 years. We have been open to revenue by closing loopholes, as long as it is tied to spending cuts and progrowth tax reform that broadens the base and lowers rates.

This is the model laid out by the Bowles-Simpson Commission, and it is a model both parties should step forward and embrace. Without compromising our principles, we have put skin in the game and recognition of that while Democrats do not run this town, neither do we. We have been responsible even as we have remained firm on this point: No tax increases now for promised spending cuts that will not materialize later. The American people have seen that game before and they will not be fooled again.

The only balanced approach is one that includes real and lasting reforms. So Republicans have stepped out of our comfort zone. We have been clear about what we will do and what we will not. Yet we remain at an impasse, leading us to ask why. Because a vocal minority on the hard left continues to argue to leaders of their party, from the President on down, that Democrats in Washington should do absolutely nothing about short-term or long-term spending problems.

This is the ``Thelma and Louise'' crowd, the ones who dream about higher taxes and the bigger government it will pay for, regardless of the impact on jobs or the economy or America's standing in the world. These are the ones who recklessly ignore the fact that we cannot continue running trillion-dollar deficits every year and throw a tantrum if somebody suggests that maybe the taxpayers should not keep subsidizing every last program Washington ever dreamed up.

Their reckless and ideological approach threatens our very future. Anyone who is serious about solving the problems we face should ignore all that, starting with the President. The election is over, but the economy and fiscal problems of the past several years have only gotten worse. It is time for the President to present a plan that rises above these reckless and radical voices on the hard left, that goes beyond the talking points of the campaign trail, and that has a realistic chance of passing the Congress. The time, in other words, for campaigning is over. It is time for the President to lead.

A little over 1 week ago, I attended a meeting with the President down at the White House. It was positive and productive and afterward I was confident that all sides were eager to figure out a solution to the present challenges that respects our respective principles. But as I have said repeatedly, the only person in America who can make or break it is the President himself.

He is the only one who can lead his party to do something they would not ordinarily do, to do what is actually needed now. That is why he is the one who has to present a plan for success. So we will continue to wait on the President and hope he has what it takes to bring people together and forge a compromise. If he does, we will get there. If he does not, we will not. It is that simple.

Mr. President, I would like to turn to another issue that does not grab as many headlines as these others we have been focused on these last few days but which is critically important since it relates to the mortal threat that has been quietly gathering against one of the most cherished safeguards of our government.

I am referring to the latest effort by some on the other side, most of whom have never served a day in the minority, to force a change in Senate rules at the beginning of the new year that would fundamentally change the character of the Senate. This is no exaggeration.

What these Democrats have in mind is a fundamental change to the way the Senate operates for the purpose of consolidating their own power and further marginalizing the minority voice the Senate was built to protect.

In the name of efficiency, their plan is to use a heavy-handed tactic that would poison party relations even more. In the name of efficiency, they would prevent the very possibility of compromise and threaten to make the disputes of the past few years mere pillow fights. To understand why, let me explain in a little more detail what is being proposed.

What this small group of primarily Senate sophomores is now proposing is that when the Senate gavels in at the beginning of the new Congress, a bare majority of Senators can disregard the rule that says changes to the Senate rules can only be approved on the same broad bipartisan basis we reserve for approving treaties and overriding Presidential vetoes, a supermajority plus.

Lyndon Johnson once said of the 67-vote threshold for changes to the rules that it ``preserves indisputably the

character of the Senate as the one continuing body in our policy making process.''

Senator Reid himself once described changing the Senate procedure by majority fiat as ``breaking the rules to change the rules.''

What is being proposed now would undermine the very purpose of the Senate as the one place in our system where minority views and opinions have been respected and heard and, in most cases, incorporated into law.

Until now, you could say that protecting the rights of a political minority has always been the defining characteristic of the Senate. That is why Members of both parties have always defended it whether they were in the majority or minority, because they knew the Senate was the last legislative check against the kind of raw exercise of power majority parties have always been tempted to wield.

The Congressional Record contains literally mountains of reverential statements by Republicans and Democrats extolling the near-sacred character of the Senate as the one legislative body on Earth that protects minority views from majority rule, and it requires supermajorities for anything significant to become law.

Why is that? So that majorities can't simply roll over those who disagree with them, and, just as important, so majority parties are forced to resolve the great issues of the moment in the middle, ensuring their stability and their permanence. It is this mechanism that has so frustrated majority parties over the years but which has ensured, at least most of the time, that our laws are stable and not subject to change every time the parties change power. This is what makes the Senate different. This is what makes this body great.

Up until recently many of those who now want to change these rules agreed with what I just said. Just a few years ago, as I have already indicated, the majority leader was one of the staunchest defenders of the Senate's protection of minority rights for all of the reasons I have mentioned. Yet now he finds himself frustrated with those rules he once championed. He is prepared to recklessly throw those rules away and his own solemn pledges to defend them.

On December 8, 2006, the majority leader made a public pledge to fight all efforts to change all rules protecting the minority once he became the majority leader. It is a pledge he repeated during another proposed rules change 2 years ago. I wish to quote in full what the majority leader said that day because in light of his words, it is hard to believe what he is proposing to do now.

Here is what he said:

As Majority Leader, I intend to run the Senate with respect

for the rules and for the minority rights the rules protect.

The Senate was not established to be efficient. Sometimes the

rules get in the way of efficiency. The Senate was

established to make sure that minorities are protected.

Majorities can always protect themselves, but minorities

cannot. That is what the Senate is all about. For more than

200 years the rules of the Senate have protected the American

people, and rightfully so. The need to muster 60 votes in

order to terminate Senate debate naturally frustrates the

majority and oftentimes the minority. I am sure it will

frustrate me when I assume the office of majority leader in a

few weeks, but I recognize this requirement is a tool that

serves the long-term interest of the Senate and the American

people and our country. It is often said that the laws are

``the system of wise restraints that set men free.'' The same

might be said of the Senate rules. I will do my part as

majority leader to foster respect for the rules and

traditions of our great institution. I say on this floor that

I love so much that I believe in the Golden Rule. I am going

to treat my Republican colleagues the way that I expect to be

treated. There is no ``I've got you,'' no get even. I am

going to do everything I can to preserve the traditions and

rules of this institution that I love.

That is the end of the quote from my friend, the majority leader, just a few years ago. He acknowledged that ``the Senate was not established to be efficient,'' but rather ``to make sure that minorities are protected.'' With this fundamental purpose of the Senate in mind, he pledged he would do everything he could to preserve the traditions and rules of this institution that he loves.

It is hard to imagine a clearer pledge than that, and I am afraid that going back on it now would have such a corrosive effect on comity that it would threaten our ability to get anything accomplished around here.

Let's be clear: The rules change that is being proposed is not an affront to me or to the Republican Party. It is an affront to the American people. It is an affront to the people who sent me and the other 46 Republicans here to represent them in the Senate, but these voices would be shut out if the majority leader and this cohort of shortsighted Senate sophomores have their way and permanently change this body.

At the moment Republicans represent the voters of 31 States, representing a total population of more than 180 million Americans. Shutting off our right to express the views of our constituents, as is being proposed, would effectively shut these people out of the process. What the majority leader and his cohort of Senators, who don't seem to understand what the Senate was intended for, are proposing would guarantee that the one sure means our constituents now have of being heard in Washington would be gone.

If a bare majority can proceed to any bill it chooses, and once on that bill the majority leader, all by himself, can shut out all amendments that aren't to his liking, then those who elected us to advocate for their views will have lost their voice in this legislative process. This is something the majority leader used to understand. He used to understand that protecting the rights of the minority party meant protecting the rights of the people who sent us here to be heard in Washington. He understood the importance of defending the minority view when he was in the minority. Now that he has been in the majority he seems to have conveniently forgotten all of that.

The people of Kentucky elected two Republican leaders to the Senate. Does the majority leader think the views of the people of Kentucky shouldn't be heard? Does he think Nevadans who sent Senator Heller to the Senate shouldn't be heard? Does he believe that on the day he finds himself in the minority once again that he should no longer be heard? Or does he think that Democrats will remain in the majority from now until the end of time?

For the past several years many of us on the Republican side have raised loud objection to the diminished rights of the minority to participate in the legislative process around here. Democratic leaders have tried in more ways than one to silence those with whom they disagree. They have blocked Members, including their own committee chairmen, from expressing themselves in committee through unprecedented use of Senate rule XIV, which allows them to bypass committees altogether.

They have blocked Members from expressing themselves through an unprecedented use of filling the amendment tree, which prevents the Senate from considering amendments the majority leader doesn't like. No amendments in committee, no amendments on the floor.

The majority leader made this clear to Senator McCain in a remarkable moment of candor when he bragged that the ``amendment days are over.'' He has preferred to write legislation in the confines of his conference room rather than in the public eye, as he did most famously with the drafting of ObamaCare.

I say to everyone: If you want more legislation around here the way that bill was crafted, then you ought to be pretty enthusiastic about what the majority leader is proposing because that is where this is headed, more authoritarianism, more secrecy, and even less input from rank-and-file Members on both sides of the aisle.

As I said, we have protested all of this and have spoken out loudly against the abuses of the Senate. But now the majority leader wants to go even further. He doesn't propose to simply abuse the rules, he wants to break the rules and his own very public pledge to defend those rules at all costs. Make no mistake, what the majority leader is proposing is a Senate where the only rule is his whim; where the rest of us are bystanders, including the Members of his own party.

Do the Democrats really want to go down this road? Do they really think they are going to be in the majority forever? We have Members from both parties who used to serve in the House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans, who said to me they thought the Senate was different.

I don't care whether you are a Republican or whether you are a Democrat, you came to the Senate because you knew that here you could make a difference for your constituents; here you would be heard; here you could offer amendments; here the minority was protected; here the majority leader had to work with the other side.

What even Senate Democrats have discovered over the past few years is a very different place--a place where committees no longer matter, where Members of both parties are shut out of the debate and where bills are drafted behind closed doors, where politicians trade favors in secret instead of exchanging ideas in public just to get legislation across the finish line.

When I come to the Senate every day I know I work in a body of people who have different views than I do about the role of government and the best solutions to the problems we face. But I know the price of belonging to this place is having to hear them out and to vote on their ideas, and the price of belonging here is that they have to do the same.

The American people need to know what is going on here, and that is why I hope Republicans and many Democrats who care about this institution, rather than some temporary exercise of raw partisan political power, will come forward over the next few weeks and speak out against this naked power grab. When they do, I hope they will be guided by the words of another former Democratic Senator who said the following about the Senate and its uniqueness. This is what this former Democratic Senator said:

The American people sent us here to be their voice. They

understand that those voices can at times become loud and

argumentative, but they also hope we can disagree without

being disagreeable. At the end of the day, they expect both

parties to work together to get the people's business done.

What they do not expect is for one party, be it Republican or

Democrat, to change the rules in the middle of the game so

they can make all the decisions while the other party is told

to sit down and keep quiet. The American people want less

partnership in this town, but everyone in this chamber knows

that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they

choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic

debate, then the fighting, the bitterness, and the gridlock

will only get worse.

That Senate Democrat was President Obama. I don't often agree with President Obama on matters of policy, and the issue he was referring to here was different than this one. But the principle he expressed in defending his position then is one that I believe in wholeheartedly.

Let me sum it this way: For the sake of this institution and the future of the country, I implore Members on both sides to oppose this naked power grab strenuously and loudly. It may be the most important thing they ever do because the debates of the moment are passing, but the Senate must endure and nothing less is at stake.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I hope the majority leader will stay on the floor here.

I gather the way the majority leader proposes to effectuate this rules change is to violate the current rule of the Senate; in other words, to do it with a simple majority. You didn't address that issue.

Mr. President, I believe I have the floor.

That is the point. What the majority leader is saying is he will break the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate. It has been the case in the past that it took a supermajority of 67, which of course meant most rules changes occurred because the two leaders agreed to them and were proposing them jointly. Instead, what the majority leader is saying is he will propose to change the rules with 51 votes, meaning his side gets to decide what the rules are. The danger of that, of course, is let us assume--I know the majority leader thinks he is going to be the majority leader forever; he isn't. What if it is 2 years from now and what if my Members say, well, if 51 Democrats can change the rules of the Senate, why can't the Republicans? Why should we have to fiddle with these people in the minority?

What is the point? Why not just change the rules of the Senate and turn the Senate into the House?

That is why Lyndon Johnson felt so strongly that a rules change should require a supermajority of 67, not 60, thereby virtually guaranteeing that any significant changes in the way the body operates are done on a bipartisan basis.

Further, the majority leader calls anything a filibuster when he decides to file a cloture motion, which he routinely does on virtually every bill, and then complains because we are reluctant to go to the bill without some assurances we are going to be able to offer amendments.

So here is the way it works: The majority leader calls up a bill, he files cloture on the motion to proceed, we

enter into a discussion in order to get some understanding that we are going to have a chance to offer any amendments. And the reason we engage in that discussion is because throughout the last Congress getting to offer an amendment was kind of an unusual thing, because as soon as you get on the bill, the majority leader fills up the amendment tree, which means he alone gets to decide, he alone, out of 100 of us, gets to decide who gets to offer an amendment. In other words, he gets to pick our amendments for us.

Look, the motion to proceed has been an irritant to the majority leader. Had I been in his job, what I would have done is put somebody in the Chair, keep the person objecting here up all night and wear them down. We are almost never in at night. I can't remember the last time we had a vote on a Friday. It is pretty easy working in the Senate because we never use the fatigue factor to accomplish things.

We have actually had some examples, by the way, of doing things the right way. We had three bills earlier this year that, believe it or not, actually came out of committee, were actually supported by Democrats and Republicans in committee, who worked on the bill in committee, and they came out on the floor and were open for amendments and they actually passed: postal reform, the transportation bill, and the farm bill. All were handled in the normal way we used to do virtually every bill in the Senate. None of them were written in the majority leader's office, as far as I could tell. And the thing they all three had in common is they actually passed the Senate and Members felt as though they were invested in the process.

So, look, we don't have a rules problem, we have a behavioral problem. When the majority leader believes he gets to decide what happens on every bill, that is beyond the purview of the job he holds. What we need to do is start operating in a normal fashion which respects the views and involvement of all Members of the Senate in both parties. Is it a little bit harder to engage in these discussions? Yes, it is. It is harder. But to go out and decide to break the rules to change the rules because you might have to work a little bit harder to get where you are headed strikes me as a disservice to the institution and a disservice to the Senate.

Nobody is going to buy this notion about all these filibusters. He is filing cloture on the motion to proceed on day one. And the reason he has had to file cloture on the motion to proceed so frequently is because we can't get any assurance from the majority leader that we were going to be able to offer any amendments. That is the problem. We need to behave differently. That is the way to get this place functioning again.

Will the majority yield on that point for a question?

If this is such a reasonable rule change, why not work to try to propose it on a joint basis, subject it to the 61-vote threshold? That would honor the tradition that the Senate is a continuous body whose rules go from Congress to Congress. I mean, that is what has been unique about the way rules changes have been done around here.

And one further question, in addition.

How would you feel if 2 years from now I have your job and my Members say, why don't we get rid of the filibuster with just 51 votes?

Mr. President, when I quote the Democratic leader, I use his exact words--his exact words--which I did throughout my comments. Yet he makes up words for me. I have never said the Senate is working fine. I think the Senate has been disastrously run for the last 2 years--disastrously run not because of the rules but because of the operation. And it is certainly not the fault of the Republicans.

Take the budget, for example, which can be done with a simple majority. We haven't had a budget in 3 years. The law says we are supposed to pass a budget. It doesn't say don't pass the budget if we don't want to; don't pass the budget if we might have to offer amendments. It doesn't say don't pass a budget if we might have to negotiate with the Republican House. It says, pass a budget. We also haven't called up a single appropriations bill.

Look, if one Senator has a problem going to a bill, file cloture on the motion to proceed. Had the majority leader done that on the Defense bill, it would have been approved overwhelmingly. He could have done that on a

Friday and it would have been approved on a Monday. The obstructionism he complains about is pretty easily overcome if we are willing to make the place work a little bit. Most people work Monday to Friday. Not us. The Senate used to be a nocturnal place because majority leaders of both parties would use the fatigue factor to grind down opposition coming from a few people. We almost never do that.

So don't get me wrong, I say to my friend the majority leader. I am not defending the way this place has been run the last 2 years. I think it is embarrassing. I have to apologize to my constituents for the way the place is run. But we had the same rules in earlier Congresses and didn't have the same problem.

We have always had a few Members on each side who wanted to exercise every one of their rights. When I first got here, Senator Metzenbaum from Ohio would stay out here on the floor and read every bill. He was a big problem. Nobody tried to change the rules. We worked this place.

What the majority leader conveniently continues to leave out is that it is not only the rule he wants to change but the way he wants to change it. He wants to establish the precedent that 51 Senators can change the rules, anytime they want to, to take away the rights of everybody else, which will fundamentally change this institution.

So no Senator should buy the argument that this is just a little bitty change about the motion to proceed. This is about the way rules will be changed in the Senate. No longer would a 67-vote threshold obviously bring the two leaders and their Members together to agree to rules changes, but anytime, on any whim, any majority leader wants to change the rules, 51 votes. This is no small matter. This is a big issue about the future of this country and how this institution ought to be operated.

Being majority leader is a tough job. You have cantankerous Members on both sides who want to exercise their rights. It has always been that way. But the way you get past it is you work the place, you make it function, you talk to people, you treat them with respect. The collegiality we used to have in this body has faded--faded because of the arrogance of power exercised by some. All of this is correctable because we in here are all human beings trying to do our best, trying to leverage the place in one way or another to seek some advantage. But that is the way the Senate has always been.

What I think we need is an attitude change. The election is behind us. Whatever short-term advantage the majority may have felt it had by protecting its Members from voting on almost everything is over. We don't need to have a perpetual election in the country. We have huge issues before us here at the end of the year, many of which will probably carry over into next year. It is a time that we ought to be building collegiality and relationships and not making incendiary moves that are damaging to the institution and could have serious ramifications on our ability to work together here at the end of the year.

So I would encourage my friend the majority leader to think thoroughly through whether this is the direction he wants to take this body. I believe it is a huge mistake. The American people sent us here to solve big problems, and we ought to be concentrating on trying to bring everybody together behind an agreement that hopefully could be reached before the end of the year to do really important work for the American people.

Mr. President, it doesn't take 10 days to get on a bill. And what the majority leader has repeated now is that he is going to break the rules to change the rules, which is a wonderful way to start off the new Congress.

At a time when the American people would like for us to work together and to solve the huge issues that lie before us, the majority leader has chosen instead to break the rules to change the rules because he has had difficulty getting on bills. It is a sad commentary about where the Senate stands these days. I had hoped that going into the lameduck session, we would have an entirely different view of how to bring this place together and begin to solve the problems. So it is a sad day for the Senate. We will go forward as best we can under this extraordinary set of circumstances.

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

Mr. President, with the new year fast approaching, all eyes are on Washington and whether the two parties can come together and agree on a plan to avoid a massive year-end tax hike. I truly believe we can. I believe the two parties can avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, and in the process I even believe we can agree on a framework for a bipartisan plan to address the even bigger problem of our Nation's fiscal solvency.

But there are clear obstacles to success. If we are going to succeed, if we want to avoid a job-killing tax hike and put the country on a path to solvency, we need to be clear about what the obstacles are.

The first obstacle is a very vocal and very determined group of extremists on the left who are rooting for us to go off the fiscal cliff. They want this to happen. These are the folks the President invited to the White House earlier this week and who seem to have gotten a number of Democrats in the Senate to embrace this reckless idea themselves.

Make no mistake, the goal of these folks is not to do what is best for the middle class. It is not to create jobs. It is not even to balance the books, since the taxes they would hike would not even come close to covering current spending.

What they want is to sock it to those whom they define as rich, regardless of the impact on jobs or the broader economy. That is what motivates this crowd. They are not serious about tackling the Nation's fiscal problems. If we are serious about helping middle-class Americans and helping this economy grow, their radical approach, frankly, should be ignored.

The other obstacle to success is a mindset that says the President of the United States is somehow a bit player in this whole thing, that he is just a bystander sitting around waiting on other people to act. This is a mindset that thinks leadership consists of telling other people to ``work it out,'' while they continue to run a campaign to make sure they cannot.

This is ludicrous. The only way--I repeat--the only way we are going to

solve this present crisis and get past the political stalemate is for the President himself to lead.

To illustrate the point, let me remind everyone of something that happened just 2 years ago next month--just 2 years ago next month-- because it says a lot about the power of Presidential leadership in critical moments such as this. Less than 2 years ago, the President said he was not going to allow tax rates to go up on anyone because, as he put it, you do not raise taxes in the middle of a recession.

So let's leave aside for a second that if it was a good idea then, it is an even better idea now, since the economy is growing even more slowly now than it was in late 2010. Let's leave that aside.

The point is that the moment the President of the United States said those words--the moment he signaled he was OK to keep rates where they were--40 Democrats, including many who had spent the previous decade campaigning against them, got in line and followed his lead.

That is an example of Presidential leadership, and that is just what is needed now. The President is the only person in America--the only 1 out of 315 million--who can sign a bill into law. He is the only one who can lead the members of his own party to do something they would not ordinarily do. But first he needs to decide it is time to put away the talking points and do something good, something really good for the country.

Ronald Reagan understood this, Bill Clinton understood this, and President Obama seemed to understand it, too, in December 2010. So I will say it again. The only way we succeed is if the President steps up and leads. It starts by showing that he is serious about success.

Let's be clear. An opening bid of $1.6 trillion in new taxes just is not serious. It is more than Simpson-Bowles or any other bipartisan commission has called for. It has been unanimously rejected in the House and Senate. It is twice as much as the White House seemed ready to agree to during last summer's debt ceiling talks and looked at in the context of the spending cuts that are yet to be enacted from the President's other proposals. It amounts to about 20 cents in cuts for every new dollar in tax hikes. In other words, no cuts at all. It is a joke--a joke.

Look, people I talk to across Kentucky do not want any more political fights. They would like to see us get somewhere. They want the two parties to work together to find a solution to our fiscal problems, and that is just what we are proposing. Yesterday, the President said he had an open mind when it came to finding a solution to those things. He said he is happy to listen to other people's ideas. I think that is a good sign.

If the President has an open mind, maybe he will see that Republicans are the ones who have expressed a willingness to step out of our comfort zone if it actually leads to a solution. We do not happen to think the government needs more revenue. The government spends too much as it is. But if Democrats are willing to reduce spending and strengthen entitlement programs, which we all know are on an unsustainable path that threatens their own long-term viability and the economic well-being of our children and grandchildren, then we will be there.

What we will not do is raise tax rates and kiss goodbye more than 700,000 good jobs in the process. What we will not do is embrace a tax policy that disincentivises saving and work. What we will not do is agree to revenue in exchange for reforms that we know will not ever happen. That is not a good deal for anybody, certainly not the middle class, which the President says he has a mandate to protect.

If the President wants to help the middle class, he will accept a basic outline that Speaker Boehner proposed last week and convince his fellow Democrats to do the same. Ignore the reckless voice of those on the far left who are calling for fiscal calamity. Ignore the extremists who want to cover their eyes and do nothing to protect and strengthen entitlement programs for the future and propose a plan that both sides can actually accept.

That is how we get out of this. That is how we succeed. The scope of this challenge calls for Presidential leadership. That is what the American people should be able to expect. That is all Republicans are calling for. It is the President's turn to propose a specific plan that brings both parties together. That is what Presidents are elected to do. That is what he pledged to do. It is precisely the sort of leadership we need.

I yield the floor.

Reservation of Leader Time