Floor Statements

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we will soon vote on H.R. 6156, the Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012. The trade elements of the bill are identical to legislation which passed the Senate Finance Committee by unanimous vote on July

18, 2012. The bill repeals the application of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to Russia and Moldova, which will enable U.S. workers and job creators to fully benefit from Russia and Moldova's accession to the World Trade Organization. The bill will also put into place new tools to help stop human rights abuse and battle systemic corruption within Russia.

After 18 years of hard fought negotiations under both Republican and Democratic administrations, President Obama finalized the terms of Russia's accession to the WTO on November 10, 2011. Russia was invited to join the organization on December 16, 2011, and officially joined in August of this year. Now that Russia is a member of the WTO, for our workers to benefit Congress has no choice but to extend permanent normal relations to Russia through repeal of the application of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.

Russia is now a member of the WTO, but they are under no obligation to extend the economic benefits of their membership to the United States unless we have permanent normal trade relations. Simply put, if Congress does not act, our workers and exporters will be at a serious disadvantage in trying to export their goods and services to the Russian market, and that will cost us jobs at home. Given our weak economic recovery, if it is a recovery, it is critical that Congress does everything it can to help U.S. workers to compete.

There are many economic benefits to Russia's WTO accession. Under the terms of its accession, Russia must cut tariffs on manufactured products, reduce duties on farm products, open its service markets to U.S. firms, meet international intellectual property rights standards, and reduce customs clearance fees. If Russia fails to meet any of its commitments, Russia will be subject to WTO dispute settlement proceedings.

Russia is an attractive market for American exporters. It is the world's 11th largest economy with more than 140 million consumers and the last major economy to join the World Trade Organization. American companies and workers must compete on a level playing field with their foreign competitors in Russia to succeed.

When President Obama first asked Congress to remove Russia from longstanding human rights legislation and grant permanent normal trade relations for Russia, he suggested that we do it unconditionally. Even before Russia joined the WTO, President Obama and his team argued that Congress should quickly pass a clean bill. Given the myriad problems we have with Russia, it has always been very hard for me to understand this position. President Obama and his team appeared almost manic in their attempts to avoid offending President Putin and his government or doing anything at all to upset their failed reset policy.

Fortunately, just as Congress did in 1974 when they created Jackson- Vanik, we insisted on more. Working side by side with our Senate and House colleagues in both parties, we drafted a bill which serves our economy and replaces the application of the Jackson-Vanik amendment with policies more appropriate for the realities in Russia today. We should all be justly proud of our bipartisan effort. Basically, the bill we will vote on fills many of the gaps in President Obama's policy toward Russia.

For example, rather than ignore continuing human rights abuses and corruption in Russia, my friends and colleagues, Senators McCain and Cardin, joined together with many others to craft a bill to help combat deep-rooted and institutionalized corruption within Russia. This bill became the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law and Accountability Act. By the end of this debate, the American people will be intimately familiar with the name Sergei Magnitsky.

Briefly, Sergei was a Russian tax lawyer investigated by the Russian Government for alleged tax evasion and fraud. In reality, Sergei was targeted by government officials for his role in uncovering tax fraud and corruption within the Russian Government. Sergei was arrested and held for 11 months without trial. While in prison, Sergei was subject to mistreatment and torture and was eventually beaten to death. Unfortunately, such sad stories are all too common in Russia today.

Rather than tolerate such injustice, my friends, Senators McCain and Cardin, introduced legislation to impose sanctions on individuals responsible for, or who benefited financially from, the detention, abuse, and/or death of Sergei Magnitsky, as well as other human rights abusers. Their efforts resulted in the inclusion of provisions in this bill which impose visa restrictions and asset freezes on those involved in human rights abuses in Russia.

This will be a powerful new tool to battle corruption within Russia, as corrupt Russian officials will no longer be able to travel to the United States or hide their ill-gotten gains in many Western institutions.

The Magnitsky Act represents an admirable replacement of the Jackson- Vanik amendment, and it is designed to address the situation in Russia today. President Obama opposed efforts to include these provisions, concerned that holding Russian Government officials accountable for their crimes might offend President Putin and undermine the administration's ill-conceived reset policy.

I am proud that my House and Senate colleagues stood firm on the side of justice and demanded that these provisions be included. Jackson- Vanik served its purpose with respect to Russia and should be revoked, but in its place we should respond to Russia's continued corruption and human rights violations.

There were many other gaps in President Obama's Russia policy. To help fill these gaps, I worked with my Senate Finance Committee colleagues to add provisions to the permanent normal trade relations bill introduced by our chairman, Mr. Baucus, that address a number of these issues.

First, I worked with Senator Kyl to develop language to further advance anti-corruption efforts in Russia by requiring the U.S. Trade Representative and the Secretary of State to report annually on their efforts to promote the rule of law and U.S. investment in Russia. We also included a provision to assist U.S. businesses, especially small businesses, to battle corruption in Russia by requiring the Secretary of Commerce to devote a phone hotline and secure Web site to allow U.S. citizens and businesses to report on corruption, bribery, and attempted bribery in Russia and to request the assistance of the U.S. Government if needed.

I was also highly disappointed that the administration did not finalize an SPS equivalency agreement with Russia before agreeing to let them join the WTO. Under an SPS equivalency agreement, Russia would recognize our food safety standards as equivalent to its own, thereby reducing costs and burdensome paperwork on U.S. exporters. Today's bill requires the Trade Representative to continue efforts to negotiate a bilateral SPS equivalency agreement with Russia. In an effort to apply continued pressure on the administration to resolve these problems, we included language requiring the Trade Representative to report to Congress annually on Russia's implementation of its WTO sanitary and phyto-sanitary obligations.

Intellectual property rights protection in Russia remains poor. To make sure that Russia meets its commitments in this area, we included language requiring the Trade Representative to report annually on Russia's compliance with its WTO intellectual property rights obligations. As part of its accession package, Russia committed to joining the WTO Information Technology Agreement. Once they are a member, this agreement will allow a number of additional U.S. high- technology products to be exported to Russia duty free. Unfortunately, Russia has to date failed to fully live up to this commitment, even though Russia became a member of the WTO in August. To ensure that the administration holds Russia's feet to the fire, the Trade Representative must report annually on Russia's compliance with this commitment as well as its commitment to join the WTO Government Procurement Agreement.

When Ambassador Ron Kirk testified before the committee in June, he committed to continue efforts to develop an intellectual property rights action plan which implements Russia's obligations under a 2006 bilateral IPR agreement with the United States. That agreement goes beyond Russia's WTO

commitments, requiring, among other things, that Russia take enforcement actions against Russia-based Web sites posting infringing content, implement the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright treaty and performances and phonograms treaty, and enact a system of data exclusivity for pharmaceuticals.

I understand the administration is working on completing that action plan quickly and that our workers will soon be able to benefit from the agreement reached in 2006. To ensure that this is the case, this bill requires the administration to continue efforts to finalize that agreement.

Russia's WTO commitments go far beyond intellectual property rights. Given President Obama's past reluctance to hold Russia accountable for its actions, I wanted to make a tool available to Congress and the American people to put pressure on the administration to make sure that Russia lives up to its international commitments. So we included language which provides an opportunity for public comment and hearings on Russia's compliance with its obligations. If there are areas where Russia is not in compliance with its obligations, the administration is required to develop an action plan to address them and then provide an annual report on their enforcement efforts to bring Russia into compliance.

I believe this package of modifications vastly improves the bill. The Trade Representative's general counsel apparently agrees, stating during congressional testimony that ``this bill provides the strongest package of enforcement measures for us at USTR to move forward and ensure full compliance once Russia joins the WTO.''

It was over 30 years ago that Senator Henry Jackson and Congressman Charles Vanik stood up to their President and demanded that the administration address policies that denied individuals, especially Jews, the right to emigrate from Russia and other communist nations. Their work became known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment. The policies embodied in that amendment helped create the environment for literally hundreds of thousands of Jews to emigrate from the former Soviet Union, many of them to their homeland of Israel.

Jackson-Vanik served its purpose in Russia, but today we act to address the issues on the ground in Russia as we debate this bill. Today Congress will once again lead the way to help shape the future of U.S.-Russian relations. Approval of this bill will help establish a framework for addressing the myriad economic problems we face with Russia's Government. If the administration uses these tools effectively, we will see the fruits of our efforts, as we one day work side by side with a Russia free from corruption and in full compliance with its international obligations. I urge my colleagues to join me-- and my colleagues on the other side of the floor and my colleagues here who are for this bill--in support of this bill.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to highlight an important provision in the PNTR legislation that requires the United States Trade Representative and the State Department to provide an annual report to Congress on the steps they are taking to advocate for American investors in Yukos Oil, the Russian oil company that was effectively expropriated by the Russian Federation in 2007. The annual report would also include a report on the status of the petition filed by American investors in Yukos to request that the State Department formally ``espouse'' the debt--meaning to make compensation for American investors a matter of bilateral negotiations between the United States and Russia.

More than 40 bipartisan Members of the House and Senate have written letters to Secretary Clinton in favor of the State Department taking up the cause of American investors. The State Department has been closely watching international tribunals adjudicating the claims of non- American international investors in Yukos to help guide its own decision-making. On July 25, 2012, an international tribunal established pursuant to the Spain-Russia bilateral investment treaty ordered the Russian government to compensate a group of Spanish investors for the losses they suffered from the expropriation of Yukos. Likewise, an investor from the United Kingdom prevailed in a similar proceeding in September 2010. These rulings would appear to indicate that there is merit to the claims of the American investors.

When a government abuses its tax and regulatory authority to nationalize the property of foreign investors, it is required to provide compensation to those investors. To date, none of the American owners of Yukos has received any compensation.

I insisted that the Russia PNTR bill incorporate new trade tools and I hope that these will be used to assist in the satisfactory resolution of the claims of American investors in the Yukos case, as well as to assist other American businesses and investors who may struggle with Russian corruption and rule of law issues.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity today to pay tribute to a wonderful woman, devoted mother and grandmother, loyal friend, exceptional employee, and patriotic American Norma Holmgren. Norma was my Northern Utah Area Director for 26 years and was devoted to our state and nation.

Sadly, Norma passed away this past weekend, as a result of a tragic accident as she was taking her daily walk. Norma kept herself very active and physically fit and you could often find Norma walking the streets of her neighborhood enjoying her surroundings and neighbors.

Norma retired from public service almost 10 years ago, however her retirement did not stop her from participating in her community and continuing her interest in republican politics. In fact, my staff contacted her last week to seek her advice on a constituent's request. She was always available and happy to share her knowledge. She spent many years working for the ideas and philosophy of the Republican Party, and assumed numerous leadership positions to further the cause. Norma loved politics and even after leaving the government and political arena, she still loved a good political conversation and was keenly interested in what was happening in our state and nation.

Norma was a ferocious reader, and it was not unusual for Norma to visit her local Costco and buy up to 20 books at a time. She loved to learn and continue her education on so many issues, and would spend hours curled up with a good book.

She also loved antiques and was widely known for her collections that she beautifully displayed throughout her home. She would often invite friends to come and see her latest find or beautiful item and she was very proud of her life-long interest of antiques.

Norma accomplished many great things in her life, yet perhaps her greatest accomplishment was the loving care and nurture she always displayed to her son Randy and his wife, whom she dearly loved. She also adored being a grandmother, and took great pride in her family and the relationships they shared. I had the pleasure of hosting Norma's granddaughter Emily as a Senate page several years ago and I could see first-hand the great traits Norma had instilled in her granddaughter.

I am grateful I had the opportunity to work with Norma for many years, and consider her a true friend. She believed in public service and demonstrated her commitment to excellence on so many occasions. She was a fierce advocate for the military and spent years working as a liaison for me at Hill Air Force Base where she garnered the respect and admiration of the military leaders on the Base. Her influence in so many areas will never be forgotten.

Norma's life touched many and she will be forever remembered as someone who truly cared about her family, her friends, and in doing good for her community. Elaine and I would like to extend our deepest sympathies to Norma's family at the loss of their mother and grandmother; and pray that they will find some peace and comfort in the memories they have shared.

Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity today to pay tribute to a wonderful woman, dedicated public servant and loyal friend Marreen Casper. Marreen is retiring from my staff at the end of the year and she will be very missed.

Marreen joined my staff in 1999 and has been a shining star. She has tackled some of the most difficult assignments that have faced my Utah Senate Offices. She started as a Federal grants coordinator and caseworker. However, when a need arose to fill a very important position in my organization, she willingly sold her house, and packed up and moved to St. George, UT to become my Southern Utah Field Director.

Marreen has filled this position with dogged determination, and a noteworthy attention to details. She quickly immersed herself into the community and became a true Southern Utahn. She was always available to meet with and listen to the citizens of this area of our State. She has attended literally hundreds of local government meetings, and discussed the issues affecting Southern Utah with many mayors, county commission and council members, and community leaders every day she served. She has such a warm demeanor and accepting personality that people from all walks of life and positions felt comfortable to discuss with Marreen the issues important to them, and know that she would try to do something to help. She has made friends in every nook and cranny of southern Utah and earned the respect of many.

One aspect of her job that many do not realize, is the travel she undertook to fulfill her duties to the best of her ability. Marreen's field area includes one of the most remote and unpopulated areas in the continental United States. Traveling in her area can get very harrowing at times, but Marreen never let it stop her from doing her job. She has traveled the icy roads in the dead of winter, attended outdoor meetings in the searing heat, and even crashed on an ATV she was riding on for an event that sent her to the Emergency Room.

And some of the issues Marreen has worked on might seem trivial to some, but have long-ranging impacts on rural Utah. These issues have ranged from prairie dogs, desert tortoises, and Mexican wolves; to fighting with the Army Corps of Engineers over whether a dry wash is a ``navigable body of water.'' I am not sure that she will miss the tedious nature of some of these issues, but I am certain she will miss the people in the many communities she worked with to find solutions to the problems.

There has been no assignment ever given to Marreen that she did not fulfill willingly and with a great determination to see it through. In fact, Marreen has undertaken one of the most tedious, yet important projects every year the Hatch Family Christmas Card. This is a project I am certain she would like to have run from, yet year after year she planned, organized, and ensured that this card was sent to thousands of Utahns helping me stay in touch with so many constituents. For this seemingly thankless task, I want to sincerely convey my appreciation to her for her wonderful assistance that has meant so much to me and to the many who received it.

Although Marreen has accomplished many great things in her professional life perhaps her greatest accomplishments have come because of her wonderful partnership with her husband Ron, and her loving and tender care of her 5 children and 22 grandchildren. She dearly loves her family and expresses it often. She sincerely strives to be at every important function in the lives of her family and is often traveling great distances so she can be there for the noteworthy milestones.

She has also made her belief in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints central to her life and has served countless neighbors and friends through the goodness of her heart. In fact, when other folks might think their days of working with the youth in church service are over, Marreen accepted a call from her local Bishop to lead the Young Women's organization in her Ward. She then spent several years mentoring and helping these young women in various ways and through her beautiful example.

I am truly grateful for the tremendous service Marreen Casper has given to me, to her community, and to our great State. I will miss Marreen greatly but know that life holds many exciting and wonderful new opportunities for her to enjoy. I want to wish Marreen the very best in retirement and want her to know that I will be forever grateful for her good work and loyal friendship. May Heavenly Father bless Marreen and her family for the honorable person she is and the service she has rendered to so many.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Steven Garrett, Christopher Hanna, Shawn Novak, Lauren Felice, and Richard Chovanec of the Finance Committee be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of Senate consideration of H.R. 6156 and for the remainder of this session of Congress.

Mr. President, I rise to join with Senator Baucus in commending Mr. Ahearn for his service. Over the years, Mr. Ahearn's impressive portfolio of work also examined major U.S. trading partner policies. Early on in his career, for example, he was a lead CRS expert on the U.S.-Japan trade and economic relationship during heightened trade tensions between our two countries. From September 1993 to August 1994, he worked for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, USTR, to serve as Director of Trade Strategy for Japan and China. More recently, Ray became the ``go to'' CRS analyst on the U.S.-EU trade and economic relationship, writing reports and confidential memoranda and consulting Congress on numerous topics, including on the EU's preferential trade agreements and regulatory issues.

Mr. Ahearn has been especially adept at examining complex issues in international economics of immediate importance to Congress and making his analysis accessible to an audience that approaches the issues with varying degrees of understanding. This skill has played an especially critical role in successfully conveying to Congress the complex, multidimensional challenges associated with globalization. For example, in 2009, Mr. Ahearn wrote a CRS report titled The Global Economic Downturn and Protectionism that addressed the issue of the perceived and real growth of trade restrictions by the United States and its trading partners in response to the global economic crisis that emerged in 2008. In analyzing the issue, he constructed an analytical framework of three potential categories of restrictions that might be taken and the potential consequences of each. Mr. Ahearn applied a similar analysis in his timely CRS report Globalization, Worker Insecurity and Policy Approaches, which examined the complex relationship between the increased integration of the U.S. economy with the rest of the world and the decline in U.S. wages and worker security, an issue faced by all Members of Congress as they consider trade agreements and other global economic issues.

We wish Mr. Ahearn the very best in his retirement and thank him for his exemplary record of service to Congress in directly supporting our work on international trade and finance policy issues.

Might I ask how much time I have?

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I have to say I always enjoy my colleague from Vermont. He is a very sincere and dedicated man and I like him. There is no use kidding about it; you can't help but like him, in my eyes. But I don't know any Republican Senator who wants to cut Social Security. They want to save Social Security. I don't know anybody who wants to cut Medicare or Medicaid. We want to save Medicare and Medicaid. Anybody in their right mind who looks at this knows we have to do some things and change some things or we are not going to have Medicare and Medicaid for our people and we will not have Social Security continue.

With regard to Mitt Romney, yes, he may not have articulated his thoughts as well as he may have wished. But there is no way in this world Mitt Romney meant his comments to be taken the way they have been taken by the left in this country. All he is saying is there are too many people riding in the wagon and not enough people pulling the wagon and we are going to have to get jobs for those who should be outside the wagon, pulling the wagon, and help them to have the self-esteem that comes from working. That is what the whole welfare bill of 1996 was all about, in having a work requirement: We are going to help you, we are going to subsidize you, we are going to give you job training, but after a certain period of time, if you don't have a job, you are off the dole. Literally two-thirds, almost two-thirds of the people who have been on the dole, some for generations, went to work after incentives were realigned through Republican welfare reform. That is the Republican approach, to get people back to work, to provide efficient incentives, and to get this economy moving again; not to hurt anybody. So these things can be exaggerated to a point where sometimes it becomes confusing to the American people, and that is not right either.

I know Mitt Romney. I know how he cares for people. I know what he did when he was a bishop in the LDS Church, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was a bishop when I was running for Senate, and I have to tell my colleagues I spent at least 30 hours a week of my own time and expense, because there is no paid clergy in the LDS faith, other than the general authorities and those are very few people, and we all volunteer our time. We help people from every walk of life.

Fiscal History of the 1990s and 2000s

Mr. President, I am here today to talk about some very important things that are related to what I have just been saying.

There has been much discussion by President Obama about the source of our current economic and fiscal challenges. The President seems to suggest we could easily return to the prosperity of the 1990s by adopting the policies of President Clinton, particularly by raising taxes to the level they were during his Presidency. At the recent Democratic National Convention, President Clinton himself made a similar argument. But the positive economic and fiscal history of the 1990s was not owing to higher taxes, and the economic and fiscal challenges we face today--in particular, our $16 trillion national debt and exploding entitlement spending programs--cannot be fixed by higher tax rates.

During his convention speech, President Clinton claimed that President Obama inherited a damaged economy, put a floor under the crash, began the road to recovery, and laid the foundation for a modern, well-balanced economy. Tell that to the 12.5 million unemployed Americans who continue to struggle with unemployment. Tell that to Americans who have been suffering through unemployment rates above 8 percent for 43 consecutive months. Explain to Americans how redistribution, massive expansion of refundable tax credits, ballooned transfer payments, and an interventionist Federal Reserve represent a foundation for future growth of the economy. Explain how this economy is ``well balanced'' when government spending represents as much as 25 percent of GDP, debt is higher than an entire year's worth of the output of the economy, and we have an activist Federal Reserve that has increased its balance sheet by well over $1 trillion.

President Clinton does admit that, under President Obama, we are not where we need to be. So, instead, he asks whether we are better off than when President Obama took office, and he answers in the affirmative. Putting aside the rhetoric and spin and considering the facts, this is a dubious claim at best.

Relative to the beginning of 2009 when President Obama took office, jobs are down by 261,000 and unemployment remains above 8 percent. But wait. Democrats say the President cannot be held responsible for bad things that happened during his Presidency; those things were inherited or due to Europe or caused by uncontrollable forces. All right, then. Let's look at the President's jobs record after the end of the recession, which the National Bureau of Economic Research says was June of 2009. Since then, job growth under President Obama has been only 73,600 jobs per month on average--far too weak to move the unemployment rate below 8 percent.

Democrats say the only reason we do not have more jobs is because Republicans will not agree to more Keynesian stimulus--never mind that the previous dose, which cost over $800 billion

and was promised to deliver unemployment below 8 percent, failed to get unemployment down.

Remember those promised shovel-ready jobs that became a source of amusement to the President? Remember the promised infrastructure? Americans should ask themselves where all those things are. Where are the jobs? Well, the President makes claims of saving millions of jobs because of stimulus magic. And the Federal Reserve claims millions of jobs saved from its so-called quantitative easing. There you have it. The President's foundation of well-balanced economic growth rests on debt-financed Keynesian stimulus and Federal Reserve stimulus.

Absent anything but a dismal record on jobs, President Obama has decided to try to run on President Clinton's record. So let's consider President Clinton's rose-colored nostalgia--a revisionist history adopted by President Obama and his surrogates.

President Clinton's view goes like this: I came into office with a weak economy. I raised taxes. The economy boomed.

President Clinton's depiction of the roaring 1990s is missing a few chapters. In his first years in office, Democrats controlled Congress. He and the Democrats raised income taxes and gas taxes. He tried to impose a Btu energy tax, attempted a government takeover of health care--known as HillaryCare and proposed a $31 billion stimulus while putting off welfare reform.

The first few years of the Clinton Presidency can fairly be characterized as prioritizing tax-and-spend economic policy. But HillaryCare failed, and American voters decided to make some changes. They faced uncertainty over taxes, health care, energy costs, deficits, and runaway government spending. After 2 years of complete Democratic control of Washington, American voters decided in 1994 that Republican control of the Senate and House was desirable.

Does this sound familiar? A new Democrat in the White House, complete Democratic control of Congress, prioritizing higher taxes, a government takeover of the Nation's health care system, and more spending, followed by a popular uprising that gave some Republican balance in Congress. It was the first Republican Congress in over 40 years.

But in contrast to President Obama's refusal to heed the message of the 2010 election, President Clinton listened to the American people and moved to the political center. He embraced a Republican goal of a balanced budget and, after two vetoes, signed GOP welfare reform legislation shortly before the 1996 election. In 1996 President Clinton was reelected, but Republicans retained control of Congress.

Now, President Obama claims these were the good old days because President Clinton raised taxes. Let's consider that tax landscape. President Clinton did raise the top income tax rate in 1993, and Democrats credit that increase for shrinking the deficit and unleashing future economic growth. However, he also agreed with Republicans in 1997 to cut the capital gains tax rate to 20 percent from 28 percent, which contributed to revenue and economic growth. I know because it was the Hatch-Lieberman bill that they followed in doing that. Joe Lieberman had the guts to stand up on that issue, as did I, and it happened. The Democrats said we would lose revenues. The revenues went up because people did not feel gouged anymore. Funny how that chapter gets left out of the Democrats' 1990s story.

In 2000 President Clinton left office with Federal receipts measuring 20.6 percent of GDP--well above the 17.5 percent seen in 1992 before he took office. But those receipts were boosted by capital gains realizations associated with the Internet stock bubble that formed toward the end of the Clinton Presidency.

But even more notable and something Democrats do not discuss in relation to the Clinton Presidency is that he left office with Federal outlays measuring 18.2 percent of GDP--significantly below the 22.1 percent seen in 1992 before Clinton took office. Significant reductions in Federal outlays as a share of GDP occurred once Republicans gained control of the Congress. In contrast, President Obama has presided over the largest spending spree since World War II, with outlays as high as 25.2 percent of the entire economy--something that has not happened since the years surrounding World War II.

In his 1996 State of the Union speech, President Clinton took credit for budget improvements and spending restraint imposed by Republicans in Congress. He famously stated that the era of big government is over. But in a nod to the Republicans' role in containing the budget, in that same speech, he said: ``I compliment the Republican leadership and membership for the energy and determination you have brought to this task of balancing the budget.'' Compare that to the sentiment of President Obama: We tried it their way, and it did not work.

President Obama and those Democrats who embrace the history of the 1990s also conveniently neglect to give any credit to Ronald Reagan, whose ending of the Cold War led to a peace dividend which helped allow President Clinton to curtail growth in Federal defense outlays.

In summary, the Democratic nostalgia for the 1990s is based on a very limited recollection of events. They see that Clinton raised taxes, the economy grew, and the budget improved. Apparently, correlation is all that is necessary to establish causality in their world, particularly when it works in their favor.

What also gets left out of the standard Democratic history is a stock-price bubble that was actually the basis of much of the growth in the 1990s. So let's consider the Clinton bubble further and ask what it could possibly mean for the recent financial crisis.

One of the charges levied by President Clinton, which echoes a familiar Democratic talking point, is that Americans should be wary of Republicans because we champion deregulation that ``got us into this mess.'' But who generated the mess? The mess was a devastating financial crisis, and who sowed the seeds of that crisis?

First, consider the significant financial deregulation under the Bush administration. The fact is there was not any. So where did the deregulation in finance come from? Whose policies promoted financial markets prone to bubbles and irrational exuberance and bailouts?

It was under President Clinton's watch that warnings were ignored about the riskiness of derivatives. It was under his watch that risky derivatives led to the collapse of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management--or LTCM and to an eventual bailout arranged by the Fed. It was under his watch that the Fed left market participants with a belief that should there be significant market turbulence, the Fed would be there to bail them out. It was under his watch that the Gramm-Leach- Bliley Act was signed into law, which many Democrats believe contributed to the crisis by repealing part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. I think that they misunderstand the financial crisis by making that claim, but since they and President Obama appear to believe it, through their promotion of the so-called Volker rule, then the deregulation they decry came under Clinton.

As a basis for strong fundamental growth in the economy, President Clinton's stock bubble was lacking, and numerous companies crashed. A bursting stock bubble, along with corporate accounting scandals, which included the Enron debacle, left a mess for President Bush, who, by the way, did not whine about it for 4 straight years.

It was under President Clinton's watch that significant growth began in risky subprime mortgage lending, which ended up at the heart of the recent financial crisis. And warnings were ignored--even the warning by the Clinton-appointed Federal Reserve official Edward Gramlich. Clinton's presidency pushed financial deregulation, and it showed inattention to the beginnings of speculative excesses in housing and mortgage markets.

The financial crisis was indeed severe. Seeds of the crisis were sown during President Clinton's Presidency and then nurtured by many years of regulatory inattention. Failure of regulators to do their job during the Bush administration has nothing to do with deregulation. There was no deregulation. There were plenty of regulations to go around, but the regulators failed to use their authority as bubbles and irrational exuberance was tolerated by

the unaccountable regulators. To say that Republican deregulation caused the recent crisis is simply false.

We have faced crises before. President Obama is not unique in this respect. What is unique is how poorly he has handled our economic and fiscal crisis.

In February 2009 President Obama said his Presidency would be a ``one-term proposition'' if the economy did not recover within 3 years. Well, it has been over 3 years and the economy has not recovered; therefore, by the President's own metric, his administration should be a one-time proposition. No, he wants 4 more years to do more of the same.

The President has no plan.

The President claims to want to get our deficit under control by raising taxes on the wealthy and keeping the tax burden on middle-class Americans where it is. But the President's tax proposals do not work, as we learned from his Buffett tax, which fell over $800 billion short of his plan to use the tax to pay for a long-term alternative minimum tax patch. The unpleasant fact facing the President is that there simply is not enough revenue from taxing the so-called rich to fill his desires of permanently larger government.

Taxing business owners who the President thinks are undeserving of their success will simply not pay for his redistribution dreams. Of course, contrary to President Obama's disdain for business, Americans who own and operate businesses did build them, and they also paid taxes, which built the roads and bridges they use. And make no mistake, business owners and American workers did build America. They did build it.

Mr. President, let me go back just a little bit here. I made the comment, with regard to all of this media criticism of Governor Romney, that he was inarticulate in a private meeting, where no press was invited, and he is the first to admit that.

He certainly has tried to explain himself. But he is right. He is right. There are at least 47 percent of Americans who do not pay a nickel or a penny of income taxes. The standard answer by my friends on the other side is, well, they pay payroll taxes. Well, everyone does that. But those are unlike income taxes. With payroll taxes, workers pay into Social Security and Disability Insurance and the like. Which is to say, they pay in; but they also receive benefits. To equate the payroll tax system with the income tax system is simply misleading.

But in the income tax system, 23 million or so people get refundable tax credits which are more than they pay in payroll taxes, and a little less than 16 million get refundable tax credits that are more than they and their employers pay in payroll taxes.

Now, do Republicans want to tax the truly poor? Heavens no. This is a great country. We can take care of the truly poor. The question is, Are all of those in the--according to Joint Tax Committee, recently the bottom 51 percent did not pay any income taxes--are all of those in the truly poor category? The answer is no.

Well, what does Governor Romney mean? He means that, as I said at the beginning, there are too many people who are riding in the wagon and not enough pulling. Many people simply have no skin in the game in the income tax system, which means they really don't care much if income taxes on others are raised. And it is not their fault in many cases, except there are millions who will not find a job in the Obama economy, or they just become discouraged given the bleak labor market. I do not blame them, with the economy, but they ought to be looking for jobs anyway. I would do anything if it were me. I would do anything to be able to support my family other than be on Federal largesse. But that is the way it is today.

Governor Romney's goal in this life is to pull us out of this mess, get spending down to no more than 20 percent of the GDP, which would be a remarkable downturn in spending compared to what we have today, and also to get people to work, get them to where they have the self-esteem that comes from working, which we did on welfare reform in 1996. I worked hard on that bill, as did so many others at that time. Give them the self-esteem that comes from supporting themselves. That is what he meant. That is what is meant here. He will create jobs, and a vibrant economy where all workers prosper and can find work.

Frankly, let's just be honest, the mainstream media is not for Governor Romney. We all know that. Anybody with brains knows that. All you have to do is watch it. And that is the way it has been here ever since I have been in the Congress. Frankly, they are not going to treat Governor Romney fairly. But I will tell you this: Mitt Romney will put America to work. He knows how to do it. This man has been successful in everything he has ever undertaken to do. He does not need this job as President, but he is running because he knows this country is in trouble. He knows it is not following good economic practices. He knows this administration is a disaster from a jobs standpoint, among other things. He could have the most lovely life, and he is taking this kind of unmitigated barrage of assaults in trying to do that which he knows is right for this country.

I think we ought to be more fair in these Presidential elections. I wish the media was split 50/50. It is not. Everybody knows it. I care a great deal for my friends in the media, but there is no one with brains who does not understand that especially the mainstream media right here in Washington, DC, New York, Los Angeles, et cetera, is heavily stacked in favor of President Obama.

I like President Obama too. I have known him as a Senator. I have known him as a friend. I have known him as a President. And what I am saying here is that he has not done the job. I do not believe he is going to do the job. I do not think he has the background to do the job, and for us to not put somebody who does in there may be catastrophic for the future of our country.

I yield the floor.

I thank my friend and colleague. I really appreciate it. I enjoy serving with the Senator, as I do with everybody in this body.

Mr. President, today I join my colleagues in expressing my disappointment in President Obama, in his failure to provide real leadership when our Nation needed it the most. While his failures can be observed across the board, when it comes to taxes and the impending fiscal cliff, the President has put our entire economy in jeopardy in order to serve his own political interests.

At the end of this year, the bipartisan tax relief signed into law not only by President Bush but by President Obama as well is set to expire. Virtually every taxpayer in America will see their taxes go up if Congress and the President do not act to steer us away from this fiscal cliff. Objective analysts, including the CBO, have stated that if we were to let the tax relief expire under current economic conditions, it would likely lead to another recession. Yet, rather than working with the Republicans to extend the tax relief and to aid our recovery, the President has once again sought to divide the American people by using the top marginal tax rate as political football.

In 2010 the President acknowledged that raising taxes in the midst of a weak economic recovery was bad policy. That is why at that time he signed into law the full extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief. Aside from the fact that the economy is in worse shape now than it was then, the only thing that has changed between 2010 and 2012 is that the President is now facing the voters, and that means appealing to his base, which is committed to raising taxes. The President has put class warfare and his own political future ahead of the immediate and long- term interests of our economy. This is the high-water mark of failed leadership for this administration. Our country is at a moment of deep economic uncertainty, and America's citizens and taxpayers deserve more than the President's decision to prioritize electoral politics over sound fiscal policy.

Mr. President, I am personally very grateful for the wonderful remarks of my colleague, the chairman of the Finance Committee, because I do not think any words could express how much Russ means to all of us. He is a wonderful man. He is a wonderful leader on the committee. He is honest. He is straightforward. He works with you. Frankly, we all think the world of him on our side as well. I just wish to compliment the distinguished chairman for his beautiful remarks about a tremendous person and the foster children he has worked with.

Russ is the epitome of greatness on the Senate Finance Committee and as a staff member of the Senate. So I wish to personally pay tribute to him and express my sorrow over the loss of his son AJ and express my love and affection for him. He is a good man, helping a good chairman. We work together very closely, and I have a lot of regard for what the chairman just said and a lot of regard for Russ and wish him the best.

I hope the Good Lord will comfort him and comfort his soul during this very trying time.

Mr. President, on July 12, 2012, the Obama administration's Department of Health and Human Services issued an Information Memorandum informing States that for the first time in the 16-year history of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, HHS would permit them to waive welfare work requirements.

This action undermines a robust work-first approach that was one of the key features of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act.

If allowed to stand, this action could result in activities such as journaling, bed rest, and smoking cessation classes being counted as work for the purposes of meeting Federal welfare work performance standards.

This change in policy presents a serious substantive question. Should taxpayer dollars go to welfare recipients who are not working but are instead journaling or working to quit smoking?

But it presents serious institutional questions as well because the action by the Obama administration was, quite simply, a unilateral power grab that usurps the constitutional power of the legislative branch, and every Member of this body ought to be concerned about it. That is no small thing.

Our Constitution, for good reason, locates the lawmaking power in the Congress. That is because our Founding Fathers understood that in a republic of laws, the lawmakers must represent the people directly. The people must have a close hold on the representatives who create the laws under which we live.

If changes are going to be made to the welfare work requirements, it should be up to the Congress to make them. Faceless bureaucrats at HHS should not be the ones making changes to the welfare work requirements. Yet that is exactly what happened here.

Unelected bureaucrats at HHS are attempting to change the law--a law passed by the Senate and the whole Congress. If left unchecked, welfare policy is being substantially changed by the Obama administration in a way that never would have been acceptable to the people's elected representatives in Congress.

No administration should be permitted to disregard the laws Congress passed and simply make up their own rules.

For 16 years, no President, Health and Human Services Secretary or Governor--regardless of political party--believed welfare work requirements could be waived.

If the Obama administration believes welfare work requirements should be changed, they should submit a legislative proposal to Congress.

In the 3\1/2\ years before the July 12 information memorandum, the Obama administration never offered a legislative proposal to change the welfare work requirements.

The unprecedented nature of the Obama administration's power grab is supported by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.

On September 4, 2012, the GAO responded to an inquiry from Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp and me.

They determined that the July 12 information memorandum was a rule that should have been submitted to Congress. GAO further found that as a rule, the information memorandum was subject to the Congressional Review Act. The Congressional Review Act provides Congress with an opportunity to review and, where appropriate, disapprove rules issued by the executive branch.

When more and more of the rules that govern the American people are being made by anonymous and unelected bureaucrats with no responsibility to reflect the priorities of the American people, the Congressional Review Act is a critical device and one we should always uphold. It allows the people's representatives in Congress to stand up and reject a rule emanating from the Federal bureaucracy.

The Committee on Ways and Means favorably reported the resolution of disapproval last week. The full House of Representatives will consider the resolution of disapproval this week. I have introduced S.J. Res. 50, a resolution of disapproval here in the Senate. I am pleased that my legislation is cosponsored by 21 of my colleagues.

The Congressional Review Act also provides for fast-track consideration of a resolution of disapproval when a Senator has secured at least 30 Senators on a discharge petition. That means no filibuster. I am pleased to report that I have well over 30 signatures on the discharge petition. Unfortunately, this expedited process does not kick in until later this month.

The Senate will be voting on my resolution, there is no question about that. The only question is when. In my view, we should take up this matter now. It is a critical issue for the American people, and it is a critical issue for this institution. As the people's representatives, it is a dereliction of duty to stand by while unelected officials attempt to change the law unilaterally without the constitutionally-prescribed input of the people's representatives in Congress. For that reason, in a few moments I will propound a unanimous consent request for debate, followed by a vote on proceeding to the resolution of disapproval. It is a simple request. A vote on the resolution of disapproval is inevitable. The only question is whether the majority will allow a vote in a timely manner.

Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of

S.J. Res. 50, a joint resolution disapproving a rule submitted by HHS regarding welfare waivers; that there be 2 hours of debate on the motion to proceed equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees; and that the Senate then proceed to a vote on the adoption of the motion to proceed.

Madam President, I appreciate my colleague's remarks, much of which I agree with. That still does not negate the fact that the administration has acted unilaterally as the executive branch to usurp powers of the legislative branch. That is the issue. It is a very important issue. It is the responsibility of the Congress, not the President, to give the States flexibility with regard to the work requirement. The Constitution is pretty explicit on that.

GAO reported today that even though States had requested or inquired about waivers, no administration--not the Clinton administration, not the Bush administration, not the Obama administration--believed they had waiver authority; that is, until July 12 when HHS did this. I think they knew they were wrong.

The latest GAO report details how whenever States requested TANF waivers in the past, HHS responded that no such authority exists. Between 2000 and 2009, during the Clinton, Bush, and even Obama administrations, HHS has consistently told States they have no waiver authority. Specifically, GAO finds that at least five States asked HHS about TANF waivers during that period. In two of those cases, GAO said the HHS official response said they ``did not have authority to provide waivers.'' In the three other cases when States asked informally, GAO reports that HHS responded saying that ``the requested waiver authority was not available.''

Separately, in 2005 and 2007 HHS published two ``program instructions'' about flexibilities in TANF, both indicating that no waiver authority existed. In these instructions, HHS stated, ``We have no authority under current law to waive any of the TANF requirements'' and ``We have no authority to waive any of the provisions of the Act.'' Only the Obama administration has claimed the ``authority,'' circumventing Congress.

Look, this is not just a political issue, as the distinguished Senator from Maryland, one of my dear friends here, said. We both graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. I have great admiration for him and great feelings toward him. But only the Obama administration has claimed this ``authority'' circumventing Congress. The latest GAO report highlights that only the Obama administration has claimed the authority to waive welfare work requirements. Further, GAO notes that this action by current HHS officials is in response to the President's February 2011

memorandum, which, according to subsequent administration guidance, solicited ``input on significant statutory barriers that could be addressed through waivers.''

Especially when viewed in the context of the President's ``we can't wait'' agenda, it is clear that this HHS proposal is part of an organized administration effort to circumvent Congress and its legislative authority. We have seen that time after time with an abusive use of Executive orders.

Look, TANF has worked amazingly well because of the work requirements in TANF. There is a good reason no other administration has tried to pull this type of a stunt.

Whether you agree with the administration or not, it seems to me we ought to first uphold the rights and powers of the legislative branch of government that cannot be circumvented just because a President wants to do something on his own. That is what is involved here. I think we ought to all stand, Democrats and Republicans, and say: Look, you are not going to be able to do this. If you want to do it, then you are going to have to do it through statutory changes or at least ask Congress for permission.

That is the purpose of asking for this vote which has been objected to. I guess we will do it during the lameduck session. But the purpose is to stand up for the rights of the Congress of the United States and especially the rights of the Senate that are being ignored.

There is a lot more I can say about it. That basically covers it. I appreciate my colleague's feelings on this matter, but to put it in the category that this is Mitt Romney trying something--Mitt Romney has had basically nothing to do with it other than he agrees with what we have done. He said that after we did it. He did not come to me and ask me to do it.

The fact is we are standing for the legislative prerogatives that we really ought to stand for and that the GAO said should be stood for because they declared it a rule. The GAO is not in the pockets of Republicans or Democrats; it is there to try to determine these types of issues that are extremely important legal issues, extremely important legislative issues, extremely important separation-of-powers issues. So that is what we are doing here, and it really shouldn't even be a political issue. We ought to just vote and let it go at that. But it has been objected to, and I am willing to wait until the appropriate time to have a vote.

If the Senator will yield, I certainly retract my statement on that. But I feel bad the Senator didn't graduate from the University of Pittsburgh, as I did.

Madam President, I would just add that if they want that type of authority, they should come to the Congress and ask for it because we put that authority subject to Congress's decisionmaking, and it shouldn't be done unilaterally by an out-of-control approach by the executive branch. That is what is involved, and it is important. Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, we ought to have an understanding of the legislative and executive branches and our rights and prerogatives in Congress. There is nothing that says States can't add work requirements that are legitimate work requirements in the statute. They didn't need this type of unilateral decision by the HHS Department to do that. That is the point.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Paul Schirduan, with the Homeland Security Committee, be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the Congress.

Madam President, I wish to thank my colleague, who makes a lot of very important points here today, and I hope everyone in this body is paying attention.

Back in June I came to the floor to discuss the many items of unfinished business the Congress must take up before the end of the year. Among those items are a number of tax-related issues that simply cannot be put off without inflicting more damage on our economy and on our American taxpayers.

When I spoke on the floor regarding this tax agenda 3 months ago, I used this chart right here.

Sadly, as you can see from this chart, things have not changed since then. We still need to resolve the death tax. As you can see, death tax relief is the third one down listed on the chart. It will expire at the end of 2012. We need to act in order to prevent a hike in the death tax in 2013. Unfortunately, rather than work to prevent an increase in the death tax, a number of my colleagues voted earlier this summer to expand it significantly.

While we have passed a bill through the Finance Committee, the Senate has yet to act on the tax extenders, which expired 9 months ago. As you can see, we have not done the tax extenders, either, on the floor.

We still have not acted to address the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, which is set to hit millions of Americans if we do not act to patch it. That is right there as the second item on this chart. This issue of the AMT, the alternative minimum tax, needs to be discussed in some detail because the failure to resolve the AMT is emblematic of the failure of this administration to take even the most basic steps to protect American families from the

tax increases looming at the end of this year. Nearly 4 million families paid the AMT in 2011. Yet, if nothing is done to address the AMT in this session, an additional 27 to 28 million families will be hit with a surprise AMT tax increase on tax day next April. Now, that bears repeating. There are 27 or 28 million families who have heretofore not been hit by the AMT who will be hit if Congress fails to act before the end of this year. But even that does not tell the whole story. More than twice that number, that is, 60 million American families, will have to fill out the AMT--alternative minimum tax-- worksheet on their tax forms just to determine whether they owe anything under the AMT. This is a textbook example of the administrative burden and deadweight loss that our complicated Tax Code imposes on the American economy. For those who will be hit by the AMT, this is not just a reality that will hit on April 15 of next year, it is a reality today. Those families ensnared by the AMT are required to make estimated tax payments, and Monday of next week, September 17, the third such payment is due.

The AMT has become a unique burden because of the way it is structured. Unlike most provisions in the Tax Code, the level of income exempt from the AMT is not automatically adjusted for inflation. For 11 years, we have passed legislation to temporarily raise the AMT exemption, which was originally meant for only 155 millionaires who did not pay any taxes. But each time we face an expiration of one of these temporary raises--like we do again this year--we risk seeing the AMT return to its permanent level. Over time, that becomes more and more problematic as more and more Americans have incomes that reach the unadjusted AMT income level. These temporary exemption increases have been enacted to prevent millions of middle-class American families from falling prey to the AMT. But now, the closer we get to the end of 2012 without another AMT patch, the more likely it becomes that the tax will hit an unprecedented number of American families.

Ultimately, we need a permanent fix for the AMT. This annual shell game needs to come to an end. This tax was initially created over 50 years ago to address 155 high-income individuals who paid zero in income taxes--155 people. Because of its poor design, today an additional 27 million Americans, many squarely in the middle class, are now threatened by the AMT.

The President and his allies assure us that AMT relief is a top priority, but that seems to be just more talk. The President's budget proposed a permanent fix to the AMT by replacing it with a so-called Buffett tax, but the President's math just never added up. Supposedly, nonpartisan policy experts and fact checkers have been eager beavers when it comes to criticizing the math in Governor Romney's tax proposal, but maybe they should check the President's math as well.

If we do not eliminate the AMT, it will hit millions and millions of American taxpayers, unjustly so. The President claims a permanent fix is a priority of his. In his fiscal year 2013 budget, he proposed to offset it with the Buffett tax. People treat the President's fiscal year 2013 budget as though it never happened. In some sense, I understand that. It received not a single vote in the U.S. Senate, even with his own party controlling the Chamber. But that said, it is the President's budget. He wrote it. He presented it. He owns it. And how does it add up? Consider the math on his permanent AMT fix. Again, he proposes to replace the AMT--ostensibly helping middle-class taxpayers--with the Buffett tax--ostensibly hurting the evil rich. That sounds great until you look at the numbers. How much revenue loss would there be from a permanent AMT fix? Madam President, $864 billion, to be exact. And how much would the Buffett tax yield? Fifty billion dollars--a little less, actually. So the Buffett tax misses the target by over 94 percent. The President would need to increase his Buffett tax by over 1,600 percent to fill in the gap. There are not enough Pinocchios in all of Disney World to describe the phoniness that is the President's AMT proposal.

Ultimately, the AMT needs to go in its entirety. It will probably go as part of comprehensive tax reform. Unfortunately, President Obama and his campaign are undercutting the prospects for tax reform every day with their dishonest attacks on Governor Romney's tax proposal, a key element of which has been endorsed by the Chairman of the President's own Export Council even as his desperate campaign attacks that same feature. But absent a permanent AMT fix, a temporary patch is both a viable and a necessary option.

So here we are, with all of these must-address measures. We have the AMT, tax extenders, the death tax, sequestration, and, of course, the expiration of the 2001-2003 tax relief that threatens to throw our economy into another recession. Yet, at a moment crying out for Presidential leadership, we get campaign partisanship. The President and his allies only seem concerned about getting past the next election. At a time when serious solutions to our fiscal crisis are demanded, they offer no plans of their own. We hear that we need to stay the course, but the course we are on has provided us with four straight trillion-dollar-plus deficits and a debt that threatens not only our long-term but immediate fiscal well-being.

The President's suggestion that we can solve these problems by cutting defense spending and raising taxes on the wealthy is a parody of serious fiscal policy. It might be good for a bumper sticker, a college sociology seminar, or an Occupy Wall Street sit-in, but the numbers do not add up.

The President's mantra is that tax increases on the rich are all that is necessary to pay every bill and balance every budget. That is not an oversimplification. If you watch the President's campaign commercials, the only thing he says about balancing the budget is that he wants to ``ask the wealthy to pay a little more.'' If that is truly the extent of the President's plan for solving our fiscal crisis, he is either being dishonest or he needs to invest in a new calculator.

Let me give an example. Our Nation currently faces what some, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, have called a fiscal cliff. With tax relief scheduled to expire at the end of this year, our Nation faces the possibility of being thrown into another recession. According to the CBO, that outcome is a certainty if the tax relief signed by both Presidents Bush and Obama is allowed to expire under current economic conditions. Yet, rather than working with the Republicans in Congress to extend that tax relief--tax relief that originally passed with bipartisan support and was extended in a similar fashion in 2010--President Obama has opted to hold American taxpayers hostage in order to extract a tax increase for those making more than $250,000 a year. And why? Not to help the economy and not to reduce the deficit but for electoral votes. The President and his supporters claim these tax increases are necessary if we are to get our fiscal house in order, but if you do the math, the President's proposal would only raise enough revenue to reduce this year's deficit by 5 percent. It would be just enough to fund the government's activities for about a week.

Whether we are talking about the Buffett tax in the context of the AMT discussion or the President's fixation with raising the top marginal tax rates in the midst of a historically weak economic recovery, it is clear that the President and his allies in Congress are not serious about addressing the issues most important to the American people. These issues will not go away after the election, but the President has offered no positive program for getting us out of this mess. And I have gotten quite a kick out of them saying Governor Romney should be more specific on what he is doing. Where is the President's plan? What is he going to do? How are we going to get out of this fiscal mess? Not a doggone thing being said except things that do not add up mathematically--to borrow a very important phrase by a person from the Democratic Party during our convention.

Now, the President might envision himself as this century's Franklin Roosevelt, but in this campaign the only thing President Obama has to offer is fear--fear itself. His failure to offer solutions does not just have a theoretical impact, this failure of leadership hits real people in a real way. Do not just ask those making their quarterly tax

payments on Monday. Ask any small business owner whether they are worried about their taxes going up next year. Ask any American who is having trouble making ends meet if they are concerned that Congress has neglected to address so many issues that will dramatically impact their financial well-being.

When the Senate recesses next week until after Election Day, I wonder what my colleagues in the majority will tell their constituents when they are asked why Congress has not acted on these items. This checklist right here that we were talking about before, all of those are important. We have to do those. My guess is they will say it all had to wait until after the election. That is all they can say because if they were to come clean, they would have to admit that they did not want to pass any of these things. They were more interested in campaigning on our tax problems than on fixing them.

If we go until the end of the year without addressing these pressing issues, the wound to our Nation's economic and fiscal well-being will be entirely self-inflicted. These are matters that could have and should have been addressed months ago, and we need to address all of those issues. That we have arrived at this point--three-quarters of the way through the year--without fixing these problems should be an embarrassment to the President and those in Congress who are supportive of his agenda.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise today to speak to an issue that threatens the very viability of the U.S. Senate.

Last July the Obama administration, using the flimsiest of arguments, granted themselves the authority to waive the Federal welfare work requirements. Whether or not what the Obama administration intends to accomplish with these waivers is good welfare policy has been the subject of robust debate.

I am not here to argue the merits or lack thereof of the underlying welfare policy goals of the Obama administration. What I am here to do is to make a plea to my fellow Senators: as Senators, we simply cannot let this action stand.

If we fail to stand together as Senators in defense of our constitutional duty to be the ones to draft legislation, we might as well pack our bags and go home because we will have opened the door for this administration and future administrations to unilaterally decide they can waive precedent, congressional intent, and actual legislative language on which Senators have scrupulously debated and compromised.

If we do not stand together as a Senate, we will be ceding our authority to the executive branch. The longstanding implications of this could possibly extend to welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, disability policy, child welfare, and Social Security Programs. Allow me to elaborate.

According to the Obama administration, because section 1115 of the Social Security Act allows them certain waiver authority over section 402 of the Social Security Act, which deals with a State's welfare plan, and section 402 cites section 407, then the administration has waiver authority over section 407, which enumerates State welfare work requirements.

This doesn't make any sense.

I have been a leader in the Senate on welfare for nearly two decades. I helped draft and manage the floor during the 1996 overhaul of welfare. Five years later, I worked across the aisle with John Breaux of Louisiana and others to craft the so-called tripartisan proposal for welfare reauthorization. The Breaux-Hatch proposal became the basis for the Senate Finance Committee bill that was marked up in the summer of 2002.

Much of the work Senator Breaux and I accomplished made its way into the Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone bill--the so-called PRIDE bill--that was reported twice out of the Senate Finance Committee.

In all that work on welfare, not once--not one time, not ever--was there any discussion of allowing States to waive State work requirements. If anyone had raised it, Republican or Democrat, they would have been laughed out of the room--and for good reason. The crux of the deal and the most integral feature of the 1996 act was to give States flexibility to design their own welfare programs but also require them to meet meaningful performance measures. The idea that anyone would contemplate allowing States to waive these performance measures would have been preposterous, even ludicrous.

So allowing the executive branch the authority to waive welfare work requirements has never, ever been a part of any discussion of welfare reform.

The concept of the executive branch having the authority to waive the 1996 welfare work requirements also did not occur during the previous two administrations. It just never came up because no one thought it was possible.

The administration likes to point to a 2005 letter from Governors in support of the PRIDE bill as justification for their unprecedented action, but what they fail to note is that this letter was not sent to President Bush, it was sent to Members of Congress, who, the Governors correctly believed, were the only ones with the constitutional authority to give the States flexibility.

This point bears repeating: Until the July 12 informational memo to States, no one ever thought the executive branch could waive welfare work requirements. I would even venture to speculate that the Obama administration itself does not seriously think it

had the authority to waive welfare work requirements, and here is why I suspect this is the case.

One of the few bipartisan bills that was actually enacted during the 112th session of Congress was legislation I wrote with my partner on the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Baucus. This legislation--the, ``Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act''--included a provision I drafted that allowed the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to grant certain child welfare waivers. It specifically allowed HHS to waive provisions included in Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. Congress gave HHS that authority because the Congress had been asked by States for flexibility to waive certain provisions of Title IV-E and because, just as everyone assumed the executive branch could not waive section 407 of the Social Security Act, no one believed they could waive Title IV-E of the Social Security Act.

But if we go and look up section 402, just as there is a reference to section 407 contained within that section, so, too, is there a reference to Title IV-E. If the administration really believes in their heart of hearts they have carte blanche to waive whatever is even mentioned in section 402, why did they have to wait around for Congress to give them that authority? The answer, of course, is the Obama Administration never had the authority to begin with, and I believe even they know that to be true today.

The real issue, beyond the rhetoric, is that if the Senate lets this action stand unchallenged, if the Senate does not speak as one body, united, then our inaction will embolden this administration--and future administrations, I might add--to bypass the constitutionally mandated job of the Congress to enact laws whenever it suits their pleasure or political aims--in other words, to take over the legislative function.

The Congress does not have many tools in our toolkit to thwart administrative overreach, but one of those tools is the Congressional Review Act. The CRA, as it is referred to, allows for Senate fast track authority to disapprove a rule that is submitted from an agency in the event an administration attempts to circumvent the CRA by issuing other forms of guidance that should have been submitted as a rule. The Government Accountability Office, which has standing with our Senate Parliamentarians, can determine that an agency action meets the definition of a rule as established by the Administrative Procedures Act and that therefore the CRA applies.

Last July Congressman Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and I asked the GAO to determine whether the so-called guidance to States submitted by the Obama administration was a rule and applicable to the CRA. Last week Chairman Camp and I received word the GAO had determined that the welfare waiver policy was, in fact, a rule and subject to the CRA. This week both Chairman Camp and I will introduce resolutions of disapproval under the CRA for the administration's welfare waiver policies. The House will mark up and pass their resolution this week. The Senate can act, under fast track procedures which limit debate during the week of October 1, 2012.

I have taken the floor today to ask that the Senate pass my resolution of disapproval on a unanimous vote.

It is imperative that we send the executive branch the unambiguous signal that the Senate's ability to craft legislation--to do the work tasked to us by the Constitution--will not be trifled with by this or any other administration. If the Senate does not speak with one unified voice on this issue, then I firmly believe we will have forfeited our relevance in future debates over welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, foster care, and Social Security, just to mention a few.

If any administration can capriciously deem themselves to have unlimited waiver authority over anything mentioned in provisions referred to in section 1115, then the Senate is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. Sure, we can have our debates and develop our expertise and write our laws, but, colleagues, that won't mean a hill of beans if an administration can come along and just waive everything we have worked so hard to get right. Colleagues and friends, we just can't let that happen.

I know that many in this Chamber support President Obama. I know also that many of these same Senators wish he had not taken this action. But as Members of what I still believe is the greatest deliberative body in the world, we have to put partisanship aside for the greater good of the Senate. If Senator Byrd were sitting here today, I cannot imagine he would allow this to happen. And I can't imagine anybody on the other side will allow this to happen.

We have to send as strong a signal as possible that administrative overreach will not stand; that no matter what our political persuasion, the Senate stands together and we will speak with one voice to say in no uncertain terms that we will not be ridden roughshod over, that our constitutional rights as lawmakers will not be trampled on, and that we will do everything in our power to preserve and defend these rights.

To that end, I urge colleagues to support my efforts to stop this unprecedented executive overreach. Support the resolution to disapprove. Support the Senate. Let's stand up for this body. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, we have to make it clear to the other two branches of government that we have certain rights and we have certain powers that no President and no court can overrule. It is important that we stand up on this issue. If we don't, I hesitate to say what could happen in the future. It ain't gonna be pretty. All I can say is that this is an important issue, it is one every Senator in the Senate ought to consider important, and we ought to set partisanship aside and do this in the best interest of the Senate and in the best interest of our legislative ability to act.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the GAO opinion letter dated September 4, 2012, and the TANF Information Memorandum dated July 12, 2012.

I thank my colleague. He is always gracious and a very fine man, and I enjoy serving with him very much.

Cyber Security

Mr. President, I was very disappointed that we were not able to proceed with the cyber security bill today. This side had the votes against cloture. The reason is because the Senate is not being run as an open Senate anymore.

This is such an important bill. It is not some itty-bitty bill that we can call up and foreclose any amendments. In fact, most bills are not that are brought to the floor. I think if it were the other way around and the Republicans were in the majority and they started doing what we have been going through lately--I don't blame Senator Reid for this; I know it comes from his caucus. If we were pulling the same type of thing, I have to say the Democrats would be in orbit.

Usually in the Senate we never build a procedural pyramid until after there has been a reasonable time for debate

and open amendments. That is the way it is usually done. In recent months--frankly, over the last few years--they call up a bill, file cloture as though we are filibustering when we are not, and then tie up the parliamentary tree so we can't have amendments, in the greatest deliberative body in the world, supposedly. That has been very irritating to people on our side.

I would caution my friends on the other side: This is getting to the point where it is becoming a matter of grave concern to everybody and irritation to everybody as well. I think we ought to get back to being the Senate that we all know works better if we respect both sides and their ability to come up and say what they need to and bring the amendments up that they feel are good amendments.

But be that as it may, that is the way it is right now. We have to do the cyber security bill. Everybody knows that. The fact that cloture was not invoked does not mean we shouldn't return to that bill and put the time into it and make sure we resolve the conflicts that have arisen, some of which are very important suggestions, and allow the type of proceeding that the Senate has always been known for.

Value-Added Tax

I wish to change the subject. Recently, there has been some commentary about the lack of substance in our political debates. This concern, that Washington has failed to confront our deepest political challenges, which are, in large part, fiscal challenges, is not without some merit. But I would add one caveat to this analysis. It is not for lack of trying on the part of Republicans to have a grownup debate about our Nation's fiscal and economic future. Republicans are putting forward real ideas about tax and entitlement reform with real numbers attached. However, I would submit that only one side has put a team on the field for this debate. When it comes to putting forward solutions to our nearly $16 trillion of debt and our archaic Tax Code, the President and his Democratic allies have largely stayed on the sideline. Instead of offering up bold proposals to bring down the debt that has ballooned, given the President's commitment to ever larger and more active government, they have determined to give the American people talking points that attack the wealthy and successful small businesses in the name of equality.

Given the fiscal cliff threatening America's families and businesses, this decision to put politics above solutions is madness. But there is a method to it. The fact is the President and his liberal allies are not able to put forward serious solutions because they are between a rock and a hard place. The rock is their base--a liberal minority that refuses any meaningful reforms of the spending programs that are bankrupting our country. The hard place is the vast majority of the American people who flatly object to the massive tax increases, and especially those 940,000 small businesses that would be hit the hardest. Of course, those massive tax increases would be required to finance on a permanent basis the President's commitment to larger government.

The bottom line is that the President is unable to come clean. He cannot tell the American people what the true tax bill would be for his expansion of government. He suggests that our books can be balanced by taxing the rich. We all know that is poppycock. Hence his commitment to the Buffett tax and other redistributionist schemes that have been pursued by the Senate's Democratic leadership over the past 2 years as though they are serious. Give me a break. No serious person believes the Obama administration's government can be financed simply by going after the so-called wealthy. The only way to do it is by going after all Americans and raising taxes on all citizens. That is the silent plan the President will not discuss on the campaign trail. That is the Democrats' phantom budget. And that is what I want to discuss today.

When it comes to addressing our deficits and debt, only one party in Washington has been willing to put its cards on the table. Only one party has been willing to acknowledge the difficult choices that have to be made. The other side has refused to provide any concrete solutions of their own, while demonizing anyone who has had the temerity to propose anything resembling a workable solution.

A case in point. It has been more than 3 years--3 years--since the Senate, which has been under Democratic control the entire time--passed a budget resolution. Those budget resolutions are mandatory. Yet they blindly ignore it. Three years--three years--without a budget. Four years ago, if someone wrote a novel or a screenplay about a Senate majority that refused to pass a budget for 3 years, people in both parties would have laughed and called it absurd. Yet here we are 3 years later.

In fact, the only budget proposals from the Democrats have come from the White House and they have been anything but serious. According to the CBO, the President's most recent budget would keep the United States on the same unsustainable path, with an ever-widening gap between revenues and spending, varying from 8.7 percent to 2.5 percent of GDP, and averaging 3.2 percent of GDP.

We should keep this in mind when we hear the President and his allies suggest we can get our debt under control simply by raising taxes on the wealthy. The President raises plenty of taxes on upper income individuals and small businesses in his budget. Yet under the President's budget, debt held by the public would still reach 76.3 percent of GDP by the end of the budget window.

Even the President's budget, which raises taxes significantly, comes in with a debt limit that is well above what leading economists such as Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart consider the danger zone of 70 percent. The President claimed a few weeks ago that his biggest failing over the last 3 years was that he cared too darn much about policy. If only that were true. But the fact is he ignores the policy experts and their warnings when it comes to the debt.

Consider what CBO Director Elmendorf wrote to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan regarding the debt earlier this year. I have to say, Mr. Elmendorf is a Democrat, but I found him to be extremely trustworthy and honest. Here is what he wrote:

Budgetary policies affect the economy in a variety of ways

. . . All else being equal, scenarios with higher debt tend

to imply lower output and income in the long run than do

scenarios with lower debt, because increased government

borrowing generally crowds out private investment in

productive capital, leading to a smaller stock of capital

than would otherwise be the case.

Director Elmendorf continues:

Moreover, that same crowding out leads to increases in

interest rates, raising the government's interest payments

and therefore further boosting government deficits and debt.

A perpetually rising path of debt relative to GDP is

unsustainable.

That is what our CBO Director, a Democrat, says. Again, I will vouch for the fact that he is a very good economist who, as far as I have seen over all of these years I have worked with him in Washington and watched him help our committees, is totally honest.

No one can legitimately dispute that our entitlement programs-- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, in particular--are the major forces driving our future national debt. No one can dispute that.

This chart I have in the Chamber, produced by the Bipartisan Policy Center, shows the cannibalization of the budget and ultimately the American economy if we go with the status quo on health care entitlements.

Look at this blue line on the chart: health care spending. Under the questioning by Members of Congress, leading Obama administration economic policy officials, such as Treasury Secretary Geithner, basically demur on dealing with the runaway entitlement spending. You can see, it is running away.

In February, Secretary Geithner identified to House Republicans that the administration was putting forth no plan to reform entitlements, but, as he said: ``we know we don't like yours.''

The only official proposals we receive from the President and his administration would simply maintain the status quo--a status quo that is so unacceptable that not one Member of the House or the Senate supported the President's budget, not one in either body.

So what proposals do Senate Democrats support?

Keep in mind, this blue line on the chart is the health care spending line. The red line shows Social Security, which is relatively flat. It goes up a little bit. That is the Social Security

line. The green line happens to be discretionary spending, which has gradually come down--or will come down from 2012 to 2052, according to what we are trying to do. Other mandatory programs are pretty much even. But health care spending is running out of control. That is Medicaid and Medicare and all the other health care spending--but especially Medicaid and Medicare.

What proposals do the Senate Democrats support?

On that, they prefer to keep the American people guessing. Perhaps the President will keep the American people in the dark until he possibly gets ``more flexibility.''

Democrats have not been willing to put their vision down on paper. By comparison, there is the budget put forward by Paul Ryan. Unlike the Democrats who are hiding the ball from the American people, Republicans have not been afraid to talk about the Ryan budget.

This is a comparison of budgets on this chart. The Ryan budget constrains Federal spending and keeps it close to its historic average at 21 percent of GDP. Here is the House Ryan budget, as shown on this chart in the red. By exercising that spending discipline, the budget pulls the deficit down to 1.7 percent of GDP.

By comparison, President Obama's budget deficits are at 3.2 percent of GDP, on average--nearly double those of the Ryan budget.

When you boil it down, there is $3.5 trillion more in deficit reduction in the Ryan budget than in the President's budget, which is represented by the blue line on the chart. There is a $3.5 trillion difference between these two. That is how much the Federal Government currently spends in 1 year.

Because of the President's failure to tackle runaway entitlement spending, that yawning fiscal gap between the two plans only gets much bigger in the outyears.

As you can see right here on this chart, look at how health care spending is going up in these outyears, from 2012 all the way to 2052. As you can see, it is constantly going up from 2012.

Whether we are debating the budget or the debt ceiling or Taxmageddon, one thing is clear: The President and the Democrats in Congress do not like to talk in specific numbers. Instead, they want the American people to measure specific Republican alternatives like the Ryan plan against a series of campaign speeches and attack ads.

The current fiscal debate is between the Ryan budget and a phantom Democratic budget. Apparently, the Chicago campaign sharpies have determined it is safer to wait until after the election to finally unveil the details of the phantom budget, which just in health care spending is going to go forever up and eat our country alive. And their advice has been heeded by the Democrats.

If your proposals are never written down, no one can check your math. We do not know the actual fiscal position of my friends on the other side of the aisle, but we can fill in some blanks.

We know by their vicious attacks on the spending restraints in the Ryan budget and other Republican proposals that the President and his allies in Congress have no interest--zero; no interest--in reducing spending.

We know their income tax proposals do not add up to much in terms of revenue. Even if they let the entirety of the current tax relief expire--which is a distinct possibility given the game of chicken they are currently playing with the fiscal cliff--there probably is not enough money to be found in the income tax to pay for the coming explosion in entitlement spending. You can see it right there on this chart in health care alone.

So where does the Democrats' phantom budget find the fiscal juice to fill its structural hole? The answer is simple: a European-style value- added tax, the VAT, or its green cousin, a carbon tax.

I am quite certain my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will write this off as fear-mongering and fabrication. But what other conclusions are left to draw?

Without significant reductions in spending or reforms in our entitlement system--neither of which we can expect from this President or the Democrats currently in Congress--there is not enough money to be found in traditional revenue streams to cover the President's spending bill. A VAT, a value-added tax--or some other euphemized form of a VAT--appears to be the only option left to our friends on the other side of the aisle if they want to continue spending at current projections.

Many prominent Democrats have expressed some level of support for the value-added tax in the past. In 2009, during an appearance on the Charlie Rose show, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that a VAT was ``on the table.''

A year later, President Obama, in a CNBC interview, expressed a willingness to consider a VAT to address the deficit.

Countless high-profile Democratic strategists and advisors--people such as John Podesta and Paul Volcker--have unapologetically suggested implementing a VAT in the United States.

Ezra Klein, a writer with real cache among liberal Democrats, expressed similar views in the Washington Post in 2009. Here is a revealing quote from Mr. Klein's article:

First, a simple fact: Tax rates will rise over the next

decade. Even with painful spending cuts, tax rates will rise.

At some point, taxes have to come further into line with

spending, and that means the direction they will travel is

up. But--and this isn't a fact--they won't rise within the

current system. People don't trust the current tax system. It

feels opaque and unfair, largely because it is. An increase

in revenues will have to come alongside a change in the tax

system. And the change in the tax system that most economists

prefer and that most other countries use is a value-added

tax.

I agree with Mr. Klein that our current tax system is a mess. But while he and other liberals see that as an opportunity to seek larger pots of tax revenue elsewhere, my fellow Republicans and I see it as a call to reform the Tax Code.

And we disagree on the fundamental assumption behind Mr. Klein's arguments. Like most of my friends on the other side, Mr. Klein takes at face value the benefits of future spending. Notice how he uses the phrase ``taxes will have to come further into line with spending.''

His focus is almost entirely on the revenue side, with only a passing reference to the possibility of reducing spending.

A VAT would increase Federal revenues, but it would also effectively be a tax hike on every American, including those who currently pay no income tax. If a VAT were imposed on top of our existing income tax system, it would likely cripple our economy by imposing new costs on virtually every purchase of goods and services in the United States. It would hamper manufacturing and kill entire retail sectors. Worst of all, it would be the most regressive tax ever imposed on the American people, disproportionately impacting families with lower incomes who spend a higher percentage of their wages on necessities.

Simply put, a VAT would be bad policy in a strong economy. But in the midst of a slow economic recovery, it would be tantamount to economic suicide. It would be jet fuel for larger and larger government.

Numerous studies, including a 2010 study by former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, have demonstrated that in virtually every instance, the implementation of a VAT in other industrialized countries inexorably led to increased spending and an expansion of government.

Make no mistake, the current administration and my Democrat friends know only one way of engaging in fiscal reform--broaden the base. And every middle-income family in America should know that they will get hit with higher taxes to pay for the Democratic goal of ever-expanding government control over our economy, over our lives, and over your paychecks.

The contention that implementing a VAT would make our government more fiscally responsible is a dog that just won't hunt. The purpose of a VAT would not be to shore up deficits and pay down debts, but to expand the government into new areas backed by an all-new source of funding.

Once again, I am quite certain that virtually all of my Democratic colleagues would publicly deny that their phantom budget includes a VAT. For now, they want us to ignore the VAT behind the curtain and instead listen

as the Great and Powerful Oz proclaims that every government program can be funded and every budget balanced simply by eliminating the so- called tax cuts for the rich.

But the American people are not so easily duped. And they are showing up at Emerald City looking for real leadership and real answers, not just talking points.

That is the real choice facing the American people today. They can choose the fiscal leadership of those such as Chairman Ryan who have put forth actual, real-world proposals to bring about reasonable restraints on entitlement spending and maintain taxation at its historic levels, or they can choose the President's impersonation of fiscal leadership, which is built on a phantom budget and large-scale attacks on anyone, such as Chairman Ryan, who offers a real, verifiable alternative.

But let's be clear. The phantom budget simply cannot translate into reality without collecting taxes that go far beyond those the President and congressional Democrats publicly support. Given the limitations on existing revenue streams, a value-added tax, even with all of its many drawbacks, is one of very few logical alternatives left to the other side. If they do not plan on instituting a VAT, they need to come clean with the American people and let everyone know how they plan to pay for their outsized spending.

Regardless of who wins this election, Congress will have to do more than just click its heels and wish for enough money to pay all our bills. Therefore, I think it is fair to assume that, in lieu of a line item for ruby slippers, the Democrats' phantom budget includes levels and forms of taxation heretofore unseen in the United States. You can be sure that if it is not a VAT, it will be something equally damaging to our economy.

Let me end with one other thought; that is, that we all know, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, of which I am a member-- but it is a nonpartisan committee run by very good economists--the bottom 51 percent of all households--not just people; all households-- do not pay a dime of income tax.

We have brought that about out of compassion for them, I have to say, but it means the upper 49 percent are paying for just about everything. Well, my friend Treasury Secretary Geithner pointed out: But, yes, they pay payroll taxes. Well, we all do. That is Social Security. They do not pay a dime of income taxes. I was quick to point out to Mr. Geithner that 23 million of them, approximately, get refundable tax credits from the government that are more than they pay in payroll taxes, so they are really not paying payroll taxes. Almost 16 million of them get refundable tax credits from all of us others out there, from the government itself, which is more than they and their employers pay in payroll taxes.

The fact is, I fail to understand why my friends on the other side are looking for ways to spread the base to an unsuspecting 51 percent who currently do not pay any real income taxes. I think there has to be a better way of spreading the base than doing it through a VAT, which in Europe has proven to be a ready way for politicians to increase spending over and over without really any inhibition or any real inhibition.

So if what I am talking about today is prophetic, it means without question that our friends on the other side want to keep spending. They want the Federal Government to keep growing, all at a cost to individuals, and they want to do it because that is what has kept them in power all of these years, taking all of your money out there and claiming that they are compassionate with your money when they are unwilling to be compassionate enough to keep living within our means.

I yield the floor.