Floor Statements

Madam President, I thank my dear colleague for his kind remarks. I appreciate them.

Madam President, yesterday the Finance Committee held a hearing on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, what we call the Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. This agreement will provide significant new opportunities for U.S. manufacturers, agricultural producers, and service providers in the rapidly growing Colombian market.

Implementation of the Colombia agreement would also benefit U.S. national security. Colombia is emerging from decades of civil strife, and it is in our interests to see that Colombia continues to heal from its wounds of the past. This free trade agreement will help bring further stability to Colombia, a close friend and ally, while also opening and further building the market for U.S. exports to that country. In short, it is a good agreement for the United States.

So what is the holdup? Over 4 years have passed since the U.S.- Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement was signed. It is imperative that the administration submit an implementing bill for this agreement to Congress, and soon. The administration, however, still won't say when it will send an implementing bill to Capitol Hill.

During yesterday's hearing, I asked our Deputy U.S. Trade Representative two very simple questions regarding this issue. First, assuming that Colombia fulfills the steps outlined in the labor action plan developed by the Obama administration and the Colombian Government, will the administration submit the Colombia agreement to Congress for a vote? Second, is the administration preconditioning the President's formal submission of the Colombia trade agreement on matters not related to the action plan, such as congressional extension of trade adjustment assistance or permanent normal trade relations for Russia? To me, these questions are pretty clear and can be answered with a simple yes or no. But, unfortunately, we did not get a clear answer. After years of delay, we still do not know if the administration will ever submit the Colombia agreement to Congress for approval. This is very unfortunate.

The Obama administration's delay in submitting the Colombia agreement is hurting U.S. exporters. This failure is a drag on job creation and economic growth. While the President has dithered as to whether to implement the trade agreement with Colombia, our trade competitors have been more than willing to enter into agreements with Colombia. Consequently, while Colombia's tariffs on U.S. imports have remained in place, Colombia's tariffs on products from other countries are falling away.

For example, Colombia has implemented a preferential trade agreement with Argentina and Brazil. As a result, U.S. farm products are rapidly being displaced in the Colombia market by products from those countries. So it is not too surprising that between 2007 and 2010, U.S. agricultural exports to Colombia fell by more than half, and it looks like matters are going to get even worse. A Montana wheat grower who testified at yesterday's hearing noted that the U.S. share of Colombia's wheat market fell from 73 percent in 2008 to 43 percent in 2010. He also stated that following implementation of the Canada- Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which is expected to occur this year, U.S. exports of wheat to Colombia will drop to zero unless the United States implements its trade agreement with Colombia. So U.S. agricultural exports to Colombia are already falling. U.S. manufactured goods and U.S. services will be next.

It does not have to be this way. We do not have to continue giving away the growing Colombia market to our competitors. If we want to boost our exports to Colombia, all we have to do is implement the U.S.- Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement.

The Obama administration had earlier stated that it wanted to address Colombia's internal labor situation before moving ahead with the agreement. But the administration delayed taking any meaningful steps to address their concerns with the Colombian government for years. A few months ago, the administration finally got serious about engaging with Colombia. And, lo and behold, in a matter of weeks--in a matter of weeks--they were able to develop a labor action plan that addressed their concerns in a meaningful and concrete way. The administration discovered that, in their own words, they had a willing partner in Colombia. The fact of the matter is that Colombia has been taking steps for years to address issues related to violence against unionists and has always been willing to do more. Why it took the administration so long to figure it out is a mystery to me.

So the Obama administration has now negotiated an action plan that addresses its concerns regarding the labor situation in Colombia. You would think we would have clarity that, once the steps in the action plan are fulfilled, the administration would submit the agreement to Congress for its consideration. But we do not have this clarity. There has been no clear answer to this very simple question. Instead, there seem to be more preconditions on submitting the agreement that are not even related to the agreement itself, such as extension of trade adjustment assistance and permanent normal trade relations for Russia.

This is very odd. Most economists would agree that there are likely to be very few workers who will lose their jobs because of implementation of the Colombia trade agreement. After all, the U.S.- Colombia trade agreement will result in almost no growth in imports from Colombia. This is the case as almost all Colombian products have entered the United States duty free over the past two decades on account of U.S. trade preference programs. In contrast, Colombia's average applied tariff on U.S. imports is over 12 percent, and they can reach as high as 388 percent.

Moreover, the administration itself testified that implementation of the Colombia agreement: will expand exports of U.S. goods to Colombia by more than a billion dollars--that is with a ``B''--increase U.S. GDP by $2.5 billion; and support thousands of additional jobs for our workers, at a time when we need jobs, and when we need to pull this economy out of the mess it is in. So it is hard to see further extension of the TAA program as a necessary precondition for approval of an agreement that will help our economy and support jobs in the United States. It is a no-brainer.

I am also bewildered by any attempts to precondition submission of the Colombia agreement to congressional support for permanent normal trade relations for Russia. These two issues are totally unrelated. Given the current disregard for the rule of law and the many trade problems that persist in Russia today, it is hard to argue that the time is ripe for Congress to grant Russia permanent normal trade relations.

Moreover, it would be particularly ironic and sad to condition passage of the Colombia trade agreement with permanent normal trade relations for Russia. Over the past 4 years, Colombia has been a reliable U.S. trading partner, ready and willing to remove its tariffs on U.S. imports through implementation of our trade agreement. During these same years, Russia has seemingly gone out of its way on numerous occasions to prove to the United States that it is an unreliable trading partner.

It is fundamentally unfair to continue to treat a friend and ally like Colombia in this ridiculous way. Unfortunately, it is not the first time Democratic leaders have put one of our closest Latin American allies in this position. The U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement was first signed on November 22, 2006--almost 5 years ago. Democratic leaders refused to consider the agreement until their additional demands were met on labor, the environment, and intellectual property. The Bush administration responded by working with then- Speaker Pelosi on a package of changes that were understood would lead to consideration of the agreement. But once they had these changes in hand, the Democratic leadership in the House balked, citing yet more issues that had to be resolved. When President Bush submitted the Colombia agreement to Congress for its consideration utilizing trade promotion authority procedures in April 2008, the Democratic leadership refused to allow the agreement to come up for a vote. Instead, they changed the rules, and the agreement has since languished for almost 5 years.

It is time for the excuses to end. Resolution of unrelated issues such as trade adjustment assistance and PNTR for Russia should not be used as further barriers to submission of this agreement. Colombia is taking the steps laid out by the Obama administration that the administration has said are necessary before the President will formally submit the agreement to Congress. Once those steps are taken in June, I fully expect the administration to finally fulfill its end of the bargain and formally submit the agreement for congressional approval without further conditions. If not, the administration is making a conscious decision to continue denying U.S. exporters improved access to the Colombian market, and to undermine our standing as a credible ally in Latin America.

It is a no-brainer to realize that Colombia is one of our best friends. When you compare it to some of its neighbors, such as Venezuela--and I can name other countries that are undermining our very country as we sit here and stand here. The fact of the matter is, Colombia is a friend. Friends should not be treated this way. It is ridiculous what is going on. There is very little need for trade adjustment assistance in this particular deal. It is just another way of sucking from the taxpayers more money for purposes that literally do not exist.

I hope the administration will wake up and realize this would be a tremendous achievement for them. There is no reason in the world why they should not want to do this. It would be a sure creator of jobs at a time when we need jobs. It will even up a situation that up to this point has been sad. And it will help our country. Let's quit playing games with this free trade agreement. Let's get it up. Let's vote on it, and let's restore our relationship with Colombia to the great relationship it deserves to be.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise to express support for S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property, PROTECT, Act as introduced by my colleague, Senator Leahy. Chairman Leahy and I have worked together on the protection of intellectual property rights on a number of occasions over the years and I am pleased to partner with him once again on this important bill. I also want to recognize the efforts of Senator Grassley, the distinguished Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is a valued friend and his support is greatly appreciated as we move forward.

With this legislation, we are sending a strong message to those selling or distributing counterfeit goods online, namely that the United States will strongly protect its intellectual property, IP, rights. Despite what seems to be a common assumption, just because something is available on the Internet does not mean it is free. Fake pharmaceuticals threaten people's lives. Stolen movies, music, and other products threaten the jobs and livelihoods of many people. Every year, these online thieves are making hundreds of millions of dollars by stealing American IP, and this undermines legitimate commerce. This is why protecting property rights is a critical imperative and is why we have come together to introduce the PROTECT IP Act.

Utah is considered a very popular State for film and television production activity. Indeed, many American classics have been filmed in my home State. Nothing compares to the red rock of Southern Utah or the sweeping grandeur of the Wasatch Mountains. Not to mention Utah's workforce, which is one of the most highly educated and hardworking in our country. It is estimated that the motion picture and television industries are responsible for thousands of jobs and tens of millions of dollars in wages in Utah. So, IP theft has a direct, negative impact on Utah's economy and its workforce, and this same impact can be seen nationwide.

There is no question that the legislative process can be tedious at times, and often it takes multiple Congresses to get things right. We witnessed this first hand in the patent reform debate. It took three Congresses for the Senate to pass patent reform legislation. I was pleased to be the lead Republican sponsor of the America Invents Act, S. 23, which passed the Senate in March by a vote of 95 to 5. I can confirm that the final Senate-passed bill was a product of countless hours of negotiation and legislative fine-tuning. While I hope the bill before us will not take nearly as long, I can confirm that significant and positive changes have already occurred since we introduced the bipartisan legislation last year. These changes include a narrower definition of the type of Internet sites to which the bill applies, specifically those ``dedicated to infringing activities;'' authorization for the Attorney General to serve an issued court order on a search engine, in addition to payment processors, advertising networks and Internet service providers; authorization for both the Attorney General and rights holders to bring actions against online infringers operating an Internet site or domain where the site is ``dedicated to infringing activities,'' but with remedies limited to eliminating the financial viability of the site, not blocking access; requirement of plaintiffs to attempt to bring an action against the owner or registrant of the domain name used to access an Internet site ``dedicated to infringing activities'' before bringing an action against the domain name itself; protection for domain name registries, registrars, search engines, payment processors, and advertising networks from damages resulting from their voluntary action against an Internet site ``dedicated to infringing activities,'' where that site also ``endangers the public health,'' by offering controlled or non- controlled prescription medication.

It is worth underscoring that the purpose of the PROTECT IP Act is to take down Internet sites dedicated to infringing activities, or in other words, the most egregious offenders in the world of online IP theft. Indeed, the bill authorizes the Department of Justice, DOJ, to file a civil action against the registrant or owner of a domain name that accesses a foreign infringing Internet site, or the foreign- registered domain name itself. However, DOJ officials must seek approval from a Federal court before taking any action. I trust that a Federal judge will weigh all of the facts carefully before issuing an order, in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, to shut down a Web site dedicated to infringing activities.

There is no quick fix to this problem. But doing nothing is not an option. We must explore ways, albeit in incremental steps, to take down offending

Web sites. For this reason, I believe the PROTECT IP Act is a critical step in our ongoing fight against online piracy and counterfeiting. I am pleased with the progress that we have made so far on this bill and look forward to working with my colleagues on further refinements as it moves through the legislative process.

We must take steps to combat those Web sites that are profiting from stolen American intellectual property.

Mr. President, I rise to express support for S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property, PROTECT, Act as introduced by my colleague, Senator Leahy. Chairman Leahy and I have worked together on the protection of intellectual property rights on a number of occasions over the years and I am pleased to partner with him once again on this important bill. I also want to recognize the efforts of Senator Grassley, the distinguished Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is a valued friend and his support is greatly appreciated as we move forward.

With this legislation, we are sending a strong message to those selling or distributing counterfeit goods online, namely that the United States will strongly protect its intellectual property, IP, rights. Despite what seems to be a common assumption, just because something is available on the Internet does not mean it is free. Fake pharmaceuticals threaten people's lives. Stolen movies, music, and other products threaten the jobs and livelihoods of many people. Every year, these online thieves are making hundreds of millions of dollars by stealing American IP, and this undermines legitimate commerce. This is why protecting property rights is a critical imperative and is why we have come together to introduce the PROTECT IP Act.

Utah is considered a very popular State for film and television production activity. Indeed, many American classics have been filmed in my home State. Nothing compares to the red rock of Southern Utah or the sweeping grandeur of the Wasatch Mountains. Not to mention Utah's workforce, which is one of the most highly educated and hardworking in our country. It is estimated that the motion picture and television industries are responsible for thousands of jobs and tens of millions of dollars in wages in Utah. So, IP theft has a direct, negative impact on Utah's economy and its workforce, and this same impact can be seen nationwide.

There is no question that the legislative process can be tedious at times, and often it takes multiple Congresses to get things right. We witnessed this first hand in the patent reform debate. It took three Congresses for the Senate to pass patent reform legislation. I was pleased to be the lead Republican sponsor of the America Invents Act, S. 23, which passed the Senate in March by a vote of 95 to 5. I can confirm that the final Senate-passed bill was a product of countless hours of negotiation and legislative fine-tuning. While I hope the bill before us will not take nearly as long, I can confirm that significant and positive changes have already occurred since we introduced the bipartisan legislation last year. These changes include a narrower definition of the type of Internet sites to which the bill applies, specifically those ``dedicated to infringing activities;'' authorization for the Attorney General to serve an issued court order on a search engine, in addition to payment processors, advertising networks and Internet service providers; authorization for both the Attorney General and rights holders to bring actions against online infringers operating an Internet site or domain where the site is ``dedicated to infringing activities,'' but with remedies limited to eliminating the financial viability of the site, not blocking access; requirement of plaintiffs to attempt to bring an action against the owner or registrant of the domain name used to access an Internet site ``dedicated to infringing activities'' before bringing an action against the domain name itself; protection for domain name registries, registrars, search engines, payment processors, and advertising networks from damages resulting from their voluntary action against an Internet site ``dedicated to infringing activities,'' where that site also ``endangers the public health,'' by offering controlled or non- controlled prescription medication.

It is worth underscoring that the purpose of the PROTECT IP Act is to take down Internet sites dedicated to infringing activities, or in other words, the most egregious offenders in the world of online IP theft. Indeed, the bill authorizes the Department of Justice, DOJ, to file a civil action against the registrant or owner of a domain name that accesses a foreign infringing Internet site, or the foreign- registered domain name itself. However, DOJ officials must seek approval from a Federal court before taking any action. I trust that a Federal judge will weigh all of the facts carefully before issuing an order, in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, to shut down a Web site dedicated to infringing activities.

There is no quick fix to this problem. But doing nothing is not an option. We must explore ways, albeit in incremental steps, to take down offending

Web sites. For this reason, I believe the PROTECT IP Act is a critical step in our ongoing fight against online piracy and counterfeiting. I am pleased with the progress that we have made so far on this bill and look forward to working with my colleagues on further refinements as it moves through the legislative process.

We must take steps to combat those Web sites that are profiting from stolen American intellectual property.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about an unfortunate and, quite frankly, disturbing matter.

While we were all back home during the most recent Senate recess, the National Labor Relations Board's acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, after 17 months of indecision, issued one of the most far-reaching and outrageous complaints ever issued by the Board against a private business. This complaint against Boeing is one of the most outlandish and regrettable complaints I have seen in all my years in the Senate.

The NLRB's acting general counsel--emphasis on the ``acting''-- sitting in his ivory tower in Washington, DC, essentially substituted his business judgment for that of a private corporation. In essence, Mr. Solomon claimed the authority to determine where and how a private company is permitted to do business.

This is a specious claim. Boeing did nothing wrong, and I am confident it will ultimately prevail. Yet this complaint carries a potential cost of billions of dollars and thousands of new jobs for the company in the community where it chose to operate.

So why make this decision at all? Why attack a private company with a legal challenge that will cost an enormous amount of money to defend, disrupts business, undermines the efforts of States to increase jobs and promote economic recovery but that will fail for its lack of merit? The answer is simple. The unions want it. This is another chapter in the sorry relationship between unions, big government, and the party of big government.

I have to say, I admire Mr. Solomon's moxie. By making this decision during a congressional recess, it is almost as if he thought it might avoid our scrutiny. Maybe he thought news such as this might not make its way back to the States. To that I say: Nice try, but you will not escape the scrutiny of the American people when it comes to an action this over the top. Sunshine will fall on a decision this politically motivated. In the light of day, the decision and the decisionmakers are going to look awfully bad.

The NLRB's Boeing complaint has been widely criticized in the media, in the Senate by a number of my colleagues, and throughout the business community as a prime example of a Federal bureaucracy run amok. But this is more than another example of an unaccountable bureaucracy harming job creators and employees. What makes this case particularly ugly is, this is a case of regulators conveniently supporting the interests of big labor against private enterprise. What makes this case appalling is, it is a gift-wrapped present to the interests that just so happen to be the largest contributors to Democratic Party campaigns.

The NLRB issued its complaint against Boeing--one of our Nation's iconic companies--for allegedly transferring assembly work on its Dreamliner 787 fleet of airplanes from Puget Sound, WA, to North Charleston, SC. Boeing made a legitimate business decision to open a new plant with new workers in a new more business-friendly climate. It chose South Carolina, in part, to avoid labor disputes and crippling strikes which had befallen the company repeatedly over the past few years.

When Boeing first made this decision way back in 2009, it had experienced four major labor strikes in 20 years. The most recent work stoppage--a 58-day strike in 2008--cost the company $1.8 billion.

Was the decision to bring new work to South Carolina a prudent business decision? Boeing faces significant global competition. The French company, Airbus, is anxious to take Boeing's business with the help--and backing, I might add--of the French Government.

Was the decision good for American workers? Clearly, Boeing's decision was. In the current marketplace, many of Boeing's competitors might have considered moving jobs overseas. Instead of following that course, Boeing saved American jobs.

The President likes to talk about jobs he has created and saved. Well, not a single job--union or nonunion--was lost in the State of Washington as a result of Boeing's decision. In fact, over 2,000 new jobs have been created in Puget Sound since the company's announcement to begin work on the new facility. This is not to mention South Carolina, where hundreds of new jobs were created. Added jobs in Washington plus added jobs in South Carolina sounds like a win-win for American workers to me.

So, yes, Boeing's decision to build its new plant in South Carolina was good for just about everybody. Yet, without asserting any evidence of anti-union animus on the part of Boeing or of an adverse impact on union workers exercising their legal rights, the NLRB filed its complaint and has sought to step in and make Boeing's business decisions for them.

As South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley described it in an April 26 Wall Street Journal editorial:

The excitement of South Carolina turned to gloom for

millions of South Carolinians who are rightly aghast at the

thought of the greatest economic development success our

state has seen in decades being ripped away by federal

bureaucrats who appear to be little more than union puppets.

Governor Haley should be applauded for calling the NLRB's decision for what it is: a hand-wrapped present to big labor, courtesy of their friends in the Federal bureaucracy and the administration.

Let's take a look at the NLRB's complaint for a moment. First, let's consider the timing of the complaint. It is highly suspect, if you ask me. The Boeing complaint comes just a few short months before the new South Carolina facility was scheduled to open in July and well after most of the construction was completed and the new workers were hired. In other words, after most of Boeing's substantial investments had been made, the heavy hand of the Federal bureaucracy intervened to dictate that its business decision must be reversed.

In its April 21 editorial, the Wall Street Journal describes the Boeing complaint saying:

After 17 months and $2 billion, the NLRB sandbags Boeing.

The editorial continued:

There are plentiful legal precedents to give business the

right to locate operations in Right to Work states. That

right has created healthy competition among the states and

kept tens of millions of jobs in America rather than

overseas.

An opinion editorial by Steven Pearlstein in the April 26 Washington Post is even more telling. Although Mr. Pearlstein was, not unexpectedly, somewhat supportive of big labor and the NLRB's actions in this case, he nevertheless acknowledged that:

[i]f the agency prevails and is able to force Boeing to

open an additional production line

for its new 787 Dreamliner in Seattle, it could finally put a

brake on the steady flow of manufacturing jobs to right to

work states in the South.

Pearlstein hits it on the head here. The decision to file this complaint is an attack on business-friendly States that are attracting companies and creating jobs. It is an effort by Washington Democrats and career bureaucrats to force unionism on the entire country. Yet, in my view, Pearlstein does not adequately state the radicalism of the NLRB's position.

The fact is, if the NLRB--doing the bidding of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers--prevails, it will give them the right to dictate business location decisions everywhere, even in non-right-to-work States.

There is a great deal of misinformation coming from those who support the NLRB's actions. In this article, Pearlstein inaccurately describes Boeing's new manufacturing facility in South Carolina as a runaway shop. Boeing had no legal obligation to locate any and all new work in Puget Sound. It was not obligated, under any collective bargaining agreement, to keep the work there. It simply chose to locate new work and new expansion in a business-friendly, right-to-work State. Is that a runaway shop? I think not, and I think most everybody would think not.

Apparently, the NLRB agrees with me because the complaint does not allege that this was a classic runaway shop. In those situations, bargaining unit work that is contractually obligated to be performed by members of the union is shut down unilaterally by management. Employees are laid off, and the company stealthily slips out of town with little or no notice, only to reopen in a new location to perform the exact same work on a union-free basis. Under the law, that is wrong.

The NLRB makes no such allegations because that is not what happened in this case. Instead, the complaint falls back on the broad, catchall argument that Boeing's actions were inherently destructive of union workers' section 7 rights, referring to the rights protected by section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act which, in this case, means the right to strike. If that theory were to apply to all cases such as this one, if companies cannot factor labor conditions into decisions regarding new operations without it being inherently destructive of section 7 rights, there is no logical end to what private decisions can be overruled by the NLRB.

This is an agency run amok and trying to take the place of this Congress.

Fortunately, the legal precedents dealing with this type of decision do not support the acting general counsel's interpretation in the Boeing complaint. The cases cited in the complaint are all distinguishable. Not one of them deals with fact patterns involving new work because there is nothing unlawful about opening a new facility to perform new work that is not obligated under an existing collective bargaining agreement.

Put simply, this is just another effort on the part of the union- packed Obama NLRB to undo years of legal precedent to satisfy big labor. If Boeing's actions are inherently destructive of the union's rights, where is the antiunion discrimination? Once again, not a single union worker lost a job or even lost an hour of work as a result of Boeing's business decision.

Let's be perfectly clear. Boeing workers in the State of Washington actually gained new work and gained 2,000 new jobs following the decision in 2009. These jobs are among the best paid in America. Does that sound like anti-union discrimination? Of course not.

This was not a stealth move in the dark of the night. No one was surprised or caught off guard. The machinists' union knew Boeing was building a new facility in South Carolina. Boeing had even discussed a new location with them. Workers knew about Boeing's plans as well and so did the NLRB. But before issuing his complaint, the acting general counsel stewed for 17 months, while new facilities were being constructed at great expense in South Carolina, at a cost of billions of dollars, and workers were hired to run the assembly lines.

It goes without saying that if Carolina workers wanted a union, they, similar to any other private sector employees in South Carolina or any other State, could file a petition with the NLRB for a union representation election. There was no evidence--zero evidence--of anti- union discrimination by Boeing to any union petition or union representation election. But--and I can't stress this enough--the most important factor is, the work in South Carolina was new work which Boeing was not obligated to perform in the State of Washington under its collective bargaining agreement. Boeing simply decided, for sound business reasons, to open a new facility to perform new work in a business-friendly State. This is something businesses can do all the time and do do all the time; that is, they used to do it all the time before President Obama's acting general counsel and the might of the Federal bureaucracy, under the heavy-handed control of big labor, decided to step in and interfere with Boeing's decision. If this complaint is upheld and this interpretation becomes the new status quo, who knows how it will impact businesses in the future?

Every citizen in South Carolina and every Member of Congress-- Republican or Democratic--ought to be outraged by the National Labor Relations Board's decision and action. To borrow from Frank Sinatra, if they can do it there, they can do it anywhere. If the NLRB can do this in South Carolina, disrupting business and killing jobs, it can happen anywhere, including Utah or any other right-to-work State. It can happen even in non-right-to-work States as well.

But the most appalling part about this complaint is not the NLRB's borderline frivolous interpretation of the law. No, it is the remedies the agency is seeking. After asserting that Boeing unlawfully transferred bargaining unit work to South Carolina, the acting general counsel--a career NLRB bureaucrat who, throughout his government legal career, has never been responsible for making a single entrepreneurial decision or creating a single job--sought an order stipulating that Boeing's work on the 787 Dreamliner could not be performed in South Carolina and would have to be moved back to the State of Washington. Well, not back; it would have to be moved to the State of Washington. This is a new business.

As is typical in these cases, the Boeing complaint will surely be subject to lengthy litigation, while Boeing's foreign competitors eagerly seek to supplant Boeing's business orders. Even if Boeing ultimately prevails in the litigation battle, it could lose the business war to fierce global competition. That is stupid to put them in this position.

The Machinists know that and so does the NLRB.

Might I remind supporters of the NLRB that justice delayed is justice denied. Here, the longer the wheels of justice turn, the worse it is for Boeing's business and the worse it is for American jobs and prosperity.

Delay does not favor Boeing, but it plays right into the hands of its global competitors, as well as the Machinists Union and President Obama's acting general counsel at the NLRB, who, it seems, would force the company into accepting a settlement that cements an untenable business decision in law.

This is no less than economic warfare being waged by the NLRB on behalf of President Obama's friends--the labor unions--against Boeing, against the workers in South Carolina and all South Carolinians, and against all the 22 right-to-work States across the country. It may even be against the rights and the privileges and the benefits of the people in Washington because if Boeing, to be competitive, has to move offshore, they are going to lose their jobs. In the end, it is economic warfare by the Obama administration against all business friendly States and against capitalism and free enterprise everywhere.

I am not the only one saying this. I note, for example, that the attorneys general in nine States across the country--Nevada, Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina--have written to Mr. Solomon asking that the Boeing complaint be withdrawn.

Their April 28 letter states:

This complaint represents an assault upon the

constitutional right of free speech, and the ability of our

states to create jobs and recruit industry. . . . The only

justification for the NLRB's unprecedented retaliatory action

is to aid union survival. Your action seriously undermines

our citizens' right to work as well as their ability to

compete

globally. Therefore, as Attorneys General, we will protect

our citizens from union bullying and federal coercion. We

thus call upon you to cease this attack on our right to work,

our states' economies, and our jobs.

Editorials from newspapers across the country have criticized the Boeing complaint. Even the Seattle Times wrote in an April 22 editorial:

This page regretted Boeing's decision, but has never

thought of it as something that could be, or should be,

reversed by the federal government.

The article continues, saying:

[T]he National Labor Relations Board has labeled Boeing's

decision an unfair labor practice, and is asking a federal

court to order the line to be moved to Washington . . . we

would celebrate the day Boeing decided to do that--but it is

Boeing's decision.

Later the same editorial concluded:

The company has the right to build assembly plants. It can

build them in South Carolina or in Afghanistan if it likes.

Its decision may be unwise, but it is Boeing's.

These same sentiments were expressed in the President's hometown newspaper. A Chicago Tribune editorial on April 22 described the NLRB acting general counsel's actions a ``gross intrusion.'' The editorial continued:

Boeing, the Chicago-based aviation company, already has one

government-induced headache. Its main rival, Airbus SAS, has

received from European nations about $20 billion in subsidies

that are prohibited by international trade agreements. That

is challenging enough for Boeing as it tries to compete in an

international market. But when the U.S. government tries to

dictate where Boeing can do business . . . that's even harder

to stomach.

The Tribune editorial concluded:

The disastrous, unintended message to a major U.S.

employer: Keep your mouth shut and find another country to do

business.

The Detroit News has the President and his pro-union administration pegged. About this decision, the editors wrote:

President Barack Obama has made conciliatory sounds seeking

to reassure business, but the actions of the NLRB illustrate

the real face of his administration. Congress ought to hold

hearings on reining in the NLRB.

So if the NLRB's complaint is so transparently awful, what is this all about? Let's see. An unfair decision comes late in the game. It threatens to destroy rather than create jobs, and it is based on specious legal reasoning. Rest assured, the issue is not jobs. The issue is union jobs, and the issue is not better pay for workers. The issue is about money in the union coffers. Ultimately, the issue is about the 2012 elections, because money in union coffers means money for Democratic candidates.

The International Association of Machinists Union is important to President Obama. It endorsed him and contributed substantial resources to his campaign. While President Obama could not deliver on such legislative initiatives as the Employee Free Choice Act, he appears determined that every level of government--especially at the National Labor Relations Board--will be turned in the union's favor.

The contempt for the American people on display in this decision is astounding. The President and congressional Democrats were unable to enact the Employee Free Choice Act, even with supermajorities in Congress. That is the card check bill. But not to worry. Just have some bureaucrats do it for them. Since the Congress could not act, why not have these bureaucrats usurp Congress's position and do it for them?

Keep this episode in mind next time we hear progressives talk about the need for enlightened administration. Keep it in mind when we hear progressives--liberals--claim the President is just interested in doing what works and that he is not ideological.

Progressives ultimately have little respect for the rule of law or for the people themselves.

For all their talk about nonpartisanship and doing what works, what they promote is a supposedly enlightened bureaucracy that, in fact, will push liberal policies, regardless of what the people want.

Progressives are to nonpartisanship as Donald Trump is to subtlety.

Ultimately, progressives are as partisan as they come, and they push their liberalism through a vast and permanent bureaucracy that plods along day after day, largely out of sight of the American people, who would never elect representatives who would actually promote this leftist, antibusiness agenda. When former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said elections should not matter as much as they do, this is what she meant. Liberalism should advance no matter what the people of this country actually desire. The foot soldiers who will advance the causes of progressive leftism day in and day out are the unelected and largely unaccountable bureaucrats that churn out page after page of regulation and infiltrate the decisionmaking process of every business, no matter how small the decision or how small the business.

Which brings me to the NLRB's acting general counsel.

How did he even wind up in a position to cause this level of economic mayhem? Not under the established procedure for appointing an interim general counsel under section 3(d) of the National Labor Relations Act, which provides very clearly as follows:

In case of vacancy in the office of the General Counsel the

President is authorized to designate the officer or employee

who shall act as General Counsel during such vacancy, but no

person or persons so designated shall so act (1) for more

than forty days when the Congress is in session unless a

nomination to fill such vacancy shall have been submitted to

the Senate, or (2) after the adjournment sine die of the

session of the Senate in which such nomination was submitted.

President Obama ignored the clearly established statutory procedure for appointing an acting general counsel under the National Labor Relations Act and instead made Mr. Solomon his personal acting general counsel under the more generous terms of the Federal Vacancies Act, which is intended to apply to government vacancies in general.

Even if he is technically authorized to do so, the President should not use the Vacancies Act to supplant or displace specific statutory procedures for appointing Federal employees to vacancies where, as here under the National Labor Relations Act, the organic law is perfectly clear as to the intended process.

Why did President Obama make the appointment under the Vacancies Act rather than follow the more preferred and traditional procedure provided under the National Labor Relations Act? The answer is pretty simple.

Under the Vacancies Act, Mr. Solomon is allowed to stay in the job in an acting capacity, without Senate approval, for an initial 210 days-- rather than the 40 days provided under the National Labor Relations Act--and then be reappointed again for another 210 days, and a third time for yet another 210 days, until the end of President Obama's term.

This is yet another example of the President end running the law in order to ensconce in office individuals who would have a difficult time surviving the constitutionally required confirmation process--a process that ensures the people and their representatives have some meaningful oversight of the appointee.

So why did no one complain about this appointment before now? I suppose some should have. I suppose after the battle over the nomination of AFL-CIO and SEIU Associate Counsel Craig Becker to the NLRB, many were convinced they could do a lot worse than having a career NLRB civil servant serve as acting general counsel. I am not so sure anyone feels that way now. In fact, in light of his recent actions, including the Boeing complaint, it is hard to conceive of a worse choice for acting general counsel.

That decision should be revisited. That is why I am writing to President Obama to request that he withdraw the appointment of Mr. Solomon.

As far as President Obama's nomination of Mr. Solomon for a full term as general counsel is concerned, it is difficult to imagine how Mr. Solomon could ever be confirmed by the Senate, in view of his actions while serving as acting general counsel.

Government actions such as the ones we have seen with the Boeing complaint are debilitating to our economy at a time when we are struggling to recover from one of the Nation's worst recessions since the Great Depression. Such bureaucratic decisions cost jobs at a time when we are struggling to reduce unemployment. They delay business decisionmaking and interfere with competition. They undermine business confidence in government.

Why should companies invest in expanding business in the United States

if, with the drop of a hat, a Federal bureaucrat can simply reverse that decision and destroy that investment?

At this point, we are left scratching our heads. Why would the acting general counsel do this outrageous act? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be that the decision to issue the complaint was a political one designed to placate an important ally of the President's--organized labor. That answer, while unacceptable, is the only logical answer.

As the April 21 Wall Street Journal concluded:

Beyond labor politics, the NLRB's ruling would set a

terrible precedent for the flow of jobs and investments

within the United States. It would essentially give labor a

veto over management decisions about where to build future

plants.

That must never be allowed to happen. The NLRB should withdraw the Boeing complaint.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank the Senator from Wyoming. I appreciate his perspective on this important issue because he is a physician. The Senator has cared for Medicaid patients, and he understands the Medicaid Program better than anyone in this body. The Senator has also served in the State legislature, so he has that experience. He understands that, unlike Washington, States must balance their budgets every year.

I want to talk about the rollback of the Medicaid maintenance of effort or MOE requirement threatening both Medicare beneficiaries and the financial health of many States throughout the country. I think it is important to go through a little history on this subject.

When Medicaid was first established as a limited State-Federal partnership, less than 5 million Americans used this program. Today, nearly one in four is enrolled in this government program. Medicaid spending now absorbs nearly one-quarter of all State government budgets, often forcing severe cuts to other critical State programs.

Unfortunately, this situation is getting even worse with the Medicaid mandate first imposed in the stimulus bill and again in the partisan health care law. As a result of these Washington mandates, States are being forced to make drastic cuts to important priorities, such as education and law enforcement.

Unlike Washington, which too often just prints money to pay for out- of-control spending, States actually have to make tough budget decisions every year. States are facing the worst budget crisis since the Great Depression, with a collective $175 billion shortfall. Washington's micromanagement of State Medicaid programs makes it incredibly difficult for the States to balance their budgets and provide for those who are most in need. Because of the overly generous benefit programs that Washington forces on the States, they are unable to target health services to those most in need of assistance. Governors are unable to undertake commonsense reforms that root out program waste, fraud, and abuse.

The result of these MOE requirements is nothing short of a Washington-induced State fiscal crisis.

In my home State of Utah, the fiscal year 2012 budget shortfall will be approximately $390 million. That is a lot of money. My State has said:

MOE requirements imposed by the Federal Government will

cost the State $3.2 million annually.

This might not sound like a lot to the people in Washington, DC, who don't bat an eye at trillion-dollar deficits, but in Utah that is a lot of money in the State budget. My close friend in Utah, Governor Gary Herbert, said:

Not a State in this Nation is immune to tough budget

decisions, and sometimes Washington makes it even harder.

Utah must seriously weigh the real cost of Medicaid, one of

the largest and most expensive programs we have.

Unfortunately, Federal mandates tie our hands. Utah has zero

flexibility to respond to economic conditions, or the option

to scale the program back in a way that reflects local values

and priorities.

Governor Herbert and many others across the Nation have repeatedly

asked Washington to repeal these onerous Medicaid mandates. We have introduced legislation--the State Flexibility Act, as the Senator mentioned--to do exactly what the Governors have asked.

The State Flexibility Act fully repeals these burdensome Medicaid MOE regulations. It starts to put States back in control to balance their budgets while simultaneously lowering Federal entitlement spending. Our legislation will save taxpayers $2.8 billion over just the first 5 years. That is a lot of money.

Regardless of political affiliation, I am confident this bill has the potential to garner strong, bipartisan support in Congress, and it represents a strong first step toward achieving comprehensive Medicaid reform. Any Senator who has talked to his or her State's Governor knows we need to pass this legislation to enable States to survive the current fiscal crisis and to better care for the most vulnerable Medicaid beneficiaries in their respective States.

It is time for Congress to roll back these unreasonable MOE mandates and put the States, not Washington, back in charge.

I personally thank the Senator, my colleague from Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso, for working with us on this legislation. Without him here, I don't think we would be able to do anywhere near as much as we are doing. The Senator, in particular, brings a unique perspective to the debate over MOE requirements, and I don't know of any Senator who is serving his State any better than he.

I would appreciate hearing more of the Senator's thoughts on this matter because he has the experience, and he has operated on countless people, and he has done it whether they have been Medicaid beneficiaries, people who have insurance, or people who have nothing. I know that. I have great admiration for the Senator from Wyoming. These States have been heavily burdened with MOE requirements, which are bureaucratic unnecessaries. I would like to hear from the Senator how important that is.

Right.

And give the States flexibility to do what they can do better than the Federal Government. As a former medical liability defense lawyer back in my early days, I represented doctors, health care providers, nurses, and hospitals in defending them from what were, in most cases, frivolous suits that run up the cost of medicine.

I cannot tell you what it means to me to have Senator Barrasso in the Senate with all the medical experience he has had. Frankly, the States can do the job, but they cannot do it within budget if we keep piling regulation and onerous burdens on them, such as the partisan health care bill does.

Frankly, I want the Senator from Wyoming to know I feel it is an honor to serve with him and an honor to have a couple of medical doctors on our side. Dr. Barrasso and Dr. Coburn are both excellent doctors. They have lived through these problems. They know what they are like. They do not have to have anybody tell them what is wrong with the approaches we are taking. They know what is wrong.

Frankly, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for being willing to serve here.

That is right. I believe this will have great bipartisan support among the Governors and hopefully in this body. I thank Senator Barrasso for bringing this to our attention.

Mr. President, I rise today to announce the introduction of a bill that, if enacted, would empower the States to more wisely spend the $31 billion in unemployment funds that have been allocated to them for the remainder of this year. This bill will allow states to avoid job-killing unemployment tax hikes while strengthening the safety net program for unemployed workers. I am honored to introduce this legislation simultaneously with a bill being introduced today in the House by The Honorable Dave Camp, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits and Services Act of 2011, or JOBS Act for short, is just that. A pro jobs bill that goes to the heart of what unemployment benefits are meant to be: not a permanent welfare payment, but a bridge to help unemployed workers until they can find a new job. A hand up, not a hand out. This bill is sorely needed. Since the recession began, 33 States have borrowed $48 billion in Federal funds to pay for unemployment benefits. These loans, if gone unpaid, will result in increased taxes on employers and job creators. Three States already have been forced to do so, and experts predict that 21 additional States will be required to raise taxes on jobs this year if nothing is done.

The JOBS Act allows states the flexibility to manage their unemployment funds to pay benefits, reduce their borrowings, or establish programs to help unemployed workers get jobs. The States can decide for themselves where their greatest needs lie. Under current law, States don't have the flexibility they need to adapt. The Federal Government pays for up to 73 weeks of unemployment, an all-time record. But not every state needs to spend the money the way Washington dictates. For example, North Dakota has only a 3.6 percent rate of unemployment, but the unemployed can collect up to 34 weeks of unemployment paid for with Federal funds, in addition to the normal 26 weeks under pre-recession law. This bill would allow States to more wisely direct those Federal funds.

How does the bill work? The $31 billion in Federal funds already allocated to the States will be advanced to them and will remain available for unemployment benefits or, if the State chooses, some or all can be used to repay their loans in order to avoid raising taxes, or enact programs that will lead to the rapid reemployment of unemployed workers. What this bill will not do is add any new Federal spending or reduce the amount of Federal funds a State is already scheduled to receive for unemployment insurance or mandate that States change the way they use those funds. It is up to the States to decide what is best for them and their citizens based on local conditions. This bill truly is a ``win, win'' for States, workers and the businesses struggling to expand and hire.

I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. President, I rise today to announce the introduction of a bill that, if enacted, would empower the States to more wisely spend the $31 billion in unemployment funds that have been allocated to them for the remainder of this year. This bill will allow states to avoid job-killing unemployment tax hikes while strengthening the safety net program for unemployed workers. I am honored to introduce this legislation simultaneously with a bill being introduced today in the House by The Honorable Dave Camp, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits and Services Act of 2011, or JOBS Act for short, is just that. A pro jobs bill that goes to the heart of what unemployment benefits are meant to be: not a permanent welfare payment, but a bridge to help unemployed workers until they can find a new job. A hand up, not a hand out. This bill is sorely needed. Since the recession began, 33 States have borrowed $48 billion in Federal funds to pay for unemployment benefits. These loans, if gone unpaid, will result in increased taxes on employers and job creators. Three States already have been forced to do so, and experts predict that 21 additional States will be required to raise taxes on jobs this year if nothing is done.

The JOBS Act allows states the flexibility to manage their unemployment funds to pay benefits, reduce their borrowings, or establish programs to help unemployed workers get jobs. The States can decide for themselves where their greatest needs lie. Under current law, States don't have the flexibility they need to adapt. The Federal Government pays for up to 73 weeks of unemployment, an all-time record. But not every state needs to spend the money the way Washington dictates. For example, North Dakota has only a 3.6 percent rate of unemployment, but the unemployed can collect up to 34 weeks of unemployment paid for with Federal funds, in addition to the normal 26 weeks under pre-recession law. This bill would allow States to more wisely direct those Federal funds.

How does the bill work? The $31 billion in Federal funds already allocated to the States will be advanced to them and will remain available for unemployment benefits or, if the State chooses, some or all can be used to repay their loans in order to avoid raising taxes, or enact programs that will lead to the rapid reemployment of unemployed workers. What this bill will not do is add any new Federal spending or reduce the amount of Federal funds a State is already scheduled to receive for unemployment insurance or mandate that States change the way they use those funds. It is up to the States to decide what is best for them and their citizens based on local conditions. This bill truly is a ``win, win'' for States, workers and the businesses struggling to expand and hire.

I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

Mr. President, you may not know it from the weather in Washington, but spring has finally arrived.

Even though it is cold and rainy outside, there is no mistaking the change of seasons in Washington. Every spring, the congressional office buildings are busy with people who want to visit their representatives.

I look forward to many of these visits. I look forward to seeing families who have traveled all the way from Utah to see for themselves and to show their children the Capitol, the White House, the Declaration of Independence, and the monuments to many of our Nation's greatest heroes.

But we truly know it is spring in Washington because the Halls of Congress are filled with people here for one purpose; that is, to ask for more money. When budget season hits, interest groups descend on the Capitol with one-track minds. Like the swallows to Capistrano, they return to the same spot each year to ask for more dough. The message is always the same: Their issue or their program is always critical, always essential.

Liberals like to beat up on businesses and demand their shared sacrifice. Translation: You better pony up. But the interest groups that thrive on taxpayer dollars always seem to be exempt from this required sacrifice. Somehow I don't think this is what the Founders had in mind when they guaranteed individuals the right to petition the government. Petitioning the government for more cash is somehow less inspiring than petitioning the government for redress of grievances.

I appreciate the sentiments of a new Member of the House of Representatives who hung a banner in his office that read: If you are here to ask for money, you are in the wrong place.

The fact is, Washington has an enormous spending problem. Washington is addicted to spending. The first step toward recovery is acknowledging that you have a problem. I suppose we can take some solace in the fact that few persons in a position of responsibility now deny that our deficits and debt are a problem.

Facts have gotten in the way. This morning, the Financial Times had an above-the-fold headline that read: ``U.S. Lacks Credibility On Debt, IMF Says.'' No kidding.

Our total debt is now over $14 trillion, with no end in sight. The administration is now asking the Finance Committee and Congress to raise the debt ceiling by $2.2 trillion just to get this country through next year. The President's first two budgets were a tragedy. But when the United States was staring down the barrel of a third straight $1 trillion-plus deficit, his fiscal year 2012 budget morphed into parody.

Recognizing the shellacking his party took over the issue of big spending, the White House had to talk a big game about deficit reduction, but their numbers never added up. This is how the Washington Post described the impact of the President's budget: After next year, the deficit will begin to fall ``settling around $600 billion a year through 2018, when it would once again begin to climb as the growing number of retirees tapped into Social Security and Medicare.''

Americans quickly saw this budget for what it was--business as usual, spending as usual.

Today, the President tried a do-over. He was going to give a big speech. That seems to be his go-to move. This time, he was going to convince Americans that he is very serious about deficit reduction. Unfortunately, he bricked this shot as well.

We are approaching a debt crisis, but the President seems willing to run the clock until the next election. This is a very dangerous game.

I think we need to be clear about how precarious our Nation's fiscal situation is. The fact is, we could be closer to a debt crisis than even the most pessimistic accounts. Because of this administration's dramatic ramp-up in Federal spending, Americans are deep in Federal debt.

Currently, Federal debt held by the public equals a modern record of about 69 percent of the Nation's economy--known as the gross domestic product. The Congressional Budget Office reports that current tax-and- spending law takes that figure to 76 percent of GDP over the next 10 years.

To put that number in perspective, consider the following statistic: At the end of fiscal year 2008, as the George W. Bush administration was winding down, the debt held by the public reached about 41 percent. That is less than 2\1/2\ years ago, in contrast with 69 percent of the debt. As bad as the 76-percent figure is, it gets worse under the President's fiscal policies.

President Obama's third budget was released on Valentines Day this year. If Americans were expecting some love and concern from our President, they sure didn't get it. The administration's figures claimed that the President's budget would raise debt held by the public to 87 percent of GDP. That is the administration's figures.

I have a chart that shows the growth in the debt--the national debt as a percentage of GDP. The current policy happens to be the red, the Obama 2012 budget is the blue. As you can see, by 2021, the national debt will be 76 percent of our GDP.

On Friday, March 18, 2011, CBO released its estimates of the President's budget. These estimates showed that debt held by the public would grow to 87 percent of GDP in 10 years, just like it says on the far right of the chart. That alarming figure is there on the chart.

Let me put this another way. According to the Congressional Budget Office, if we continue current tax policy, don't raise rates, fix the AMT, provide estate tax relief, and provide for a fix to the physician payment system or the SGR as it is known--policies supported by a clear majority of Americans--by 2021, the debt held by the public will reach 97 percent of GDP.

For those watching C-SPAN, whose jaws just hit the floor, I hate to tell you, but the news might even be worse. As bad as these numbers are--and they are very bad--they could be dramatically understating the fiscal consequences of our current deficit spending policy. This is because we face a hidden potential for even greater levels of additional Federal debt. We may be in the middle of a debt bubble. The stated current level of debt may grow astronomically without any policy changes. Let me say that again. If we do nothing to our current policy and continue to spend, the debt we currently hold may prove disastrous.

Here is what I mean by a bubble. I will use an example we are all too familiar with. An economic bubble can be described as significant trade volume in different products or assets with inflated values. Interest rates affect everything in our economy, from the monthly payments we make on a new car or home to the amount we are able to save at a local bank. Interest rates during both the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble were driven by policies at the Federal Reserve. During 2001, the Federal Reserve lowered the Federal funds rate from 6.25 percent to 1.75 percent. The Fed further reduced the rate in 2002 and 2003--there is the Federal funds rate--to around 1 percent.

These low rates had a substantial effect on the growth of mortgage lending between 2001 and 2004. The share of new mortgages with adjustable rates, which was around 20 percent in 2001, was more than 40 percent by 2004--adjustable rate mortgages.

Currently, just like at the beginning of the last decade, interest rates are very low. Ten-year Treasury rates are currently around 3.5 percent. During the past 2 years, this administration has spent recklessly, raising the total debt from $10.6 trillion to over $14.2 trillion. We are currently spending 40 cents of every $1 on interest, paying China and others who hold our debt. But what will happen when interest rates rise? Under projections from the CBO, 10-year Treasury note rates are expected to rise from current levels to 5.3 percent in 2016.

What happens if interest rates rise to levels seen during the 1980s or the 1990s? During the 1980s, rates on 3-month Treasury bills and 10- year notes rose to over 8 percent and 10 percent, respectively. During the 1990s, rates on 3-month and 10-year notes rose to 5 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively.

Exactly like the housing bubble, as a nation, we are falling into a national debt bubble. We continue to spend on our national credit card while interest rates are low. Just as many purchased homes with adjustable rate mortgages, eventually the adjustment kicked in, the low-rate bubble popped, and many Americans found themselves facing higher mortgage payments that were unaffordable.

We are exposing ourselves to more debt than we should. The cost of that

decision is severely understated. That cost, as laid out by CBO, could be astronomical. Under President Obama's 2012 current budget, the CBO projects deficits for each of the next 10 years, resulting in an estimated $10 trillion being added to the public debt, a 100-percent increase.

Under the scenario where interest rates rise to the historical average of the 1990s, the public debt is projected to grow an additional $8 trillion or a 77-percent increase. Under the scenario where interest rates rise to the historical average of the 1980s, the public debt would grow to $12.1 trillion, doubling in size.

It is right here on this chart. You can see it. This is a chart showing the public debt over the next 10 years, from 2011 to 2021. You can see the green on the far right of each column is the 1980s interest rate, the blue in the middle of each column is the 1990s interest rate, and the red happens to be the current baseline estimates, which almost everybody who looks at it seriously would say are too low.

If the interest rates return to the levels of the 1990s without any policy changes, the debt, as you can see, grows significantly, according to this chart. If we return to the 1980s interest rates, we will hit a 116-percent increase. If interest rates return to the 1980 levels, boy, are we in trouble.

Those who argue against spending restraints now are akin to the bubble inflators of the housing industry, encouraging more and more spending and consumption, never considering what will happen when the rates adjust.

This is why it is urgent, I would say imperative, that we cut spending now. Not after the next Presidential election. Not next year. Not next month. Immediately.

We cannot afford either the short or the long term effects of this dangerous spending addiction. American taxpayers understand what Washington has to do. It is time to cut the national credit card and stop this reckless spending.

Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and their liberal progressive base, keep urging for more taxes. I don't get this. I don't think Americans have been sitting at home thinking: You know what this debate over government spending has been missing? A proposal for a giant tax increase.

But to borrow from Bruce Dickinson, Democrats have a fever. And the only prescription is more taxation.

When it comes to dealing with our budget deficits and our exploding debt, Democrats have a one-track mind. They claim that they are serious about spending. The White House is touting reforms to Medicare and Medicaid to get spending under control. But ObamaCare is not Medicare reform. And real Medicare reform will entail repealing ObamaCare.

The health care bill took a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare to finance $2.6 trillion in new government spending. And instead of taking responsibility to ensure the long-term viability of Medicare, the President did what he seems to do best. He punted decisionmaking to a board of unelected bureaucrats.

ObamaCare is not Medicaid reform either. States are already facing a crushing collective deficit of $175 billion. But instead of helping the States to lift this burden, the President's health care bill larded on a $118 billion Medicaid expansion on the States. That is about $300 billion.

The White House has circulated a factsheet on the President's attempt at deficit reduction. It claims $340 billion in savings over 10 years-- ``an amount sufficient to fully pay to reform the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate, SGR, physician payment formula while still reducing the deficit.'' However, the President's budget estimated the cost of a 10- year doc fix at $380 billion. Assuming Congress utilizes the President's proposed savings to fund a doc fix, the net deficit increase from the White House's health proposals will be at least $40 billion.

With due respect, when the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund, which our seniors depend on, is scheduled to be insolvent in 9 short years, that is totally inadequate.

So what are we really looking at in this vaunted deficit reduction plan? Yesterday, in anticipation of the President's remarks on deficit reduction, his spokesperson gave it away when he said, ``[t]he president believes there has to be a balanced approach.''

Translation: You better check your wallet.

The Wall Street Journal said that tax increases are on the table.

But Americans know that for Democrats tax increases are never off the table. Most Americans understand that they are the centerpiece of Democratic policy.

America was waiting for the President to propose something new today. Instead, he dusted off his proposal to end the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for households and businesses earning over $250,000 a year.

Citizens wanted something innovative--maybe a little hope and change for a change.

But instead they got the fiscal policy of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

Under the President's proposed failsafe for deficit reduction, taxpayers who use their own dollars to deduct mortgage interest, make contributions to charities, save for education, or save in a pension plan, will be treated the same as spending for Nevada's Cowboy Poetry Festival.

To me they are not the same. But to the President they are. David Plouffe, the President's senior adviser and former campaign manager, had this to say about the President's proposal:

People like him . . . who've been very fortunate in life,

have the ability to pay a little bit more.

Well, that's big of him. We hear this quite a bit from rich Democrats: Please tax us more, they say.

Well, as the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, I feel obligated to inform Mr. Plouffe that the President, and all of those rich liberal Democrats who are eager to pay higher taxes, can do just that. They can write a check to the IRS and make an extra payment on their tax returns to pay down the Federal debt. The option is right there at the bottom of their tax return.

America awaits these checks. This might be a good talking point. I am sure it has polled well. But I have yet to hear the economic or fiscal rationale for raising taxes on small business creators and American families. It is certainly not deficit reduction.

Raising taxes might be politically necessary for Democrats. But it will do little to reduce the deficits and debt that are at their root spending problems.

An article from the Tax Policy Center shows just how delusional it is to try and balance the budget through tax increases. In an article titled, ``Desperately Seeking Revenue,'' the authors laid out what types of tax increases would be necessary, absent spending changes, to reduce Federal deficits to 2 percent of GDP for the 2015 to 2019 period.

This is a remarkable article. Its authors concluded that tax increases consistent with the President's campaign pledge not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 or families making less than $250,000 would require the top two rates to go from 33 percent to 85.7 percent and 35 percent to 90.9 percent.

This article makes clear, yet again, that we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. We are not going to make meaningful deficit reduction--we are not going to get the debt under control--by taxing the so-called rich. Taxing citizens and businesses more is not going to fix what is essentially a spending problem.

Consider this chart. The top red line is the CBO baseline, the middle blue line is the President's budget plans. The bottom orange line is to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and index the AMT, the Alternative Minimum Tax.

You can see here that under the President's budget plans, under the CBO baseline, and under the Republican position, individual income tax revenues as a percentage of GDP are going up. Tax revenues are already going up, and they are not getting us where we need to be as a nation. Yet in his remarks today, the President's landmark proposal is little more than tax increases. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.

When the Drudge report announced yesterday that the President was going to recommend tax increases, it did not even merit a flashing red light. Drudge just pushed it to the side, because it is really no longer news to anyone that Democrats want to raise taxes.

The real news would have been if the President stood up to his political base and made meaningful recommendations for entitlement reform.

The people of Utah, and taxpayers around the country, would have stood up and listened if the President backed a serious rollback of domestic non-defense discretionary spending, which has exploded on his watch.

Instead, they got the economic philosophy of President Carter. Maybe that statement isn't fair to President Carter. I don't know. It seems like it has all the elements of fairness.

Ultimately, this spending crisis cannot be ignored, and both voters and markets will respond to the leaders who take this issue on in a serious way.

One of the problems with our colleagues on the other side and their wonderful desire to increase taxes on everybody is that those tax increases would not go toward paying down the deficit. They would go for more spending. That has been the case for all my 34 years in the Senate. Every time we have raised taxes, over the long run it has not gone toward bringing down the deficit. It has gone for more spending.

We Members of Congress have all kinds of ways of spending money, and our Father in Heaven knows we get a lot more credit for spending in this country up through the years than we do for conserving. On the other hand, I don't think there is much credit coming today. I think most everybody in America, including all those Democratic millionaires who supported the President last time--maybe not all of them but a good percentage of them--are saying: Enough is enough.

I am hoping the President will give a speech someday that will make a difference on spending because that is clearly the problem. It is not tax revenues, it is spending. I think we have had enough of that. I think the American people, whether they be Democrats or Republicans, have had enough of that. Even though we wish we could do more, we wish we could help more people, we wish we could provide a new car for everybody in America, I am sure, but that is not reality. It is time to face up to reality and get this government spending under control.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I second my chairman.

Madam President, I thank my colleague.

Sometimes it amazes me how quickly debates change here in Washington. At this time in 2009, President Obama was riding high. Heralded as the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt, the conventional wisdom was that his election represented a sea change in the attitudes of American taxpayers. Where his Democratic predecessor came to Congress and announced that the era of big government was over, President Obama came to Washington convinced that the era of big government was just beginning.

With historic majorities in both Houses of Congress, he and his Capitol Hill allies set about the business of transforming the Nation's economy with massive jolts of new government spending and regulation. They cultivated an unholy alliance of big labor, big business, and big government, and the hoped-for result was a corporatist state where government bureaucrats would calculate the fair share that business would contribute to finance the administration's redistributionist policies. They exploded the growth of the Federal Government through ordinary appropriations and the stimulus. Democrats hiked up nondefense discretionary appropriations by 24 percent over the last 2 years and by 84 percent if you count the stimulus bill.

But, as an American songwriter once put it, the times they are a- changing.

Later this week, we will be considering the continuing resolution that gets us to the end of fiscal year 2011. To hear the left talk, one would think this proposal was shutting down agencies left and right. They say we have cut discretionary spending to the bone. This, of course, is a little bit melodramatic. Before the Republicans won in November, the Federal Government was on pace to spend $3.8 trillion. That is $3,800 billion. The continuing resolution we will vote on reduces spending by $38 billion. And $38 billion in spending reductions from spending of $3,800 billion or $3.8 trillion--whichever you like-- is not exactly cutting to the bone.

I agree with my colleagues who say we need to reduce spending by even more. Facing our third consecutive

year with more than a $1 trillion projected deficit, these cuts barely scratch the surface of what needs to be done. But make no mistake about it--even these cuts would have been impossible if not for the Republicans taking back the House and making gains in the Senate last November. When Republicans won, they changed the debate in Washington.

Even the press has been forced to acknowledge the depth of our fiscal crisis, though old habits die hard. Just this morning, we witnessed a relapse in the mainstream media as it did its best to enable excessive spending. The headline on the front page of today's Washington Post screamed ``Cuts Will Affect Vast Spectrum of Priorities.'' This made me think of the old joke about the likely reporting at the New York Times on the outbreak of a nuclear conflict: ``Nuclear War Breaks Out: Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.'' But I should not be too hard on the press. They seem to be getting it. There is certainly no denying it. We are spending way more than we are taking in, and, absent real reductions in spending and meaningful reforms to entitlements, this country is cruising toward a legitimate debt crisis that will adversely impact every American family.

This desire to reduce spending and restore the Constitution's limits on the size of government is the new normal for taxpayers. The Obama administration's salad days when they dreamed of permanently expanding the size of the Federal Government are way back in the rearview mirror. Because of the undeniable seriousness of our debt and deficits and the commitment of Republicans to taking it on, the debate has shifted from how do we enlarge the size of government to how can we scale it back. The administration was slow to recognize this. When given his first opportunity to weigh in on this crisis, the President voted ``present.'' His fiscal year 2012 budget was laughable for its failure to take on our deficits and growing debt.

Even Ezra Klein, the liberal Washington Post reporter, could not carry the President's water on this one. Even he couldn't carry the President's water on this one. He wrote that when reading the budget, it is almost like the fiscal commission never happened.

The President's fiscal commission recommended over $4 trillion in spending reductions, including adjustments to entitlements. I can't say I agree with everything in the commission's proposal, but it was a serious effort to get our Nation's finances back in order. But the President chose to pretend this report did not exist.

Well, since then, they must have done some polling over at the White House. They must have realized that on the most critical issue facing the country, American taxpayers and American families want something more from their President--they want leadership. The President of the United States can't just subcontract out these issues to other people. The President of the United States has to lead, and in these areas it takes the President. He has to be bold. He has to take a stand. For all of the elegiac comparisons of President Obama to Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, those were not passive Presidents. On the big issues, they took big risks and they led the country. It seems as though the President's advisers have finally figured this out. They need to get involved in a serious way on the issue of Federal spending.

Sitting back and adding nothing, while your allies demagogue reasonable solutions to pressing problems, is simply not acceptable to the American people. Democrats tried this tired line of attack last week, alleging that Republicans were out to hurt the poor, the disabled, and the elderly. These smears really are beneath the dignity of our elected officials, and they show a total disregard for the common sense of American citizens and the good faith and charity of those who support Republicans. A good first step for the President would be to disavow these statements. He has a chance to do so tomorrow.

The President is giving a much-hyped speech tomorrow on the issue of spending and getting our deficits and debt under control. I can only say I hope he comes through. The people of my home State of Utah and the people of every State are demanding that Washington tackle out-of- control spending. Vague outlines or statements of principle are not going to do it. The President needs to take a stand, or should I say stance.

I would add that the American people don't want solutions to a spending crisis that involve higher taxes. The solution to a spending crisis is not higher taxes that will give the government more money to spend. Our problem is not that citizens are taxed too little; our problem is that government spends too much.

So the President needs to come forward with serious, concrete proposals and commit to working with Congressman Ryan, Speaker Boehner, and Senate Republicans to solve this problem.

I am willing to give the President a mulligan on his first budget proposal. The President, like Members of Congress, represents the people. As representatives of the people, we must acknowledge those times when we get it wrong. When the people make it clear that they want their elected officials to go in a different direction, in a democratic republic it is only right that the President and the Congress give voice to those concerns. The President seems to understand that he got it wrong with this first budget.

Taxpayers and families want Washington to take on spending, but the people will not be fooled. If the President comes out tomorrow and speaks in vague generalities, if he comes out and simply defers to Congress, he will have satisfied no one. Being the President of the United States is not like being a law professor. Your job is not merely to facilitate dialog. Your job is to lead.

I look forward to the President's remarks tomorrow. I guess we could call it the President's budget, part deux. My hope is that the sequel will be better than the original.

With that, Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, earlier today the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1363, a 1 week continuing resolution that will pay our troops and keep the government running.

It is a pretty sad commentary on the willingness of the White House-- and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--to get serious about spending, that we have even arrived at this point.

We need to be clear about a few things in this debate.

First, we are here because Democrats did not do their job last year. Among the most basic responsibilities of Congress--in fact its core constitutional responsibility--is to take up and pass a budget and fund the core functions of the government for the year.

Last year, Democrats had the majority in the House of Representatives. They had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. And, of course, they had the White House.

But they were so tied up with pressing matters like passing a $2.6 trillion health care bill that the American people did not want, that they never got around to passing a budget.

And then in the fall, as the bottom fell out of public support for the Democrats, they were too interested in salvaging their majorities and trying to spin ObamaCare that they never funded the government.

So that is why we are here.

We are debating a spending bill for fiscal year 2011.

It is April of 2011.

Fiscal year 2011 started in October of last year.

It is very simple.

Democrats did not do their job, and so they left it to the new Republican majority in the House to fund the government for fiscal year 2011.

The Republican-led House got to work. They passed H.R. 1.

Now I know that it is in the Democratic talking points to call this bill extreme, but what exactly did it do?

When you strip away the ideology and the rhetoric about this so- called dangerous and extreme bill, what exactly did it do?

Here's what it did.

It reduced non-defense discretionary spending by $61 billion. That is a big number, but let's put this in perspective. This year we are scheduled to spend $207 billion just on interest on the debt.

This year we have a projected budget deficit of $1,600 billion.

And this year, the Federal Government is on pace to spend $3,800 billion.

So H.R. 1 was proposing $61 billion in reduced spending by a Federal Government on pace to spend $3,800 billion.

You all have heard the old joke.

When someone is asked if they got a haircut, they respond I got them all cut.

In this case what the Republicans are proposing is like going to the barber and getting just one of the hairs on your head trimmed.

The Democrats call this bill draconian.

But as one person put it, the spending reductions in this bill are equivalent to ordering a Big Mac, a large Coke, and a large fry, and then eating the whole Big Mac, drinking the whole Coke, eating 98 of the 100 fries in the bag, taking a bite of the 99th fry, and then leaving the rest. That is hardly a crash diet.

But to hear Democrats talk, Americans would starve if H.R. 1 passed. That is not an exaggeration. Former Speaker Pelosi suggested as much just yesterday.

To hear Democrats talk, this is Armageddon. To hear them talk, this $61 billion in spending reductions is so onerous, America will never be the same.

Americans aren't buying it. The people of Utah, and people around the country, understand that if the Senate were to accept the full $61 billion in spending reductions, life would not only go on, no one would notice any difference at all.

Let's look at this a different way. Nondefense discretionary appropriations have been hiked up by 24 percent in the last 2 years, and 84 percent if you count the stimulus bill. But to hear Democrats talk, even beginning to roll back this explosion in government spending is akin to shredding the Declaration of Independence. Give me a break. The bottom line is that the cuts in H.R. 1 are more than reasonable. People who are remotely serious about reducing the size of government should accept them in full.

But the White House, and their Capitol Hill allies, do not seem to have gotten the message that Americans want to roll back spending. Instead, they are playing politics. They have calculated that if the government shuts down--if Senate Democrats refuse to pass and the White House refuses to sign a bill to reduce spending--the Republicans will be left holding the bag. They think that history will repeat itself, and just as in 1995, the public will blame Republicans for a government shutdown.

Even the New York Times might not be able to carry that much water for the President and his Democratic allies.

The American people get this, and they are saying enough is enough. If the White House and its Capitol Hill allies think they can force a government shutdown and blame Republicans, they must have zero respect for their constituents. The last week of negotiations has proven yet again that big spending is in the Democrats' DNA.

They are congenitally incapable of reducing government spending, so much so that they are even willing to shut down the government.

In the words of John Blutarsky, ``when the going gets tough, the tough get going.''

But when the going got tough on these negotiations, the Democrats were missing in action.

The President jetted off to a couple of fundraisers. And his Capitol Hill allies turned to the rankest of political smears.

The incoming chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, who until about 5 minutes ago was scolding Republicans for their lack of civility, hit the ground running and claimed that the budget proposed by House Republicans for next year is a death trap for seniors and a tornado through nursing homes. So much for an adult conversation.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was quick to fundraise off of these spending fights,.

In an e-mail to their dare-I-say extreme base, they claimed that Republican negotiators are engaged in blackmail and blamed tea party citizens for the shutdown, rather than the Democratic leadership that refuses to pass the fiscal year 2011 spending bill and move on.

I will tell you what. They might have an easy time raising money by smearing conservative Republicans and blaming them for this mess. But this is fool's gold, because they are going to have a heck of a time explaining to our men and women in uniform why it is that they refused to pass a bill that would make sure they are paid.

Because the Democrats in this chamber will not accept the modest spending reductions in H.R. 1, the House took up H.R. 1363 today. This is a continuing resolution that will fund the government for a week, prevent a shutdown, and fund the Department of Defense through the end of the year, making sure that our servicemen and women receive their paychecks and that our national security is not compromised.

The ball is in the court of this body's leadership.

The President has now made it clear that he is willing to shut down the government rather than pass this CR.

They have issued a Statement of Administration Policy suggesting that they will veto this continuing resolution if passed.

If the President wants to go off this cliff, I can not stop him.

But I would encourage my Democratic colleagues here that they do not need to follow him off that cliff.

Now, their leadership is saying that it will oppose H.R. 1363 because it eliminates taxpayer funding of abortions in the District of Columbia.

In the end, I cannot believe that they would shut down the entire Federal Government in order to appease the most radical pro-abortion members of their left-wing base.

We will see what happens.

Maybe the Senate will do the prudent thing and pass H.R. 1363.

But I am not holding my breath.

The $61 billion in spending reductions passed by the House months ago is equivalent to 1.6 percent of total projected federal spending. Americans tighten their belts much more than this every day, but Democrats are acting like these cuts are the end of the world.

I would say that the leadership on display from the White House on this issue is pathetic, if there was any on display at all.

Because the White House has showed zero leadership on the issue of spending and government bloat, because it has refused to make the decisions that would force the Federal Government to live within its means, we are in this unacceptable situation of a potential government shutdown. Our Nation is broke. We have to stop spending money we do not have.

But on this most critical of issues the President has been missing in action.

His advisers seem to be treating this exercise like it is a no-stakes Harvard Law seminar in multiparty dispute resolution.

But the stakes could not be higher.

This situation calls for leadership, but we are getting nothing from the White House.

It is time for real leadership that keeps the government running while cutting spending.

I urge the Senate to adopt H.R. 1.

In the alternative, we should adopt the House-passed short-term CR.

There is no need for a government shutdown.

Democrats who think that clever strategists and professional politicos can spin the American people into thinking this is the Republicans' fault, even though it was the Democrats who walked away from the from the table, should remember last year's experience with ObamaCare.

Reluctant Democrats in the House and Senate were told by the same strategists and professional spinners that ObamaCare could be messaged in a way so that it would benefit them.

Today there are many former House and Senate Members who wish they had not bought that snake oil.

If the government shuts down, no amount of spinning is going to convince Americans that this was the fault of anyone other than the President and Democratic congressional leadership who have refused to make any meaningful reductions in Federal spending.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am going to defer my remarks until after

the Senator from Nebraska speaks. I want to defer to this wonderful Senator because he has done more than any other person in trying to repeal this awful tax provision, this 1099 tax increase provision, and he deserves the credit. I want him to lead off in our debate. Then I will probably speak after that. I yield for the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. President, today we will vote on the Menendez amendment and then on Senator Johanns' amendment to repeal the 1099 tax increase provisions of the health spending law and the small business law. As you know, the health spending law was enacted a little over a year ago, and we are already here trying to undo some of the damage that this massive law has imposed on small businesses. We have heard from small business owner after small business owner who was shocked and frustrated to learn the 1099 provision in the health spending law would require small businesses to send out a much larger number of IRS Form 1099s.

This provision was a counterproductive assault on businesses, and it was unleashed for one reason: to provide the dollars to pay for ObamaCare's $2.6 trillion in new spending; in other words, to try and back up that spending.

Just to be clear, this is what this provision requires: Starting on January 1, 2012, if a business pays at least $600 in total in 1 year to a single payee, that business must send an IRS Form 1099 to the IRS as well as to that payee. Since businesses frequently pay at least $600 in 1 year to all kinds of different payees, this means the health spending law has created an enormous paperwork burden on our businesses, including many small businesses. This is exactly the kind of burden small businesses do not need to face at this time, when we are still facing unemployment at 8.8 percent, and small businesses create 70 percent of new jobs in this country.

The National Federation of Independent Business, whose membership is made up of small businesses, hit the nail on the head in its April 4, 2011, letter about this provision. This is what they had to say:

We are writing to urge you to support H.R. 4, the

Comprehensive 1099 Taxpayer Protection repayment of Exchange

Subsidy Overpayments Act of 2011, and to oppose the Menendez

amendment. Passing H.R. 4 without any amendments is the best

way to finally repeal the expanded Form 1099 requirements

included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Tax paperwork and compliance are already major expenses for

small businesses, and the new reporting requirements included

in PPACA will substantially increase these costs.

The new paperwork mandate will require businesses to track and report to the IRS most business-to-business transactions above $600 in a calendar year. For many businesses this could amount to hundreds of new reportable transactions, which involves sending a 1099 to both the IRS and the reportable business.

That is a pretty strong statement, and the message is clear. This provision will impose considerable hardship on American businesses. The result of this provision will be much more paperwork and much less job creation. I spoke this morning to the Tax Executives Institute, which is one of the most prestigious institutes in our country, especially on taxes. What I announced to them was that I think we are going to get rid of this provision, and I almost got a standing ovation. They went wild down there this morning.

This provision will impose considerable hardship on American businesses, especially small businesses. The result of this provision will be much more paperwork but a lot less job creation.

In addition, Monday, April 4, 2011, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce weighed in on this provision with a similar diagnosis. This is how the chamber put it:

The 1099 reporting mandate, if not repealed, will force

more than 40 million entities, including governments,

nonprofits, and small and large businesses, to comply with

onerous data collection and IRS information filing burdens on

virtually all non-credit card purchases totaling $600 or more

with any vendor in a tax year. At a time when they can least

afford it, entities will have to institute new, complex

recordkeeping, data collection, and reporting requirements to

track every purchase by vendor and payment method. This

provision will dramatically increase accounting costs and

could expose businesses to costly and unjustified audits by

the IRS. The Chamber strongly supports H.R. 4, which would

repeal the 1099 mandate, and strongly opposes the Menendez

amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letters from both the NFIB, the representative of small businesses in this country, and the Chamber of Congress.

Mr. President, President Obama and congressional Democrats tried to sell the American people on their clunker of a health care law by saying it would bring down Federal health care spending. That would have been a miracle if it were true. But even the Obama administration's own actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has confirmed that claim was false and that Federal spending on health care would actually increase as the result of the health spending law. Some estimate as much as $2,100 per policy.

The Cash for Clunkers Program was bad enough, but Democrats managed to outdo themselves spending $2.6 trillion in cash for this clunker of a health care law. This reminds me of a scene from the movie ``Vacation.'' At the beginning of that film, Clark Griswold goes into a dealership to buy a new car before setting off with his family for a cross-country trip to Wally World. Yet instead of getting the new car he had ordered as part of a trade-in, the dealer gave him a pea green Family Truckster, as we can see in this beautiful photograph. Chevy Chase was, of course, Griswold. One only had to look at the Family Truckster to know that it was a lemon.

Clark told the dealer he wanted his old car back. Unfortunately for Clark--or the actor, in this case--his old car was crushed before he could get it back. You can imagine the consternation Chevy Chase faced. You can see the Family Truckster in this picture behind me. There it is, with Chevy standing on top as Clark Griswold.

Clark's experience with the Family Truckster is a metaphor for Americans' experience with ObamaCare. Our Nation's health care system might have needed some work--there is no question about that--but the vast majority of Americans were satisfied with their health care. Yet Democrats gave Americans ObamaCare which, like the Family Truckster, is a true jalopy, and they did their best to crush our former health care system before we could stop them.

I also add that Americans, such as Clark Griswold, eventually reached their wits' end. The tea party, the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, the election of my colleague, the junior Senator from Massachusetts--all of these actions were the result of Americans standing up and letting it be known that they were sick and tired of Washington recklessly spending their money and recklessly regulating, and they were not going to take it anymore.

To borrow from Robert Daltrey, Americans made it clear that they are not going to get fooled again, but that did not stop the Democrats from trying.

At the time the health spending bill was being enacted, President Obama and congressional Democrats were raising taxes to make it appear they were partially paying for the $2.6 trillion in new spending contained in the partisan health spending law. When the Democrats say this health law saved money, ask yourself this: If the law was actually going to reduce Federal spending on health care, would these massive tax increases have been necessary?

In the end, ObamaCare was more of the same--a tax-and-spend law that vastly increased the size of an already-bloated Federal Government.

President Obama and congressional Democrats should not have raised taxes and cut Medicare to fund a new entitlement program--an unsustainable entitlement program. After all, the three largest entitlement programs--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--are already headed for a fiscal crisis. To create a fourth massive entitlement program when these three entitlement programs were already going broke was fiscal insanity. That is one reason we need to repeal the health spending bill in its entirety and start over.

Senator Johanns' amendment to repeal the 1099 provisions in the health spending law and small business law is a good first step in getting rid of the partisan health spending bill entirely.

I think a lot of people, including Members of Congress who voted for the small business bill last year, were surprised to learn that Congress enacted a second 1099 provision last year. This is separate and apart from the 1099 provision enacted in the partisan health spending law. This new 1099 provision was enacted as part of the small business law last year. I voted against it. By the way, this provision is already in effect since it applies to payments made on or after January 1 of this year.

This 1099 provision causes landlords who are not even actively engaged in the rental real estate business to send in a Form 1099 to the IRS. It is required when they pay more than $600 in 1 year to a vendor for goods or services. For example, suppose a landlord spends more than $600 over the course of a year at a home improvement store. That landlord must send out a Form 1099 and send it to the IRS, as well as the provider of goods or services. In addition, that landlord must track down the vendor's taxpayer identification number, which is not necessarily an easy task to do.

This law creates a large and unexpected paperwork burden on these landlords. With the real estate market struggling, we should not impose new paperwork burdens on landlords which only hurt the real estate industry even more.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the Senator Johanns' amendment and vote no on the Menendez amendment. As I said, Senator Johanns' amendment is a downpayment on a total repeal of the onerous health care law that over time will wreck our Nation's health care system and lead to an explosion of new Federal spending.

I ask my colleagues to vote no on Senator Menendez's amendment.

I personally wish to pay tribute to my colleague from Nebraska for his indefatigable efforts in trying to repeal these terrible paperwork burdens that nobody is going to look at anyway, that really are not going to make any difference and are just going to cost an arm and a leg over time. I thank him for the hard work he has done. He deserves credit for continuing to fight these battles.

I hope all of us on the Senate floor will get rid of this monstrosity today and hopefully work together to try and straighten out what is a very bad bill in ObamaCare.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, we are headed toward $20 trillion in spending. The President's program, the Democrat's program, is maybe one-half of 1 percent, which is almost nothing. This is their program, a blank sheet of paper. That is what it is. At least Congressman Ryan, the Budget Committee chairman over in the House, is trying to do something that is worthwhile. By the way, just so everybody knows, the rich are not going to be treated tremendously respectfully in this matter. They are going to lose, on the top level, on entitlement programs. There is a cutback for those who reach a certain level of income. This is not as simple as it sounds, nor is it a desire to take anything away from senior citizens. It is trying to get our country's budget under control and it is out of control.

Mr. President, I yield up to 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Maine, if I can.

Mr. President, how much time remains to both sides?

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

I ask unanimous consent that I give a minute to the distinguished Senator from Nebraska and then, if there is not enough time remaining, that I be given sufficient time, up to 2 minutes, with an equivalent amount of time given to the other side, to make my closing remarks.

Mr. President, if you say you are for fiscal responsibility, you need to oppose the amendment of my friend from New Jersey. Here is why. The nonpartisan scorekeeper for tax legislation, the Joint Committee on Taxation, tells us that the Menendez amendment puts the savings on the House bill in doubt. That means that if the Menendez amendment is adopted, the House bill will add to the deficit by perhaps as much as $25 billion. The Menendez amendment would maintain the risk of payment of billions in fraudulent, improper, or excessive health insurance exchange subsidies. What is more, the Senate unanimously agreed to a similar offset on the doc fix bill.

My friends, if you were against fraudulent, improper, or excessive health insurance payments before, stick to your guns--oppose the Menendez amendment.

I yield the floor, and I am prepared to yield back any time we have.

Mr. President, I would like to briefly respond to my friend from New Jersey's comments about the Joint Committee on Taxation's analysis of his amendment.

The Joint Committee on Taxation corresponded with Senator McConnnell's office on Senator Menendez's amendment. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record relevant portions of that e-mail discussion.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to discuss a pressing matter.

In a few hours, the Senate will take up another short-term continuing resolution to fund the government for fiscal year 2011. Earlier this month, I voted no on another short-term CR. From my perspective, the spending reductions provided in that bill were a start, but they sent a bad sign.

Washington needs to make clear, to citizens and to the markets, that it is serious about restoring the fiscal integrity of the United States. Don't get me wrong, any spending reductions are good spending reductions. But by getting into the habit of passing continuing resolutions rather than long-term funding bills with significant reductions in government spending, Congress and the White House send the signal that real spending restraint is impossible. The spending reductions in the last CR were a start, but they simply did not go far enough to bring fiscal sanity back to Washington. Unfortunately, in this opening volley in the debate over spending--to borrow from the former coach of the Arizona Cardinals, Denny Green--Democrats have shown that they are what we thought they were.

The rest of the world heard voters loud and clear last fall. Voters want spending restraint from Washington. Republicans told voters that Democrats could not be trusted on spending. And Democrats are still making our case.

One of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate has said that with respect to fiscal year 2011 spending reductions, I think we have pushed this to the limit. Last week, Democrats drew their line in the sand, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, they refused to reduce spending by any more than $4.7 billion. So in an appropriations bill that would spend over $1 trillion, Democrats could not find any more than $4.7 billion in reductions. The most they could come up with is a spending reduction of one-half of one percent? If Democrats consider these pathetic spending reductions pushing it to the limit, I would hate to see them really slacking off. In the Democrats' world, you are only truly stingy if you fail to increase spending. But failing to increase spending is not reducing spending, and we need to be reducing spending. American families are doing it at home, and we need to be doing it here. Pushed it to the limit? Give me a break.

There is no better time than right now to get serious about reducing spending. First, with each short-term CR that passes, it becomes less likely that we will get the full $61 billion in spending reductions that Americans want to see Congress adopt. Second, I am not going to sign onto the Democrats' strategy of short-term CRs that will jeopardize our national defense. We cannot be funding national defense in little 2- and 3-week blips. And third, we need to make it clear that discretionary spending matters. Democrats are fond of saying that the problem with our budget deficits is not discretionary spending. Well, it might not be the entire problem but it is a big part of the problem.

Democrats suggest that discretionary spending is a sideshow. The real money is in entitlements. Let me make one point here. Democrats today say they want to focus on entitlements, but you can bet the farm that today's budget-minded Democrats will start bludgeoning Republicans for any effort, no matter how modest, to get entitlement spending under control. The writer Andrew Ferguson got it right when he called these Democrats tough-choosers. They always talk about making the tough choices to get our spending under control, but the minute Republicans attempt to address deficits and debt, these same Democrats hammer Republicans for the coldheartedness.

Getting at entitlement spending requires bipartisan leadership and Presidential leadership. Yet the President, who has enough time to go on national television and fill out his NCAA bracket, is only committed to a serious conversation about entitlements. We need more than a conversation; we need leadership. But leadership on spending is wanting among Washington Democrats.

In the end, these Democratic tough-choosers won't stand strong on discretionary spending or entitlement spending. So let's focus on discretionary spending. It is a problem, and it is what the American people sent us here to address. Nondefense discretionary spending has grown by 24 percent over

the last couple of years. This needs to be rolled back significantly. People in Utah understand that returning us to 2008 spending levels is the responsible thing to do.

When Democrats tell you that discretionary spending does not matter, think of a person who needs to go on a diet. The person weighs 300 pounds and needs to radically change his lifestyle in order to get in shape. When a Democrat says that we don't need to worry about discretionary spending, it is like an overweight person saying there is no need to worry about the half-pint of cookie dough ice cream he eats every day because he has cut out his daily large pizza. If you want to lose weight, you can't have either. And if you want to reduce spending, you need to address all of it.

The fact is, we are up to our eyeballs in deficits and debt. For the third consecutive year, we will have a deficit of over $1 trillion. We blew $1 trillion on the stimulus and followed that up with a $2.6 trillion health care bill that we could not afford.

I appreciate the efforts of my Republican colleagues, both in the House and the Senate, as they try to reach an agreement on a spending bill that should have become law last year. But Democrats, who controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress, shirked their responsibilities. And now they are digging in, trying their best to thwart the will of the American people and hold the line on the spending that Democratic special interests demand.

Here is a basic question that should inform this debate. What do you do when you are spending more money than you make? Even a second grade student could tell you that you stop spending money. Democrats' subservience to the spending status quo would not pass a second grade math class. But do they really mean to say that they can't find anything to cut? For some, every new crisis--real or imagined--seems to demand a solution that only government can provide. But how often do we really look back with a critical eye and evaluate the effectiveness of all of these new government programs? I am afraid not nearly enough.

Thanks to the work of my colleague from Oklahoma, Dr. Coburn, the GAO recently identified possibly hundreds of billions of wasteful and redundant government spending. Government is littered with programs that can be reduced or eliminated. To that end, along with my colleague from Colorado, Senator Udall, I have introduced legislation that would create an anti-appropriations committee specifically designed to ferret out and cut government waste. And, of course, the ultimate fix for all of this spending is the balanced budget amendment, which I have introduced with my colleague Senator Cornyn, and is cosponsored by 31 of our colleagues. With a balanced budget amendment and with serious efforts by Congress, we can reduce spending in Washington, and we can restore constitutional limits on the size and reach of the Federal Government. This is no longer an ideological issue. Democrats might not know that yet. But spending is now an issue that transcends partisan allegiances.

Washington's reckless spending has now become a serious enough issue that financial markets are paying attention. Just last week, the world's largest bond investor divested all of its holdings in U.S. Treasuries. This is hardly a vote of confidence in the integrity of our Nation's finances. Yet what is the Democrats' solution? Let's reduce spending by $4.5 billion. To borrow from my friend and colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, this is a spit in the ocean.

Congress needs to send a signal to the world that it is serious about taking on government spending. Unfortunately, Democrats remain intent on being unserious. I will not play these games with our Nation's fiscal integrity. I look forward to a meaningful debate over a long- term fiscal year 2011 spending bill. In the meantime, I will not be supporting the CR when it comes up later today.