Floor Statements

Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Kentucky for raising a very important issue. I would just like to have a little bit of clarification so that I understand exactly what has transpired and the exact question to which the Senator from Kentucky would like a response.

My perception, my understanding, is this seems like a very simple and basic request. So I am surprised that we did not have a simple and straightforward answer. So I wonder if the Senator from Kentucky would just summarize briefly for me, so that I understand clearly the exact request that he made to the administration.

Am I correct in understanding that is currently the state of play? That is the most recent response the Senator has gotten in writing from the administration?

Further clarification: If the administration seems to be unwilling to state unequivocally that they recognize they do not have the legal authority to kill a noncombatant American on American soil, did they suggest under what circumstances they would?

Did they suggest a process by which they would identify an American citizen noncombatant on American soil who might be subject to being killed by a drone strike?

Mr. President, judging from the response, what I understand is

that there is a standard that applies overseas. But we have not gotten--correct me if I am mistaken--a definitive word as to whether that same standard would apply domestically to American citizens. If we have not gotten a definitive answer, then we, it seems to me--again, correct me if I am wrong--but then it would suggest to me that we have no idea what standard would be used. I cannot imagine that we would find it acceptable to be in a situation where an administration would suggest that using a drone to kill an American noncombatant on American soil, without even disclosing the process by which they would determine that was appropriate--this is kind of hard to understand. Am I understanding it incorrectly?

Mr. President, I will finish. I just want to make two points: One is I think we ought to have a robust debate about the circumstances under which we would use drone strikes overseas and understand the implications. Think about this. We have what is still, to the United States, a relatively new threat in the form of these nonstate actors, these terrorist organizations that are sometimes affiliated with each other, sometimes not, scattered around the globe. This is new.

In addition, we have new technology we never had before. It was not terribly long ago the idea of flying an unmanned drone and using it to kill a person who could be hundreds or thousands of miles away, that was completely implausible. Now, of course, we have the ability to do it. When new circumstances and new technology come to bear, we ought to have a discussion about when and whether and how it is appropriate to use that.

When we are talking about American noncombatants on American soil, I think the starting point ought to be, we are not going to do that. The onus ought to be on whoever has an explanation for when and whether and why and under what circumstances we would, and that ought to be debated very, very carefully and thoroughly. Until such time, I think it ought to be easy to acknowledge this is not going to take place.

If we cannot get a direct answer to that question, then I have to say I think the Senator from Kentucky is performing an important service in putting a spotlight on this. I commend him for doing it. I thank him for doing it. I am finished with my questions.

Madam President, I wish to spend a couple of moments here revisiting the context in which this discussion occurred. I want to commend the Senator from Kentucky for raising what I think is an extremely important issue and forcing the attention of this body to this issue at an appropriate time, which he has done, and, I might add, at great personal inconvenience to himself.

This arose from a letter the Senator from Kentucky sent to Mr. Brennan, the nominee for the Director of Central Intelligence, and the response he got. These are short letters. I want to review this so it is very clear exactly what was posed and what the response was and where we are at the moment in this debate.

The letter from the Senator from Kentucky begins:

Dear Mr. Brennan: In consideration of your nomination to be

the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, I have

repeatedly requested that you provide answers to several

questions clarifying your role in the approval of lethal

force against terrorism suspects, particularly those who are

U.S. citizens. Your past actions in this regard as well as

your view of the limitations to which you are subject are of

critical importance in assessing your qualifications to lead

the CIA. If it is not clear that you will honor the limits

placed upon the executive branch by the Constitution, then

the Senate should not confirm you to lead the CIA.

Clearly, this is the idea that is under scrutiny this evening.

The letter goes on to say:

During your confirmation process in the Senate Select

Committee on Intelligence, committee members have quite

appropriately made a request similar to questions I have

raised in my previous letter to you, that you expound on your

views on the limits of executive power in using lethal force

against U.S. citizens, especially when operating on U.S.

soil. In fact, the chairman of the SSCI--

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Senator Feinstein, specifically asked you in post-hearing

questions, for the record, whether the administration could

carry out drone strikes inside the United States. In your

response, you emphasize that the administration ``has not

carried out'' such strikes, and ``has no intention of doing

so.'' I do not find this response sufficient.

Let me just add editorially, I do not know how anyone could find that sufficient. It clearly is an evasion of the question. That doesn't answer the question that was posed by Senator Feinstein, just as we haven't been able to get an answer to the question posed by the Senator from Kentucky.

The letter goes on to say:

The question that I and many others have asked is not

whether the administration has or intends to carry out drone

strikes inside the United States, but whether it believes it

has the authority to do so. This is an important distinction

that should not be ignored.

And this, of course, goes to the heart of the question: Does this administration believe it has the authority to carry out a lethal strike by a drone against an American citizen on American soil.

The letter goes on to say:

Just last week, President Obama also avoided this question

when posed to him directly. Instead of addressing the

question of whether the administration could kill a U.S.

citizen on American soil, he used a similar line that ``there

has never been a drone used on an American citizen on

American soil.''

The evasive replies from the administration to this valid

question have only confused the issue further without getting

us any closer to an actual answer.

I would say that is--again, this is my editorial comment--I think that is a generous assessment. When a direct question is asked and the party to whom the question is directed repetitively evades the question, it makes one seriously wonder what their intentions are.

The letter goes on to say:

For that reason, I, once again, request you answer the

following question: Do you believe that the President has the

power to authorize lethal force such as a drone strike

against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil and without a trial? I

believe the only acceptable answer to this is no. Until you

directly and clearly answer, I plan to use every procedural

option at my disposal to delay your confirmation and bring

added scrutiny to this issue and the administration's

policies on the use of lethal force.

The American people are rightly concerned and they deserve

a frank and open discussion on these policies.

Sincerely, Rand Paul, M.D., United States Senator.

I have to say, this is a very straightforward and simple question. It has been posed clearly. It has been posed repeatedly.

Now I want to share with my colleagues the answer, such as it is, that we have received, the most recent answer that was directed to the Senator from Kentucky which, again, I would suggest is not responsive to the question.

A letter dated March 4, addressed to Senator Paul, says:

On February 20, 2013, you--

Referring to Senator Paul--

wrote to John Brennan requesting additional information

concerning the Administration's views about whether ``the

President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a

drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and

without trial.''

The letter goes on to say:

As members of this Administration have previously

indicated, the U.S. government has not carried out drone

strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing

so. As a policy matter, moreover, we reject the use of

military force where well-established law enforcement

authorities in this country provide the best means for

incapacitating a terrorist threat. We have a long history of

using the criminal justice system to incapacitate individuals

located in our country who pose a threat to the United States

and its interests abroad. Hundreds of individuals have been

arrested and convicted of terrorism-related offenses in our

federal courts.

The question you have posed is therefore entirely

hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no President

will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to

imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be

necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and

applicable laws of the United States for the President to

authorize the military to use lethal force within the

territory of the United States. For example, the President

could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the

military to use such force if necessary to protect the

homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack like

the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11,

2001.

Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the

particular facts and circumstances before advising the

President on the scope of his authority.

Sincerely,

Eric H. Holder, Jr.

Attorney General

The reason I read the entire letter is because I did not want anyone to think any part of this was taken out of context or anything was being left out.

When you read the entire letter, in response to the entire letter that was sent as a request, I think it is very clear. This administration refuses to answer a simple and very important and very legitimate question.

Our Attorney General suggests that under a certain set of circumstances--which he will not specify any guiding principles or rules that would allow us to understand those circumstances--he would examine the facts and circumstances and then advise the President on the scope of his authority.

There is no suggestion of what legal authority he has to do this. There is no description of the constitutional authority. I find this very disturbing. We have all observed the very new developments that we are experiencing in national security. The minority leader alluded to this in some respects.

As I mentioned earlier today, there is no question we have a relatively new phenomenon in our national security challenges. It is only in very recent times that we have come to understand the nature of a whole new kind of enemy. It is not just a nation state anymore, which has historically been the nature of military threats. But now there is a very different kind of threat--dispersed, somewhat affiliated, sometimes affiliated, hard to discern--a geographically widespread network of terrorists. That is very different than the traditional nation state. That is a different kind of threat, and we have spent a lot of time trying to come to terms with how best to address this.

In an overlapping period of time, a new technology has emerged. We have developed it. It is an amazing technology that gives us the ability from vast distances away to send out a very sophisticated unmanned aircraft that is quite lethal and quite capable of destroying a target. I think most of us probably feel that there are many cases where this is an appropriate tool under an appropriate set of circumstances. But, frankly, I think it should be the subject of an ongoing discussion: How would we use this? Under what circumstances? Does the President have unlimited unilateral authority? That is a discussion we ought to have about the use of this technology overseas where I think, as I say, it has a very important, very useful, very legitimate function.

But when we are talking about using this, the American Government using this military asset to kill American citizens on American soil, I am a little shocked that there is not an automatic presumption that that is not permissible--certainly not legal. I cannot understand the constitutional basis for this. I would certainly suggest that the burden ought to be on those who would suggest that that is permissible.

So what the Senator from Kentucky has said is: Just tell us the answer to this question. Do you believe you actually do have this authority? And could you tell us that? If they believe they have this authority--and since they will not answer unequivocally that they lack the authority, it is hard to infer anything other than that perhaps they think they do have this authority.

It obviously raises a whole lot of very important questions, such as under what circumstances would you feel you have the authority to exercise this power? And exactly who would be targeted? And how would you decide whom to target? And in the event you are carrying out a strike using lethal force of this magnitude on American soil against an American citizen, what kind of criteria would govern your judgment about the risks that would be imposed on innocent people who are in the vicinity? And what about any judicial review at all? Would there be any appropriate role for it because, of

course, we have a very long tradition of due process.

There are a lot of Americans who have serious reservations about the idea of indefinite detention on American soil. Indefinite detention is pretty tame compared to being destroyed by a drone.

So I would suggest the failure of the administration to answer this basic question of whether they believe they have the authority to do something that is completely unprecedented is a very fundamental and important question and completely legitimate. And it is completely appropriate for this body to insist on an answer to this question before we would go ahead and confirm a person who would have enormous power and authority over a variety of national security issues.

I want to commend the Senator from Kentucky for putting a bright light on this issue. This is a very important issue, and, as I mentioned earlier, he has done it at great personal inconvenience to himself because he has a passionate commitment to the liberty of the American citizens. He manifests that all the time in many ways, and this is one of the ways he is doing it. I commend him for that.

I would conclude my question by addressing the Senator, through the Presiding Officer. My question for the Senator is, has there been any change in the status of the lack of response from the administration since the last time we have heard from the administration?

Madam President, would the Senator from Rhode Island yield for a question?

I thank the Senator, the gentleman from Rhode Island.

I wish to ask a question clarifying the procedure. My understanding is there is time reserved for me after the Senator from Rhode Island finishes with his comments.

But there will be time available?

I have no further questions. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island.

Madam President, I rise to address the issue of the sequestration and the Democratic and Republican alternatives. But I want to start by expressing how disappointed I am that we are having the debate in this fashion. This is certainly among the very most important issues we are grappling with--should be grappling with as a Senate, as a Congress, as a Federal Government. Getting ourselves on a sustainable fiscal path is as important as anything we can be doing. The sequestration is an important part of that, and unfortunately the majority party here does not want to have a full and open debate and will not permit multiple amendments from both sides.

I don't know how many ideas there are on the Democratic side. I know there are at least three or four or five different ideas on the Republican side. Frankly, I think any sensible approach to this ought to have a full and open, robust debate and I am happy to vote on every one of them. I will vote against some, I will probably vote for others. But why in the world would we say there can only be two choices, one Democratic choice and one Republican choice? I have to say I am extremely disappointed that we have gotten to this point where we cannot have an open debate and amendments on a wide range of ideas, because the challenges require that kind of response. It is very disappointing that the majority party refuses to conduct that debate and appears unwilling to have those votes.

Nevertheless, I have developed a bill, together with Senator Inhofe, which I think is a much more sensible way to achieve the savings we badly need. I will say unequivocally, we need to trim spending. We cannot continue spending at the rate we have been spending money. We cannot continue trillion dollar deficits. We have a $16 trillion debt. The massive deficits and the accumulated debt are today costing us jobs and holding back our economy, so we need to begin the process of getting spending under control. Frankly, the sequester barely starts that process.

The President has been campaigning around the country, spreading this idea that somehow we are going to have a complete economic disaster and meltdown if this modest spending discipline goes ahead. We keep hearing about austerity. The question is, what austerity? Let me put a little context into what we are talking about here.

First of all, over the last 12 years, the Federal Government has doubled in size. We spend 100 percent more now than we did a dozen years ago. After this huge run-up in the size of Federal spending, this sequester--if it goes into effect or its equivalent--would reduce spending by 2.3 percent. After growing by 100 percent, we cannot find 2.3 percent? By the way, that is budget authority, which means permission to spend the actual amount that would be spent during this year would go down by about 1.2 percent. That is less than one-half of 1 percent of our economy.

Here is the other thing. This is how much austerity we are talking about: If the savings of the sequester go into effect, total spending by the government in 2013 will be greater than spending was in 2012. So let's just be clear about what is going on here. This is not nearly the amount of savings we need. This is merely one step in the right direction. While government has been growing, the economy has not. We have had all of this spending growth. We have had massive deficits. What have we gotten in return? The worst economic recovery from any recession since the Great Depression.

We have an unemployment rate that is persistently unacceptably high. Eight percent is the official measure of unemployment, but when we take into

account the people who have given up looking for work altogether, it is much higher than that. The fact is economic growth doesn't depend on a bloated government that is always growing.

In fact, we will have stronger economic growth as soon as we begin to demonstrate that we can get on a sustainable fiscal path, as soon as we can start to take the threat of a fiscal collapse off the table by showing we can get spending under control. It is absolutely essential for the sake of our economy and job growth that we achieve the savings of this sequester.

I am the first to acknowledge there are a couple of problems with the way this legislation goes about it, and that is the reason I introduced this legislation along with Senator Inhofe. The two big problems are, first, the savings hit our defense budget disproportionately. The defense budget is about 18 percent of total spending, but it is half of this whole sequester, and that is after we have already cut defense spending. I am very sympathetic to the concern that this imposes a real problem on our defense budget.

The second problem is that the cuts are not very thoughtfully designed. There is no discretion or flexibility. The categories that are subject to the sequestration are spending cuts across the board. There are huge categories that are not subjected, such as the entire Social Security Program and many others that are not affected at all. But for those programs that are cut, there is no ability to discern which programs ought to be cut more or which ones ought to be cut less and which ones, perhaps, should not be cut at all.

The bill Senator Inhofe and I have introduced and will be voting on today--at least the cloture motion--addresses both of these problems. It does require that we achieve the savings of the sequester--and that is very important--but it would allow the President flexibility in how it is achieved so we don't have these very ham-handed, poorly designed, across-the-board cuts.

If the bill passes, the President will be able to go to his service chiefs on the defense side, he could go to his agency and department heads on the nondefense side and say: OK. Look, you have been used to budgets that keep growing and growing, and that is what has been happening. This year you are going to have to cut back a little bit. It will be a few pennies of every dollar. Look for the programs that are working least well or not at all. Look for areas where there is waste and inefficiency. Look for redundancies, and that is where we are going to trim a little bit, and we will hit these goals.

That is what competent managers in any business would do. That is what families have to do, and that is what State and local governments have to do. That is what we need to do here, and that is what this bill would enable the President to do. He would have to find the areas where we can make the cuts without causing great disruption.

This is not a blank check for the President. There are constraints on what the President could do under the legislation that Senator Inhofe and I are proposing. For instance, there could be no tax hike. We don't think we need still more tax increases after all the ones we have recently been through. The defense cuts could not be any greater than what is contemplated in the current sequestration. Under Senator Inhofe's approach and mine, they could be less. The President could choose to follow the advice of his senior military advisers and cut the defense budget a little bit less and shift this elsewhere.

I am one who believes our defense budget should not be exempt from scrutiny, from spending discipline, and some cuts, but I think they ought to be done carefully and thoughtfully.

The President would not be able to increase any amounts. This is not an exercise in just shifting money to another account. It is a question of where we can do the cuts most thoughtfully and sensibly. Any cuts in the defense budget would have to be consistent with the National Defense Authorization Act that has been passed. The President would have to achieve 100 percent of the savings; that is part of this. He could not use any gimmicks to do it. There would be no phony cuts in the future offset by promises for cuts at another time. There would be none of that. It would have to be straightforward and honest.

Finally--and I think this is an important part--Congress would have a final say. When the President--under this approach if it were to pass and be signed into law--would be required to propose an alternative series of cuts, and then Congress could vote to disapprove them if Congress chose to do that. Ultimately, Congress would still control that important element of the purse strings, but we would allow the President to find the most sensible way to do this.

The President is saying he does not want this flexibility. That is kind of unbelievable to me. He is going around the country scaring the American people and threatening all kinds of disastrous things he says he will have to do. Then in the same breath he says: By the way, don't give me the flexibility to do something else. I don't understand that. It seems to me the obvious thing to do is to do these cuts in a way that would not be disruptive and would not do harm.

Let me give one particular example: A good example is the FAA. If the sequester goes into effect on the FAA, the budget there will be cut by $670 million. That is from a total of just about $17 billion.

The President and the Transportation Secretary have said if the sequester goes into effect, they are going to lay off air traffic controllers; they might have to shut down control towers; we will have long delays at airports with flights being canceled. All kinds of problems. It is interesting to note, if the sequester goes into effect, the amount of funding available to the FAA will still be more than what the President asked for in his budget.

In his budget request was the President planning on laying off air traffic controllers and shutting down airports and control towers? I rather doubt it. So if we gave the President the flexibility just within the FAA budget, the President could adopt the kinds of savings that he proposed in his own budget and have enough money to pay all of the air traffic controllers and keep the airports running. The point is even within the FAA's budget, there would be no service disruptions whatsoever. They are not necessary.

Our bill would give the President even more flexibility. He would be able to achieve savings in other areas. In other words, he would not have to hit a particular savings number for the FAA. He might find savings in other places. Let me suggest we have an unbelievably lengthy list of opportunities to reduce excessive and wasteful government spending. Instead of closing down air traffic control facilities or military bases or FBI offices, maybe what the President could do is cut back on Federal employee travel.

We spend $1 billion a year for Federal employees to go on conferences and trips. Maybe we could cut back on the cell phone subsidies where we buy cell phones for people, costing $1.5 billion a year. We spend millions of dollars on an old-fashioned style trolley in St. Louis, millions on a sports diplomacy exchange program. We have 14,000 vacant and underutilized properties. We spend money for a cowboy poetry festival and $1 million for taste-testing foods to be served on Mars.

I don't know about anybody else, but I think some of these are a little less important than keeping our air control system intact and safe. To me, it seems like common sense that we ought to give the President the discretion he needs to reduce the spending on the less vital things and continue to fund the important things.

We don't have to only go after wasteful spending, we have an unbelievable number of redundancy in duplicate programs. I have just a few examples. We have 80 different economic development programs spread across the Federal Government. We have 94 different programs to encourage the construction of green buildings. We have 47 different job training programs.

Doesn't it make sense if we are going to have some savings that we look to those programs that are not working so well? It cannot be that every program is equal. I guarantee that some of them are not working so well. I would like to think that the administration has metrics for performance and it knows which ones are performing better and which ones are not. We could concentrate the cuts on those that are not working or we could decide to consolidate this huge plethora of programs

and save a lot of money and overhead in administrative and bureaucracy costs.

There is just any number of ways to achieve savings. Senator Tom Coburn has made an enormous contribution to our Federal Government by providing exhaustive litanies of duplication, redundancies, waste, and excesses. In addition to what I have mentioned, that would be a very useful place to begin in terms of finding alternatives.

I would simply say we have a simple choice here. This sequester is going into effect. Nobody here suggests they have the votes or they have a way to prevent it. So the question is, Are we going to achieve these savings through badly designed spending cuts that make no attempt whatsoever to distinguish between more sensible government spending and less sensible government spending or will we adopt this bill that Senator Inhofe and I have introduced which will give the President the flexibility to cut where the cuts would not be painful, where there is waste, and where there are excesses? We are talking about what will amount in actual outlays to a little over 1 percent of the total government spending. This is a government that has doubled in size in the last 12 years.

The people in Pennsylvania who I represent don't believe that every dollar of government spending is spent wisely and prudently and is necessary. They know that there is a lot of waste.

This is all about the next 6 months. As we know, the $1.2 trillion in savings in subsequent years is achieved by statutory spending caps. In those years the savings will be figured out by the Appropriations Committee, which is where this should be happening. I wish we had taken up an appropriations bill over this last year, but we didn't. At least given the reality that we face, we have an opportunity to avoid the kind of calamity and disaster that is being threatened and is completely unnecessary.

I hope we will do the commonsense thing and adopt a bill that will give the President the flexibility he needs to make these cuts in a rational and sensible fashion. We need to achieve the savings for the sake of economic growth and job creation. This is no time to trade higher taxes for more spending, as my Democratic colleagues would prefer. This is a time to make sensible cuts in spending. We can do that, and I urge adoption of the measure that Senator Inhofe and I have proposed.

I yield back the floor.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. I will only ask for a minute or two to make my closing comments.

Madam President, I would like to thank and compliment the Senator from Oklahoma, who has been a terrific leader and ally. I appreciate his hard work and the work product we have come up with.

At the end of the day, it is not complicated. It is pretty simple. Do we go ahead with indiscriminate across-the-board cuts that give us no ability whatsoever to establish priorities, to recognize that some spending is more important than others, or do we adopt this flexibility approach and give to the President of the United States the flexibility for him to turn to his service chiefs and say to them: Folks, is there a better way to do this? I am sure they know best what their needs are. I am sure they can come up with a better set of spending cuts than these across-the-board cuts that are in law.

Similarly, on the nondefense side, any competent middle manager of any business in America knows that when they have to tighten their belt, they go through and prioritize. So when the President and the Secretary of Transportation go around the country saying: Oh, we are going to have to lay off air traffic controllers; we are going to have to shut down towers; we are going to have delays, none of it is necessary. It is not necessary if we pass this legislation because it would give the President the flexibility to cut the items that would not be disruptive to our economy, and it would not be disruptive in any meaningful way.

I gave the example earlier of the FAA. The FAA would have more money postsequester than what the President even asked for. Obviously, what the President needs is the discretion to be able to make some cuts where they can be best be borne.

After having a total budget that has grown 100 percent over the last 12 years, we can find the 2.3 percent that is needed now. These are flexibility measures we would give the President for the remainder of this fiscal year. Thereafter, the savings we will achieve will happen through the spending caps and, therefore, will be decided by the Appropriations Committee.

I urge my colleagues to support the Republican alternative.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, will the Senator yield?

Madam President, it is hard for me to follow this. The Senator is decrying the effects of the sequestration, and what Senator Inhofe and I are offering is a way to minimize the damage.

In the President's submitted request for the FAA, did he contemplate laying off air traffic controllers or closing towers? I know the answer. The President's budget--which he submitted to Congress and is a public document--requested a certain funding for the FAA.

For the current fiscal year, the President's most recent request. The President's request was for less money than the FAA will have if the sequester goes through. I don't think the President was planning to lay off air traffic controllers.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the mandatory quorum call in relation to the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 16.

Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk and ask for its consideration.

Mr. President, I wish to address the substance of this amendment, but let me start with a little context on this underlying bill. The underlying bill, of course, suspends the debt ceiling from now until May 18. What that means is in the meantime, the administration will be able to borrow as much money as it wants within certain constraints, but a very large sum of money over the next 3\1/2\ months, at which point the debt ceiling will be reinstituted at a higher level. We expect the government will probably borrow something on the order of $400 billion between now and such time as the debt ceiling is reestablished.

We have $16.4 trillion in debt today, so by the time the debt ceiling is reapplied, reimposed, it will be just under $17 trillion. At that point we will be right back to the standoff we were at very recently, a standoff over what to do about this massive amount of debt we already have and the massive amount of additional debt the administration would like to create. The administration's position is very clear: They want additional borrowing authority with no strings attached--no conditions, no limits on future spending. They just want to be able to keep borrowing. Some on our side of the aisle believe very strongly that any increase in the debt ceiling that authorizes still more borrowing needs to be accompanied with some measure of spending discipline so we can at some point begin to regain control over these out-of-control deficits and the debt.

In any case, what we know for sure is that this tension will reemerge and that we do not have a resolution in place now. If this measure passes, which very likely it will, and it will be signed into law, we have just kicked this can down the road until May--maybe June or July at the most--but we surely will be back at this point where we are having this argument.

Here is what else we know. We know that tax revenue, ongoing tax revenue coming into the Government's coffers, is going to be about 75 percent of all the money the Government is planning to spend in the coming year--or is likely to spend. Since 75 percent does not cover everything, the other 25 percent is meant to be borrowed. Therein lies the necessity of raising the debt ceiling, precisely to fund the difference between all the Government wants to spend and the tax revenue it is going to have.

It is important to note, by the way, that raising this debt ceiling is not about paying for past bills incurred. I know that is repeated around here all the time. It is totally untrue. We have a funding for the appropriations process that expires at the end of March. There is no appropriation that is in place going forward. The debt ceiling increase, the authority to borrow more money, is all about funding future spending, which is part of the reason why some of us think this is a very sensible moment to try to bring some discipline to that future spending.

What would happen if we do not raise the debt ceiling right away? If we do not, we would have to have a 25-percent cut in all government spending. That is pretty massive. That is pretty problematic. The administration and some actually go way overboard in the threats they attach to this. They threaten to inflict the maximum possible economic damage if the debt ceiling is not raised promptly upon the point at which they run out of their maneuvering room. So you hear threats about a default on our debt and senior citizens will not get their Social Security check and our military folks will not get paid. All kinds of the most disruptive, most damaging, and most dangerous kinds of outcomes are threatened by the administration. This is unnecessary. This is not true. This is not what would happen. But there is an incentive, of course, to try to scare and intimidate Republicans into giving the administration the unconditional ability to keep on borrowing and spending as they have been doing, and that is why we hear this.

My amendment is an attempt to absolutely minimize the disruption, the danger, and the drama. It is an attempt to get away from ``government by cliff'' and to have a sensible approach to bringing our spending under control. It is called the Full Faith and Credit Act. What it does is it says very simply, since none of us can guarantee the debt ceiling is going to be raised on any particular date--we all know how we are going to vote. We cannot control anyone else's vote. We certainly cannot control a single vote in the House and we cannot control what the President is going to do. Therefore, we can never know for sure whether and when and under what circumstances the debt limit will be raised.

My point is the sensible and prudent and responsible thing to do is have a plan to minimize the downside if the debt ceiling is not raised immediately upon reaching it. This has nothing to do, by the way, with the current circumstances of suspending the debt ceiling. This is all about the next time, in May or June or July, when we find ourselves facing these circumstances.

What my bill says is, if we get to that point, the Federal Government would be obligated to prioritize three categories of spending: That would be interest on our debt to make sure we do not default on our debt and create a financial crisis; it would be Social Security payments to everybody who qualifies for a Social Security payment so that no senior citizen has to worry and wait to get their check; and it would be Active-Duty Military personnel so that no soldier has to worry or wonder whether they are going to get paid.

By the way, what my bill does is it goes a step forward and says not only will the Federal Government have to prioritize those three categories, but it says in the event on any given day the tax revenues were not sufficient to cover those three payment obligations, the Treasury Secretary would be authorized to borrow additional amounts to ensure that those payments were made.

What does it do? It guarantees that it would be absolutely impossible, under any circumstances, to default on our

debt, to miss a Social Security payment to anyone, or to be late with the military pay to anybody. That is what it would do. It would take a little bit of the drama and the risk and the uncertainty and the potential damage to the economy off the table and allow us to have an honest, sensible discussion about how we are going to get spending under control.

Mind you, these three categories of spending, if you add them all together, cumulatively account for about one-third of all the spending the government is scheduled to engage in over the course of this fiscal year. Ongoing tax revenue is about three-quarters of all the spending that is going to occur. So clearly there is far more than enough tax revenue to cover these items, but tax revenue comes in in a lumpy fashion. It doesn't come in smoothly and uniformly over the course of the year, hence the provision that allows the Treasury Secretary to borrow in the event that they needed to in the short run to smooth it out.

Let me say something that is of more fundamental importance. This amendment is not intended to be a replacement for raising the debt ceiling. Unfortunately, as long as we are running structural deficits, we are going to have to borrow money to fund them. This amendment, if it were to pass and be signed into law, does not mean we would not have to raise the debt ceiling at some point. Of course we are going to have to until we get to the point where we have balanced budgets and do not have to continue to run deficit spending.

By the way, I do not think it is desirable or optimal to cross into that threshold where we are living under the rules of prioritization, because it is very disruptive to not be paying all the other bills on time as we ought to. That is much better. But my point is, there is something even more important here and that is to fundamentally bring our spending and deficits under control. Trillion dollar deficits, a total debt that now exceeds the total economic output of our country-- we have a disastrous fiscal situation on our hands. It is right now costing us jobs, economic growth today, and it is guaranteed to result in a full-blown fiscal crisis and a meltdown if we do not change the path we are on.

The only time we have ever been able to persuade this President to agree to significant spending reductions was the last time we argued over the debt limit and we did end up getting spending cuts as part of that. I think the urgency of getting our spending under control and getting our fiscal house in order so we can avoid a fiscal crisis and have the kind of economic recovery we need is what necessitates a prioritization bill so we can take the shrill excesses and the threats that some are claiming off the table and have a real discussion and real solutions about how we are going to get spending under control.

My strong hope is that we can bring an end to ``government by cliff.'' Senator Portman has an amendment, I believe, that he is going to introduce, which would prevent the danger of a government shutdown in the event that a CR, a continuing resolution, expires. It makes all the sense in the world. We should not find ourselves backed up against the wall at midnight on December 31 with a great calamity threatened if we do not pass some bill that nobody has ever seen. This is a terrible way to run the government and that is what we have been doing. What my bill does is it eliminates the risk of default and it creates the opportunity for us to bring some spending discipline associated with any future debt limit increase. The bill of Senator Portman will avert the risk of a government shutdown.

I fully support his other efforts to make sure we have a dollar in savings for every new dollar in debt we create. We have an obligation to do that. We have already have too big a debt burden. We have to begin curbing the problem that causes it, and that is too much spending.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. As I say, it will not have any effect on the specific bill under consideration to temporarily suspend the debt limit. It will make a much more manageable and a much less disruptive discussion when we address the debt limit once again in May or June--or when that day surely will arrive.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, the underlying bill we are going to vote on in a little while suspends the debt ceiling for a period of time, as we all know. My amendment does not change that fact, but it addresses one of the consequences of that fact.

The fact is this bill suspends the debt ceiling, but it does not resolve the underlying problem. So we are going to be back here in a few months with the same impasse we have had in the past: What do we do about the mounting debt? What do we do about having reached the debt ceiling? Will we do anything about curbing the spending that is driving this problem?

My point is we are going to be back at this situation where we will have reached the debt limit once again, we will be at this impasse as to how to resolve this situation, and none of us can possibly know today how quickly that will be resolved. We cannot know how the other body will vote, how this body will vote, the President--we cannot know.

It seems to me, given the inherent uncertainty, we ought to at least have a contingency plan that minimizes any disruption in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised immediately upon reaching the expiration of this period. That is what this amendment is all about.

My amendment is about minimizing the risk of disruption in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised at the moment the time expires. What it does is it instructs the Treasury Secretary to prioritize three categories of payments.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds.

This amendment would prioritize interest on our debt, Social Security payments, Active-Duty military, and authorize the Treasury to raise the debt ceiling as necessary to cover those three categories.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I rise to continue this discussion about Superstorm Sandy.

I start by saying there isn't any doubt whatsoever about the severity of this tragedy or about the human suffering. It is absolutely the case that the needed emergency money should have been there already. There is a real, genuine need, and that need needs to be met. That is part of the reason I voted in favor of spending $24 billion, which could legitimately prescribe the kind of emergency funding that suffering people needed.

But I am concerned about two things: One is the fact that some people have used the occasion of the misery these people are suffering through to add on all kinds of spending that has absolutely nothing to do with Superstorm Sandy, and none of it is offset. So we have a $1.1 trillion budget deficit, and we are just adding another $60 billion right on top of that.

These are the items I would suggest that certainly don't have much to do with Superstorm Sandy: $15 million for NASA repairs at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $274 million for the Coast Guard acquisitions in the Bahamas and Great Lakes; $2 million for Smithsonian repairs. Then there is another whole category of items, which is tens of billions of dollars, which is long-term construction projects for the mitigation against future storms and disasters.

Is that an important expenditure by the Federal Government? It probably is. It probably should be a high priority. But is it an emergency? Of course not. It is infrastructure. It is going to be spent over years, maybe decades, as we build seawalls to protect beaches off the coast from future storms which are years away.

Is that an important consideration? I think it is. But when we are running trillion-dollar deficits, I think it has to compete with the other legitimate demands for long-term spending and infrastructure spending and the ways that we are going to protect our country as well. But we have no such process here. And that is part of what is wrong. That is part of what is wrong with this town and why we are in such a mess. It is because this body--and Congress generally--just refuses to make choices.

So I can understand completely all of this money being spent, if that is the determination that every one of these projects that have nothing to do with Sandy still nevertheless need to be funded. But couldn't we offset that by trimming spending elsewhere so that we don't further accelerate this decline? We are heading toward a fiscal crisis. Unfortunately, I guess not--unless we adopt the Lee amendment.

The Lee amendment says let's trim all discretionary spending by one- half of 1 percent over the next 9 years. So can we find half a penny of every dollar that we would otherwise spend so that we would fully fund everything in this bill. Not a dime would get cut from this bill, but we wouldn't add to our deficit and further accelerate this path we are on to a fiscal crisis.

We don't have to wait any longer. We can do this right now. We don't have to cut a dime from this bill; we can fully fund this bill. But at some point we need to start making choices around here. At some point we can't just have everything. That is how you get trillion-dollar deficits. That is how you end up like Greece.

So I would just suggest, let's pass this bill. Let's spend all the money in the Sandy supplemental. But let's offset it with a cut of one- half of 1 percent in discretionary spending over the next 9 years. That is what the Lee amendment does, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, for organizing this brief tribute that is so much deserved by the men and women we are acknowledging today.

I wish to begin by extending my deepest condolences to the families, friends, and loved ones of these Pennsylvania heroes whom we are going to acknowledge this evening. In the lives our servicemembers led and the cause for which they died, these folks represent all that is great about America.

Many enlisted right after graduating from high school, and during those very tough and grueling days and weeks in basic training they had probably never heard of places such as Anbar Province in Iraq, the Tangi Valley of Afghanistan or the other areas in those nations where they fought and ended up dying for our country.

But these Pennsylvanians join a long line of soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and Coast Guard members who have given the supreme sacrifice to their country, a line that extends well back in the latter part of the 20th century and includes World War II, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, and of course the global war on terrorism.

It is no accident that Pennsylvania has suffered very heavily in this conflict, as it has in other conflicts throughout our Nation's history. I think it is because in towns across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, towns and cities such as Dallastown, Easton, Philadelphia, and Erie, there are certain values that are deeply rooted in these communities: importance of family, importance of faith, importance of community, and the importance of public service, including very much the service to this Nation.

The conviction that freedom is worth defending is one of those convictions and the belief that a cause worth fighting for is not just someone else's responsibility. These are the values that have shaped these men and women, their families, their churches and houses of worship, and their communities.

These values were exemplified in the lives of our fallen men and women in service, and they will forever be honored by Pennsylvanians as the native sons and daughters of our great Commonwealth for their service to the country.

I will read the names of the men and women who have made the supreme sacrifice for courage in this conflict, and Senator Casey will complete the list: PFC David Anthony Jefferson, U.S. Army, Philadelphia; SGT Louis Robert Fastuca, U.S. Army, West Chester; SPC Jesse David Reed, U.S. Army, Orefield; LCpl Abram Larue Howard, U.S. Marine Corps, Williamsport; SPC Dale Justin Kridlo, U.S. Army, Hughestown; SPC Anthony Vargas, U.S. Army, Reading; SSG Sean Michael Flannery, U.S. Army, Wyomissing; GySgt Justin Edward Schmalstieg, U.S. Marine Corps, Pittsburgh; MSG Benjamin Franklin Bitner, U.S. Army, Greencastle; 1LT Demetrius Montaz Frison, U.S. Army, Lancaster; SSG Edward David Mills Jr., U.S. Army, Newscastle; Sgt Joseph Michael Garrison, U.S. Marine Corps, New Bethlehem; Ssgt Patrick Ryan Dolphin, U.S. Marine Corps, Moscow; Sgt Christopher Matthew Wrinkle, U.S. Marine Corps, Dallastown; PO1 Michael Joseph Strange, U.S. Navy, Philadelphia; TSgt Daniel Lee Zerbe, U.S. Air Force, York; SSG Eric Scott Holman, U.S. Army, Evans City; Lt. Col. Christopher Keith Raible, U.S. Marine Corps, North Huntingdon; CPO Nicolas David Checque, U.S. Navy, Monroeville; CDR Job W. Price, U.S. Navy, Pottstown; and finally, MAJ Wesley James Hinkley, U.S. Army, Cumberland City.

I yield the floor to the senior Senator.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I wish to make just a couple observations and explain why I am going to object.

First, for the record to be clear, it is my understanding this measure--and there is no question the Senator from Illinois has put a great deal of work into this. All his motives are absolutely commendable and legitimate. The measure itself, I believe, has not gone through a markup in the Banking Committee. There are many Members who have serious concerns about this particular bill for which the unanimous consent request is being made.

More broadly, about the Ex-Im Bank--in fact, I would argue this bill and this unanimous consent request puts a light on one of the concerns many of us have with the Ex-Im Bank in the first place. Let's remember what the Ex-Im Bank is. This is a taxpayer subsidy for large corporations to export products. I am a big fan of trade. I am a big fan of exports. I am not a fan of taxpayers having to subsidize the activity, and some of us, myself very much included, believe it ought to be a very high priority of this and any other administration to work for the mutual end of these taxpayer-subsidized export vehicles all around the world. They exist in other places as well, and that is the excuse that is usually given for why we have to also subsidize our corporations on their exports. I don't think that is a very good argument. I would certainly prefer to see a broad curtailment and eventually the end of this process; whereby, Europeans and Asians and Americans all engage in this flawed policy of subsidizing their respective corporations' export efforts.

Here is what happens with this bill, and this is exactly the kind of thing that happens when the government sets up a political venture to engage in economic activity. It gets politicized. Someone comes along with perfectly good motives and good intentions and decides there is some category of activity that is more important than other categories of activity. In this case, it is a geographical prioritization that the Senator from Illinois wishes to make by requiring a certain amount of business be transacted in Africa. I suspect there are people in this body and in other places who would make similarly persuasive arguments that there are places in Asia that ought to get this special treatment which the Senator from Illinois is recommending, and there are other people who would suggest maybe it shouldn't be a geographically based preference, but it ought to be a product line-based preference or it ought to be driven by the number of American workers who are involved in whatever it is that is being exported.

I can imagine all kinds of export criteria by which political forces could decide that the Ex-Im Bank ought to have special treatment in special categories, all of which simply distorts the normal market activities that would actually optimize exports, economic growth, and job creation.

So despite all the good intentions and the hard work done by the Senator from Illinois, I think this specific policy would be a mistake. More broadly, I think we are not yet on the right path of curtailing the taxpayer obligation for these export subsidies.

For that reason, I object.

Mr. President, I rise to raise a point of order against a very small segment of this bill, and I wish to yield myself some time to discuss that at this time.

Mr. President, I have a different plea for my colleagues; that is, to sustain this budget point of order, acknowledging that it does not cut one dime of spending from this supplemental. If my budget point of order is sustained, every single dime, if it were eventually passed--every dime that is allocated for future mitigation would, in fact, be spent for future mitigation.

The question before us is, when we are running trillion-dollar deficits, must we add another $60 billion on top of that deficit?

So what I have done is I have looked at this bill, and there are many parts that are not directly in aid of any of the victims of Sandy.

Look, my State was hit by that storm, not nearly as bad as New York and New Jersey and Connecticut and some others. But there are real victims of this storm, there are genuine needs, and we need to fund those needs. I am in favor of making sure we do fund the needs that we have. But we have a category of spending that is going for construction for years to come to mitigate against dangers of future storms in future years and future decades. That might be very wise, that might be very appropriate spending, but it is not an emergency.

This is not sandbags around someone's house who is in danger of a storm. That kind of infrastructure spending is the kind of spending we do routinely, but we plan for it and we budget it. If it is, indeed, the priority that many people--probably, including myself--believe it is, then it ought to be weighed in competition with the other pressing needs, and we ought to plan for it and budget for it. That is all I am asking.

So this budget point of order does not cut one dime of spending from this bill. It simply says the $3.4 billion that is identified for the construction of future mitigation projects would count toward the discretionary spending caps we have in place. Unfortunately, our deficit would grow if all else stays the same, but at least not by that $3.4 billion. That part would eventually have to be offset with some modest restraint on discretionary spending at some point.

But I would stress that there is not a dime that will be cut from this bill by virtue of this point of order, and it would establish that going forward, hopefully, when we are doing long-term construction projects for future mitigation, we would consider them in the context of the infrastructure spending that they are.

So for that reason, Mr. President, pursuant to section 314(e)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I raise a

point of order against the emergency designation in the appropriation for the Army Corps of Engineers, ``Construction,'' contained in title 4 of the substitute amendment. And I yield the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. President, I rise this morning to address legislation that is under consideration--the extension of what is known as the TAG Program. The acronym stands for the transaction account guarantee. I wish to discuss this a little bit and give the reasons for my opposition to the extension of this program.

First, a little bit of history about this. Many people are familiar with the FDIC Insurance Program. It is a longstanding program that provides a limited guarantee on bank deposits. Actually, for a very long period of time--I think it was over 25 years, starting in 1980-- the limits on the dollar amount of a balance that would get this FDIC guarantee was $100,000. That limit was raised for all accounts to $250,000 during the financial crisis of 2008, and then subsequently this new program was created, this Transaction Account Guarantee Program, which provides an unlimited guarantee. There is no limit whatsoever for a large category of deposits--not all deposits but all non-interest-bearing transaction deposits, which is a long way of saying pretty much checking accounts, although it

would include other things. As you might imagine, there are many large corporations, municipalities, and very wealthy individuals who have these large accounts, and today those accounts are guaranteed without limit. The proposal we have is to extend this guarantee which is set to expire on December 31, to extend it for 2 more years.

Let me be clear about one thing right off the bat. This is a taxpayer-provided guarantee. The taxpayers are on the hook for these deposits. If anybody has any doubt about that, I refer them to the FDIC's Web page. The home page of the FDIC's Web site states very clearly that ``FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government.'' That means the taxpayers, so American taxpayers are on the hook for the full amount of these transaction guarantees.

Let me explain why I think this is problematic. The first reason is a simple one. We are not in a financial crisis anymore. We have a miserable economy, but we certainly do not have a free-fall fiscal disaster, with financial institutions collapsing. We do not have the fall of 2008 anymore. There is actually quite a lot of stability in financial institutions. You could have a very interesting debate about whether this was ever a good idea, but I do not understand how you can justify it now in an environment that does not even faintly resemble the crisis circumstances of 2008. If we are going to extend it now for 2 more years when there is clearly no need for it, it certainly seems to me to suggest an interest in making this a permanent feature of the American banking system--permanent, unlimited guarantee, the socialization of deposits in this country, which I think is a terrible idea.

Second, this is a big contingent liability for taxpayers. There is about $1.5 trillion in deposits right now that fall into this category and is being guaranteed and would continue to be guaranteed if the guarantee were extended.

It is also worth noting that this mostly benefits the big banks. It is big banks, not surprisingly, that have a disproportionate share of big accounts. In fact, the 19 largest banks hold two-thirds of all the deposits and accounts that are guaranteed under the TAG Program, so this is a nice big help to a lot of big banks.

I would argue that there is something maybe even worse than all of this about this. I believe the very existence of the TAG Program actually increases the risk of bank failures, and here is the reason why. In the absence of these unlimited guarantees, a corporation or a municipality or a wealthy individual or an institution making a large deposit--an amount that exceeds the limited FDIC's traditional guarantee--such an institution is going to do its due diligence on the strength of the bank. It is going to want to understand that this bank is properly run, that it is prudently managed, and that due diligence is a discipline the market imposes on the banking system. The banks have to prove to potential depositors that they are well run, that they are sensible and prudent and are not taking too much risk in order for the depositors to be confident they will ever be able to get their money back. So that is a very important mechanism that imposes a discipline that helps to keep banks doing what is prudent.

With this unlimited transaction guarantee, nobody has to worry about whether the bank is well run because the government, the taxpayer is there to return all their money if the bank messes up. That removes that very important discipline and in the process I think actually increases the risk that more financial institutions, more banks would in time fail because they are not held to a higher standard by their depositors and that therefore the taxpayers would be picking up an even larger tab than what some might project.

I argue that the premiums systematically underfund this program. There are premiums that are charged to the banks in return, but banks would be adamantly insisting that they have the option to opt out if they were not being subsidized. The fact is, it is being subsidized. So the taxpayers are not getting, in my view, an adequate premium for the risk they are taking--not that they should be in the business of taking that risk in the first place.

The last point I would make about the banks is that I don't think this is good for the banks themselves because this is the kind of government program that inevitably leads to a lot of people in this town thinking they have the right to force the banks to do whatever they want them to do, including giving away goods, and it is justified on the grounds that it is reasonable for us to ask of these banks since, after all, we the taxpayer, we the government provide them with this guarantee. So I think this is not in the interest of the banks themselves.

I am sympathetic with the argument that some of my friends in the community banking world have made, the argument that with Dodd-Frank, when we codified too-big-to-fail, we created a whole category of large financial institutions and we designated them--we use a different acronym--we call them systemically important financial institutions. Most people see that as another way of saying too big to fail. Having codified that, our community bankers argue that that gives these banks an unfair competitive advantage in attracting depositors.

I am sympathetic to that argument, but I would argue, first of all, that it is seldom a good idea to counter one bad government policy with another one. Compounding errors usually takes you in the wrong direction.

Second, what we need to do is reform Dodd-Frank. We need to do a lot in reforming Dodd-Frank, in my view. That is the right way to deal with this perception of a competitive advantage. We ought to be providing a lot of regulatory relief for community banks, and I say that as someone who has been actively involved in the community banking industry personally.

I also suggest that there are other ways community banks can, in fact, successfully compete against the large banks, other than with this guarantee of deposits.

My last point is that last year we ran a deficit of $1.1 trillion. This coming year, unfortunately, it looks as though we are likely to do something like that again. This bill violates the Budget Control Act, the cap, the limit we put on spending. It exceeds that, and it creates a new amount of spending above and beyond what was contemplated. I think that is a huge problem in and of itself. So I oppose this legislation on the substance of it, but in particular I am objecting to the fact that it does exceed this budgetary authority.

Mr. President, at the appropriate time, I intend to raise a budget point of order. If that is now, I will do it now.

Mr. President, the pending measure, S. 3637, the Transaction Account Guarantee Act, exceeds the Banking Committee's section 302(a) allocation of new budget authority and outlays deemed by the Budget Control Act of 2011; therefore, I raise a point of order against this measure pursuant to section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for allowing me to make a couple points. These are very well-made points about having the opportunity to actually debate and try to improve a bill on the floor. One of the things that disturbs me is that I see a pattern that is playing out today, and this is not the first time. This is just part of why we have not had a budget resolution for 3 consecutive years. The majority party does not want to have to come down and actually cast votes.

If there is a budget resolution on the floor, there surely will be amendments. We all come from different places, have different ideas, and we want our constituents to have a chance to get their

say. The majority party apparently does not want to have to cast votes. I think that is part of why there has not been a single appropriations bill on this floor, and that is just a shocking abdication of our responsibility.

Here we are in mid-December, and while the committee has voted this out--if not every appropriations bill, the vast majority of them--not a single one has been brought to the floor. We have seen this happen on bill after bill. I hear the criticism that Republicans will not allow the body to get on the bill. The motion to proceed passed; the cloture motion passed. We are on the bill. Despite that, there is no opportunity to have a meaningful, substantive debate about ways this could be improved and changed. It is not possible because the distinguished majority leader refuses to permit it. In my view, that is the dysfunction of this body; it is a pattern, and it is a problem. I too had a couple of amendments I would like to have had an opportunity to discuss.

I wish to make one other point. On the few occasions when the majority leader has actually permitted an open amendment process--the farm bill, postal reform bill, and Defense authorization come to mind-- we would start with a huge, long list of amendments. Then people say: There are too many. I will give up some of mine. We got to a manageable amount, we dealt with them, and actually all three of those bills passed. The process works when it is allowed to take place, but this is not a very good function.

The last point I will make is to urge my colleagues to remember when we are running trillion-dollar deficits as it is, the last thing we ought to do is increase the size of those deficits with a taxpayer bailout of banks, and that is what this ends up amounting to.

I urge my colleagues to sustain this point of order.

I yield back to the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. President, today the Senate will vote on H.J. Res. 117, a continuing resolution to fund Federal agencies for the next 6 months. While I appreciate that this measure avoids the need to negotiate a spending bill during the lame duck session, after careful consideration, I believe the promises I made to the people of Pennsylvania in 2010 compel me to oppose this bill.

H.J. Res. 117 establishes discretionary appropriations for fiscal year at $1.047 trillion, an amount equal to the spending cap created by the Budget Control Act of 2011. Unfortunately, this figure is far above what is fiscally responsible, which is one of the reasons I voted against the Budget Control Act last year. Given that the Federal Government has now run deficits in excess of $1 trillion for 4 consecutive years, it would be irresponsible to vote for a bill that increases discretionary spending by about $8 billion.

Furthermore, H.J. Res. 117 employs a tired old accounting gimmick called ``changes in mandatory spending programs'' to make discretionary spending appear nearly $20 billion lower. This gimmick does not eliminate mandatory spending; it only delays it, resulting in no actual budgetary savings.

The continuing resolution fails to restore recently undermined welfare-to-work provisions within the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families--TANF--Program. In 1996, a Republican led Congress and President Clinton enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act--P.L. 104-193, a key component of which established work requirements, helping individuals provide for themselves and their families. On July 12, 2012, the administration unilaterally weakened reporting requirements for TANF, erroneously stipulating that waiver authority provided under section 1115 of the Social Security Act enabled the agency to modify work participation requirements, a provision explicitly outside the scope of waivable provisions. Welfare-to-work provisions have proven instrumental in transitioning millions off welfare. While TANF's work requirements have contributed towards declining welfare rolls, there remain additional opportunities to strengthen and reform the TANF program. By failing to engage in a dialogue, Congress missed a critical opportunity to restore the welfare-to-work requirements and assist more TANF recipients take steps towards independence.

Though I am unable to support this continuing resolution, I would note my support for one provision in the underlying legislation. I am happy that a technical correction was included that ensures that States that have not remediated all of their abandoned mine lands do not lose any payments from the Abandoned Mine Lands Trust Fund as a result of the recently enacted Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (Map-21). To pay for MAP-21, conferees inserted a provision intending to cap payments to States that have been certified by the EPA as having remediated all of their abandoned mine lands.

After enactment, there was some uncertainty about how this provision

would affect noncertified states like Pennsylvania because of the structure of the funding formula. This was clearly not the intent of Congress. The Congressional Budget Office scored the provision as capping payments to certified States only. Therefore, this technical correction ensures that Pennsylvania, the State with more abandoned mine lands than any other, continues to receive its baseline level of funding.

Mr. President, the fact is our economy could be booming right now, should be booming right now. The history of this country is that after a serious recession, the economy comes roaring back. That is exactly what should be happening right now. In fact, our economy should be creating more jobs than there are people to fill them. But that is not what is happening because of the failed leadership of the Democratic majority in control of this body and the President of the United States.

Our economy cannot come back the way it should as long as the threat of a complete fiscal disaster looms over it. As long as everybody who might even be contemplating launching a new business or expanding an existing business knows this government is running trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see with no willingness to address this, then people will not make that investment. They will not expand their business. They will not hire that next worker.

It is long past time that the Democratic leadership in this body accepts its responsibility to address this problem, pass a budget, get our fiscal house in order so this economy can grow again and Americans can get back to work.

Mr. President, this Saturday, July 28, 2012, the U.S. Navy will perform a christening ceremony in New Orleans for the future USS Somerset. The USS Somerset is a special ship, bearing the name of the Southwest Pennsylvania county where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on September 11, 2001.

On that infamous day, a group of defiant and determined Americans challenged a group of al-Qaida hijackers hell bent on crashing the plane into the U.S. Capitol, the White House, or another sensitive DC- area target. The terrorists' goal was not achieved, thanks to the bravery of the Americans onboard. We will never forget their actions in the face of horror.

The USS Somerset will serve as an ongoing emblem of their heroism as it races to the aid of our friends and defends American liberty against our foes. This ship also embodies the American spirit local Pennsylvanians demonstrated shortly after the crash, when they raised the Stars and Stripes atop a dragline near the crash site as an unforgettable symbol of our country's resolve during a time of national sorrow.

Wherever the USS Somerset goes, so will a piece of southwest Pennsylvania. The bow of the ship includes steel from the dragline adjacent to the crash site in Stonycreek Township, where it was a silent witness to an indelible act of American courage and strength in defiance of those who would do us harm.

I wish the U.S. Navy and the future crew of the USS Somerset safe travels and successful missions defending America and freedom worldwide.

Madam President, I rise to address the same topic that has been under discussion this afternoon by Senator Pryor, Senator Hoeven, and others. I strongly share the concern they have registered. I believe we have seriously flawed legislation in the form of this flood insurance reauthorization bill, and I think we are kind of compounding our problem by apparently inserting this into a transportation conference report rather than doing what we ought to do in the Senate, which is to have a debate about flood insurance.

This easily qualifies as a sufficiently important and substantive topic that we ought to bring it to the floor under regular order and consider the underlying policy, including the profound change in policy that is contemplated by the underlying bill and a very important amendment on which Senators Pryor and Hoeven have provided the leadership and of which I am a cosponsor, which I think absolutely deserves a vigorous debate and I would like to see passed.

One of the many concerns I have about what we are doing now is we are taking this flood insurance bill and apparently some are considering this bill to be at least a partial offset to some of the expenditures contemplated in the Transportation bill. For the life of me, I can't understand how this could possibly be a legitimate offset for spending. If it is a legitimate offset for spending, then that means it is net new revenue. But we are told this bill is supposed to be actuarially sound. It is supposed to be revenue neutral. The premiums being charged for this flood insurance are supposed to just equal out the payments that will have to be made in honoring claims against this fund. So I don't understand how that nets out to a source of net revenue that can be spent somewhere else. How many times can we spend the same money? The insurance premiums that are collected are supposed to be collected to honor the liabilities the Federal Government is taking on by virtue

of this program, so how can it also go to pay for transportation projects? I don't understand that.

I also think there is a real fundamental problem that Senators Pryor and Hoeven have addressed, and that is the huge expansion of this mandate. We have in this underlying bill a Federal mandate that forces people to buy homeowner's insurance, and it forces a new category of people to buy homeowner's flood insurance, and the new category is those people who live behind a levee or a dam.

A lot of folks have contributed a lot of money over many years to building levees and dams precisely so that they would be protected from the risk of floods. In fact, that works every day all across America. Yet we are going to ask those people to also pay as though there were no levee there. This strikes me as a profoundly flawed approach. It completely ignores the investments these communities have made for years, and in the process it discourages future flood-mitigation measures. It discourages the maintenance of existing levees and dams. It discourages the building of additional ones. I think this is a bad idea. It is bad to create these kinds of incentives.

I will say candidly that this disproportionately has an adverse effect on States that have over the years a long history of building levees and dams. Pennsylvania would certainly be among those States. If you look at this map, it shows the counties in which there are levees and dams, and almost the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is shaded in because we have levees and dams all across the Commonwealth. They work and they hold and people have invested to have that security, that protection.

Frankly, there are a lot of communities that would like to have additional levees and dams to have more protection than they have today. What this measure would do is it would say: Don't do that. What good does it do? You are still going to have to pay for flood insurance. I think this is a badly flawed approach.

Let me say once again that there is something very wrong with this process. This is a big deal. To ask 1 million to 2 million additional new Pennsylvanians--not to ask, to force them into a program where they would be forced to buy an insurance product whether they want it or not--by the way, nothing stops them from voluntarily choosing to purchase flood insurance, but that is not what this bill is about; the bill is about forcing them to buy this product. To think we are going to create this huge new mandate on what could be 2 million Pennsylvanians alone and many more millions across the country, to do it without a full debate on the Senate floor, without the opportunity to consider this legislation, without the opportunity to consider and debate and vote on amendments, I think is a big mistake.

I urge my colleagues to take a look at this map and to consider strongly insisting that the transportation conference report not include this legislation and that we proceed under regular order to debate a very important measure, which would be the reauthorization of the Flood Insurance Program.

I yield the floor.