Floor Statements

Mr. President, the question is, Should we sell arms to Saudi Arabia--a country that many suspect was involved in 9/11; a country that many suspect gave weapons to ISIS, the people we are fighting in the Middle East; a country that imprisons the victims of rape because it is apparently or presumably the fault of the woman who is raped in Saudi Arabia?

One woman, the girl of Qatif, was given a sentence of 70 lashes and 6 months in jail. They increased her penalty to 200 lashes, and finally, only when we protested, was it reversed.

They sentenced a poet to 1,000 lashes. Sometimes you don't survive 1,000 lashes. So they gave him 100 at a time. He is going to be imprisoned for 10 years.

They are not the kind of persons we should be sending your weapons to. These weapons were funded and supported by the American taxpayer, and we should not be willy-nilly giving them to people who imprison their people for protesting.

Currently, a young man, 17 years old, named Ali al-Nimr is on death row. But it is not enough just to kill him for protesting for free speech and free press. They will behead him and crucify him.

This barbaric nation should not be getting our weapons. We should not sell them weapons.

Currently, there is a blockade of Yemen, and 17 million people risk starvation. We should not be supporting this effort.

There is probably no greater purveyor of hatred for Christianity and Judaism than Saudi Arabia. We should not be giving them weapons. They have madrassas across the world teaching hatred of us, preaching hatred of the West, hatred of Christianity, hatred of Judaism, and these people want to give them weapons. I don't get it. It makes no sense.

Some will argue that it is a jobs program. Well, isn't that swell. We are

going to give money to people who behead you and crucify you to create jobs. That should never be the way we make a decision about arms sales in our country.

A famous Republican and general, General Dwight Eisenhower, said he worried that someday we would make decisions not based on our defense but based on the military industrial complex.

I am embarrassed that people are out here talking about making us some money and making a buck, while 17 million people live on a starvation diet and are threatened with famine. I am embarrassed that people would bring up trying to feather the nest of corporations in order to sell these weapons. This should be made, pure and simple, on our national defense.

Saudi Arabia is not a reliable ally. Saudi Arabia should not get these weapons. For every supposed good thing they do, they do five things that are bad for America. They are the biggest purveyor of hatred of Christianity and Judaism.

I request a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, Saudi Arabia bombed a funeral procession. There was no mistake here. There was no cloud cover. There was no growth or coppice of trees and they accidentally bombed a funeral procession. They bombed them and killed 125 civilians in a funeral. They wounded 500. This was no mistake. This was no error. This was them, pointedly dropping bombs on civilians.

They put protestors in jail. They have a 17-year-old--he is now 20-- who has been in jail for 3 years. He will be beheaded and then crucified. We should not be giving these people weapons. They supported ISIS. They are on the wrong side of the war. They are the greatest purveyor of hatred for Christianity and Judaism. They do not deserve your weapons. They are going to give your weapons. They belong to the American people. They are going to give them to people who behead and crucify protesters.

You can't take a Bible into Saudi Arabia. You can't visit their major cities.

We can't make them be like us, but we don't have to encourage their behavior by giving them weapons that may well fall into the hands of people who are our enemies.

I urge a ``no'' vote. I think we should not be selling arms to Saudi Arabia.

Mr. President, President Trump said in his inaugural address that we have defended other nations' borders while refusing to defend our own. I think he was right. Today, the question is, Will we add another commitment to defend yet another foreign country?

For decades, NATO has been an organization in which the United States disproportionately spends our blood and our treasure. The other NATO countries have largely hitched a ride on a U.S. train that subsidizes their defenses and allows them to direct their revenues to their own domestic concerns. In short, Uncle Sam is the Uncle Patsy for the rest of the world.

The question today is, Will adding to NATO another country with fewer than 2,000 soldiers be in our self-interest?

It has fewer than 2,000 soldiers and is a small country in a distant part of the world. Will they make you sleep safer at night? The answer is an emphatic no.

There is no national security interest that an alliance with Montenegro will advance. If we invite Montenegro into NATO, it will be a one-way street, with the United States committing to defending yet another country and with you, the taxpayer, being stuck with the bill.

Even the advocates of Montenegro's joining NATO admit as much. The Senate hearing on admitting Montenegro to NATO was really just a punching session about Russia. Not one word was said about allowing Montenegro into NATO or how it would advance our own national security. We were going to send a message to Russia. Even the citizens of Montenegro are divided on this. About half of them want to be in NATO, and the other half does not want to be in NATO.

But it is not really about them; it is about us. Is admitting Montenegro to NATO good for us? Our national security is our national security. Is Montenegro going to defend the United States? Are they of any importance to our national security or, perhaps, will they entangle us in local, historic, regional conflicts in the area?

We must ask: Is Montenegro an asset to the defense of the United States? That is the question at hand.

The answer is a simple one. Admitting Montenegro to NATO will do nothing to advance our national security, and it will do everything to simply add another small country to NATO's welfare wagon.

Advocates for expanding NATO believe that, unless the whole world joins NATO, Russia will conquer the world, but the truth is more nuanced. During the Cold War, the myth of Russian might was endlessly circulated here at home, and the effect was the production of endless munitions and ever-expanding debt. You are still paying the tab for that. The Cold War ended, and the Soviet Union failed, not because our military might overcame them but because our economic system outlasted them. They were defeated. Capitalism defeated socialism.

If there is one message that Americans should get, it is that capitalism is stronger than socialism. We should not flirt with political leaders in our country who promote what caused the Soviet Union to fail.

Now we are told we must fear Russia again--fear the Russian bear. Yet, if you look closely, you will see that Russian aggression around the world and particularly around the former Soviet satellites is an attempt to mask a weak economy that runs the same risk of overextension that caused the Soviet Empire to collapse. Russia is weak. Russia is weak because of corruption, oligarchy, and human rights abuses. If Russia continues on this path, it may well encounter the same cataclysm that brought down the Soviet Empire.

Without question, Russia is an adversary, a country that ignores international norms, does not respect the territorial integrity of its neighbors. Yet someone must ask: Is it in our national interest to insist that countries of the former Soviet Union be in NATO?

The debate today is not just about Montenegro. The same cheerleaders for Montenegro's being in NATO want Ukraine in NATO and want Georgia in NATO. This is about NATO's expansion in general, and this is a chance to have a real debate.

If both Ukraine and Georgia were in NATO today, we would be involved in a world war with Russia. Shouldn't someone speak up? Shouldn't we have some sort of national debate before we commit our sons and daughters to war in a faraway land?

One thing is for certain: Russia will always care more about those lands than we will. Does that make Russian aggression right? Absolutely not.

Our decision--the decision at hand--is: Are we willing to send our sons and daughters to fight in border disputes over Montenegro? Most Americans couldn't find Montenegro on the map. Are you willing to send your kids there to fight?

That is what this is about, and this is sluffed over. They are going to forbid amendments. I forced this debate. Nobody wanted to have this debate. They want to rubberstamp it. They want no debates, and they want to send your kids to war with no debate. Today, they will pass this over my objections, but they will allow no amendments. When I finish this speech, I will ask for an amendment, and it will be denied because they do not want to debate whether your sons and daughters go to war. I find that appalling. I am ashamed of a Senate that will not have a debate and will not have a vote.

From the very beginning, our Republic was founded on a deep suspicion of entangling alliances. Our Founders wanted to do everything possible to avoid the endless, chronic wars in Europe. In Europe, for centuries, Kings from one nation fought their brothers and their cousins in other nations. This meaningless fratricide continued even into the 20th century.

The Founding Fathers were emphatic in their desire to avoid endless war. Washington wrote that our true policy was to steer clear of a permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world. Jefferson echoed this when he famously wrote of peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations and of entangling alliances with none.

Even in modern times, such military heroes as President Eisenhower opposed intervention in Hungary, even when the naked aggression of the Soviets was appalling. Eisenhower likely may have had no real opportunity, though, because the Soviet Union had rolled in with 200,000 troops and 4,000 tanks.

At least part of the decision not to go into Hungary in the fifties was not for a lack of sympathy for freedom, not for

a lack of sympathy for self-determination of a country. It was the real politic decision of a nuclear confrontation with a nuclear Russia.

Fast-forward to today. For 16 years, we have been at war in the Middle East--16 years. If I had been here, I would have voted for going after the people who had attacked us on 9/11. Our justified response, though, has drug on and on. There are people who are fighting in the war who were not born on 9/11. The Congress voted after 9/11 to go to war. It voted to go after the people who planned and plotted the attacks on the World Trade Center. That vote from 15 years ago is used to justify all war that is everywhere on the planet.

There has been no meaningful debate on the wars we are currently involved in in the Middle East. We currently fight illegally and unconstitutionally in the Middle East because your representatives are afraid to have a public debate. They will stifle debate at all costs, and they will broker no amendments. They will allow no amendments to occur.

Our unrestricted, unvoted-upon involvement in war everywhere informed my opposition to expand NATO. Everyone likes to talk about NATO's article 5 obligation to come to the defense of any NATO allies that are attacked. That is in the treaty. If Montenegro is attacked, we will have to respond, but my concern is that many in Congress believe that article 5, in saying that we have to defend Montenegro, farms out to an international body this power to declare war, and they do not think they have to vote again.

You don't believe me?

They have not voted for 15 years for war, and we are still at war. We continue to go to new countries for war with no vote. Do you think that Montenegro will not be attacked and that there will not be a war without a vote? This is their history. Their history is one of not obeying the Constitution. David Fromkin puts it this way: ``If it is now agreed by treaty that an attack on a . . . NATO ally is deemed an attack on the United States, then it can be argued that the President is empowered without congressional authorization to send us to war.''

Don't believe me? We have been at war for 15 years. We have been at war with dozens of new tribes, dozens of new countries, with no votes on war.

The most important vote a legislator will ever take is whether to go to war. Yet today we will vote for an automatic war if somebody invades Montenegro. And mark my words--they won't obey the Constitution. They will say: We voted to put them in NATO. Article 5 says we have to defend them.

That is not the law of the land, and we should have to vote in Congress. But nobody obeys the law. So if you are worried about whether your kids will be sent to the Balkans or whether your kids will be sent to Ukraine or Georgia, call your representative and tell them: Stop.

This is the crux of the debate. Congress has abdicated its role in declaring war. For 16 years, we have been at war in the Middle East with dozens of different tribes and dozens of countries and yet no vote. People say: Well, we should fight ISIS. Well, let's vote on it. Let's declare war or not. But you can't tell me that ISIS has anything to do with 9/11. They don't. Many of their fighters weren't even born then.

The authorization for war in Iraq was specific to a specific enemy in a specific place. So was the authorization after 9/11. The authorization for war in Afghanistan was specific. It says: necessary and appropriate force against those who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the September 11 attacks. It was actually put in the authorization for force that it was about 9/11. None of what is going on is about 9/11 anymore. They are not the same people. Some of the people we are fighting now didn't like those people.

There is a whole confusing set of religious wars that have been going on for 1,000 years in the Middle East. Yet your representatives will say: Send me your son, send me your daughter, but we don't have time to vote on whether it should be a declared war.

This vote is now used to justify a war around the globe, a vote from 9/11--from 15 years ago. It is a lie, and it is a disservice to our young men and women to have them fight under false pretenses where the Senators don't seem to have time to have a debate. No active war anywhere around the globe that the United States is involved with has been authorized by Congress.

We dropped more bombs the other day in Pakistan. We sent a man right into Yemen. Raise your hand if you know what the hell is going on in Yemen and who is fighting whom and who is our enemy. The one we killed the other day was al-Qaida--probably a bad guy. He was actually fighting against the Houthis, whom we are also fighting against.

Who are the good guys? Shouldn't we have a debate? Shouldn't we decide whether we are going to war in Yemen? Should we be giving the Saudis bombs? They bombed a funeral procession. They killed 150 civilians and 500 people. We just let it go on. We keep giving them weapons. I have tried to stop selling bombs to the Saudi Arabians, but the majority up here says: Keep giving them to them. Keep giving them the weapons, and let them indiscriminately kill whoever the hell they want.

So NATO--should we expand it? Perhaps what we should do is make it clear that the NATO treaty is not a blind, open-ended promise to go to war anywhere, anytime.

Before we go to final passage, I will offer one amendment. This amendment will be blocked because they do not want debate and because they will be embarrassed if they have to vote against this amendment. But realize what this amendment asks. My amendment states that nothing in the NATO treaty--particularly the article 5 promise to come to the rescue of anyone attacked--none of this can happen without an official vote to declare war. So what is my amendment stating? The Constitution--article I, section 8--says we don't go to war without a vote and a debate. Do you know what they will do to get around it? I think we can assume that they are against the Constitution because they are not going to allow the amendment. How long would it take? It takes 15 minutes to vote around here. I am about done speaking. We could have one 15-minute vote on an amendment. I would grant back the time if we would have a vote, but they don't want to debate it because they are embarrassed that they are sending your sons and daughters to war without ever debating or voting on it.

This, to me, is a tragedy. It is sad to me. It makes me ashamed of the body that we will do this. Probably what is worse is then they clamor to the floor, their mouths agape, ajar, calling other people traitors, acting as if I care less about your sons and daughters because I want to have a debate on war before we go to war, preventing an amendment from happening and then having the gall to come to the floor and accuse their philosophic opponents of being traitors and being allies with the Russians.

Is this what we have come to? Is this where we are as America, that you can't take a principled stand against war; that you can't stand up on principle and say: Are we really going to go to war over Montenegro, over Ukraine? Are we really going to go to war over Georgia? And then you are accused of not being patriotic to your country.

I care as much as anybody about our soldiers. When I talk to our young men and women who serve, do you know what they tell me? They want someone to stand up and have a debate. They will do what they are told. Our soldiers are brave, and they will go where they are told, and they will obey orders. But the people here who are these mouthpieces for war, who think every soldier wants to go to war, I suggest they go out and meet the soldiers and ask them whether they want the civilian Senators to debate and have a formal declaration of war. That is all I am asking for--15 minutes and an amendment that says we will obey the Constitution.

If article 5 says we need to go to war and Montenegro is attacked, we will do the proper thing. We will come to the floor of the Senate. We are not sending troops to Montenegro without a vote on the floor of the Senate. Is that too much to ask for? We will see.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 199 that says we should obey the Constitution and that we should declare war before we go to war.

Mr. President, it is important to know what just happened. We closed off the debate, and as far as a filibuster goes, we are having a debate and a vote. What they wanted was a rubberstamp and an easy passage without debate. We are having a bit of a debate, and that is good. Unfortunately, we will not be allowed to amend the bill.

My amendment is germane to the bill. It has to do with what article 5 means in the treaty we are signing. What it says is that we will not necessarily take article 5 to mean that we are going to war, that we would do the constitutional duty, and that is to vote about whether we go to war. So the amendment is very clear that we would obey the Constitution.

By blocking the vote, we have to realize that those blocking the vote have decided that really it should be automatic, that your sons and daughters will be sent to war automatically without a vote, without a declaration of war. You say: Well, maybe they don't mean that. Maybe they would obey the Constitution.

They don't now. So everything in evidence shows us that the chance that in the future they will obey the Constitution is about zero. But so ashamed are they of the fact that we will fight more wars without a declaration, without a vote--they won't allow a vote on the amendment because they would be voting against the Constitution. So, instead, they will block the amendment.

That is essentially what this debate is about: Are we automatically obligated to go to war without a vote by Congress? That is what the vote is about. It is incredibly germane. It goes to the heart of the bill. It goes to the heart of the NATO treaty. Does article 5 mean you automatically go to war, or would you go through the normal processes of going to war? Now, some will say: Oh, well, we would never go to war. It might not be so bad, but it would be difficult.

Do you know when we have gone to war? We have actually gone unanimously when we have done it the right way. When we were attacked on 9/11 and they came to Congress, do you know what the vote was? Unanimous. We are not about letting people attack us as a country, and I would have voted for that.

When we were attacked in Pearl Harbor, what did FDR do? The thing that great leaders would do--and I am not a huge fan always of FDR, but he did the right thing. He came to Congress the next day. I think it was on December 8 that they voted unanimously to go to war. That is the way it was done once upon a time.

When you are attacked, people do rally to the country and they rally to the flag, but we shouldn't have an automatic stamp that says: We are going to war anywhere without any restraint, without any control or separation of power.

So I object strenuously to this, and I wish we were more open in this body and in our country to a debate about when we are going to go to war.

I object.

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

Mr. President, tonight we will vote on a conservative budget that balances within about 5 years and saves the country from trillions of dollars of new debt.

This budget that will be presented as an alternative also allows us to repeal ObamaCare at the same time. We have taken the identical language from the underlying budget, put it into the replacement budget, but we have done something different. Instead of allowing spending to continue to grow unabated, instead of allowing spending to grow at such a rate that we will add $9.7 trillion to the debt, we do something novel--something that I consider to be the conservative vision for our country. We actually freeze spending. We just say: no more spending. Interestingly, the budget will balance. The country's budget would actually balance, and we wouldn't add $9.7 trillion if we simply freeze spending. I think there is something in my version of the budget for both Republicans and Democrats because mine calls for a freeze in spending but would allow the different Appropriations subcommittees to decide where the spending would be cut.

So, for example, if you decided that we needed more military spending but you thought that maybe we could spend less on corporate welfare, you might cut out the Department of Commerce. You might not know it once we did it. You might not know that the Department of Commerce really could be eliminated and you really wouldn't notice that it was gone.

We look at the budget and we look at the spending every year, and we recount all of these terrible wasteful episodes of spending. Yet they never get fixed. Why? Because we continue to give government more money. The current budget that we will vote on will increase spending at about 5 percent a year.

You will hear from people this ``Washingtonese''--this language that says: Well, we are just holding to the baseline. All this is the baseline. Son, just vote for the baseline. Jump on the team and vote for the baseline. The problem is that the baseline is not flat. The baseline is inclined, and that increase in spending every year is what is bankrupting the country. Spending is going up 5 percent a year. That is what the baseline is. So when people say that we are going to cut trillions of dollars or this is a frugal budget, they are talking about cutting spending from the proposed increases in spending.

To illustrate that, the budget I am offering isn't even a cut of any kind. It is a freeze. Has anybody in America ever had their income frozen? Has anybody in America ever had to take a cut? Why shouldn't government? Why shouldn't we force government to look at their finances and say: You know what, this spending is good, and this is not so good.

I will give you an example. We spent $700,000 last year studying Neil Armstrong's statement on the moon. Neil Armstrong landed on the moon and said: ``That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.'' Your government, in its infinite wisdom, spent $700,000 to study that to determine whether Neil Armstrong said ``one small step for a man'' or ``one small step for man.'' After spending $700,000, your government concluded that they still don't know.

They spent $500,000 studying selfies. If you take a selfie of yourself and you smile, will you feel better later? They spent $2 million studying whether or not if you are standing in a food line at a buffet and the guy in front of you sneezes on the food, are you more or less likely to eat the food.

You can't make this stuff up. Yet the budget that we are being offered does nothing to fix any of that. It just puts a stamp down and says: We are going to keep doing things the same way we have always done them. Well, my friends I think we should do things differently.

I think a $20 trillion debt is alarming. I think it is the No. 1 problem we face as a country, and someone ought to do something about it. So I didn't have much luck saying: You know what, guys, we should produce a balanced budget.

So what we got is $9.7 trillion, and I can't support that. So I offer an alternative for people who believe that debt is a problem. They can vote for my alternative, and it still maintains the exact same language that the underlying budget has for repealing ObamaCare. You can do both. Why should it be an either/or? Why should it be that, well, we have to vote for a crummy budget, but that is the only way we can get to ObamaCare. Why don't we vote for a budget that balances? I thought that was what we were for.

I remember a time when Republicans talked about not only freezing spending, but some actually said we should reduce the size and scope of government. That is what Ronald Reagan said. Yet government grows inexorably. Over and over, year after year, government grows. We had Republicans in charge about 10 years ago. Remember? George W. Bush was President. We controlled, I think, both branches for at least one period of time, and yet the debt doubled under George W. Bush's administration from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. Under President Obama, it has gone from $10 trillion to $20 trillion. Now you have Republicans saying: Put us in charge. Put us in charge of the House. You did, in 2010. Put us in charge of the Senate. You did, in 2017. Put us in charge of all three branches, and we will make a conservative vision for the country. We will balance budgets. We will reduce spending. Yet this is an all-Republican Congress where only Republicans will vote on the budget today, and yet we will be voting on a budget that will add $9.7 trillion.

I am told by some: This really isn't a budget; we are going to call it the vehicle to repeal ObamaCare.

That is not what it is called. It is sitting right here. It is called the concurrent resolution on the budget for 2017--because, whoops, we didn't get to it last year, but we are getting to it this year.

This is the budget. It does have numbers in it, and I think the numbers in the budget are of significance. I think, when we look at the numbers, we should make them mean something. But people say to me: Well, numbers don't mean anything. Just vote for it so we can repeal ObamaCare. We have to repeal ObamaCare. So just vote for the numbers, no matter what they are.

I guess my response is this: If the numbers don't mean anything, why don't we put good numbers in there? If the budget is inconsequential and means absolutely nothing and only Republicans are going to vote for it, why don't we put numbers in it that lead to balance, because then we can go home to the people who voted for us and said they wanted us to balance the budget and wanted us to restrain ourselves and we can say we did what you told us to do. Instead, I have to go home and tell people that the Republicans introduced a budget that allows $9.7 trillion. I am told that we are going to do a better job, and 3 or 4 months from now we will do it again. I fear that in 3 or 4 months, when we come back, they will say: Well, you already voted for it once. Why don't you vote for it again? It is the same thing you voted for last time, and it is just a baseline. Well, the baseline is not flat. The baseline is increasing at 5 percent a year, and that is a problem.

We have to look at spending across the board. All of the spending has to be looked at. The great thing about what I offered as an alternative is that, whether you are a liberal or conservative, it doesn't define exactly where you have to have the cuts come from. It says what the overall number will be, and it will keep us from increasing spending. What you could do to get to a freeze is you could cut or eliminate some parts of the government, like maybe the $700,000 we spent studying Neil Armstrong's statement, which could be eliminated completely, and maybe the $30 billion we spend on corporate welfare in the Department of Commerce. Maybe that can be eliminated and not one poor person would go hungry. Maybe a couple of rich CEOs will have to fly in their own jet instead of flying in a taxpayer jet when they are flying around the world. You could eliminate the Department of Commerce and you could keep spending for other items. If you think the military is bloated, you can actually cut money in the military and spend it on other items in the budget.

The bottom line is, if you vote for this amendment, you will be voting for fiscal conservatism that says: Enough is enough. We have a $20 trillion debt. We are borrowing $1 million a minute, and enough is enough. If you are a fiscal conservative, if you are worried about the debt of the country, I hope you will support my amendment, which replaces the underlying budget with a Federal on-budget spending freeze and actually leads the budget into balance in the near future.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I propose the Senate vote for this budget because it leads to balance, it is fiscally conservative, it allows the Senate and the Congress to decide where money will be spent and where it will not be, it will eliminate waste, and--above all--will get us on the right track toward eliminating or at least staying the expansion of a $20 trillion debt. I think this is the biggest problem we face as a country.

As much as I think ObamaCare is a mistake, just ignoring the debt to get to ObamaCare is also a mistake.

For those who are or claim to be fiscally conservative, I ask that you will consider voting for a budget that actually balances and continues to have the underlying language in it that would also allow us to repeal ObamaCare.

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

Mr. President, the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. Republicans won the White House. Republicans control the Senate. Republicans control the House. What will the first order of business be for the new Republican majority? To pass a budget that never balances, to pass a budget that will add $9.7 trillion of new debt over 10 years.

Is that really what we campaigned on? Is that really what the Republican Party represents?

Our first order of business will be a budget that never balances, a budget that adds $9.7 trillion to the debt, and they tell us: Oh, but it is not a budget. If you listen, they will say: No, no, it is a vehicle to repeal ObamaCare.

Yet I have the title in front of me, which says a concurrent resolution for the budget of 2017. We have special rules when you pass the budget so that we may be able to repeal ObamaCare, and I am all for that. But why should we vote on a budget that doesn't represent our conservative view? Why would we vote on a budget that adds $9.7 trillion to the debt? Because we are in a hurry, we can't be bothered.

It is just numbers. I was told again and again: Swallow it. Take it. They are just numbers. Don't worry. It is not really a budget.

Yet the legislation says it is a budget. The numbers say we will add $9.7 trillion of new debt.

So I say: If they are only numbers, and if the numbers that are in the budget don't matter, why don't we put numbers in that balance? Why don't we put a vision into the budget that represents what Republicans say they are for?

Republicans say they are the conservative party. Are we? When George W. Bush was President for 8 years, the national debt went from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. The debt doubled under a Republican President and a partially Republican Congress. Yet the words were these: Well, he had Democrats to deal with, and if we could ever take all three branches of government, things would be different.

The Republicans took over the House in 2010. They still didn't control the

Senate, but they said: If we only controlled the Senate, we could be the conservative party again.

We have had an election. The conservative party--the supposedly conservative party--won. Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, and the first item of business for the Republicans will be to pass a budget that never balances--a budget that will add $9.7 trillion to the debt over 10 years.

This sign could have been put up for Obama's first budget. Every Republican railed and said: $10 trillion--President Obama will add $10 trillion. And he did. President Obama doubled the debt again.

It went from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. The national debt went from $5 trillion to $10 trillion under George W. Bush, and then it doubled again under President Obama. It went from $10 trillion to nearly $20 trillion.

What are we looking at here? More debt, under a solidly unified Republican Congress and a Republican President.

So you might scratch your head and say: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Is it all smoke and mirrors? Is there really a difference? Are Republicans different than Democrats? It is a pretty important question. We are in such a hurry to repeal ObamaCare. I am all for it. As a physician, nobody thinks that ObamaCare has been worse for the country. Nobody more than me thinks it is a terrible piece of legislation that has not helped the country and that has inflated our costs and not helped. Yet do we have to add nearly $10 trillion of debt in order to get at it?

So as this moves forward, I will offer a replacement. I will offer my own budget. I will offer to strike and remove $10 trillion worth of debt, and I will offer my own budget that balances within 5 years. How do we do it? We give the authority to make the cuts where they should be, where they are most wasteful in government, and we offer this budget by simply freezing expenditures. You don't have to cut any expenditures.

Every department of government could get what they got the last year. If you think some departments of government need more money, cut other departments of government. Frankly, there are some departments of government you could eliminate and you would never know they were gone. If the Department of Commerce were gone, a few corporate executives would not be able to fly around on government jets. They could fly around on their own jets. You would never know the whole entire Department of Commerce was gone.

You can cut spending. You can actually get to the balance by not cutting anything. So here is what happens. If you freeze the on-budget spending, within a little over 5 years, your budget balances.

I remember a time when there were the moderates who were for freezing spending, and the real conservatives were for cutting spending. Now nobody is for cutting spending. When I bring it up that you can absolutely not balance the budget if you are not willing to look at entitlements, do you know what I am told by many well-meaning Republicans? Don't write it down. Don't put it on paper because people will be upset with you if you explain that to save Social Security, to save Medicare, you will have to reform these entitlement programs. They say: Let's just talk about waste. Let's just talk about fraud and abuse. And I do, and we should eliminate all of those. But guess what. If you eliminate all of the budgetary spending that we vote on--this is called the discretionary spending. This would be the military and all the rest of the nonmilitary. It is about $1 trillion, not including the entitlements--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. If you did just the military and the nonmilitary and you reduced it 10 percent a year for 10 years, and you virtually wiped out all discretionary spending, you still don't balance the budget.

So, really, you are not a conservative if you are not willing to look at all government spending. The budget cannot be balanced and the budget will never balance unless we look at entitlements.

What does that mean? It means that because of demographics--we had big families 60 years ago, with three, four, five kids to a family. Now we have less than three kids to a family--probably two kids to a family. So you had all the baby boomers born right after World War II, and they are all retiring--60 million of them. So we have this huge population boom, and you don't have as many workers. So the demographics aren't working. Then you add to that the fact that we are living longer.

When Social Security was started, the average life expectancy was 65. It worked pretty well as a pension plan because you died. But now it is great. We are living on average to 80, and if you make 80, you may well make 90. What a great thing--longevity. But it is not working. Social Security is not working. We spend more on recipients than we bring in with the tax.

Medicare is even worse. The average taxpayer pays about $100,000 over their lifetime in Medicare taxes. The average recipient takes out $350,000. How big a problem is this? Medicare is $35 trillion to $40 trillion in the whole.

It is inexcusable that we are not talking about how we fix Medicare. It is inexcusable that we are not talking about how to fix Social Security. If we don't fix them, there is going to be a cliff. Within about a decade, the cliff is so severe that everyone on Social Security will suffer a 20-percent decline in their monthly check. It will happen all at once if we don't fix it. Can we fix it? Yes, we have to talk about it.

What we are doing today is kicking the can down the road. We have our focus on ObamaCare, but we are taking our focus off the debt. As bad a problem as ObamaCare is, as much as it has disturbed, destroyed, and distorted the health care market, it may be that the debt is a bigger problem.

So it is not a popular stand that I take today. I will be the only Republican to vote against the Republican budget. That won't be popular. But I ran for office. I left my medical practice. I am away from my family. I spend long hours traveling here because I am concerned about the debt.

We borrow $1 million a minute. The debt threatens the very foundation of our country. Yet here we are. The Republican Party controls the House, the Senate, and the White House, and in their haste, they put forward a budget that is going to add this much debt.

This is what the debt has been doing. Here is 1980. We see the growth. It has become exponential--the growth of the debt. This should worry every American. But here is the Republican 10-year budget that we are getting ready to pass. It is virtually a vertical line of accumulation of debt.

People will say: But how could we ever cut any spending? I will give you a couple of examples of where your government spends money and you tell me whether or not we ought to look long and hard at cutting spending.

There was a grant given for autism. I have a great deal of sympathy. I know children with autism. The grant was for $700,000. But do you know what they spent it on? They spent it on studying Neil Armstrong's statement. Remember Neil Armstrong? He landed on the moon and said: ``That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.''

Well, your government, in its infinite wisdom, wanted to know: Did he say ``one small step for man'' or ``one small step for a man''? Your government spent $700,000 studying the preposition ``a.'' Did he say ``a man'' or just ``man''--$700,000. Money that should have been spent on autism was spent on something frivolous.

Is anybody going to fix it? No. Every year, all of the spending bills are globbed together in a 2,000-page bill--and not one iota of reform.

My colleagues may remember that Senator Proxmire from the 1970s used to have something called the ``Golden Fleece Award.'' Every one of those things he complained about in the 1970s happens now but tenfold greater. Nobody fixes it. We don't pass individual spending bills. We do continuing resolutions, which means we continue doing the same thing we have done over and over.

Again, $700,000 was spent studying Neil Armstrong's statement. Do you know what their conclusion was? We are not sure. They spent $700,000, and they are still not sure whether he said ``a man'' or ``one small step for man.''

We spent $500,000 studying whether or not, when you take a selfie, if you are smiling in the selfie, does it ultimately make you feel better? We spent $500,000.

So what do we do? Do we give these people less money? Teach them a lesson. Give them less money, and maybe they will conserve the money. Maybe they will eliminate waste if they have less money next year than they had this year--or what I am proposing: Freeze the spending. Is anybody proposing that? No. We say: They spend a half a million dollars on selfies; give them more next year.

So the Republican budget will increase spending every year. It increases spending at about 5 percent a year. So spending goes up. They say it is the baseline, and they say we are cutting off the baseline. No, no. The baseline goes up 5 percent a year. Spending will increase over the 10-year period. The red line is spending.

Part of that is what the Republicans are proposing. They are going to stay on the spending curve. If we stay on the spending curve, they will continue to spend $700,000 studying Neil Armstrong's statement; they will continue to spend half a million dollars on selfies. They spent another half a million dollars on a climate change game. They spent $45 million to build a natural gas station in Afghanistan--$45 million. The first problem: Nobody in Afghanistan has a car that runs on natural gas. They discovered this after they built the gas station. The gas station was 86 times cost overrun. The original estimate was about half a million for the gas station, but lo and behold, somehow it cost $45 million. If your government had 86 times cost overrun, would you give them more money or give them less money? I, frankly, think we should give them less money. If you give them more money, they will not waste it less; they will waste it the same or worse. They should be given less money.

Mazar-e Sharif is a city in northern Afghanistan. We built an $85 million embassy there and we signed a 10-year lease, and then somebody looked at the place and decided that since there were tall buildings surrounding the entire entity, people would shoot down into the courtyard and kill our diplomats, and they said the building could never been occupied--after they spent 85 billion, after they signed a 10-year lease. How will they get better? Were the people who made this decision fired? No. They are Federal employees, and you never fire Federal employees. Will they make wiser decisions because we give them less money? No. We give them more money.

You would be excused for being upset if you went and voted and said ``I am going to vote for the conservative party'' and if you went and voted and said ``I am going to vote for the party that is going to balance a budget.'' Wouldn't you be upset? Wouldn't you wonder which party that is?

This is the spending curve. We are going to add $9.7 trillion in 10 years, and yet they say: Oh, no, this isn't really a budget.

I have it in front of me, though. It is a budget.

There is no reason why Republicans couldn't have put forward a budget that doesn't add all the red ink. We are at $20 trillion. We are going to nearly $30 trillion under the Republican plan. My goodness, what happened? Where is the conservative party? Where are the conservatives in Congress who would say enough is enough? Now they say: We just have to be done with this. Don't distract the little people. Don't let the people of the country know we are voting on a budget. We are going to call this the vehicle to repeal ObamaCare.

Well, that is not what it is. It is a budget. And we have special rules for dealing with the budget that allow us to repeal ObamaCare, which I am all for, but this is a budget.

They say: Well, how can we get the votes? No Democrats will vote for this budget. This is a Republican blueprint. Not one Democrat will vote for this.

So this is what Republicans are for. This is the blueprint the Republican Party says they are for--$10 trillion worth of new debt. I am not for it. That is not why I ran for office. That is not why I am here. That is not why I spend time away from my family and my medical practice. It is because debt is consuming our country. There is a time and a place to debate ObamaCare, and I am more than willing to debate that. But this is a budget. This is the vote on a budget.

They say: Oh, it is just a gimmick. It is just a game. The numbers don't mean anything.

Well, if the numbers don't mean anything, put honest numbers in there or put conservative numbers in there.

I, for one, will put forward a conservative opposition to the Republican majority's budget. I will put forward a budget that freezes spending and balances the budget over a 5-year period. Would there be some agencies that would get less money? Yes. But it would force us to go through the government and pick and choose what is good spending and what is not good spending.

We have a waste report that we put out. If you look on our Facebook, you can find our waste report. I listed four or five of the most egregious. There are hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of things we shouldn't be spending money on. I will give another example.

We have sold $100 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. They were wanting to spend money giving F-16s to Pakistan. You pay for them and give them to them.

There is riddled throughout the Pentagon--look, the Pentagon has never been audited. You are surprised? The government has never been audited. The Federal Reserve is not audited. The Pentagon is not audited. So what is the Pentagon's response to being audited? The Pentagon says to us: We are too big to be audited. I don't know about you, but that makes me kind of angry, that a part of our government, even a necessary part such as national defense, says they are too big to be audited. Meanwhile, we have $85 million embassies built that will never be occupied and $45 million gas stations that will never be used.

I think it is time that we say enough is enough. Don't give government more money; give them less. The government hasn't been a good steward of your money.

The question is often asked: Are the people who spend your money, are the people involved in government inherently stupid? It is kind of a debatable question. I think they are mostly well-intentioned. I don't think they are inherently stupid, but I do think they don't get the right incentives. Because there is no profit motive in government, because there is no rationale or motive to conserve, money is spent, and because of sheer laziness and ineptitude, we continue to pass the spending bills--glommed together, thousands of pages--without reform. But I won't be party to that. I won't vote for spending bills that are not individualized and don't have reforms in them. I won't vote for budgets that never balance.

So while I may be a lonely voice on this issue, I will continue to bring up to the American people that it is important not to add more debt, that it is important to slow down the accumulation of debt. It is important that we have a $20 trillion debt, and I am not willing to add $10 trillion more in debt. So at the appropriate time, I will introduce an amendment that will strike and replace this budget, and in its place I will put forward a conservative vision for the country--a vision of a balanced budget that balances within 5 years.

Every Republican in the Congress who has been here for a while has voted for a balanced budget amendment. Interestingly, the balanced budget amendment--which would be an amendment to the Constitution--has within it a provision that the budget would balance within 5 years. And even when Republicans get around to saying ``Oh, we will have some gimmicks to balance in 10,'' 10 is not what the amendment says. Why bother voting on an amendment if you are not serious about it?

Republicans are completely in charge. It is a Republican document; it is a document I disagree with; and at the appropriate time, I will be introducing a replacement that will balance within 5 years and provide a conservative view for the country.

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

Madam President, we have before us one of the most important duties of the Senate and the Congress; that is, to decide whether we will be involved in war. I think it is inexcusable that the debate over whether we involve the country in war--another country's civil war--that this would be debated as part of a spending bill and not as part of an independent free-standing bill.

It was debated as a free-standing bill yesterday in the House. There was a free-standing amendment.

It takes 15 extra minutes. One might wonder why the Senate--the most deliberative body of the world--does not have 15 minutes to debate separately a question of war. It will be thrown into an amendment or a bill over spending. Instead of having a debate over war, we will have a debate over spending. I think this is a sad day for the Senate. It goes against our history. It goes against the history of the country. Therefore, I have asked that the amendment that I will set before the Senate will separate the votes so we will have a debate over war and then we will have a debate over spending.

I have an amendment at the desk that would cue up the two separate votes on this legislation and allow the Senate to vote on the inclusion of the Syria language as a separate question.

I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to call up my amendment No. 3856.

Madam President, if there is a theme that connects the dots in the Middle East, it is that chaos breeds terrorism. What much of the foreign policy elite fail to grasp, though, is that intervention to topple secular dictators has been the prime source of the chaos. From Hussein to Assad to Qadhafi, it is the same history--intervention to topple the secular dictator. Chaos ensues and radical jihads emerge. The pattern has been repeated time and time again.

Yet what we have here is a failure to understand, a failure to reflect on the outcome of our involvement in Arab civil wars. They say nature abhors a vacuum. Radical jihadists have again and again filled the chaotic vacuum of the Middle East. Secular dictators, despots who, frankly, do terrorize their own people, are replaced by radical jihadists, who seek terror not only at home but abroad.

Intervention, when both choices are bad, is a mistake. Intervention, when both sides are evil, is a mistake. Intervention that destabilizes the Middle East is a mistake. Yet here we are again, wading into a civil war. I warned a year ago that involving us in Syria's civil war was a mistake, that the inescapable irony is that some day the arms we supply would be used against us or Israel. That day is now.

ISIS has grabbed up from the United States, from the Saudis, and from the Qataris weapons by the truckload. We are now forced to fight against our own weapons, and this body wants to throw more weapons into the mix. Even those of us who have been reluctant to get involved in Middle Eastern wars feel, now that American interests are threatened, that our consulate and our embassy are threatened. We feel that if ISIS is left to its own devices maybe they will fulfill what they have boasted of and attack our homeland.

So, yes, we must now defend ourselves from these barbarous jihadists. But let's not compound the problem by arming feckless rebels in Syria who seem to be merely a pit stop for weapons that are really on their way to ISIS. Remember clearly that the President and his Republican allies have been clamoring for over a year for airstrikes against Assad. Assad was our enemy last year. This year he is our friend. Had all of those air strikes, though, occurred last year in Syria, today ISIS might be in Damascus. Realize that the unintended consequences of involving ourselves in these complicated, thousand-year-long civil wars lead to unintended consequences. Had we bombed Assad last year, ISIS would be more of a threat this year. ISIS may well be in Damascus had we bombed Assad last year.

Had the hawks been successful last year, we would be facing a stronger ISIS, likely in charge of all Syria and most of Iraq.

Intervention is not always the answer and often leads to unintended consequences.

But some will argue no, no, it is not intervention that led to this chaos, we didn't have enough intervention. They say if we had only given the rebels more arms, ISIS wouldn't be as strong now. The only problem is the facts argue otherwise.

We did give arms and assistance to the rebels through secret CIA operations, through our allies, through our erstwhile allies. We gave 600 tons--let me repeat that--we gave 600 tons of weapons to the Syrian rebels in 2013 alone. We gave 600 tons of weapons and they cry out and say we haven't done enough?

Perhaps they are giving them to people who don't want to fight. Perhaps the fighters from ISIS are taking the weapons we give to the so-called moderate rebels. It is a mistake to send more arms to the Syrians.

According to the U.N. records, Turkey alone, in the space of a 4- month period, sent 47 tons in addition to the 600 tons of weapons. They sent 29 tons in 1 month. But there are rumors that the Turks are not quite that discriminating, that many of these weapons either went directly or indirectly to the very radical jihadists who are now threatening us.

If you want to know are there any weapons over there, are there enough weapons, is it a lack of weapons that causes the moderate Syrian rebels to be not very good at fighting, well, there are videos online of the Free Syrian Army, the army our government

wants to give more arms to. We see them with Mi-8 helicopters, we see them with shoulder-launched missiles, and yet we see them lose battle after battle.

We see American-made TOW anti-tank weapons in the hands of Harakat al-Hazm, a so-called moderate group. The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia has been providing weapons such as this to the rebels. It also detailed millions of dollars in direct U.S. aid to the rebels.

We have not been sitting around doing nothing. Six hundred tons of weapons have already been given to the Syrian rebels. What happened during the period of time we gave 600 tons of weapons to the moderate rebels in Syria? ISIS grew stronger.

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. We gave 600 tons of weapons to the rebels and they got weaker and weaker and ISIS grew stronger.

Perhaps by throwing all of these weapons into the civil war, we actually degraded Assad's ability to counter them. So perhaps Assad might well have taken care of the radical jihadists and he can't because of the weapons. Perhaps we have created a safe haven.

The other night the President said in his speech that it will be a policy of his administration to leave no safe haven for anyone who threatens America. It sounds good, except for the past 3 years we have been creating a safe haven for ISIS. ISIS has grown stronger because we have been arming the resistance that ISIS is part of.

A New York Times article reports that Qatar has used a shadowy arms network to move shoulder-fired missiles to the rebels. According to Gulf News, Saudi Arabia has also partnered with Pakistan to provide a Pakistan version of a Chinese shoulder-launched missile. It doesn't sound like a dearth of weapons, it sounds like an abundance of weapons.

Iraqi officials have accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of also funding and arming ISIS at the same time.

Kuwaitis--a Sunni majority country bordering Iraq--have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to a wide range of opposition forces throughout Iraq and Syria, according to the Brookings Institute.

According to the New York Times, over 1 year ago the CIA began training Syrian rebels in nearby Jordan, thousands of them, delivering arms and ammunition. Over this period of time, what has happened? ISIS has grown stronger. Perhaps sending more weapons into the Syrian civil war is not working.

The New York Times also reports huge arms and financial transfers from Qatar to the Syrian rebels beginning as early as 3 years ago. No one really knows where this is all going to end, where are these arms going to wind up.

Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center noted that the transfer of Qatari weapons to targeted troops has the same practical effect of transferring the weapons to al-Nusra, a violent jihadist group.

Let me repeat. Jane's defense analysts say that if you give the weapons to moderate--the so-called moderate rebels--it is the same as giving it to al-Nusra.

The New York Times further detailed that even Sudan has been sending anti-tank missiles and other arms to Syria. It is hard to argue there are not enough weapons floating around over there.

So the idea that these rebels haven't been armed is ludicrous. It is also ludicrous to believe that we know where all the money and all the arms and all the ammunition will wind up or who will benefit from these arms.

Why? Because we don't even know who these groups are, even if we think we do. The loyalty shifts on a daily basis. The groups have become amorphous with alleged moderates lining up side-by-side with jihadists, not to mention that, guess what, some of these people don't tell the truth.

Finally, moderates have been now found to sell their weapons. In fact, there are accusations by the family of Steve Sotloff--who was recently killed by the barbarians--that he was sold by the moderate rebels to the jihadists.

The Carnegie Endowment says there are no neat, clean, secular rebel groups. They don't exist. They reiterate that this is a very dirty war with no clear good guys on either side.

The German Ambassador to the United States has acknowledged this. The Germans are arming the Kurds. They are not sending anything into Syria. It is a mess, and they are concerned that the weapons they send into Syria will wind up in the wrong hands.

Many former officials are very forthright with their criticism. According to the former ambassador to Iraq and Syria, our ambassador says: We need to do everything we can to figure out who the non-ISIS opposition is because, frankly, we don't have a clue.

Think about this. We are voting or obscuring a vote in a spending bill to send $500 million worth of arms to Syria, to people who we say are the vetted moderate Syrian rebels. Guess what. One of the men with the most knowledge on the ground, who has been our ambassador to Syria, says we don't have a clue who the moderates are and who the jihadists are. And even if they tell you they are the moderates, they say: Oh, we love Thomas Jefferson. Give us a shoulder-fired missile. We love Thomas Jefferson.

Can you trust these people?

The rebels are all over the map. There are said to be 1,500 groups. It is chaos over there. We will be sending arms into chaos.

The largest coalition is the Free Syrian Army. I say largest coalition--really, all the Islamic fronts, al-Nusra, ISIS, Al Qaeda are all much bigger than the Free Syrian Army--but the biggest group that we give to is the Free Syrian Army, which currently has three different people who claim to lead the Free Syrian Army. We don't even know who is in charge of the Free Syrian Army. They voted out one guy, in another guy, and he didn't even know they were voting.

There are estimates that half of the Free Syrian Army has defected, many to al-Nusra, Al Qaeda, and to ISIS. These are the people your representatives are going to vote to send arms to. Half of them have defected. Half of them are now fighting with the jihadists. We have proven time and again that we don't know how to vet these leaders.

Two groups that were initially provided U.S. aid and help last year are good examples. A top official of Ahrar al-Sham, one of the largest rebel groups at the time, announced publicly that he now considers himself to be allied with Al Qaeda.

Just yesterday, our most recent ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, said the moderate forces have and will tactically ally with Al Qaeda, with Al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra.

Listen carefully. Your representatives are sending $500 billion to people who will tactically ally with Al Qaeda.

I asked Secretary Kerry: Where do you get the authority to wage this war?

He says: From 2001.

Some of the people fighting weren't born in 2001. Many of the people who voted in 2001 are no longer living.

We voted to go to war in Afghanistan--and I supported going into that war because we were attacked and we had to do something about it. But the thing is, that vote had nothing to do with this--absolutely nothing to do with this.

You are a dishonest person if you say otherwise. That sounds pretty mean-spirited. Hear it again. You are intellectually dishonest if you argue that something passed in 2001, to deal with the people who attacked us in 9/11, has anything to do with sending arms into Syria. It is intellectually dishonest--and to say otherwise, you are an intellectually dishonest person.

I said it yesterday: Mr. President, what you are doing is illegal and unconstitutional.

The response from Secretary Kerry was: We have article II authority to do whatever we want.

It is absolutely incorrect. We give power to the Commander in Chief to execute the war, but we were explicit that the wars were to be initiated by Congress.

There was debate over this. There were reports of Thomas Jefferson's opinion about how this was the legislative function. There were letters in the Federalist Papers from Madison talking how they precisely took this power from the Executive and gave it to the legislative body.

We hear: Oh, we will do something in December.

What happens between now and December? An election.

The people of this body are petrified, not of ISIS, but of the American voter. They are afraid to come forward and vote on war now. We should have a full-throated discussion of going to war, but we shouldn't put it off until December.

Secretary Kerry was asked: Will there be Sunni allies in this war on the ground, fighting to overturn ISIS? The ones, precisely--maybe who may have been funding it, which is Saudi Arabia--who should be the first troops in line, receiving the first volley, should not be U.S. GIs, they should be Saudi Arabians, Qataris, Kuwaitis, and Iraqis--but they should not be Americans.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, some of the people we have been supplying and some of the people we continue to supply arms to aren't so excited about Israel.

Surprise.

One of them remarked: Their goal is to topple Assad, but when they are done with Assad, their goal is to return all Syrian land occupied by Israel.

Mark my words. I said the great irony here would be that someday our dollars and our weapons would be used against us and Israel. They will.

We will be fighting--if we get over there with troops on the ground-- against arms that we supplied to feckless rebels, that were immediately snatched and taken by ISIS. We will be fighting our own weapons.

Mark my own words, if these people get a chance, they will attack Israel next.

These are among the many problems I have in arming the Syrian opposition. Who are we really arming? What would be the result? Where will the arms end?

There are too many here who believe the answers to these questions when all indicators are otherwise--or maybe even when it is unknowable--they continue to believe something that frankly is not provable and not true.

I am a skeptic of this administration's policies, but this is a bipartisan problem. This is not a Republican or a Democratic problem, this is a bipartisan problem.

I do share the administration's belief that the radical jihadists in this region are a threat to America, but they need to think through how we got here. Radical jihad has run amok in the Middle East because intervention has toppled secular dictators. There weren't radical jihadists doing much of anything in Libya until Gadhafi was gone. He kept them in check.

Was Gadhafi a great humanitarian? No. He was an awful despot. But his terror was on his own people, not the United States.

The people in charge--if we can say anybody is in charge in Libya-- their terror is to be exported. Some of them are fighting in Syria.

Where I differ with this administration is whether to arm the same side as the jihadists. We will be in a war on the same side as the jihadists. They said: Oh, no. We can make it a three-way war.

War is very confusing, but imagine: We will be in the middle of a three-way war where many analysts say when you are in the trenches with the so-called moderates that our money is going to buy arms for--when they are in the trenches, they are side by side with al-Nusra; they are side by side with Al Qaeda. Do we want our money and arms being sent to support troops that are fighting alongside Al Qaeda?

Here is the great irony. The use of force resolution they predicate this whole thing upon from 2001 says that we can fight terrorism. They have interpreted that to be Al Qaeda and associated forces. Guess what. The moderate rebels are fighting with Al Qaeda. We could use the 2001 use of force authorization, as Secretary Kerry understands it, to attack the same people we are giving the weapons to.

Think about the insanity of it. We are giving weapons to people fighting in trenches with Al Qaeda. If we interpret the use of force resolution as Secretary Kerry does, under that formulation we could attack the very people we are giving the weapons to. It is absurd. We shouldn't be fighting alongside jihadists.

This administration and its allies have really been on both sides of this civil war. It is messy; it is unclear. There are bad people on both sides. We need to stay the heck out of their civil war. I have opposed them for reasons that I think are becoming clear and I think the American people will understand. It is not that I am against all intervention. I do see ISIS as a problem. ISIS is now a threat to us. But I see our previous policy as having made it worse.

I supported the decision to go into Afghanistan after 9/11. There are valid reasons for war, but they should be few and far between. They should be very importantly debated and not shuffled into a 2,000-page bill and shoved under the rug.

When we go to war, it is the most important vote any Senator will ever take. Many on the other side have been better on this issue. When there was a Republican in office, there were loud voices on the other side. I see an empty Chamber.

There will be no voices against war because this is a Democratic President's war. The hypocrisy of that should resound in this nearly empty Chamber. Where are the voices on the other side who were so hard on George Bush who, by the way, actually did come to Congress? And we voted on an authorization of force. Agree or disagree, but we did the right thing. But now we are going to fight the war for 3 or 4 months, see how it is going, see how the election goes, and then we are going to come back and maybe we will talk about the use of authorization of force, maybe we will have amendments.

Colin Powell wrote in his autobiography:

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go

to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand

and support.

I think that is well thought out. I think he had it right. America should only go to war to win. We shouldn't go to war sort of meandering our way through a spending bill. War should only occur when America is attacked, when it is threatened or when our American interests are threatened or attacked.

I spent about a year--and I will probably spend a couple more years-- trying to explain to the American people why Secretary Clinton made terrible decisions in Benghazi not defending the consulate--not the night of, not the day after, not the talking points--the 6 months in advance when security was requested. This is one of the reasons it persuades me that, as reluctant as I am to be involved in Middle Eastern wars, we have to do something about it. We either have to leave Iraq or we have to protect our embassy and protect our consulate. I think there are valid reasons for being involved, and I think we are doing the right thing but just in the wrong way.

If we want to have less partisan sniping about war, if we want to unify the country, think back to December 8, 1941. FDR came before a joint session of Congress and he said, this day ``which will live in infamy,'' and he united the country. People who had previously been opposed to war came forward and said: We can't stand this attack. We will respond. We will be at war with Japan.

He didn't wait around for months. He didn't wait and say: Let's wait until the midterm elections, and then we will come back maybe in a lame-duck--if there is a lame-duck--and maybe we will discuss whether the Japanese should be responded to.

War is a serious business, but we make it less serious by making it political, hiding and tucking war around. By tucking war away into a spending bill we make it less serious. We don't unify the public. Then, as ISIS grows stronger or they are not quelled by sending arms to feckless allies in Syria, what happens? Then they come back again and again. There is already the drumbeat. There are already those in both parties who insist that we must have American GIs on the ground. I am not sending American soldiers--I am not sending your son, your daughter or mine--over to the middle of that chaos.

The people who live there need to stand up and fight. The Kurds are fighting. They seem to be the only people who are really capable of or willing to fight for their homeland. The Iraqis need to step up and fight. It is their country. If they are not going to fight for it, I don't think we need to be in the middle of their fight.

Am I willing to provide air support? Am I willing to provide intelligence and drones and everything we can to help them? Yes. We have been helping

them for 10 years. We have a lot invested. So I am not for giving up, but it is their war and they need to fight. And I expect the Saudis to fight, and the Qataris and the Kuwaitis.

Even our own State Department says there is no military solution here that is good for the Syrian people and that the best path forward is a political solution. Is someone going to ultimately surrender? Is one side going to wipe out the other?

Part of the solution here is that civilized Islam needs to crush radical Islam. Civilized Islam needs to say to radical Islam: This does not represent our religion. The beheading of civilians, the rape and killing of women does not represent Islam.

The voices aren't loud enough.

I want to see civilized Islam on the front page of the newspaper and international TV saying what they will do to wipe out radical Islam. I want to see them on the frontlines fighting. I don't want to see them sipping tea or in the discotheque in Cairo. I want to see them on the frontlines fighting a war to show the Americans and to show the world that there is a form of civilized Islam that doesn't believe in this barbarity.

The United States should not fight a war to save face. I won't vote to send our young men and women to sacrifice life and limb for a stalemate. I won't vote to send our Nation's best and brightest to fight for anything less than victory.

When American interests are at stake, it is incumbent upon those advocating for military action to convince Congress and the American people of that threat.

Too often the debate begins and ends with a conclusion. They say: Well, our national interest is at stake. That is the conclusion. The debate is: Is the national interest at stake? Is what we are going to do going to work? I would think we would debate for days and this Chamber would be full.

Before I came here, I imagined that when war was discussed, everybody would be at their desk and there would be a discussion for hours on end on whether we would go to war. Now it seems to be some sort of geopolitical chess game or checkers: Let's throw some money. What is $500 million? Which is yet another problem around here.

But when we go to war, the burden of proof lies with those who wish to engage in war. They must convince the American people and convince Congress. Instead of being on television, the President should have been before a joint session of Congress--and I would have voted to authorize force. But it needs to be done according to the Constitution.

Not only is it constitutional, but there is a pragmatic or a practical reason why the President should have come to us. It galvanizes people, it brings people together. Both sides vote for the war, and it is a war of the American people--not a war of one man. Until there is a vote--if there ever is one--this is one man's war.

Our Founding Fathers would be offended, would be appalled to know that one man can create a war. We were very fearful of that. We came from Europe with constant war, where brothers fought cousins and fathers fought sons, where everybody was related and they fought continuously. We didn't want a king. We wanted the people, through the Congress, to determine when we went to war.

This President was largely elected on that concept. I didn't vote for the President, but I did admire, when he ran first for office that he said no President should unilaterally take a country to war without the authority of Congress. That is what President Obama said. He was running against the wars of the previous administration. People voted for him for that very reason, but he became part of the problem. He now does everything that he criticized. It is what the American people despise about politics.

When they say we have a 10-percent approval rating--Republicans or Democrats--it is because of this hypocrisy, because we don't obey the law, because we don't engage in important debate, and because we stuff war and shuffle war into a spending bill.

Bashar al-Assad is clearly not an American ally. He is an evil dictator. But the question is: Will his ouster encourage stability or will it make the Middle East less stable? With his ouster, will that mean ISIS replaces him? What are the odds that the moderate rebels, who have lost every battle they have ever engaged in, will be the rulers in Damascus? If we succeed in degrading Assad where someone can get to him, we will have ISIS. We will have ISIS in charge of Syria. It will be worse. We have to ask: Are these Islamic rebels our allies?

I am reminded of the story of Sarkis Al-Zajim. He lived in a city called Maaloula, Syria. They speak Aramaic there. It is one of the few remaining villages in the Middle East where they speak the language that Jesus spoke.

As the marauding Islamic rebels came into town on the same side of the war--who knows who funded them or where they got the arms--but when the Islamic rebels came and marauded into town, Sarkis Al-Zajim stood up. He is a Christian. He lives and sides with Assad. Most of the Christians side with Assad. So Sarkis Al-Zajim lives in Maaloula, speaks Aramaic, stands up, and says: ``I am a Christian, and if you must kill me for this, I do not object to it!'' And these were his last words.

I don't know who these rebels were, but they are fighting on the same side that we are arming and we don't know who they are.

Our former Ambassador to Iraq and Syria says we have no clue who the non-ISIS rebels are. So for all we know, the rebels that killed Sarkis Al-Zajim could well be part of the so-called vetted opposition.

When they win, will they defend American interests? Will they recognize Israel? If we want to have a good question, why don't we ask the vetted moderate Syrians how many will recognize Israel. I am guessing it is going to be a big goose egg. There is not one of those jihadists--there is not one of those so-called moderate rebels that will recognize Israel. And if they win, they will attack Israel next. Several of the leaders have already said they would. Will they acknowledge Israel's right to exist? Will they impose Sharia law?

Sharia law has the death penalty for interfaith marriage, death penalty for conversion--apostasy--and death penalty for blasphemy.

In Pakistan right now--a country that billions of our dollars flow to, that the vast majority of the Senate loves and will send billions more of our dollars to if they can get it from us--in Pakistan, Asia Bibi sits on death row. She is a Christian. Do you know what her crime was? They say blasphemy. She went to drink from a well and the well was owned by Muslims. As she was drawing water from the well they began hurling insults. Then they began hurling stones. They were stoning her and beating her to death with sticks. The police came, and she said, thank God. They arrested her and put her in jail because the Muslims said that she was saying something about their religion. Heresy is life in prison, death. These are the countries we are sending money to.

The other side up here will argue: Well, we are only sending it to the moderates in Pakistan; otherwise, the radicals will take over. Well, the moderates are the ones with Asia Bibi on death row. I wouldn't send a penny to these people. Why would we send money to people who hate us? Maybe we should just have a rule: No money to countries that hate us.

Will these rebels, whom we are going to vote to give money to, tolerate Christians or will they pillage and destroy ancient villages such as Sarkis Al-Zajim's church and village?

The President and his administration haven't provided good answers because they don't exist. As the former Ambassador said: They don't have a clue.

Shooting first and aiming later has not worked for us in the past. The recent history of the Middle East has not been a good one. Our previous decisions have given results that should cause us to be quite wary of trying to do the same again.

I would like President Obama to reread the speeches of Candidate Obama. There is a great disagreement between the two, and Candidate Obama really seemed to be someone who was going to protect the right of Congress to declare war, but it hasn't been so.

Our Founding Fathers understood that the executive branch was the branch most prone to war, and so with due deliberation our Founding Fathers took the power to declare war and they gave it to Congress exclusively.

President Obama's new position as President, which differs from his position as candidate, is that he is fine to get some input when it is convenient for us--maybe after the election--but he is not really interested enough to say that it would bind him or that he would say we need attacks now and come to us tomorrow and ask for permission. He thinks ``maybe whenever it is convenient and you guys get around to it.''

Secretary Kerry stated explicitly that his understanding of the Constitution is that no congressional authorization is necessary. I say, why even bother coming back in December? They kind of like it. They like the show of it. They understand it might have some practical benefit. But it is theater and show. If you are going to commit war without permission, it is theater and show to ask for permission. The President said basically article II grants him the power to do whatever he wants. If so, why have a Congress? Why don't we just recess the whole thing? Oh, that is right, that is what we are getting ready to do. It is election season.

The President and his administration view this vote just as a courtesy but not as a requirement. Even if Congress votes against it, he said he would do it anyway. He already has authority; why would it stop him?

Article I, section 8, clause 11 gives Congress and Congress alone the power to declare war. If Congress does not approve this military action, the President must abide by the decision.

But it worries me. This President worries me, and it is not because of ObamaCare or Dodd-Frank or these horrific pieces of legislation. As I travel around the country, when people ask me ``What has the President done? What is the worst thing he has done?'' it is the usurpation of power, the idea that there is no separation of powers or that he is above that separation. If you want to tremble and worry about the future of our Republic, listen to the President when he says: Well, Congress won't act; therefore, I must. Think about the implications of that.

Democracy is messy. It is hard to get everybody to agree to something. But the interesting thing is that had he asked, had he come forward and done the honorable thing, we would have approved--I would have approved an authorization of force. It would have been overwhelming had he done the right thing, but he didn't come forward and ask. He didn't come forward and ask when he amended the Affordable Care Act. He didn't come forward and ask when he amended immigration law. And he is not coming forward to ask on the most important decision we face in our country; that is, a decision to go to war.

Our Founders understood this and debated this. This is not a new debate. Thomas Jefferson said the Constitution gave ``one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power to declare war from the Executive to the Legislative body.''

Madison wrote even more clearly:

The power to declare war, including the power of judging

the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the

legislature.

There was no debate. Our Founding Fathers were unanimous. This was our power. To do it when it is convenient after the election is to abdicate our responsibility and is to make a serious discussion a travesty.

There is no debate more significant than this, and we are going to stuff it in a bill. We are going to stuff it in a 2,000-page bill and not talk about it, not vote on it individually. Our leaders must be held accountable. If we don't, there will be no end to the war. The ridiculous and the absurd must be laid to rest. We have all heard it before.

Toppling Qadhafi led to a jihadist wonderland in Libya. Toppling Hussein led to chaos in Iraq with which we are still involved. Toppling Assad will lead to more chaos and greater danger to America from the jihadists.

The moss-covered, too-long-in-Washington crowd cannot help themselves: War, war, what we need is more war. But they never pay attention to the results of the last war. Their policies and the combination of feckless disinterest, fraudulent redlines, and selective combativeness have led us to this point.

Yes, we must confront ISIS, in part for penance for the President's role in their rise. But while we do so to protect our interests here and abroad, what we need is someone to shout: War, war, what are we fighting for?

Amidst the interventionists' disjointed and frankly incoherent rhetoric, amidst the gathering gloom that sees enemies behind every friend and friends behind every enemy, the only consistent theme is war. These barnacled enablers have never met a war they didn't like. They beat their chests in rhythmic ode to failed policies. Their drums beat to policies that display their outrage but fail to find a cure. Unintended consequences drown and smother the possibility of good intentions.

Must we act to check and destroy ISIS? Yes--and again yes--because of the foolishness of the interventionists. But let's not mistake what we must do. We shouldn't give a free pass to forever intervene in the civil wars of the Middle East. Intervention created this chaos. Intervention aided and abetted the rise of radical Islam. Intervention has made us less safe in Libya and in Syria and in Iraq.

To those who wish unlimited intervention and boots on the ground everywhere, remember the smiling poses of politicians pontificating about so-called freedom fighters and heroes in Libya, in Syria, and in Iraq, unaware that the so-called freedom fighters may well have been allied with kidnapers and killers and jihadists. Are these so-called moderate Islamic rebels in Syria friends or foes? Do we know who they really are?

As the interventionists clamor for boots on the ground, we should remember that they were wrong about Iraq, they were wrong about Libya, and they were wrong about Syria. When will we quit listening to the advocates who have been wrong about every foreign policy position of the last two decades? When does a track record of being consistently wrong stop you from being a so-called expert when the next crisis comes up? We should remember that they were wrong, that there were no WMDs, that Hussein, Qadhafi, and Assad were not a threat to us. It doesn't make them good, but they were not a threat to us. We should remember that radical Islam now roams the countryside in Libya and in Syria and in Iraq. We should remember that those who believe war is the answer for every problem are wrong. We should remember that the war against Hussein, the war against Qadhafi, and the war against Assad have all led to chaos. That intervention enhanced the rise of radical Islam and ultimately led to more danger for Americans.

Before we arm the so-called moderate Muslims in Syria, remember what I said a year ago: The ultimate irony you will not be able to overcome is that someday these weapons will be used to fight against Americans. If we are forced onto the ground, we will be fighting against those same weapons that I voted not to send a year ago.

We will fight ISIS, a war that I accept as necessary largely because our own arms and the arms of our allies--Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar-- have enabled our new enemy ISIS. Will we ever learn?

President Obama now wishes to bomb ISIS and arm the Islamic rebels' allies at the same time. We are on both sides of a civil war. The emperor has no clothes. Let's just admit it. The truth is sometimes painful.

We must protect ourselves from radical Islam, but we should never ever have armed radical Islam, and we should not continue to arm radical Islam. To those who will say, ``Oh, we are just giving to the moderates, not to the radicals,'' it is going and stopping temporarily with the moderates and then on to ISIS. That is what has been going on for a year. Somehow they predict that something different will occur. We have enabled the enemy we must now confront.

Sending arms to so-called moderate Islamic rebels in Syria is a fool's errand and will only make ISIS stronger. ISIS grew as the United States and her allies were arming the opposition. So, as we have sent 600 tons of weapons, ISIS has grown stronger. You are going to tell me that 600 tons of more weapons will defeat ISIS?

The barnacled purveyors of war should admit their mistakes and not compound them. ISIS is now a threat. Let's get on with destroying them. But make no mistake--arming Islamic rebels in Syria will only make it harder to destroy ISIS.

Thank you. I yield back my time.

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

Madam President, I rise to say that I think it is abhorrent and I think most American people would be greatly distressed to know that some of their money could be sent to terrorist organizations, that some of their money could be sent to Hamas.

Hamas has now joined a unity government with the Palestinian Authority. We give several hundred million dollars a year to the Palestinian Authority. I am appalled to think we could be somehow indirectly paying for missiles that Hamas is launching on Israel. I support the resolution that will shortly come forward condemning Hamas's activities.

I want more teeth in this. I would like to see legislation that says: You know what. If Hamas wants to come out of the cold, they want to recognize Israel and renounce terror, maybe. But if they are going to continue to say, as one of their leaders said recently, that our path is resistance and a rifle, our choice is jihad, if Hamas is going to continue to laugh and to cheer with glee with the killing of three teenage Israeli citizens, one of whom was an American citizen, Hamas should not--and we should guarantee that Hamas should not--get any of our money. So I will ask for unanimous consent to pass a bill to guarantee that Hamas will not receive any of our foreign aid.

I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 2265 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed,

the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table.

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

Mr. President, I don't believe that foreign aid should go to countries that persecute Christians. I also don't believe that foreign aid should go to countries that host terrorists within their government. I have had this belief for some time, but I have met with a great deal of resistance in the Senate.

Last week, in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I introduced an amendment which said that any country that persecutes Christians by law--Pakistan has a Christian woman

named Asia Bibi; she is on death row for the crime, some say, of blasphemy. Others say she never said a word. She is really on death row for being a Christian. She has been there for 5 years. I say Pakistan shouldn't get any American money and that no taxpayer money should go to countries that are persecuting Christians.

In the Sudan, another country that receives money from the American taxpayer, Meriam Ibrahim is on death row for the crime of changing religion. She married a man who is a Christian. She is now being detained. She tried to escape recently. She was redetained.

The only thing that is consistent about foreign aid is that it continues to flow, regardless of restriction, regardless of window dressing to say, Oh, if a country does this, we will take it back. It never happens. Our foreign aid, our hard-earned American tax dollars continue to flow to these countries, no matter what their behavior is.

So two weeks ago I came to the floor and I said, in Israel Hamas is now joining with the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is a terrorist group that does not recognize Israel and attacks Israel on a routine basis. Now that they will be part of a unity government, they will be receiving foreign aid from America. So I said, for goodness sakes, would we not want restrictions on this aid? Would we not want to say that our money shouldn't flow to Hamas?

They should have to recognize Israel's right to exist. They should have to renounce violence. On a daily basis they lob missiles from Gaza into Israel. Yet in the Foreign Relations Committee only one other Member had the guts to vote against this foreign aid, because foreign aid is so entrenched in our national psyche that it goes on regardless of the behavior.

Now, some will say: There are rules. If Hamas becomes a big part of this government, they won't get any money. Guess what. Hamas can read. They have read our legislation. They are purposely setting up their unity government to evade our restrictions.

There are already people who say the President has a waiver. So in my legislation, the Stand With Israel Act, we would get rid of the Presidential waiver and say that if Hamas joins a government with the Palestinian Authority, they should get no American taxpayer money. I said this two weeks ago. The Democrats said: No, President Obama doesn't want to give up the authority to continue sending money to these countries.

A week ago we had another disaster. In Israel three young teenagers were killed: Gilad Shaar, Eyal Yifrah, and Naftali Fraenkel, who was also an American citizen as well--killed in cold blood.

Do you know what the response of Hamas was? To stand up and cheer. In fact, I can give you the direct response of Hamas. Khaled Meshal, their political director, said: ``Blessed be the hands that capture them.'' They stood with glee and cheered when these three teenage boys were killed in cold blood. These were not soldiers, these were civilians.

The news reports are that Hamas has joined this unity government precisely because they are bankrupt. They want to get our money. That is why they are joining the unity government.

What is ours? Ours is the tepid ``oh, please don't behave that way.'' But we have no teeth. The same thing has happened in Egypt, the same thing in Pakistan, country after country. The only consistent is the money never stops and the behavior never changes.

Some will argue that foreign aid is a way to project American power. Well, if it is, we ought to be projecting American values. We should project what America stands for. We should not be saying: Here is some money. Do with it what you will.

So this has real teeth. This act is called the Stand with Israel Act. It says: No money to terrorists, no money to Hamas unless they are willing to give up the war and begin to find peaceful means of coexisting.

So this evening I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 2265 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I object.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I think it is important to remember that the vast majority of Americans are law- abiding Americans who reside either here or overseas and that they do have an expectation of privacy and they do have a right to privacy. Those who break the law should be punished, but we can't forget about the innocent Americans who are not breaking the law who do have a right to privacy.

We have had treaties such as this for decades, and I am not opposed to the treaties. There are beneficial aspects to the treaties. Past treaties have had a standard which said that one had to be committing tax fraud or that one had to be engaged in fraudulent activity, the same way every American here expects that the government is not going to look at a person's bank account unless they have gone to a judge with evidence that a person is cheating on their taxes. The government can't just look at everybody's information in the bank without probable cause. The previous standard was that there had to be some evidence presented that a person was cheating on their taxes. I think there should be some evidence presented.

The new standard is they can look at any of a person's records that may be relevant. This is a much lower standard, and I think it will be injurious to the vast majority, if not the overwhelming majority, of Americans who are actually innocent but just happen to be living abroad.

I would be willing to work with whoever is willing to work with me on this to get the treaties passed if we can keep the same standard we have had previously, which is a standard of fraud, not a standard that these may be relevant.

So for this reason, I object.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, let me make one point very clear. One Senator cannot prevent a vote in this body. The vote can occur at any point in time. One Senator can prevent sort of expedited passage without extensive debate.

One of the things our Founding Fathers did with this body, by allowing filibuster and by allowing procedural ways to slow things down, was to allow Senators who are in the minority to try to influence legislation.

I am open to a discussion on the language of this treaty, and I am open to a discussion on how we would have the standard promulgated. But I am very aware that when people talk about the criminal aspect of people they want to punish--I am in favor of that as well--you have to be aware that the vast majority of Americans who reside overseas are not criminals, are not tax cheats, and are law-abiding citizens.

So I do not think we should agree to a standard that is less than our normal standard here in the country. I also do not think we should agree to a standard that might allow bulk collection of data on everyone who lives overseas. Realize that this can be putting us beholden to other countries as well, accessing records of their citizens who are here as well.

So I think we have to be very careful about lessening the standard, and it is very much worth a debate. Therefore, I object.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, as you know, I have been a critic of these treaties for some time. This discussion has gone on for quite a while. I disagree with many of the implications of where these treaties would take us. But I realize there are some beneficial aspects of the treaties.

But because of the critical invasion of privacy that these treaties would allow, I cannot support them. These treaties are an encroachment on our privacy and our constitutional right to privacy. Many of the previous treaties that we have had in the past focused on information specific to tax fraud.

I am not opposed to getting the information of those who have committed fraud or broken the law, but you must have an accusation, you must submit some proof.

We are going to have bulk collection of records without suspicion.

As previously stated in the previous treaties, the information that was exchanged in the past under the current treaties had to show that they were for preventing tax fraud. The new treaty, though, is going to change the standard from looking for tax fraud--which seems to be what everybody is talking about--to saying that we will look for financial information that may be relevant.

What we are doing is taking the standard down to something ``may be relevant,'' which could be a dragnet for getting everyone's information. It will be a deterrent to foreign investors both in our country as well as in other countries. I think at the very least every American, whether at home or abroad, deserves the right to the fourth amendment protections guaranteed by the Constitution.

I want the record to be very clear. I certainly do not condone Americans who have not followed the letter of the law, but I can't support a law that endangers regular foreign investment and punishes every American regardless of whether there is suspicion that they have committed a crime.

While I want the important benefits included in the tax treaties to be ratified, I cannot support a treaty that would pave the way for a law that would permit the IRS to share information of customers at U.S. banks with foreign governments. Imagine, we will be conceivably sharing information about customers here with governments that may well not even be our friends. Also, I cannot support a treaty that may facilitate the bulk collection of private financial data for all U.S. citizens living abroad. For those reasons, I object.

I rise today in opposition to the killing of American citizens without trials. I rise today to oppose the nomination of anyone who would argue that the President has the power to kill an American citizen not involved in combat and without a trial.

I rise today to say that there is no legal precedent for killing American citizens not involved in combat, and that any nominee who rubber stamps and grants such power to a President is not worthy of being placed one step away from the Supreme Court.

It isn't about just seeing the Barron memos. Some seem to be placated by the fact that: Oh, they can read these memos.

I believe it is about what the memos themselves say. I believe the Barron memos, at their very core, disrespect the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights isn't so much for the American Idol winner, the Bill of Rights isn't so much for the prom queen or the high school football quarterback. The Bill of Rights is especially for the least popular among us. The Bill of Rights is especially for minorities, whether you are a minority by virtue of the color of your skin or the shade of your ideology. The Bill of Rights is especially for unpopular people, unpopular ideas, and unpopular religions.

It is easy to argue for trials for prom queens. It is easy to argue for trials for the high school quarterback or the American Idol winner. It is hard to argue for trials for traitors and for people who would wish to harm our fellow Americans. But a mature freedom defends the defenseless, allows trials for the guilty, and protects even speech of the most despicable nature.

After 9/11, we all recoiled in horror at the massacre of thousands of innocent Americans. We fought a war to tell other countries we would not put up with this and we would not allow this to happen again.

As our soldiers began to return from Afghanistan, I asked them to explain in their own words what they had fought for. To a soldier, they would tell me they fought for the American way. They fought to defend the Constitution, and they fought for our Bill of Rights.

It is a disservice to their sacrifice not to have an open and full- throated public debate about whether an American citizen should get a trial before they are killed.

Let me be perfectly clear. I am not referring to anybody involved in a battlefield, anybody shooting against our soldiers. Anybody involved in combat gets no due process.

What we are talking about is the extraordinary concept of killing American citizens who are overseas but not involved in combat. It doesn't mean that they are not potentially--and probably are--bad people, but we are talking about doing it with no accusation, no trial, no charge, and no jury. The nomination before us is about killing Americans not involved in combat.

The nominee, David Barron, has written a defense of executions of American citizens not involved in combat. Make no mistake, these memos do not limit drone executions to one man. These memos become historic precedent for killing Americans abroad.

Some have argued that releasing these memos is sufficient for his nomination. This is not a debate about transparency. This is a debate about whether or not American citizens not involved in combat are guaranteed due process.

Realize that during the Bush years, most of President Obama's party-- including the President himself--argued against the detention--not the killing--of American citizens without a trial. Yet now the President and the vast majority of his party will vote for a nominee who advocates the killing of American citizens without trial. How far have we come? How far have we gone? We were once talking about detaining American citizens and objecting that they would get no accusation and no trial. Now we are condoning killing American citizens without a trial.

During President Obama's first election, he told the Boston Globe:

No. I reject the Bush administration's claim that the

President has plenary authority under the Constitution to

detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful combatants.

As President, not only has he signed legislation to detain American citizens without trial, but he has now approved of killing American citizens without a trial. Where has candidate Obama gone?

President Obama now puts forward David Barron, whose memos justify killing Americans without a trial. I can't tell you what he wrote in the memos; the President forbids it. I can tell you what Barron did not write. He did not write or cite any legal case to justify killing an American without a trial because no such legal precedent exists. It has never been adjudicated. No court has ever looked at this. There has been no public debate because it has been held secret from the American people.

Barron creates out of whole cloth a defense for executing American citizens without trial. The cases he cites--which I am forbidden from talking about, which I am forbidden from citing today--are unrelated to the issues of killing American citizens because no such cases have ever occurred. We have never debated this in public. We are going to allow this to be decided by one branch of government in secret.

Yet the argument against the Barron memo, the argument against what Barron proposes should be no secret and should be obvious to anyone who looks at this issue. No court has ever decided such a case. So Barron's secret defense of drone executions relies on cases which, upon critical analysis, have no pertinence to the case at hand.

Am I the only one who thinks that something so unprecedented as an assassination of an American citizen should not be discussed, that we should discuss this in the light of day. Am I the only one who thinks that a question of such magnitude should be decided in the open by the Supreme Court?

Barron's arguments for the extrajudicial killing of American citizens challenges over 1,000 years of jurisprudence. Trials based on the presumption of innocence are an ancient

rite. The Romans wrote that the burden of proof is on he who declares, he who asserts that you are guilty, not on he who denies. The burden is on the government.

We describe this principle as the principle of being considered innocent until guilty. This is a profound concept. This is not something we should quietly acquiesce to having it run roughshod on or diluted and eventually destroyed.

In many nations the presumption of innocence is a legal right to the accused, even in the trial. In America we go one step further to protect the accused. We place the burden of proof on the prosecution. We require the government to collect and present enough compelling evidence to a jury--not to one person who works for the President, not to a bunch of people in secret, but to a public jury. The evidence must be presented.

But then we go even further to protect the possibility of innocence. We require that the accused be guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If reasonable doubt remains, the accused is to be acquitted.

We set a very high bar for conviction and an extremely high bar for execution, and even doing all of the most appropriate things, we still sometimes have done it wrong and have executed people after jury trials mistakenly, erroneously. But now we are talking about not even having the protection of a trial. We are talking about only accusations.

Are we comfortable killing American citizens no matter how awful or heinous the crime they are accused of? Are we comfortable killing them based on accusations that no jury has reviewed?

Innocent until proven guilty--the concept--is tested. We are being tested. It is being tested when the consensus is that the accused is very likely guilty in this case. The traitor who was killed, in all likelihood, was guilty. The evidence appears to be overwhelming. Yet why can't we do the American thing--have a public trial, accuse them, and convict them in a court?

It is more difficult to believe in the concept of innocent until proven guilty when the accused is unpopular or hated. The principle of innocent until proven guilty is more difficult when the accused is charged with treason. The Bill of Rights is easy to defend when we like the speech or sympathize with the defendant. Defending the right of trial for people we fear or dislike is more difficult. It is extremely hard. But we have to defend the Bill of Rights or it will slip away from us.

It is easy to support a trial for someone who looks like you, for someone who has the same color skin, or for someone who has the same religion. It is easy. Presumption of innocence is, however, much harder when the citizen practices a minority religion, when the citizen resides in a foreign land or sympathizes with the enemy. Yet our history is replete with examples of heroes who defended the defenseless, who defended the unpopular, who sometimes defended the guilty.

We remember John Adams, when he defended the British soldiers--the ones who were guilty of the Boston massacre. We remember fondly people who defend the unpopular, even when they end up being declared guilty, because that is something we take pride in--our system. We remember his son John Quincy Adams when he defended the slaves who took over the Amistad. We remember fondly Henry Selden who defended the unpopular when he represented Susan B. Anthony, who voted illegally as a woman. We remember fondly Eugene Debs who defended himself when he was accused of being against the draft and against World War I and was given 10 years in prison.

We defend the unpopular. That is what the Bill of Rights is especially important for. We remember fondly Clarence Darrow who defended the unpopular in the Scopes monkey trial. We remember fondly Thurgood Marshall who defended the unpopular when he convinced the Supreme Court to strike down segregation.

Where would we be without these champions? Where would we be without applying the Bill of Rights to those we don't like, to those we don't associate with, to those who we actually think are guilty?

Where would the unpopular be without the protection of the Bill of Rights?

One can almost argue that the right to trial is more precious the more unpopular the defendant. We cannot and we should not abandon this cherished principle.

Critics will argue these are evil people who plot to kill Americans. I don't dispute that. My first instinct is, like most Americans, to recoil in horror and want immediate punishment for traitors. I can't stand the thought of Americans who consort with and advocate violence against Americans. I want to punish those Americans who are traitors. But I am also conscious of what these traitors have betrayed. These traitors are betraying a country that holds dear the precept that we are innocent until proven guilty. Aren't we, in a way, betraying our country's principles when we relinquish this right to a trial by jury?

The maxim that we are innocent until proven guilty is in some ways like our First Amendment which presumes that speech is okay. It is easy to protect complimentary speech. It is easy to protect speech you agree with. It is harder to protect speech you abhor. The First Amendment is not so much about protecting speech that is easily agreed to; it is about tolerating speech that is an abomination. Likewise, the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Sixth Amendments are not so much about protecting majorities of thought, religion or ethnicity. Due process is about protecting everyone, especially minorities.

Unpopular opinions change from generation to generation. While today it may be burqa-wearing Muslims, it has, at times, been yarmulke- wearing Jews. It has, at times, been African Americans. It has, at times, been Japanese Americans. It is not beyond belief that someday evangelical Christians could be a persecuted minority in our own country.

The process of determining guilt or innocence is an incredibly important one and a difficult one. Even with a jury, justice is not always easily discovered. One has only to watch the jurors deliberate in ``Twelve Angry Men'' to understand that finding justice, even with a jury, is not always straightforward. Today, virtually everyone sympathizes with Tom Robinson who was unfairly accused in ``To Kill a Mockingbird'' because the reader knows that Robinson is innocent, because the reader knows his accusation was based on race. It is a slam dunk. It is easy for all of us to believe that he should get a trial.

It is easy to object to vigilante justice when you know the accused is innocent. When the mob attempts an extrajudicial execution, we stand with Atticus Finch. We stand for the rule of law. But what of an American citizen who, by all appearances, is guilty; what of an American citizen who, by all appearances, is a traitor, who we all agree deserves punishment? Are we strong enough as a country to believe still that this person should get a trial?

Do we have the courage to denounce drone executions as nothing more than sophisticated vigilantism? How can it be anything but vigilantism? Due process can't exist in secret. Checks and balances can't exist in one branch of government. Whether it be upon advice of 1 lawyer or 10,000 lawyers, if they all work for one man--the President--how can it be anything but a verdict outside the law--a verdict that could conceivably be subject to the emotions of prejudice and fear; a verdict that could be wrong? This President, above all other Presidents, should fear allowing so much power to gravitate to one man.

It is admittedly hard to defend the right to a trial for an American citizen who becomes a traitor and appears to aid and abet the enemy, but we must. If we cannot defend the right to trial for the most heinous crimes, then where will the slippery slope lead us? The greatness of American jurisprudence is that everyone gets his or her day in court, no matter how despicable the crime they are accused of.

Critics say: How would we try these Americans? They are overseas. They won't come home. The Constitution holds the answer. They should be tried for treason. If they refuse to come home, they should be tried in absentia. They should be given the right to a legal defense. It should be provided. There should be an independent legal

defense that does not work for the government. If they are found guilty, the method of punishment is not the issue. The issue is, and always has been, the right to a trial, the presumption of innocence, and the guarantee of due process to everyone.

For these reasons I cannot support the nomination of David Barron. Even if the administration releases a dozen Barron memos, I cannot support Barron. The debate is not about partisan politics. I have supported many of the President's nominees. The debate is not about transparency. It is about the substance of the memos. I cannot and will not support the lifetime appointment of someone who believes it is OK to kill an American citizen not involved in combat without a trial.

Some will argue and say: The President, yesterday, has now changed his mind. He is going to release these memos to the public. Well, if that is true, why don't we wait on the vote and let the public read the memos? Why don't we have a full-throated debate over this? Why don't we actually see what the public thinks about the right to trial by jury? One would think that something we have had for over a thousand years deserves a bit of debate. Wouldn't you think we would at least take the time? Realize, this is not the position of the administration, this is the position of the administration now that it is relenting to the verdict of the Second Circuit Court. They are releasing this memo under duress. My guess is they are releasing this memo because they need a few more votes, and they will get a few more votes by releasing these memos to the public--or promising to release these memos. They will not be released--the memos justifying the killing of an American without a trial--will not be released before the vote takes place.

So the question is, Is this transparency good enough for you to cast aside the whole concept of presumption of innocence, the whole concept that an accusation is different than a conviction?

There has been much discussion of what due process is, and as we have looked at this debate there are some valid questions and some good writings on this. Conor Friedersdorf has written extensively on this, and he writes about the lawyer who enabled the extrajudicial killing of an American. He asks the question, Should the Constitution be entrusted to a man--and this is essentially what happens; the Constitution will be entrusted to an appellate court judge--should the Constitution be entrusted to a man who thinks Americans can be killed without due process?

The Fifth Amendment, Conor Friedersdorf says, is very clear. No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless upon the presentment or indictment of a grand jury. It doesn't say except or on presentment of an accusation by the executive branch without a trial. The Fifth Amendment actually says, ``Nor shall any person be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process.''

The question is, What is due process? One would think this would be pretty clear and there wouldn't be much dispute over due process. But listen to some of these descriptions. This is the description Glenn Greenwald writes about in describing both the Bush and the Obama administrations. He says:

The core of the distortion on the war on terror under both

Bush and Obama is the Orwellian practice of equating

government accusation of terrorism with proof of guilt.

Realize what we are talking about. There is a big difference between an accusation and a conviction. If we want to realize how important this is, there are Senators on the other side of the aisle who have called Senators on this side of the aisle terrorists on multiple occasions. Who are we potentially going after with these directives toward killing? People who are either senior operatives of Al-Qaeda--of which there are no membership cards, so that is somewhat open to debate--but we are also going after people who are associated with terrorism.

The definition of terrorism--since on some occasions we have been accused of terrorism by the other side--can be somewhat loose. The Bureau of Justice put out a memo describing some of the characteristics of people who might be terrorists--which might alarm you, if you are traveling overseas: people who are missing fingers, people who have stains on their clothing, people who have changed the color of their hair, people who have multiple weapons in their house, people who have more than 7 days worth of food in their house.

These are people you should be suspicious of, according to the government; these are people who might be terrorists; and these are people you should talk to and inform the government about these people.

If these are the definitions of someone who might be a terrorist, wouldn't we kind of want to have a lawyer before the accusation becomes a conviction?

When we talk about conviction, we talk about the conviction or the bar for conviction being beyond a reasonable doubt. One can pretty much think--you can be in a jury pool and pretty much think someone killed someone--you have a suspicion, you have an inclination they are probably guilty, but you are supposed to be so convinced that it is beyond a reasonable doubt. In these memos there is a different standard.

Realize what the standard is of the person whom we will now be appointing to a lifetime appointment--one step away from the Supreme Court. That standard is an assassination is justified when an informed high-level official of the U.S. Government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.

We are not talking here about beyond a reasonable doubt anymore. That standard is gone. We are talking about an informed, unnamed high-level official in secret deciding an imminent attack is going to occur.

The interesting thing about an imminent attack is we don't go much by the plain wording of what one would think would be imminent anymore. The memo expressly states it is inventing--this is also from Glenn Greenwald--the memo expressly states it is inventing a broader concept of innocence that is typically not used.

Specifically, the President's assassination power does not require that the United States have clear evidence that a specific attack will take place in the immediate future. So you wonder about a definition of ``imminence'' that no longer includes the word ``immediate.''

The ACLU's Jameel Jaffer, as quoted by Glenn Greenwald, explains that the memo redefines the word ``imminence'' in a way that deprives the word of its ordinary meaning.

When we talk about due process, it is important to understand where due process can occur. Due process has to occur in the open. It has to occur in an adversarial process. If you don't have a lawyer on your side who is your advocate, you can't have due process. Due process cannot occur in secret, but it also can't occur in one branch of government. This is a fundamental misconception of the President.

The President, with regard to either privacy in the fourth amendment or killing American citizens with regard to the fifth amendment, believes that if he has some lawyers review this process, that is due process. This is appalling because this has nothing to do with due process and can in no way be seen as due process.

Some have said: Well, this is a judicial opinion. Barron has written an opinion; he has justified the President's actions. People have also said with regard to the NSA spying case that 15 judges have approved it. Well, the majority of the judges were in secret in the FISA Court, and that is not due process.

But the memo written by David Barron as recounted by Glenn Greenwald is not a judicial opinion. It was not written by anyone independent of the President. On multiple occasions they have justified and the memo argues that due process can be decided by internal deliberations of the executive branch.

The comedian Stephen Colbert mocked this and presented:

Trial by jury, trial by fire, rock, paper scissors, who

cares? Due process just means that there is a process that

you do.

The current process is apparently, first the president

meets with his advisers and decides who he can kill. Then he

kills them.

It is actually called ``Terror Tuesday'' with flashcards

and powerpoint presentation.

Noah Feldman, a colleague of David Barron, writes:

. . . no precedent for the idea that due process could be

satisfied by some secret, internal process within the

executive branch.

So to those of my colleagues who will come on down here today and just stamp ``approval'' on someone who I believe disrespects the Bill of Rights, realize that other esteemed professors, other esteemed colleagues at Harvard disagree and that you cannot have due process by a secret internal process within the executive branch.

To those who say, oh, the memos are now not secret, are we going to be promised that from now on this is going to be a public debate and that there will be some form of due process? No. I suspect it will be done in secret by the executive branch because that is the new norm. You are voting for someone who has made this the historic precedent for how we will kill Americans overseas--in secret, by one branch of the administration, without representation based upon an accusation. We have gone from having to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to an accusation being enough for an execution. I am horrified that this is where we are.

To my colleagues, I would say that to make an honest judgment, you should look at this nomination as if it came from the opposite party. I can promise--and this would absolutely be my opinion, and this isn't the most popular opinion to take in the country--that I would oppose this nomination were it coming from a Republican President.

But what I would ask of my Democratic colleagues is to look deeply within their soul, to look deeply within their psyche and say: How would I vote if this were a Bush nominee? If this were a Bush nominee who had written legal opinions justifying torture in 2007, 2006, 2005, how would I have voted?

I think 90 percent would have voted against and would now vote against a Bush nominee.

This has become partisan and this body has become too partisan. There was a time when there were great believers in the Constitution in this body, and we have degenerated into a body of partisanship. There was a time when the filibuster actually could have stopped this nomination. There was a time when there would have been compromise. There was a time in this body when we would get people more toward the mainstream of legal thought because those on each extreme would be excluded from holding office.

The people who have argued so forcefully for majority vote, for not having the filibuster, are the ones who are responsible now for allowing this nomination to go forward. This nomination would not go forward were it not for the elimination of the filibuster.

Some say about the filibuster: Oh, that was obstructionism.

The filibuster was also in many cases about trying to prevent extremists from getting on the bench. We will now allow someone who has an extreme point of view, someone who has questioned whether guilt must be determined beyond a reasonable doubt, someone who now says that an accusation is enough for the death penalty. Now, that person may say: Only if you are overseas. Well, some consolation if you are a traveler.

What I would say is we need to think long and hard and examine this nomination objectively as if this were a nomination from a President of the opposite party. We need to ask ourselves: How precious is the concept of presumption of innocence? How precious are our Bill of Rights?

We need to examine--and it is hard when you know someone is guilty, when you have seen the evidence and you feel that this person deserves punishment. I sympathize with that and think that this person did deserve punishment. But I also sympathize so greatly with the concept of having a jury trial, so greatly that an accusation is different from a conviction, that I can't allow this to go forward without some objection. I hope this body will consider this and will reconsider this nomination.

At the appropriate time I will offer a unanimous consent request to delay the David Barron nomination until the public has had a chance to read his memo. I will return at an appropriate time, and we will offer that as a unanimous consent.

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

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