Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, there is a doctor in Pakistan by the name of Shakil Afridi. He has been identified as a doctor who helped us with information in order to get bin Laden. The Pakistan Government has now put him in prison for 33 years. I think this is an abomination. While we can't tell countries what they must do with their internal affairs, we certainly don't have to reward them with taxpayer money when they put someone in prison for attempting to help America.

My point and my message to Pakistan is that if they want to be an ally, they should act like it. Putting this man in prison for 33 years for helping America get bin Laden, which Pakistan was ostensibly supposed to be doing, is a real travesty of justice. Bin Laden lived for nearly a decade in Pakistan, in a city, living comfortably a mile or two from one of their military academies. We finally got him, but it doesn't appear as if we got him with much help from the Pakistani Government.

Now this doctor is in prison for 33 years. And how does President Obama respond? President Obama, this week, gave them $1 billion--an additional $1 billion. We are rewarding bad behavior with more of our money--money we don't even have. We have a $1 trillion deficit and we are giving them an extra $1 billion.

Yesterday he was supposed to have an appeal. Dr. Afridi, the doctor who helped us, was supposed to get a chance to help prove his innocence. His trial has been indefinitely delayed. We have requested from the Pakistani Embassy whether there is going to be a trial. We want to know the date, and has the date been set for his appeal. We have gotten no answer. We have requested this information from President Obama's administration, from his State Department. Will Dr. Afridi get a trial? When will his trial be? We have gotten no answer.

If we can't get an answer--if they are going to continue to hold this man--I see no reason to send taxpayer money to Pakistan. I have the votes and the ability to force a vote on this issue. My plan is to force a vote on this issue next week. The vote will be on ending all aid to Pakistan, ending the aid until this doctor is freed.

This is not something I take lightly. This doctor's life is now being threatened. The information minister from that particular province in Pakistan says they want him transferred because they receive death threats on a daily basis toward him. They are worried about other prisoners killing him. I would hate for the Obama administration to have on their conscience the fact that this doctor, who helped us get bin Laden, is killed in prison. I would hate to have on my conscience the death of an innocent man, if he were to be killed in prison, whose only crime was helping America. At the very least, the Pakistani Government ought to immediately get him into a safe prison in one of the larger cities outside the tribal regions.

We are concerned about Dr. Afridi's safety, we are concerned about imprisoning him for life for helping America, and we are also concerned about American taxpayers' money being taken from hard-working Americans and sent to a country that seems to disrespect us. I am all for cooperating with Pakistan. I hope they will continue to work with us. But we shouldn't have to buy our friends. We gave them an extra $1 billion. Yet they continue to disrespect us by holding this man in prison.

I am very concerned about Dr. Afridi's safety. I am concerned his appeal was not heard today and his trial was canceled. So next week, if we don't have answers on his trial, we will be here on the floor until I get a vote on whether we should continue sending money to Pakistan while they hold him. This is a very important issue for Americans, and I hope all across America people are going to call their Senators and say: You know what. I am not so sure we should send our hard-earned dollars to Pakistan when they treat us this way.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the question remains should taxpayers be forced to send money overseas to countries that disrespect us or, more precisely, should we borrow money from China to send it to countries that disrespect us. Should we borrow money from China to send to Pakistan? Should we borrow money from China to send to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt? Should we send good money after bad?

For a decade we searched for bin Laden. We spent hundreds of billions of dollars searching for him. Where did we find him? Not in the remote mountains; we found him living comfortably in a city in Pakistan. We found him living in the middle of the city not far from a military academy. We were helped in this search by a doctor, a brave doctor in Pakistan by the name of Dr. Shakil Afridi, who helped us find bin Laden, helped us with ultimately getting bin Laden. How was he rewarded for this heroism? Where is Dr. Shakil Afridi now? He has been imprisoned by the Pakistani Government for 33 years.

For 10 years we searched for bin Laden high and low throughout Afghanistan, throughout the world, throughout the mountains. We found him living comfortably in a city only miles from a military academy, and then the doctor who helped us Pakistan has now imprisoned for 33 years.

How did the President respond to this? How did President Obama's administration respond to the imprisoning of this doctor, the doctor who helped us get bin Laden? President Obama sent them another $1 billion last week. We already sent Pakistan $2 billion, and they disrespect us, so what did we do? We sent them another $1 billion. People around this town are bemoaning there is not enough money for our military. Yet we took $1 billion out of the Defense Department, an extra $1 billion, and sent it to Pakistan last week. Where is Dr. Afridi? In jail for 33 years.

I have obtained the signatures necessary to have a vote on this. The leadership does not want to allow a vote on this, but I will, one way or another, get a vote on ending aid to Pakistan if they continue to imprison this doctor. He has an appeal that will be heard this Thursday. If he is not successful in his appeal, if he is still imprisoned for life, we will have a vote in the Senate on ending all aid to Pakistan--not a small portion of their aid, every penny of their aid, including the $1 billion they got last week. We will attempt to stop all aid to Pakistan.

I ask any of the Senators to step forward if they think it is a good idea and tell the American people why they are sending their money to Pakistan. We have bridges crumbling, we have roads crumbling, we have schools crumbling, and we are sending money to Pakistan, which disrespected us. We spent billions, if not maybe trillions of dollars, on the wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan trying to get bin Laden and then the doctor who helps us is now in jail for 33 years.

Everywhere I go across our country--in my State in Kentucky we have two bridges that need to be replaced. We have one in the middle of one of our major cities that was closed down for 6 months last year for repairs. We don't have the money to repair our infrastructure. We are $1 trillion short of money, period. We are borrowing over $1 trillion a year. We now have a $16 trillion debt that equals our entire economy. Yet they are still sending taxpayer money to dictators overseas who disrespect us. Eighty percent of the public thinks this should come to an end. If we ask this question: Should we be sending this money overseas when we have difficulty and needs and wants at home, 80 percent of the public would say it should end. Yet when we force this body to vote, 80 percent of

your Representatives are for sending more aid overseas. They were all clamoring and clapping their hands last week when President Obama said he sent another $1 billion overseas--they all stand and clap.

I don't think the American taxpayer is clapping. I don't think the American taxpayer is happy we are $1 trillion in the hole and still sending this money overseas to countries that disrespect us.

What I say to Pakistan is if they want to be our ally, act like it. If they want to be our ally, respect us. If they want to be our ally, work with us on the war on terrorism. But if they want to be our ally, don't hold Dr. Afridi, don't hold political prisoners, don't hold people who are actually working with us to get bin Laden.

I will do everything in my power to get this vote. They don't want to have this vote. They like foreign aid over here. They all love sending taxpayer money overseas, but they don't want to vote on it so they have been blocking this vote and they will attempt to block my vote. I have the signatures necessary and you will see me on the floor next week.

If Dr. Afridi is still in jail next week, I will make them vote on this. It is the least taxpayers deserve. The taxpayers deserve to know why their Senators are voting to send their money overseas when we are $1 trillion in the hole. Why are their Senators voting to send trillions of dollars to Pakistan when they imprison the guy who helped us get bin Laden. It is unconscionable. It has to stop. The debt is a threat to taxpayers, our country, a threat to the Republic, and I will do everything I can to force a vote on this and then the American people can decide. They can decide whether they want to keep sending these people back to Washington who are sending their money overseas to people who have no respect for us.

I will do everything in my power to have this vote and we will record the Senate. Your representatives will be recorded on whether they want to continue sending your money to Pakistan while Pakistan imprisons this doctor who helped us get bin Laden.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, currently Congress has about a 10-percent approval rating. One of the reasons is that we don't even obey our own rules.

For goodness' sakes, this is a 600-page bill. I got it this morning. Not one Member of the Senate will read this bill before we vote on it. We are going to vote on this in the next 30 minutes. I, Senator Lee, and others will object to this. We will have a point of order that our own rule says it has to be posted online for 48 hours. It is 600 pages, and nobody will read it. No wonder our approval rating is 10 percent. Nobody knows what we are voting on. In fact, provisions were stuck in this bill last night that have nothing to do with any of these bills. They have been stuck in and we are just now discovering it. I passed two Senators in the hall who are trying to get something out of this bill that affects their States, which they found out about just minutes ago. Nobody would have known about it if they had not found out about it.

There are three bills in question here: transportation, student loans--on the student loan bill, originally we had loans at 6 percent, and it was somehow bringing in money to the Treasury. We were using that money to pay for ObamaCare. Now it is at 3 percent, and that money is gone. Where is the money to pay for ObamaCare? We have a shell game up here. We say one thing will pay for it, and now this will pay for it--the money disappears.

Now they are saying they are going to pay for this by taking money out of pensions. Raise your hand if you think it is a good idea to underfund pensions more. Over half of the pensions in this country are technically insolvent because they don't have enough money to pay for them. Is it a good idea to have less money go into workers' pensions to pay for a student loan program?

I have a bill in Congress that says we should read the bill before we pass it. We should wait 1 day for each 20 pages, to be given time to read 600-page bills. At the very least, we ought to adhere to our own rules. They say it should be posted online at least 48 hours. Forty- eight hours is still a challenge to find out everything in here. Do you know how long the Federal Register is--55,000 pages, which is added to annually. When you read this, you have to refer to the Federal Register, which is hundreds of thousands of pages, to find out what they stuck in this bill in the dead of night. This isn't the way we should operate.

The American people want to know why do we say the government is not going to do something for 3 days. What were they doing the previous 3 months?

The other side hasn't produced a budget in 3 years. That is against the rules. The rules of the Senate say you must produce a budget, and they didn't do it for 3 years. When we presented them with a budget that we wrote for them, nobody voted for it, and zero on the other side voted for their own President's budget.

How are we going to compromise if they are not showing up for work? How are we going to get anything done if they don't obey their own rules?

I will raise a point of order in the next hour that says that we have broken the rules of the Senate, and I will ask them to vote on it. I fully expect that the Parliamentarian will rule in our favor. We will see. The other side will simply close their eyes to the rules, and they won't care what the Parliamentarian says, and they will overturn this by saying: We are the majority, and we deem it so. We are the majority, and we don't care what is in the bill or to take time to read the bill; we just deem it so.

I think this is why the American people are unhappy with what is going on here. I object strenuously. I will vote against this, and I will raise a point of order that says we should read the bill before we pass it.

Mr. President, I am not a big fan of foreign aid. We have a lot of problems in our country. I don't see how we can send billions of dollars overseas when we have bridges falling down in our country. Two bridges in my State were impassable. One was hit by a boat and has been impassable for 6 months. We have another bridge that is over 50 years old that was shut down for emergency repairs, and traffic stacked up for miles. Yet we send billions of dollars overseas when we don't have enough to fix our own bridges. It doesn't make any sense. We borrow $1 trillion a year from China to turn around and send it to some other country. It makes no sense.

I am not a big fan of sending our money overseas. But I am even less of a fan of sending our money to countries that don't seem to be our friends. Pakistan has worked with us on the war on terror. But recently Pakistan has chosen not to let any of our supplies--food and military supplies--traverse Pakistan. Recently, Pakistan has said we owe them $3 billion. We are giving them $2 billion a year, and they say we owe them $3 billion that is not included in that. Recently, Pakistan also said they want to charge us $5,000 per container of food that goes across their land.

For years bin Laden lived contentedly right in the middle of Pakistan underneath their noses. What is up with that? We are giving them $2 billion a year and bin Laden was twiddling his thumbs there and they are not letting our supplies go across and they are demanding a past payment of $3 billion for who knows what and we continue to pay them.

Recently, it has gotten even worse. Dr. Shakil Afridi is a doctor who helped us get bin Laden. Somehow his name was leaked. I don't know who leaked the name or if they were trying to puff themselves up and make themselves look as if they were strongly fighting terrorism, but by leaking Dr. Afridi's name, he is now in prison in Pakistan for 33 years.

Dr. Shakil Afridi is a Pakistani and they have put him in prison for 33 years. His life has been threatened. If he is released--which I hope he will be--his life has been threatened because his name is public. How did it become public? Somebody leaked his name. This is inexcusable. If this came from within our government, whoever leaked his name or this information should be held accountable. I mean put in prison in our country for leaking state secrets.

Dr. Afridi's name is now known in public, and he is being threatened, and his family is being threatened. Not only that, anybody around the world who wants to help us stop terrorism, who is willing to stand and help America, is now threatened. Do you think people are going to want to help us if they know their names will be printed in the New York Times? We have to have things that we don't divulge about people who are helping us. But Dr. Afridi is in prison for 33 years, and I am going to do what I can to free him.

We should not send Pakistan any more money. I say stop immediately. I am not saying take a small amount out next year; I say don't send them one more penny this year or next year. Don't send any of the $3 billion they want. We don't even have it to send to them. We have to borrow it from China. I would give them one chance. If they release Dr. Afridi, I would stand down.

My bill was blocked. I tried to have a vote on it last week, and the leadership said: No, you won't have that vote. But we have a process where if you get enough signatures from Senators, you can ask for a vote and get it. That is where we are now. I have enough signatures to have the vote.

I am going to be meeting with the Pakistani Ambassador, and meeting with President Obama's State Department, and what I will tell them is what I am telling you. This is not a secret. If Dr. Afridi is not successful with his appeal, which is coming up in the next 3 weeks, if he is not released and provided safe passage out of Pakistan, if he wishes, then I will have this vote. And I defy anyone in this body to stand here and vote to send U.S. taxpayer dollars to Pakistan when they are treating us this way. So we will have a vote in this body on ending all aid to Pakistan immediately if we don't get some results.

This doesn't mean I don't want to have diplomacy with Pakistan. Pakistan has been a friend over many years, and I see no reason to end that. Pakistan has many elements that are pro-Western and that want to engage in the world. I am all for that. But we shouldn't have to buy our friends. We shouldn't have to pay a ransom. We shouldn't have to lavish them with taxpayer dollars.

In fact, I think it encourages a disrespect when you give people so much money. Let's let them earn our respect. Let's work with them. Let's be friends with Pakistan. Let's have diplomatic ties to Pakistan. Let's try to help each other. Terrorism doesn't help Pakistan. They are threatened equally by it. I can list four Pakistani leaders who have been assassinated in the past 15 years. Why were they assassinated? Because of radical elements in their own country. So they should be with us in trying to stop extremism, on trying to stop this radicalism.

My words for the Senate today and for the American people are that I am watching out for your money. I realize we have needs here at home that must come first, but also that I will force a vote on this. I am not going to send any more of your money or try not to let the Senate send any more of your money to Pakistan unless they are willing to cooperate, unless they are willing to be friends with America, unless they are willing to release the man who helped us get bin Laden.

I will ask for a vote, it will come in the next few weeks, and I will keep everyone in America up to date on this.

I thank the Senate for allowing me this time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The question is, Is pollution getting better or worse? With all

the hysteria, one would think: My goodness. Pollution is getting so much worse. All measurements of pollution show we are doing a good job and much better than we have ever done. Most of the emissions--the big emissions, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide--have been going down for decades. We are doing a good job with pollution.

This rule is about mercury. Powerplants emit this much of the mercury, as shown on this chart. Do my colleagues know that over half the mercury comes from natural sources? Forest fires emit more mercury than powerplants do. We already have eight regulations at the Federal level on mercury. We have a plethora of regulations at the State level.

The question is, Is mercury getting worse or is mercury lessening? For the last 5 years, the amount of mercury that is being emitted has been cut in half. If we measure mercury in the blood of women and children, it is getting less. If we say: What is a safe level of mercury in the blood, we are below that. If we look at populations who eat nothing but fish, the Seychelles Islands, they have found zero evidence that mercury is hurting any of them. When we look at mercury emissions, they are going down.

So the question is, Are we going to have a balance in our country? Does the other side care whether people work? We can do everything possible to try to eliminate this last 1 percent, but the question is, At what cost? Many are estimating 50,000 people are going to lose their jobs. Do we care if people have a job? Yes. We want to be safe, but there has to be a balancing act.

The question we have to ask is: Is the environment cleaner or worse off? The environment is so much cleaner than it used to be. The rules in place are somewhat balanced and are keeping pollution under control. What we don't want to do is go so far over the top that we lose jobs. This new rule is estimated to lose 50,000 jobs.

I think the American people need to have a say in this. We don't need to give up that power to unelected bureaucrats we can't remove from office. Let's let our representatives get involved to have more of a balance in the regulations.

I suggest we vote in favor of this resolution.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2181.

Mr. President, this amendment will limit all payments or all farm subsidies to persons with an adjusted gross income of less than $250,000.

My friends across the aisle are commonly saying: Why don't those of means pay more or receive less? This amendment would do precisely that.

Nine percent of farmers earn more than $250,000 worth of adjusted gross income. This would limit their payments. Currently, 9 percent of the farmers--who are the well-off farmers--are receiving nearly a third of the benefits.

A good question for the Senate might be: What do Scottie Pippen, Larry Flynt, and David Rockefeller have in common? The answer would be: that besides being very rich, they have all gotten farm subsidies in the past. I think this should change and that the wealthy should not be receiving farm subsidies. This amendment would get rid of this.

I yield back the remainder of my time and encourage Senators to support this amendment.

Mr. President, our system of helping ensure that no one in our country goes hungry is a noble one. We are now asking to spend $750 billion on food stamps. When we ask this, we need to remember that recently a woman in Chicago faked the birth of triplets in order to receive $21,000 in food stamps. We need to remember that millionaires, including Larry Fick, who won $2 million, is still receiving food stamps because he says he has no income. He has $2 million but no income. Amanda Clayton won $1 million recently in the lottery and she was aghast she lost a third of it to taxes. She now has two homes and mortgage payments and doesn't know how can she make it without food stamps. So we are paying millionaires food stamps. Thirty percent of Polk County inmates are getting food stamps.

There has to be some reason. Should you be able to buy junk food on food stamps? Should you get to go to McDonald's on food stamps? This is out of control. It is not about helping those in need, it is about being wise with taxpayer dollars and not giving people $20,000 a year in food stamps. We need to give only to those who cannot work, those who are infirm, those who are diseased and are not able-bodied. But we are giving to millionaires, and we are paying for junk food and giving to those who go to McDonald's, and it has to stop.

This program has doubled in the last 10 years. We do not have an endless supply of money. I think Americans would be flabbergasted at the amount of money and that some of these programs are duplicative. People getting food stamps for a meal are also getting a free lunch at school. Some of these programs are actually advertising for applicants. In my hometown they advertise to try to promote people coming in and getting the free lunch during the summertime.

It is not that we won't help people, it is that we need to be conscious of how much money we have and that we help only those who cannot help themselves. I would ask for some reason. The food stamp program is exploding, and I recommend we vote for this amendment.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I am very concerned about Dr. Shakil Afridi. He is a doctor in Pakistan who got information that helped us and led to the capture of bin Laden. He is now being held in prison. He has been put in prison in Pakistan for 33 years. I don't think we should continue to send U.S. taxpayer money in the form of foreign aid to Pakistan when they are holding in prison a doctor who simply helped us to get bin Laden.

This issue is of the utmost urgency. His case will be heard for an appeal. It is a political case. It can be influenced by U.S. actions. I think the U.S. taxpayers should not send money to Pakistan when Pakistan is holding this innocent man who helped us get one of the world's most dangerous men, a mass murderer who killed 3,000 Americans. We captured him with help from Dr. Shakil Afridi, and Dr. Afridi deserves our help now.

I have an amendment that is very important. It is not germane. But that does not mean it is not important. It is very important that we send Pakistan a signal that we will not continue to send them a welfare check when they are holding in prison a political prisoner who helped us get bin Laden. This amendment is of the utmost urgency and would only require 15 minutes of the Senate's time. I am not asking for all day. I am asking for 15 minutes to vote on ending aid to Pakistan until they release Dr. Afridi.

I do not think this is too much to ask. The Senate has historically been a body that allowed debate, that allowed amendments, pertinent or not pertinent. This one is very important. Time

is of the essence for Dr. Afridi. It is the least we can do for someone who helped us to get bin Laden. I ask that we allow time for this amendment to occur. I object to the unanimous consent.

Mr. President, I think most Americans remember where they were on 9/11/2001. I was doing eye surgery in Bowling Green, KY. When I came out of surgery, I walked into the patient's room and on the television set were the planes crashing into the buildings. My first thought was horror. My second thought was concern for my father who was in Washington and is a Congressman and lives near the Pentagon. As I thought about this, it struck me as so bizarre and hard to believe. But I know exactly where I was and remember it vividly today.

I think Lucky Penny remembers where she was. Lucky Penny was one of the first female F 16 pilots. She was here in Washington at one of the bases, and she was asked to scramble her F 16. After the first two planes crashed, she was asked to intercept United Flight 93, which was coming in from Pennsylvania and thought to be headed toward the White House. She was asked to scramble a fighter jet with no armaments. They didn't have time to load the armaments and at that time we were not prepared and did not have jets already prearmed.

Her mission was to take down the plane however she could, which probably meant ramming her jet into the commercial airliner and bringing it down. Can you imagine being given this task? She took it upon herself and quickly scrambled her jet. The jet had to be scrambled in such a fast fashion that there were still things attached to it. People were trying to dismantle and pull out the gas hose and all the appendages to the plane as she was taxiing down the runway. I think she will never forget where she was on 9/11.

When SEAL Team 6 infiltrated bin Laden's compound, I think Americans were proud of SEAL Team 6 and proud of our military and proud of what they did to finally get this mass murderer. What happened in the weeks leading up to that attack and the attack on the compound by SEAL Team 6 was a doctor in Pakistan who helped us. His name is Dr. Shakil Afridi. He is about the same age as I, and I have a lot of sympathy for him and for his bravery. Doctors are not soldiers. We are taught to heal and to help, but he thought it was important enough and that bin Laden was a bad enough person that he would help America get bin Laden.

He set up a vaccination clinic, and they did DNA testing to try to prove that bin Laden was in the compound. He risked his life to get this mass murderer. As a consequence though, Pakistan has not treated him very well. The Pakistan Government has put him in prison for 33 years. I find it incredibly insulting that this is coming from an ostensible ally.

I find it troubling that this man who is a hero and should be praised and congratulated and rewarded has been sentenced to prison for 33 years. He has been in prison for the last year without trial and probably being tortured. He has lost a significant amount of weight and now he is told he will go to prison for the rest of his life for helping America to catch the mass murderer bin Laden.

What I find particularly troubling is that the United States continues to fund and give money to Pakistan. Over $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer money is sent to Pakistan. It troubles me that we are sending $1 billion to a country that imprisons the gentleman, the physician, who was brave enough to help us get bin Laden. It makes no sense.

Recently, a committee proposed reducing our foreign aid--the $1 billion--by $33 million. It is 3 percent. I think they will laugh at us and keep doing what they are doing. They only understand negotiation from strength. So what I am proposing, and what I will insist upon in the next few days, is a vote on ending aid to Pakistan unless they free Dr. Afridi. I think that is the very least they can do. I am also asking the U.S. Government to grant him emergency citizenship and to help his family get over here from Pakistan and to provide them safe passage. I think it is the least we can do.

We shouldn't reward bad behavior. That is what we have done with foreign aid for so many years. It is one thing to talk about aiding or assisting your allies, but it is another to aid and assist the people who persistently persecute their own people--people who continue with human rights abuses.

In Pakistan there is a woman named Asia Bibi. She has been accused of saying something about the prophet. She said she didn't do it. It is gossip. She is set to be executed in Pakistan.

I think Americans should be outraged that 1 billion of your taxpayer dollars is being sent to Pakistan, a country that is imprisoning the guy who helped us get bin Laden, that is imprisoning a Christian for saying she said some sort of religious blasphemy, and the accusation is basically gossip. I think we should be insulted, not to mention the fact that I don't think it works.

Look at the examples throughout the last 30, 40 years of the different dictators we have given money to. We gave over $60 billion to Mubarak, the military dictator of Egypt. He stole a lot of it. He was one of the richest men in the world. He had some of the largest palaces in the world. His kids were enriched also at our expense.

Look at Mobutu in Congo. He was given billions of dollars and entertained by American leaders. At one time he had seven of the largest palaces in the world, mansions in the United States, mansions in Paris that were all paid for with our money. What did his people have? His people didn't have running water or electricity. Even if we believe in the humanitarian nature of giving money to these countries, it is not going to them. We are making rich autocrats richer in Third World countries, and it is not going to the people of the country. It is stolen and skimmed off the top.

Look at Mugabe. Mugabe in Zimbabwe tortures his opposition, has confiscated land, has basically run his country into the ground, and we have given him billions of dollars. We can't buy better behavior and we shouldn't reward autocrats. Let's not reward folks who torture their people. For goodness' sake, we should not send $1 billion to Pakistan when they are imprisoning a hero who helped us get bin Laden.

My amendment will call for an immediate halt to all aid to Pakistan now. I am asking President Obama not to send one penny to Pakistan until Dr. Afridi is freed. I am asking that no more money goes there in the future until Dr. Afridi is freed. I think this is the least we can do. I plan on demanding a vote in the Senate, and I hope the American people will pay attention to how their representatives vote. They are voting to send money we don't even have. We are $1 trillion in debt. We borrow the money from China and send it to Pakistan. It makes no sense. Our infrastructure is crumbling. We have had two bridges collapse in Kentucky this year. We are struggling for money to pay for our own infrastructure, and we are sending $1 billion to a country that imprisons Christians for their beliefs.

It has to come to an end. It is going to come to an end one way or another. What I ask is that the Senate step up and support ending this money being sent to Pakistan and, at the very least, not send any more until Dr. Afridi is freed.

I thank the Chair.

I yield back my time and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to Benedikt Springer from Senator Merkley's staff.

My amendment is to rein in the FDA. I believe they have gotten overzealous in their duties. They do have important duties, but I think they have gotten overblown. My amendment has three parts.

First, it attempts to stop the FDA's overzealous regulation of vitamins, foods, and supplements by codifying the first amendment prohibition on prior restraint. What this means is the first amendment says we cannot restrain speech before it happens. This amendment also helps to make explicit that commercial speech is speech and should be protected.

Under current rules, the FDA prevents even the manufacturer of prune juice from saying that prune juice relieves constipation. I think that is an FDA that has gotten a little bit out of hand. I think that vitamin supplement manufacturers and distributors should be allowed to give us information and that the buyers should be allowed to review that information in making decisions about the product and that this speech should not be restricted.

Second, my amendment says the FDA doesn't need to be carrying weapons. I don't need to see bureaucrats carrying automatic weapons. If there are police officers necessary in the operation of their duties, I would rather have the FBI. The FDA does not need to be sending armed agents to the Amish farms to arrest a farmer for selling milk from the cow.

Third, my amendment fixes what needs to be fixed in a lot of regulatory crimes. We need to add in the component of mens rea. Mens rea means that when a person commits a crime and they put that person in jail, they have to prove that person had a guilty mind and had intent to commit a crime. So we add two words. If they are going to accuse a person of a crime, it has to be knowing and willful. These are very simple words, but they change the burden of the government. If the government is going to accuse a person of the crime, they need to know this. If Congress is going to criminalize conduct at a Federal level, as it does in the FDA Act, then the least we can do is add in the mens rea requirement.

Thank you. I urge support for my amendment.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment No. 2143.

Mr. President, I ask that the reading of the amendment be waived.

Mr. President, today I am offering an amendment to the FDA.

I am troubled by images of armed FDA agents raiding Amish farms and preventing them from selling milk directly from the cow. I think we have bigger problems in our country without sending armed FDA agents onto peaceful farmers' land and telling them they can't sell milk directly from the cow.

My amendment has three parts.

First, it attempts to stop the FDA's overzealous regulation of vitamins, food, and supplements by codifying the first amendment prohibition on prior restraint.

What do I mean by that? The first amendment says we can't prevent speech--even commercial speech--in advance of the speech. We can't tell Cheerios they can't say that there is a health benefit to their Cheerios.

Under our current FDA laws, the FDA says that if someone wants to market prune juice, they can't say it cures constipation. They can't make a health claim about a food supplement or about a vitamin. They can do it about a pharmaceutical, but they are not allowed to do it about a health supplement. I think this should change. There have been several court cases that show this goes against not only the spirit but the letter of the law of the first amendment. So this amendment would change that.

This amendment would stop the FDA from censoring claims about curative, mitigative, or preventive effects of dietary supplements. It would also stop the FDA from prohibiting distribution of scientific articles and publications regarding the role of nutrients in protecting against disease.

Despite four court orders condemning the practice as a violation of the first amendment, the FDA continues to suppress consumers' rights to be informed and to make informed choices by denying them this particular information. It is time for Congress to put an end to FDA censorship.

Second, my amendment would disarm the FDA. Now, some of you might be surprised the FDA is armed. Well, you shouldn't be. We have nearly 40 Federal agencies that are armed.

I am not against having police. I am not against the Army, the military, or the FBI. But I think bureaucrats don't need to be carrying weapons, and I think what we ought to do is if there is a need for an armed policeman to be there, the FBI--who are trained to do this-- should do it. But I don't think it is a good idea to be arming bureaucrats to go on the farms, with arms, to stop people from selling milk from a cow.

I think we have too many armed Federal agencies and that we need to put an end to this. Criminal law is increasingly used as a tool of our government bureaucracy to punish and control honest businessmen who are simply attempting to make a living. Historically, the criminal law was intended to punish only the most horrible offenses that everyone agreed were inherently wrong or evil--offenses like murder, rape, theft, arson. But now we have basically federalized thousands of activities and called them crimes.

If bureaucrats need to involve the police, let's have them use the FBI. But I see no reason to have the FDA carrying weapons.

Today, the criminal law is used to punish behavior such as even fishing without a permit, packaging a product incorrectly, or shipping something with an improper label. Simply said, the Federal Government has gone too far.

The plain language of our Constitution specifies a very few Federal crimes. In fact, the Constitution originally only had four Federal crimes, and now we have thousands of Federal crimes. We have moved beyond the original intent of the Constitution. We don't even know or have a complete list of all the Federal crimes. It is estimated there are over 4,000, but no one has an exact number.

Finally, my amendment will require adequate mens rea protection. In other words, when there is a crime, we are supposed to prove the intent. People have to have intended to harm someone. It can't be an honest mistake, where a business man or woman has broken a regulation and didn't intend to harm anyone. If we want to convict someone of a crime and put them in a jail, it should have a mens rea requirement. This is something we have had for hundreds of years that comes out of our common law tradition.

This amendment would fix this problem by strengthening the mens rea component of each of the prohibited acts in the FDA Act by including the words ``knowing'' and ``willful'' before we address and accuse someone of a crime. I think this would give protection to folks who are guilty of inadvertently breaking a regulation and would keep from overflowing our jails. We have plenty of violent criminals without putting people in for honest breaches of regulations.

If Congress is going to criminalize conduct at the Federal level, as it does with the FDA Act, then the least it can do is have an adequate mens rea requirement. My amendment will attempt to do this. It is not that we will not have rules at the Federal level, but the rules ought to be reasonable. We ought to allow people to market vitamins. There is no earthly reason why someone who markets prune juice can't advertise that it helps with constipation. We have gone too far. We have abrogated the first amendment. What we need to do is tell the FDA the courts have ruled that the first amendment does apply to commercial speech, and the FDA has been overstepping their bounds.

I hope this amendment will pass. I will ask for the yeas and nays at the appropriate time.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, we are currently borrowing $50,000 a second. We borrow $4 billion a day, and we are borrowing over $1 trillion every year.

The situation has gotten out of control, and I think the situation of our deficit and our country threatens our country. In fact, I think it is the No. 1 threat to our national security, and our security as a nation is this overwhelming burden of debt.

Many economists have said this burden of debt is actually causing us to lose 1 million jobs a year. It crowds out private investment because we have to take care of financing this enormous debt.

Amidst all of this, we have rules in place. There is a Budget Act that we have had in place since the 1970s that requires that this body put forward a budget. The problem is we have no budget and have had no budget for 3 years.

Now, one would say: How can this be when we have a law that says the majority party has to have a budget, and yet we have no budget? They are in defiance of the law. Then if you were to come to us and say you want money spent on X item, we can't even do anything about it because there are no appropriations bills. If we don't have a budget, we don't have appropriations bills, and we can't alter up or down the appropriations bills because we don't have a budget to go by.

In fact, every bit of spending we do here is in defiance of our own rules because we are supposed to compare the spending bills to the budget, and we have no budget.

Many of us have been promoting something new--this would be a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution--because we don't seem to be doing a very good job balancing the budget. When you have less money coming in, you spend less money. Every American family has to do this. Why can't Washington simply spend what comes in? It shouldn't be that complicated. But they aren't obeying their own rules, so I think we need stronger rules. That would be an amendment to the Constitution that says we must balance the budget.

We had a vote on it. Forty-seven of us on our side of the aisle voted for it, and no one on the other side voted for it. Our balanced budget amendment to the Constitution would require that the budget balance within 5 years. In that vein, our office has put together a budget that does balance in 5 years, and it actually, over a 10-year period, would reduce the deficit by $2 trillion. Ours is the only budget that will balance in 5 years and begin paying down the debt over 10 years.

Right now, Congress has an approval rating of 11 percent. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that we aren't doing our job. We aren't passing a budget, much less a balanced budget amendment. If people vote for our budget, we would balance in 5 years and begin paying down the debt. I think the stock market would be ecstatic to hear this.

How do you do this? In order to balance the budget, we have to tackle entitlement reform. Currently, Social Security is $6.2 trillion short of money. The taxes people pay into Social Security are less than what we pay out. Social Security is essentially insolvent.

You ask: Well, how come my check keeps coming?

Your check will always keep coming. As the bankruptcy grows deeper and deeper, your checks will come--they won't buy anything. You are already seeing this at the pump. Gasoline prices have doubled. Is it because gas is more precious? No. It is because the value of the dollar is shrinking. The value of the dollar is shrinking because we print all this new money to pay for this massive debt. It is unsustainable, and one way or another it is going to come to a head.

Will it come to a head through the destruction of our currency paying for this debt? I don't know, but we certainly need a budget. Ours will be a budget that balances in 5 years. People say: Why don't you compromise with the other side?

We will, but they have to have a budget. If ours balances in 5 years and the other side will promote one that balances in 10, compromise would be 7\1/2\. But if the other side doesn't have a budget or if the other side has a budget--the President put forward a budget, and we will vote on that too. His never balances. So we have infinity for their side, and we have 5 years on our side. How do we get halfway from infinity to 5 years?

If we are going to compromise, they have to come to the table. We have to engage in a debate. Entitlements are 65 percent of the budget. They call it mandatory spending, and nobody wants to do anything about it. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid is 65 percent of the budget. If we don't tackle entitlement reform, we can't fix it. We have a proposal on the table.

Social Security reform, we fix Social Security. The way we fix it is we gradually let the age of eligibility rise to 70 over about 20 years, and we means-test the benefits--not on the current people but on the next wave. My generation will have to wait longer. Why? Is it because we want to change things? No. It is because we are living longer. We all have a longer life expectancy, and then we had smaller families. This isn't anybody's fault. It is not the Democrats' fault and it is not the Republicans' fault. We just had a bunch of large families born after World War II. They are all retiring, and each subsequent generation had less children. It is a demographic fact. Combine that with the fact that we are living longer, and we have to make changes.

But we have a proposal on the table. We will fix Social Security. How do we compromise if the other side will not come up with a proposal?

Social Security is $6 trillion in the hole. Medicare is $35 to $40 trillion in the hole. We have a solution. We will give every senior citizen in the country the same health care plan I have. The same health care plan that every Senator and Congressman has, we are willing to give it to them. Do you know whose idea this was? Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts, a Democrat. We have taken his idea and put it forward, but we can't get anybody on that side to talk to us. They have given up. It is an election year. They are not going to do anything this year. They didn't do anything last year.

So we haven't done anything to fix entitlements. We have done nothing to

fix Social Security, nothing to fix Medicare. How do you compromise with a side that has no proposition, that won't put anything forward? But we have a 5-year plan that balances in 5 years, and we fix Social Security. We save Social Security in perpetuity--which, I laughingly say, is a long time.

We also fix Medicare. We save Medicare. Medicare is facing a $35 to $40 trillion deficit, and we are willing to save it. But the other side has to come to the table, and nobody is showing up to debate these issues. No one is proposing any budget on the other side. No one is proposing any entitlement reform.

In our budget we save Social Security, we save Medicare, and we go one step further. We have tax reform that would help the country and would make it fair.

Some on the other side say, well, let's get rid of all those loopholes for special interests. We do it. We do a flat tax: 17 percent for all businesses, 17 percent for all personal. You get to deduct your kids and your house, and that is it. No other deductions. No other special interest exemptions. No other special credits for any special business or special enterprise. A flat 17 percent for everybody. We would see a boom in this country like we have never seen if we would do it.

What would compromise be? Maybe the other side wants 25 percent, and I want 17 percent, and we go in the middle and we do 22 percent. That would be compromise. But how do we compromise with the other side when there is no budget? There is no entitlement reform proposed from the other side. There is no tax reform proposed from the other side. How do we compromise if there is no other side?

If the other side has decided not to show up this year--if this year is going to be a waste of time and everybody is going to just run for office, maybe we shouldn't be paid this year. Maybe you shouldn't pay your Congressman, maybe you shouldn't pay your Senator this year if we are not going to have proposals from both sides.

This means we should be talking about entitlement reform, talking about tax reform, talking about budgets, and there would be give-and- take.

The only way to get give-and-take in our country is people need to show up for the debate. We need to do our job. Why is there not a committee in Washington, not any committee--why is there not any committee meeting every day on how to fix Social Security? Nobody is talking about it. Why is there no committee discussing Medicare reform meeting every day, Republicans and Democrats, talking, figuring out a way out of this? There is no such committee.

Why is there not a committee on tax reform, discussing how we could make our Tax Code simpler and make it easier for people to figure out and make the rates lower so we could spur the economy? Every time we have lowered tax rates, unemployment is cut in half. When we had an upper rate of 90 percent and Kennedy lowered it to 70 percent, unemployment was cut in half. When Reagan lowered the top rate from 70 percent to 50 percent, unemployment was cut in half. When Reagan lowered it again from 50 to 28, unemployment was cut in half.

But we as a country have to decide that we do not want to punish rich people, that we do not want to go out and punish corporations. We work for these people. We want them to do better. The oil and gas industry employs 9.2 million people and pays $86 million a day in taxes. We want them to do better. Let's not punish them with more taxes and regulations. Let's make their taxes lower and their regulatory burden lower so they can drill for more oil in our country and employ more people in our country. These are the decisions we have to make as we go forward.

We have a budget that can balance in 5 years. It is what our country needs. I think people would react, and the marketplace in particular would react in a tremendous fashion if we would move forward and vote for a budget.

The Republicans will have four or five budgets presented. Some of them balance in 5, some of them balance in 8, some of them balance in 28. But we are at least trying. We are showing up and we are presenting budgets that would balance at some finite period of time. I tell people if it is never going to balance, it should not even be presented. If it is not going to balance in your lifetime--if you say it is going to balance in somebody else's lifetime when somebody else is going to be here in Congress--you have abdicated your responsibility. We can do better than this. The American people expect us to do better than this. The American people expect us to show up and do our job.

We will today vote on these budgets. What I ask of the American people is: Look and see how your Representatives vote. Look and see how your Senators vote. Look and see whether your Senators believe in balancing the budget or if they think it doesn't matter; we will just print up more money.

But realize if their answer is to print up more money, if their answer is deficits do not matter, if that is their answer, I want you to get mad and I want you to get angry and I want you to get even. Every time you go to the gas pump and pay $4 for gas I want you to know why gas prices are rising. Not because gas is more precious but because your dollar is less valuable, and that is because of the massive debt we run and the irresponsibility up here that nobody is willing to tackle it.

There are some on our side willing to make the tough decisions. Is it easy to stand here and say to the people in Kentucky and the people in America that the only way to save Social Security is letting the age of eligibility rise? Do you think that is popular? Do you think I am saying that to pander and try to get votes? I am saying that is because it is the only thing that is going to save Social Security, the only thing that will save our country, is we have to make difficult decisions. I think that is what needs to happen.

People need to say: Are you willing to make the tough decisions? Are you willing to stand up and say this is how we would fix Social Security; this is how we would save the system; this is how we would correct this deficit that is dragging us all down?

One side is willing to do that. I am willing to do that and I hope my fellow Senators will today consider voting to balance the budget.

I yield my time.

Madam President, like the previous three Republican budgets, this budget is silent on student interest rates. Anyone who asserts otherwise for good political theatre should know that it is untrue. This budget has nothing to do with student interest rates. I think we should have a debate on a little higher plane.

We are borrowing $50,000 a second. We are borrowing $4 billion a day, over $1 trillion a year. While America burns through a century of wealth, the President fiddles. The President's friends fuss and they produce no budget.

This budget balances in 5 years. It saves Social Security. It saves Medicare. It reforms and simplifies the Tax Code. I urge my colleagues to act now and vote for a budget that balances. Do something to save America from this looming debt crisis.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2101.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, first, we borrow billions of dollars from China, India, and Saudi Arabia. Then we loan it back to them again.

Republicans rightly complain that we are sending taxpayer money to the President's major donors at Solyndra and BrightSource. Now Republicans need to be consistent and say we are not going to send Ex- Im loans to even bigger companies that are even more profitable. If it is wrong for the government to choose winners and send our money to corporations, we should say it is wrong and we should vote against this.

Does anybody remember the President threatening to increase taxes on corporate jets? Ex-Im Banks are now going to increase the loans for corporate jets tenfold.

My amendment will stop this charade. My amendment will stop sending taxpayer dollars overseas to countries from whom we already are borrowing money. It makes no sense, and the time is now to stop it.

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

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

Mr. President, the ordinary middle-class family is struggling to get a home loan. Tens of thousands of homeowners have lost their homes or are struggling to make payments on their home loans.

Meanwhile, Congress steadily dishes out billions of dollars in taxpayer-subsidized loans to large profitable companies. Eighty percent of these export-import loans are given to companies that are in the Fortune 500. So we are giving taxpayer loans to very profitable companies.

I am a great believer in capitalism, in the jobs corporations create. I defend profit and the benefits that accrue from leaving that profit largely in the private sector. I am not one who clamors for punitive taxes. I am not someone who thinks we need to punish corporations. But at the same time, I do not want my colleagues to construe that to mean I believe we should be subsidizing profitable corporations. I don't think taxpayer-subsidized loans should go to profitable companies.

President Obama has been passing out loans to his campaign donors. He has been using a campaign trough that he has set up over at the Department of Energy. Very wealthy multimillionaires and billionaires are getting loans through the Department of Energy, including Solyndra and BrightSource. People heavily involved in the President's campaign have been getting subsidized loans.

Republicans have been rightly criticizing the President for these Department of Energy loans to Solyndra, BrightSource, and others. Republicans have been correct in criticizing the President for trying to pick the winners and losers in energy production. Yet now a majority of Republicans are poised to vote for their own set of subsidized export-import loans. In fact, they want to increase the export-import loans by nearly 50 percent and pick the winners and losers in the export business. The Horse traders may disdain consistency, but the American people value principled and consistent opposition to deficit spending. The American people know hypocrisy when they see it. The American people know corporate welfare when they see it.

The Export-Import Bank, in fact, provided an $18 million loan to a steel mill in China. Our steel industry has been in decline for decades and we loan $18 million to our competitors? Who in their right mind would subsidize our Chinese competitors with loans? It makes no sense. Can we think of anything more insulting than loaning money to our competitors? Come to think of it, I might. We actually give foreign aid to China. We actually send China economic development assistance. Is it any wonder Congress has an 11-percent approval rating?

Many Americans are trying to hang on to their homes, struggling to make the payments on their own home mortgage, while very profitable big business is being given subsidized loans by the government. It makes no sense. What gives?

To add insult to injury, we are borrowing money from the same countries we are lending the money to. So we borrow money from India because we

run a deficit of over $1 trillion a year--we borrow money from India-- and then we are sending it back to them in the form of taxpayer- subsidized loans. It makes no sense.

Ex-Im loans, such as the loans to Solyndra and BrightSource, are simply forms of crony capitalism. With trillion-dollar annual deficits, surely we can vote to end corporate welfare. If companies are making billions of dollars in profits, can we at least end the welfare we are sending to these corporations?

I urge a vote against reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank, and I hope my Republican colleagues will see the inconsistency of criticizing the President on one hand for his crony capitalism and then turning around and doing the same thing.

I support not reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, admitting it is corporate welfare, and trying to save the taxpayers some of their hard- earned money.

Thank you very much, I suggest the absence of a quorum.