Floor Statements

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment No. 199.

This amendment, No. 199, would save taxpayers $200 billion. Recently you have seen some discussion, but I think the American taxpayers are actually baffled that there is not more discussion up here.

We have proposals of a deficit from the other side of $1.65 trillion and yet we are not down here discussing this. We have not passed a budget. We have not passed any appropriations bills this year. The American people wonder what we are doing. You wonder why the American people say Congress has about a 13-percent approval rate? Why are we not today talking about a budget? Why are we not talking about appropriations bills? Why do they not come out of committee?

Then when we get to the proposals, look at the proposals. In the red we have the deficit, $1.5 trillion, maybe $1.6 trillion. Here we have the proposals. The other side, you cannot even see without a magnifying glass, $6 billion. We borrow $4 billion in 1 day. We spend $10 billion in 1 day. And the best they can do is $6 billion for a whole year.

Our proposal is a little bit better but still does not touch the problem, $61 billion in cuts. It sounds like a lot of money. You know what, we increased spending by $700 billion, and now we are going to nibble away at $61 billion. But put it in perspective. Saving $61 billion on $1.5 trillion means that either proposal, Republican or Democrat, is going to add trillions of dollars to the deficit.

I am proposing something a little more bold. I am proposing $200 billion in cuts. I think it is the very least we can do. Two hundred billion dollars in cuts can be gotten rather easily. The Government Accountability Office said there is $100 billion in waste, duplicate programs. Why do we not cut that? What are we doing?

If you look at the chart of what is going on here, and you say, what has happened to spending, the yellow line, around 2008 when we got the current administration, is going up exponentially. That is the spending that is going up. The spending is driving the deficit.

You look at the two lines over here. You cannot even see the difference. This is the Republican proposal to cut $61 billion in proposed increases. Spending is still going up. The deficit is going up. We need to do more. The danger is if we do nothing that we may well face a debt crisis in our country. We need to do more. My amendment will cut $200 billion in spending.

When I go home and I talk to the grassroots voters, they say, that is not even enough, we need more. But at the very least, let's have a significant cut in spending and do something to get the deficit under control before it is too late.

Mr. President, we are discussing and debating two different alternatives--one from the other side of the aisle and one from our side--about what we should do about the budget deficit. We have a projected $1.65 trillion deficit in the next year. I think both alternatives are inadequate and do not significantly alter or change our course.

On the Democrats' side, we have a proposal to cut about $5 billion to $6 billion for the rest of the year. To put that in perspective, we borrow $4 billion a day. So the other side is offering up cuts equal to one day's borrowing. I think it is insignificant, and it will not alter the coming and looming debt crisis we face. On our side of the aisle, we have done more. The cuts are more significant, but they also pale in comparison to the problem. If we were to adopt the President's approach, we would have a $1.65 trillion deficit in 1 year. If we adopt our approach, we are going to have a $1.55 trillion deficit in 1 year. Both approaches do not significantly alter or delay the crisis that is coming.

It is interesting, when we talk about cuts, everybody seems to be giddy around here, saying this is the first time we have talked about cuts. It is better and it sounds good, but, guess what. We are not even really cutting spending. What we are talking about is cutting the rate of increase of spending. The baseline of spending is going to go up at 7.3 percent, according to the CBO. We are talking about reducing that increase to a 6.7-percent increase. We are talking about cutting the rate of increase of government. The problem is, it is not enough. Our deficit is growing by leaps and bounds. Our national debt is $14 trillion. Our national debt is now equal to our entire economy. Our gross domestic product equals our national debt.

I think the President is tone-deaf on this issue. We had an election, and in the election the people said: We are concerned about out-of- control spending. We are concerned about massive deficits. We are concerned about passing this debt on to our kids and our grandkids.

The President recently proposed a 10-year budget, a 10-year plan for spending. He proposes that we spend $46 trillion. That means they are not getting it. Official Washington is not getting what the people are saying, and they are not getting how profound the problems are. Spending $46 trillion?

The President's plan will add $13 trillion to the debt. The Republicans say: Oh, ours is a lot better. Theirs will add $12 trillion to the debt. It is out of control, and neither plan will do anything to significantly alter things.

We are spending $10 billion a day. In order to reform things, in order to change things around, we will have to come to grips with the idea of what government should be doing. What are the constitutional functions of government? What were the enumerated powers of the Constitution? What powers did the Constitution give to the Federal Government? And then we examine what we are actually doing, what we are spending money on that is not constitutional or should not be done here or should be left to the States and the people respectively.

Once upon a time, our side believed education was a function of the States and localities. It is not mentioned in the Constitution that the Federal Government should have anything to do with education. Does it mean we are opposed to education? No. We just think it should be done at the State and local level.

Ronald Reagan was a champion of eliminating the Department of Education. It was part of the party platform for many years. Then we were in charge after 2000, and we doubled the size of the Department of Education.

If you are serious about balancing the budget, if you are serious about the debt, you have to look at taking departments, such as the Department of Education, and sending them back to the States and the localities. You have to look at programs that are growing by leaps and bounds, such as Medicaid and food stamps, cap them, block grant them, and send them back to the States. The States can manage these issues better. The closer they are to the people, the better managed they will be.

The other compromise that needs to occur--and this is something our side needs to compromise on--our side has blindly said that the military should get anything it wants and it is a blank check: What do you want? Here it is.

We have increased military spending by 120 percent since 2001. We have doubled military spending. I am for a strong national defense. I believe it is a constitutional function of the Federal Government to provide for our national defense. I think it is the preeminent enumerated power, the thing we should be doing. But that being said, we cannot every 8 years double the Defense Department, double the military spending.

It is also ultimately the compromise. Within the space of a few years, everyone here will come to an agreement, not because we want to but because we are forced to by the events and by the drama of the debt crisis. It will come. It has come to other nations. When it comes to us, the compromise that both sides of the aisle will have to work out, the other side of the aisle will have to admit that we cannot have enormous domestic spending, and our side of the aisle will have to admit that we cannot give a blank check to the military.

We will also have to look at entitlements. Everyone is afraid to say how we reform entitlements. But there are two inescapable facts with entitlements: We are living longer, and a lot of people born after World War II are getting ready to retire. These are inescapable demographic facts. We have to address them. If we simply do nothing, if we do not address the entitlements, within a decade, entitlements will account for the entire budget and interest. There will be no money left for anything.

Right now, the argument is about all these other programs. There will be no money left for any of these programs if we do nothing. It is going to take both sides of the aisle grappling with this issue and admitting the rules and eligibility will have to change for Social Security and likely for Medicare. If we do it now, we can do it gradually. If we start now, we can gradually let the age rise for Medicare and Social Security for those 55 and under. Young people have already acknowledged this is going to happen. Ask young people anywhere across America: Do you think you are going to have Social Security when you retire? Do you think you are going to get it at 67? Most young people acknowledge it is broken. It is broken so badly that the only way to fix it and continue is we have to look at eligibility. But so many people have said: Oh, we cannot talk about entitlements. You will be unelected. You will be unelectable if you talk about entitlement reform.

The President still makes this mistake. He will not lead us. He will not talk and give a leadership role to entitlement reform. Someone must do it. We must stand up and be bold because the longer these problems fester, the longer we allow them to accumulate, the bigger the problems become and the more dramatic the answers must be.

If we look at Greece and these other nations that have faced a debt crisis, their problem came to a head all of a sudden, and they changed the age on social security like that. If we want to do it gradually and let people plan for their future, we need to start now before we enter into a crisis.

My problem with the discussion and the debate at this point is that I do not think either side recognizes the enormity of the problem or the immensity of the problem. Even people who would be considered to be those of the mainstream--former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said there is a 50-percent chance there will be some kinds of monetary problems, significant monetary problems, even to the point of crisis, in the next few years. Many people have said Japan is locked in crisis. That crisis is coming because of the debt they have accumulated. When that comes to America, do we want to have government by crisis? Already we can't even pass a budget. We can't pass appropriations bills. Our bills do not even go to the committees anymore. They come to the floor and we put a patchwork quilt on them. There is a chance this winds up being 2 more weeks. We have government by 2-week edict. It is not the way to run government.

If you want to have a significant plan for changing things, send bills through the committee. If you want a realistic way of running government, have appropriations bills. If you want to be someone who believes in good, responsible government, for goodness' sake, pass a budget. We didn't pass a budget last year.

This chart shows how big the problem is. I wish I had a magnifying glass because that is the only way you could see the other side's proposal--$6 billion in cuts. It is 1 day's borrowing. It is not even 1 day's spending they are talking about. It is insignificant, it is inconsequential, and it will do nothing to delay or alter the looming debt crisis.

Look at the other proposal from our side. It is bigger. You can actually see it without a magnifying glass. But look how it is dwarfed by 1 year's problem. I recently proposed $500 billion in cuts. When I went home and spoke to the people of my State, spoke to the tea party people, they said $500 billion is not enough. They are right--$500 billion is one-third of 1 year's problem. Up here, that is way too bold, but it is not even enough.

We have to counterbalance and understand the alternatives.

If we do nothing, all the programs people are so fond of extolling and saying we need money for will be gone.

So I implore the American public and those here to look at the problem and to say to Congress: You are not doing enough. You must cut more.

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

Madam President, we had an election a few months ago. In that election, the American people sent a message, a message that they were concerned about the debt, concerned about our kids and our grandkids and how this debt is going to be handed down to future generations.

I am not only concerned about that, I am concerned about the imminent threat that this debt poses for our economy and for our people. We are spending about $10 billion a day. Of the $10 billion a day we are spending, we are borrowing about $4 billion.

How big is one billion? It is hard for most of us to fathom how big one billion is. One billion seconds ago I was in high school. One billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive. One billion hours ago, we were in the Stone Age. But $1 billion ago, at the rate the government spends it, was only a few minutes ago.

The government is spending money like there is no tomorrow. We had an election and we thought as voters we sent a message to this place. But it is not getting through. The President gave us a budget. His proposal for 10 years is to spend $46 trillion. How big is $1 trillion?

I mean, it is hard to fathom $1 billion, much less $1 trillion. One trillion dollars, it is hard to imagine. It boggles the mind. If we had thousand-dollar bills and I stacked them in my hand, a stack of thousand-dollar bills 4 inches high would be $1 million. But if I want to have $1 trillion in hundred-dollar bills, it would be 67 miles high.

Why do these numbers mean anything to us? Why does the deficit or the debt mean anything to us? Because it is stealing from our future. We have to do something about it. I think I agree with the Senator from Alabama, that it is a threat to our future, that we could have a crisis come upon us where we cannot manage our debt.

How do we pay for our debt? We can either tax people--most of us think we are already taxed enough already. We are not willing to pay more than 40 percent of our income for taxes. We can borrow. But we borrowed an enormous amount. We now owe the Chinese $800 billion, the Japanese $700 billion. The list goes on and on. We owe the Russians nearly $200 billion. We owe Mexico $20 billion. The list goes on and on.

Where we were once a great nation that exported goods to the world, our No. 1 export is our debt. But what happens when foreign countries quit buying our debt or when the interest we have to pay them exceeds what we are able to pay? Most of the estimates on what we will be paying or the President's estimates are saying we will have a 3\1/2\- percent interest rate. I remember 1979, though, when interest rates went to 21 percent.

If that happens, interest will consume the budget, and we will have very little left for anything else. As it is, the course we are on, if we do nothing, if we just keep spending the way we are spending, entitlements and interest consume the whole budget within a decade. That is with conservative estimates on interest. Imagine what happens if interest rates begin to rise such as they did in the 1970s, and some are predicting this can happen.

Recently, we have been hearing in the newspapers that some members on the other side of the aisle, members of their leadership, are saying: Well, this is all well and good, but those over here, we are mistaken that there is any problem with Social Security. They say Social Security is not adding anything to the debt. They say Social Security is not adding one penny to the debt.

I am pretty new here. But Washington math that says we are not adding to the debt with Social Security is flatly wrong. I have a couple charts with me. Over here is what we bring in, in Social Security taxes, payroll taxes, FICA taxes. Here is what we spend on Social Security recipients. This is what we bring in, this is what we spend.

We are now, for the first time, spending more than we take in. Well, the other side will tell us, they will say: Well, it is not so bad. We have interest payments that fill in the difference. They say Social Security is fine, has all these surpluses. If we go to the Social Security Office, we will find a stack of paper. These are Treasury bills. They are nonnegotiable. They cannot be traded to anyone. We own them, and we pay ourselves interest on the Social Security surplus.

How do we pay the interest? We borrow it from China. So to make up this difference, for them to say Social Security is on solid footing and that we are simply paying and spending the interest it brings in, it is a lie. The interest is paid by borrowing from China. We are borrowing nearly $2 trillion a year.

The Senator from Alabama showed us the statistics. Even though the deficit, official deficit, will be like $1.5 or $1.6 trillion, the debt limit, if we watch closely, in a month, will go up $2 trillion--all kinds of things they do not count, off-budget items, money they borrowed from places.

The truth is, we have to wake up and say our entitlements are unsound. Nobody wants to hear that. People say: You cannot be elected by saying that. Well, guess what. It is the truth. If we do not speak the truth to our problems, we will eventually and ultimately encounter a crisis in our country, and I am for averting that crisis.

I think the President has abdicated in his leadership. We have this enormous problem, and he is giving us $46 trillion worth of spending, annual deficits of $1 trillion that go to the end of time, and he has abdicated his duty. The entitlement system is broken. I did not break it. I am not responsible for the baby boom. We have all those people who were born after the war, and they are retiring.

It just happened. We have fewer workers. Once upon a time, we had over 50 workers for every retiree. It worked. Once upon a time, people lived with an average life expectancy of 65. Social Security worked in the beginning, worked for many years. We are now down to less than three workers for one retiree. It is not working. We have a huge number of people retiring.

It is nobody's fault. But what we want is leadership. Where is the leadership in Washington to say the entitlements are broken and we have to do something about it? It may not be popular, but can we not say someone should lead? The President is failing us and is not leading. We need leadership. How do we fix Social Security? Here is what happens if we do nothing. Look at the red ink. It piles on. This year alone, we will have to borrow $37 billion to pay for Social Security. It goes up to over $100 billion within a decade.

How do we fix Social Security? It is very simple. Everybody knows it, but everybody wants to be quiet. No one wants to say it. I will say it. The age for Social Security will have to gradually rise. I have said it. I have said it repeatedly. I do not want it, necessarily. I do not want to have to do the things we have to do. But someone has to stand and say it has to be done.

We can do it gradually. We can raise the age or allow the age to rise slowly for those 55 and under, and we can fix Social Security by doing that. That alone fixes at least half or more of the problem. We let it rise gradually on the younger people.

There is an alternative. If we stick our heads in the sand and say: Do nothing; we are not touching Social Security; we are not touching Medicare; we are afraid to lead; Wait and let the President lead someday, if we do that, the system is run into the ground. It is a problem.

What happened in Greece when they ran into a debt crisis? They changed the age of eligibility for their entitlements overnight. That is much more difficult. When you are 67 and all of a sudden someone tells you, you do not get it for another year, and you planned on it, that is very difficult.

But what if we say gradually, to those my age and younger, tell them they will have to make adjustments because we do not have enough money. You know what, I think young people already realize it. These young people here, if they are listening to this debate, they know Social Security is broken, Medicare is broken. It will not be there for them unless we fix it. So we need to be the responsible adults. We need to fix these problems and they can be.

Next week, I and a couple other Senators will present a fix for Social Security that fixes Social Security in perpetuity. That is a long time, forever. We will fix Social Security by allowing the age to rise gradually on younger people, and, by saying to those who will retire, the younger people, again, that they may not get as much out of it as some other people get. Basically, there will have to be some testing that says, when you are in a higher income bracket, your Social Security payments will not rise as rapidly as some others will.

It is the only way we fix it. But those two changes fix Social Security forever, if we are willing to do it. The question is, If we speak boldly, if we lead, is that a detriment or an asset? I, personally, think it is the right thing to do, but I also think it is an asset. I think the people will understand, when we lead, we have to make difficult choices.

We have been kicking the can down the road, borrowing and borrowing and borrowing. I think we are coming to a point in time where it has to end. It is going to end either voluntarily and gradually, if we can promote a solution, or it can end with a bang. A bang is a crisis. I do not want that to happen. I want it to happen gradually, in a very rational and reasonable manner. I think we can do it.

But I think what we are finding from the other side and from the President is a failure to lead. I propose that we have new leadership, and we are going to need new leadership if we are going to get this debt under control.

At the very least, we need to have this conversation. I am glad we are having it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in support of this legislation. I think this is a good first step to reining in an out-of-control, unelected bureaucracy. I think the EPA has gone way beyond its mandated duty and is now at the point of stifling industry in our country. We see this and hear this across the State of Kentucky, as well as across the country. The President doesn't seem to understand why the country thinks he is against business and against progress. One can't be for job creation if one is against the job creators.

As the minority leader indicated, we have nearly 100,000 jobs and hundreds of thousands of other jobs connected to coal. This really applies to the rest of the country as well. Over half of the electricity in our country comes from coal. Over 90 percent of the electricity in Kentucky comes from coal. Yet we have mining operations that went through the process, some of them taking up to 10 years. I think the mine in question went through a 10-year process, spent millions of dollars to try to get started to provide electricity for the rest of us. Yet then the EPA comes in at the last minute.

There is said to be nearly 200 permits out there languishing. I asked the question of my staff this morning: How many have been applied for and how many have been granted? The EPA won't even tell us that. But from talking to those trying to produce the coal, to produce the electricity for our country, they said they can't get permits. In fact, there is one coal company in Kentucky that is now suing the Federal Government, saying they have taken his property. They have effectively taken his property because he can't get a permit. This is a real problem. The average expectancy for getting a permit in our country now for all mines is 7 years.

We wonder why we are languishing as we depend on everyone else for our energy. We want to be energy independent, and we sit on top of some of our country's most natural resources in oil and coal. Yet we won't produce our own. We have to become so involved and there are so many justifications for war across the world and this and that. Yet we refuse to use our own resources.

This is a very good step in trying to make the process better. All it is saying is that the EPA cannot have unlimited time to sit on our permits. This is saying there have to be rules.

I say this is a first step because I think the last election was about saying that unelected bureaucrats should not write law. That is what has happened. The President and many of his supporters have indicated they can't get cap and trade through the elected body, so they are going to go through the back door, through regulations. The American people need to stand up and say that unelected bureaucrats should not and cannot be allowed to write law. That is essentially what is happening now. I think this is a great first step. I compliment the minority leader for bringing this forward, and I wholeheartedly support it.

Mr. President, I rise in support of this legislation. I think this is a good first step to reining in an out-of-control, unelected bureaucracy. I think the EPA has gone way beyond its mandated duty and is now at the point of stifling industry in our country. We see this and hear this across the State of Kentucky, as well as across the country. The President doesn't seem to understand why the country thinks he is against business and against progress. One can't be for job creation if one is against the job creators.

As the minority leader indicated, we have nearly 100,000 jobs and hundreds of thousands of other jobs connected to coal. This really applies to the rest of the country as well. Over half of the electricity in our country comes from coal. Over 90 percent of the electricity in Kentucky comes from coal. Yet we have mining operations that went through the process, some of them taking up to 10 years. I think the mine in question went through a 10-year process, spent millions of dollars to try to get started to provide electricity for the rest of us. Yet then the EPA comes in at the last minute.

There is said to be nearly 200 permits out there languishing. I asked the question of my staff this morning: How many have been applied for and how many have been granted? The EPA won't even tell us that. But from talking to those trying to produce the coal, to produce the electricity for our country, they said they can't get permits. In fact, there is one coal company in Kentucky that is now suing the Federal Government, saying they have taken his property. They have effectively taken his property because he can't get a permit. This is a real problem. The average expectancy for getting a permit in our country now for all mines is 7 years.

We wonder why we are languishing as we depend on everyone else for our energy. We want to be energy independent, and we sit on top of some of our country's most natural resources in oil and coal. Yet we won't produce our own. We have to become so involved and there are so many justifications for war across the world and this and that. Yet we refuse to use our own resources.

This is a very good step in trying to make the process better. All it is saying is that the EPA cannot have unlimited time to sit on our permits. This is saying there have to be rules.

I say this is a first step because I think the last election was about saying that unelected bureaucrats should not write law. That is what has happened. The President and many of his supporters have indicated they can't get cap and trade through the elected body, so they are going to go through the back door, through regulations. The American people need to stand up and say that unelected bureaucrats should not and cannot be allowed to write law. That is essentially what is happening now. I think this is a great first step. I compliment the minority leader for bringing this forward, and I wholeheartedly support it.

Madam President, this amendment will keep OSHA out of the cockpit. This amendment is not about safety. OSHA wants to get into the cockpit to add regulatory burden. But already the airlines voluntarily adhere to OSHA regulations.

Before you vote to bring OSHA into the cockpit, you need to know and remember that 20 airlines have gone bankrupt in the last 10 years. Do we want to add more regulatory burden? Do we want to add more regulatory cost? The opposite side, the President included, has said they want less regulatory burden. Here is their chance. They have a small chance here. Keep OSHA out of the cockpit.

OSHA has 2,000 pages of rules. OSHA regulations cost the economy $50 billion. Ronald Reagan was talking about OSHA way back in 1976 when he commented on OSHA's 144 regulations with regard to climbing a ladder. I repeat: 144 regulations about how to climb a ladder. No. 1 among those regulations: Remember to face the ladder when you are going to climb it.

He also mentioned the hazards of being on a farm. From the OSHA manual on hazards on being on a farm: When you walk around, look around carefully and make sure you look down because there could be a slippery substance. You could step in it and fall. That is from the 31-page OSHA manual.

OSHA isn't all about safety. It is about regulatory burden--undue regulatory burden--on businesses, and I hope you will reject this. There is a slippery substance around here that we need to avoid, and that is more government regulations. I recommend that we vote not to allow OSHA into the cockpit.

Mr. President, everyone agrees that the FAA plays an important role in air safety. I don't think there is any real discussion or debate on either side in that regard. My amendment calls, though, for having spending levels at 2008. This is actually what is going to be produced out of the House. The House has already published their spending proposals, and most of their spending proposals will be at the 2008 level.

This is a small downpayment on the debt. Some say this is the wrong place to start, but you have to start somewhere. Everybody says they are going to be for balancing the budget or tackling the debt or doing this or that, but you don't get there unless you cut spending.

Now, you can't create a situation where you make it an either/or situation--either we have air safety or we don't have air safety-- depending on a spending level. Perhaps you can spend money more wisely. Perhaps the job of a legislator is to find out how you spend money, how you find savings, and how you make do with less. If we don't, we are never going to get out of this problem.

The deficit is an enormous burden on all of us--on our kids and grandkids. The last election was about the deficit, about the mounting debt, but the other side doesn't seem to have listened. They also need to understand what the deficit does to jobs. Our national debt now is approaching our gross domestic product. That means our debt is about equal to what we produce as an economy for a year as a whole country. When it does, there are estimates that it kills the rate of growth of our economy by 1 percent and costs 1 million jobs a year. This is from the debt.

They are talking about what $2 billion will do within one agency. We are talking about what $14 trillion worth of debt does to an entire economy. Remember, 1 percent loss of growth and 1 million jobs a year. The national debt is killing us.

So we had an intervening election, and a message was sent. The message was, listen to the American people. They are upset about passing this debt on to our kids and our grandkids. So we got a response. The President laid out his budget this week. Do you know what his budget will do? The President's budget will spend $46 trillion--I am not making that up, $46 trillion over 10 years. That tells me the other side didn't get the message.

Now, $46 trillion over 10 years, what does this mean? When President Obama came into office, the debt was about $7 trillion, maybe $8 trillion. We are now going to triple that debt if he wins a second term. The President will have tripled the national debt in 8 years.

His 10-year proposal will double the debt in just 10 years. The deficit this year alone will be $1.65 trillion.

The President said he is going to freeze spending. He is going to freeze spending in this little, tiny percentage of the budget, about 12 percent of the budget. It is not enough. It doesn't do it.

Republicans want to go back to the 2008 level, which is what I am proposing. It is not enough either because you are only looking at one tiny sliver of the budget. Today we are looking at one small program.

The problem is that people are starting to recognize the problem of the debt, but they are unwilling to do what it takes to look at the entire budget. We are going to have to look at military spending, we are going to have to look at nonmilitary discretionary spending, and ultimately we are going to have to look at entitlements. But you have to say every program has something good about it. Everybody can stand and say we need NextGen. I am for NextGen. But the thing is, if you are a legislator and you have less money, let's figure out where we find the money in the existing budget.

I proposed some other alternatives. I proposed $500 million in savings by saying: When we build airports, let's not make it be the union wage or the prevailing wage, let's have the market wage. That would have saved $500 million. That goes a long way toward funding NextGen. Another $500 million, $400 to 500 million is in the unprofitable airports that we are going to subsidize in this bill. There are savings that can be found, but we never find them.

In Washington, what do we tend to do? If we want something, we just add more money to the bill. There are always arguments for these programs, but we also have to understand what are the consequences of a $14 trillion debt.

President Obama's 10-year plan that he released this week will change $14 trillion into nearly $27 trillion. The numbers are mind-boggling. If we do not do something about it, it is a threat to our country. The President's own Secretary of Defense has said the No. 1 threat to our national security is our debt. It is out of control. I don't think the problem is fully grasped by either side, but I know if we are here today and cannot come to an agreement to save $2 billion--think about it. I am asking to save $2 billion out of a budget of $3.7 trillion. It is such a small number.

They might argue it is such a small number, why even do it? If you don't start somewhere, how will we ever balance the budget? How will we ever get out of this mess if we are not willing to save $2 billion? It is a start. It is a downpayment. It is how we can say to the American people we heard you in November. We realize we cannot pass this debt on to our kids and our grandkids. Something has to be done.

Instead, what we get from the other side is that we make this into: The other side is not for progress. They are not for developing airports. They are not for GPS systems at the airport. It is not that simple. I am for all those things, but I am for saying let's step up as legislators and say: How do we find the savings in the existing budget? Because the alternative is: How are we going to pay for $14 trillion in debt? How are we going to pay for $26 trillion in debt that is going to be added if the President gets his 10-year plan?

You can pay for debt in a variety of ways. You can tax people. But as you can tell by the movement out there, most of us think we are taxed enough already. The average taxpayer is often paying 40 percent and 50 percent of his income. The average taxpayer is paying more in taxes than they do for food and clothing and transportation and all their expenses; they pay more in taxes. I don't think the general public wants to raise taxes.

The other way is, you stick your head in the sand and keep borrowing. That is what we keep doing, borrowing and borrowing, but it threatens our very economy and threatens the country.

How does the country also pay for debt? Are we going to default on our debt? No. Ultimately, we will print money to pay for it, but there is a downside to that too. Countries have ruined their currency. Germany in the 1920s destroyed their currency.

If you look at the curve of what happened to the currency in the 1920s, it happened over a period of about 6 months. You had bread that sold for 100 marks and then 1 million marks and then 100 million marks and then 1 billion marks. The money became so devalued it was of more value to actually burn as a fuel. People went around with wheelbarrows full of money. The workers demanded to be paid two and three times a day.

That is what happens to a country that has a massive debt. You cannot tax people enough.

Greece just went through default recently. As Greece went through default, they tried to raises taxes, but everybody was paying too much already, so everything was forced into the underground economy. You can raise the taxes by 90 percent, you don't get more money. When you increase tax rates, you don't always get more money. The money went underground.

You can print the money, but if you just simply print the money, you destroy people's savings. You steal from those who have saved and take the value of their dollar.

This bill is the beginning of the debate. It is the first bill we have had to come forward with a new Congress that talks about money. It is a very small downpayment. I am asking for a little over $2 billion savings. It is 2008 levels. It is what the House is asking for. You have to realize also what happened between 2008 and 2011. Do you know how much spending went up? Spending went up by 24 percent. Spending is out of control in this city, and we have to realize the consequences. If we stood here and had an argument over whether NextGen is a good thing, there is no argument. It is a good thing. We should have GPS. We have it in our cars. For certain, we should have it in our airports. I am all for modernizing the airports. But what I am saying is, it is irresponsible as legislators to stand here and just say more, more, more. We are going to spend more money.

We cannot do it. The thing is, it is not just the program. We are not talking about whether the program is justified or whether we should spend money. We are talking about what are the consequences of a massive debt. I think that is where we are.

The American people know this. They instinctively know this. I think there is a great danger to not stepping up. I wish the other side would have come back and said: Why don't we split the difference and try to save $1.5 billion. That is what compromise would be in this city. If they don't want to save $2.5 billion, let's save $1.5 billion. But the thing is, we need to save money everywhere and it cannot be that every program you want to cut is somebody else's program and then when it gets to be your program that you are interested in, you can't cut it. Everybody has a self-interest in their program. Every special interest in this country has a special interest. They have an interest in their particular spending.

I would say this is a small downpayment. This is a way to say to the American people: We have heard you in the election. We know there is a problem. We are going to start cutting spending.

I urge my fellow Senators to vote for this amendment. It is something that has nothing to do with quality, has nothing to do with whether you believe in air safety. It has to do with whether you think the debt is a problem, whether you think the debt is a threat to us as a country, and whether we are going to step up and do the responsible thing.

I reserve my time.

I want to thank the majority leader for agreeing to allow a debate on this important legislation. We will have time to amend it in the next 3 months, discuss it fully.

When the PATRIOT Act was passed in the first place, it was passed in a hurry, without committee hearings, and in a climate of fear and anger after 9/11. Congress was sensitive to the fact that the fourth amendment was being abridged. That is why these legislative proposals were sunset. It was not just so we could pass them by unanimous consent without voting. It was done so we could review how well we are doing with these, and whether we are abridging the freedoms guaranteed under the fourth amendment.

There are a couple of things that bother me about the PATRIOT Act. No. 1, the national security letters. These have been mentioned previously, and I think the points are well taken. Some try to argue, oh, these are simply subpoenas so you can do anything you want. I think they are searches of private records and should be reviewed by a judge. But even if you argue that they were subpoenas, if you have a subpoena, your lawyer is allowed to make a motion to quash your subpoena, your lawyer is allowed to represent you.

In the craziness after 9/11, when the PATRIOT Act was passed, it was actually illegal to consult an attorney. If you were given a national security letter saying you were being investigated, you could go to jail for 5 years by telling your attorney. It is still in the law that you can go to jail for 5 years if you tell others. This is being done against U.S. citizens.

Many people argue for this saying: Oh, it is just foreign terrorists. National security letters have been written on 200,000 individuals and over 50 percent of them from the United States in the last 10 years.

In addition to the national security letters, this act expanded the use of what are called suspicious activity reports, where they snoop in your bank records. Not only does the government snoop in your bank records, they force the banks to do snooping for you. Two million records have been gone through, and we say: Well, are we getting terrorists? Yes; we are probably getting terrorists. But were we capturing terrorists under FISA when we had a judge's review? Yes. It was very rare that FISA ever turned down a warrant. But we just gave up. We blankly gave up the idea of judicial review.

This was a big deal. John Adams said this was the spark that got the Revolution going. When James Otis was talking about writs of assistance in the 1760s, the King was granting writs of assistance through his soldiers. Now we have essentially government agents, akin to soldiers, writing warrants.

It is ripe for abuse. Even the FBI, when they did their own internal investigation of the national security letters--they reviewed 1,000 of these national security letters, and they found that 10 percent of them were in error.

The other thing, for those who say: Oh, this is just a subpoena. It is just your bank records. No big deal, they should be weary of this: People have gone through the FISA Court and been turned down under section 215 and not gotten a warrant and they have done an end-around and gotten national security letters.

I think it is something so basic to our constitutional Republic. I tell people on and on, I am a big defender of the second amendment. But you cannot have the second amendment unless you defend the first amendment. You cannot have the second amendment unless you defend the fourth amendment.

We need to defend the right to be free of search and seizure. People need to look back and say: Did the FISA Court work? The FISA Court rarely turned anything down as far as getting warrants. But at the very least, there was independent judicial review, which is a very important part of our historical jurisprudence and I think should be guarded and protected.

I think, in the fear after 9/11, we did not debate these things fully. We should have a debate. There is a wide range of people on both the left and the right who do believe in civil liberties. I think it is time we do review these. I will stand in the next several months and try to promote this discussion. I think it is a good time to review and revisit the PATRIOT Act.

I will vote against the extension of the PATRIOT Act because I do not think it is doing full justice to the fourth amendment, and I think it is very important we have judicial review before we allow government to investigate and search our private lives.

Mr. President, I yield back.

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment 18.

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

Madam President, the amendment I am offering is to continue to have the airlines exempt from OSHA. This isn't because I am not concerned with safety. It is that we have been doing it this way for 30 or 40 years. The FAA voluntarily adheres to OSHA standards in their own manual. I take the President and the opposing party at their word that they are concerned with adding frivolous paperwork and frivolous regulations when, in reality, we are not doing anything to add to safety since the FAA is already adhering to these standards through their own manual. I also suspect that the FAA may be a little bit better in learning to have their own safety manuals and regulations than would OSHA since they specifically have been involved in this.

We would like to ask Members to vote against allowing OSHA to become involved in the FAA.

I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 34

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendments and call up amendment No. 21.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, the amendment I have presented to the floor for the FAA bill is an amendment that I think is a first step toward looking at budgetary restraint. The President, in his State of the Union Address, talked about freezing spending at 2010 levels. If we were to do that at the inflated levels of 2010, we would add $3.8 trillion to the debt over the next 5 years. It does nothing to the looming debt crisis to leave things at 2010 levels because these were levels where we had already increased spending by over 20 percent.

What I am asking is a very modest proposal; that is, that all spending go back to the 2008 levels. This is not a significant cut. We have increased things dramatically in recent years. FAA has been increased in funding by 50 percent over the last 8 years. We can fund the upgrading of NextGen and various things by looking for cost savings within the bill. These are things we must do.

The American people are demanding cost savings. The American people do not understand why we must pay inflated rates for our wages for the workers on Federal projects. They do not understand why Davis-Bacon wages, which were often 30 percent higher than the wages paid on other projects, private projects, must be paid. People are familiar with this even in their home States when you talk about the building of schools, how schools cost 20 and 30 percent more because of having to have inflated wages and extra regulations, extra paperwork that the Davis- Bacon laws require.

What we are looking for is cost savings everywhere--in this bill, in every bill that comes forward. As long as I am able to and as long as I am allowed, we will ask for spending reductions.

Many people in this city are for a balanced budget. They say they are for a balanced budget amendment. But how can they be for a balanced budget amendment if they are not willing to cut spending? This is a very small, almost token cut in spending, but we have to do it everywhere.

When people ask how will you balance the budget, you have to say I will cut spending. This is a very small first step to take the spending for this particular department to 2008 levels. I think it is a step long overdue. It is a chance for Members who say they are for a balanced budget to put their vote where their mouth is.

Let's vote to cut spending. Let's vote to cut spending on this bill now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment so I may call up my amendment, amendment No. 19, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. President, the amendment I have offered to the FAA bill is an amendment to exempt the FAA from the Davis-Bacon restrictions. Most of us know, when we talk about schools being built in our district or in our neighborhood, the cost of schools and anything built under Davis-Bacon determines prevailing wages. This means if you are a carpenter making usually $14 an hour in Bowling Green, KY, the government comes in and says, Well, you need to pay $35 an hour. It inflates the cost of building projects and it does us no good as a society. What happens is we build less schools, less airports, and we are unable to have enough money in our country to provide for the things we want. We can build 20 to 30 percent more airports if we don't force union wages that are above the market wages on our government projects.

I think it is inexcusable, at a time when we run a deficit of between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in a year, that we want to inflate the cost of government projects. The marketplace should determine market wages, and we should have a marketplace that allows us to build more airports and more schools.

I think it is not a good idea to have the government get involved by forcing wages above the market wage. If you pass this and you allow an exemption from Davis-Bacon, you will save about $500 million just in this department. If you would allow this across government, you would save $11 billion.

My point in bringing this up is that this won't balance the budget, but you have to start somewhere. Everybody says we have to do something, but nobody is willing to do anything that will reduce government expenditures. I think this is one small step forward, and if you can't vote for this one small step forward, you are not serious about balancing the budget. That is why the American people are unhappy with us in Congress, because we won't do anything, we won't step forward, we will not be bold, and we will not start cutting spending.

I recommend to the Senate that we pass this amendment as one small step forward but an important step toward trying to get our fiscal house in order.

I yield to Senator Hutchison.

Mr. President, this amendment is not about quality. It is not about unions. It is about a Federal Government that is spending too much money, and it is about an enormous debt we have. It is about starting somewhere.

People agree that you save money if you do not have to pay the prevailing wage. Everybody knows it. The gallery knows it. The public knows it. In Kentucky, schools cost 30 percent more if you have prevailing wage. You build less schools. Your money does not go as far. It is not a good efficient use of your money.

With regard to quality, to imply that you cannot have quality unless it is union labor, unless it is prevailing wage, completely ignores what goes on in our economy; that is to say, the 90 percent of things that are made in our country that are nonunion and nonprevailing wage do not have quality. The argument is specious. It has no substance.

What this is about is making a first step toward controlling our deficit. We need to cut costs in government. If we cannot do these little things--this would save $500 million on this bill. It is a small amount in Washington. It is a large amount to us in Kentucky, to individuals. It is a small amount, but it is a first step toward saying we are going to be responsible as a Congress and say: Enough is enough; we cannot live with $2 trillion deficits each year. It is out of control. We are headed toward financial ruin, and this is one first step forward.

I hope the rest of the Senate will support this amendment to exempt from the FAA bill the considerations of Davis-Bacon.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Madam President, I am honored by the privilege of serving in the Senate. I am both honored and humbled by the responsibility of defending our Constitution and our individual freedoms. I will sit at Henry Clay's desk. There is likely no legislator from Kentucky more famous than Henry Clay. He was the Speaker of the House; he was a leader in the Senate. He ran for President four times and nearly bested James Polk.

Henry Clay was called the ``Great Compromiser.'' During my orientation, one of my colleagues came up to me and asked: Will you be a great compromiser? I have thought long and hard about that. Is compromise the noble position? Is compromise a sign of enlightenment? Will compromise allow us to avoid the looming debt crisis?

Henry Clay's life is at best a mixed message. His compromises were over slavery. One could argue that he rose above sectional strife to keep the Union together, to preserve the Union. But one could also argue that he was morally wrong and that his decisions on slavery, to extend slavery, were decisions that actually may have even ultimately invited the war that came, that his compromises meant that during the 50 years of his legislative career he not only accepted slavery but he accepted the slave trade.

In the name of compromise, Henry Clay was by most accounts not a cruel master, but he was a master nonetheless of 48 slaves, most of which they did not free during his lifetime, and some of which were only freed belatedly 28 years after his death.

He supported the fugitive slave law throughout his career. He compromised on the extension of slavery. When he was the Speaker of the House, there was a vote on extending slavery into Arkansas. The vote was 88 to 88. He came down, extraordinarily, from the Speaker's chair to vote in favor of extending slavery into Arkansas.

Before we eulogize Henry Clay, we should acknowledge and appreciate the contrast with contemporaries who refused to compromise. William Lloyd Garrison toiled at a small abolitionist press for 30 years, refusing to compromise with Clay, with Clay's desire to send the slaves back to Africa. Garrison was beaten, chased by mobs, and imprisoned for his principled stand.

Frederick Douglass traveled the country at the time. He was a free Black man, but he traveled at great personal risk throughout the countryside. He proved, ultimately, that he was the living, breathing example that intellect and leadership could come from a recently freed slave.

Cassius Clay was a cousin of Henry Clay, and an abolitionist. In the Heidler's biography of Henry Clay they describe Cassius Clay as follows: A venomous pen was his first weapon, and a Bowie knife his second weapon. He was so effective with the first weapon that he was wise to have a second weapon handy.

Cassius parted ways with his cousin Henry Clay, although they worked together on some things, and Henry Clay got him out of a few difficult times with the law. But they parted ways when Cassius Clay published a letter where Henry Clay seemed to be more in favor of emancipation than he was publicly. They never spoke again after that. Henry Clay disavowed the letter and condemned Cassius Clay.

Cassius Clay was an unapologetic abolitionist. He was an agitator. He made people mad, particularly slave owners and slave traders. One night in Foxtown, he was ambushed by Squire Turner and his boys. They were slave traders. They came at him with cudgels and knives. They ambushed him from behind and stabbed him in the back repeatedly. As he fell to the ground, Tom Turner held his pistol to the head of Cassius Clay and fired. The gun misfired. He fired again and it misfired. He fired a third time, and as it misfired for a third time, Cassius Clay was able to reach into his belt and pull his Bowie knife and gutted one of the Turner boys, killing him.

Cassius Clay refused to compromise. Cassius Clay was a hero, but he was permanently estranged from Henry Clay. Henry Clay made no room for true believers. Henry made no room for the abolitionists. Who are our heroes? Are we fascinated and enthralled by the Great Compromiser or by Cassius Clay?

Henry Clay came within 38,000 votes of winning the Presidency. He almost beat James Polk. He lost one State. If he had won that one State, he would have been President. The State was New York, and he lost it because a small fledgling party, the Liberty Party, a precursor to the Republican Party, an abolitionist party, refused to vote for Henry Clay because of his muddled views on slavery. One could argue that Clay's compromises ultimately cost him the Presidency.

Those activists who did not compromise--Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, Cassius Clay--are heroes because they said slavery is wrong and they would not compromise.

Today we have no issues, no moral issues, that have equivalency with the issue of slavery. Yet we do face a fiscal nightmare, potentially a debt crisis in our country. Is the answer to compromise? Should we compromise by raising taxes and cutting spending, as the debt commission proposes? Is that the compromise that will save us from financial ruin? Several facts argue against that particular compromise.

Government now spends more money than it ever has before. Raising taxes seems to only encourage more spending. Government now spends one in four GDP dollars. Twenty-five percent of our economy is government spending.

Any compromise must shrink the government sector and expand the private sector. Any compromise should be where we cut Federal spending, not where we raise taxes. The problem we face is not a revenue problem, it is a spending problem. It is spending that is now swollen to nearly a fourth of our economy. The annual deficit is nearly $2 trillion.

Entitlements and interest will consume the entire debt, the entire budget, if we do nothing. Within a decade, there will be no money left for defense, no money left for infrastructure, no money left for anything other than the entitlements and interest if we do not tackle this problem.

Many ask, will the Tea Party compromise? Can the Tea Party work with others to find a solution? The answer is, of course there must be dialog and ultimately compromise. But the compromise must occur on where we cut spending.

Even across the aisle, we have Democrats who are now saying, you know what, it is a problem. We should not raise taxes in a recession. So we are finding some agreement. The compromise we as conservatives must acknowledge is that we can cut some money from the military. The other side, the liberals, also must compromise that they can cut some money from domestic spending. Freezing domestic spending, though, at 2010 levels, as the President proposed in his State of the Union, does almost nothing. In fact, it freezes inflated spending levels, and will do nothing to avoid a crisis.

There is a certain inevitability to this debate, as the debt bomb looms and grows perilously large. As long as I sit at Henry Clay's desk, I will remember his lifelong desire to forge agreement. But I will also keep close to my heart the principled stand of his cousin Cassius Clay, who refused to forsake the life of any human simply to find agreement.

Madam President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Isakson be recognized to speak following my remarks.

Mr. President, today we will vote on repealing President Obama's Federal takeover of health care. This vote will be not only to repeal the specifics of this legislation but to reassert that we operate under constitutional restraint.

When this bill first came up, many on the other side sniffed and were incredulous that we would mention the Constitution. Many on the other side said the Constitution--they really had not even comprehended that the question would be asked, ``Where do you get the authority under the Constitution to do this?'' Well, interestingly, we do still operate in a society with constitutional restraint, and the courts have now decided that the commerce clause does not mean you can do anything.

The commerce clause, though, for the last 70 years has gotten larger and larger. I used to joke that you can drive a truck through it now, it is so big. I also used to joke that if my shoes were made in Tennessee, they could regulate my walking in Kentucky.

The commerce clause--the expansive definition and understanding of it--has been supplying no restraint to this body. But I think this court case and I think this bill is about so much more than health care. It is about whether we live and operate with constitutional restraint of government.

This has been going on for a long time. It started with Wickard v. Filburn back in the 1940s, where they told a farmer he could not grow as much wheat as he wanted to.

He wanted to grow 20 acres of wheat, and the government said: You can only grow 10 acres of wheat.

He said: Why?

They said: Well, because of the interstate commerce clause, we can tell you how much you are going to grow.

He said: Well, I am not going to sell it to anybody. How am I engaged in commerce? I am just going to feed it to my livestock.

They told him that by not selling it, he could indirectly affect the price of wheat between the States. It was a ludicrous argument then, and it is a ludicrous argument now.

My hope is that out of this case, as it moves forward to the Supreme Court, maybe we will see a Court that takes a step toward overturning Wickard v. Filburn. I think that would be the most important case in the last 70 years in the Supreme Court, if we do it. Will we get there? I do not know. But listen to what the Founding Fathers said about this. Many people say: Oh, the general welfare clause says we can do this or the commerce clause says we can do this. Madison wrote that we would not have enumerated these specific powers and given them to the Federal Government if we intended for there to be no restraint.

Recently, in the two Federal court decisions, the judges made a point of saying that if you can regulate inactivity--basically, the nonact of not buying insurance--then there is no aspect to our lives that would be left free from government regulation and intrusion.

So I think this court case is incredibly important, more important even than the specifics of the health care bill. There are many reasons we should have opposed the health care bill and still should, but really No. 1 among them is that we need to have a government that operates under the Constitution and operates under a commerce clause that was intended to promote free trade between the States and was never intended to allow a government to grow so large and so invasive that it could intrude into every nook and cranny of our economic lives.

With regard to the specifics of the health care bill, there were some problems in health care. As a physician, I have seen some of the problems. But do you know what the No. 1 complaint I got was? It was the expense of health insurance, the rising expenses. The Federal takeover of health care did nothing to that. In fact, it has already increased the expenses to those. You see premiums rising.

But when you see problems, there are two directions to go. We had problems in health care, but you could say: Do we need more government or less government? From my perspective as a physician, I saw we already had too much government involvement in health care. I saw that what we had going on limited competition. You need more competition in health care if you want to drive prices down. So you need to allow insurance to be sold across State lines. You need to allow competition in prices.

One of the surgeries I did was LASIK surgery, where you correct someone's eyes so they do not have to wear glasses anymore. No insurance covers it, and you would think: Well, gosh, maybe this body will get together and force people to buy insurance for LASIK surgery. It is good. It is a great thing. Well, do you know what. Without government getting involved, competition drove the prices down on LASIK. So the prices were driven down because the consumer was involved. The same way with contact lenses; you can buy a contact lens for 4 bucks, maybe 3 bucks. It used to be $20 or $30 a contact. Competition works.

So what we should have asked ourselves when we looked at this health care debate is--yes, there are problems. Yes, we can agree portability was a problem. Yes, we can agree preexisting conditions were a problem. But we should have said: Do these problems exist because there is too much capitalism or too little capitalism? I would argue there is very little capitalism at all.

I do cataract surgery also. Do you know what. I charge the exact same price as every other doctor in my town, every other doctor in the State, and every other doctor in the country because the prices are set in Washington by a central committee. That is not capitalism, and that is why health care is broken.

We need to get back to the fundamentals, and we need to say: Why does capitalism work in nine-tenths of the economy but doesn't work in health care? Well, maybe it is because we are not allowing capitalism to operate in health care.

Today's vote on repeal is very important. There is great symbolism to this because we have to say: Yes, we operate as a body under the restraint of the Constitution, but there is also a message about economic systems. The American economic system is capitalism, and we should be proud of it. We should try to inject capitalism into more enterprises and not less capitalism. We should not have such great faith in government that government has all the answers because government is notoriously inept and inefficient at most of the things it does.

I rise today to support the repeal of the President's takeover of health care. I hope the Democrats will reconsider. I understand some of them are reconsidering.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.