Floor Statements

Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes this afternoon to talk about some of the events that happened here in the past 24 hours.

Less than 24 hours ago, we confirmed my colleague--former colleague now--Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General of the United States. After he was confirmed, he resigned as Senator and has been sworn in as Attorney General of the United States this morning.

The Governor of Alabama, Gov. Robert Bentley, subsequently appointed Luther Strange, who is our newest Senator. He was our attorney general until a few hours ago--a second term as attorney general. I want to tell you a little bit about our newest Senator from Alabama here in the U.S. Senate.

He is someone I have known for about 35 years and someone I have spent a lot of time with, off and on. I know his wife Melissa. I know his sons. We have traveled together. As the Presiding Officer would appreciate coming from Georgia, we have had time to be in Georgia and other places hunting quail, ducks, geese, and doves together. You get to know somebody pretty well, as the Presiding Officer knows.

I believe this was a great appointment by our Governor. This is someone who will hit the ground running. He is going to be involved in the issues. He is a team player. He is going to work with us in the Republican caucus and work for what is in the best interests of the State of Alabama and the Nation, which we all need to do.

He is a graduate of Tulane University, undergraduate and law school, and you might be able to tell he may have been a basketball player in his youth and probably still would be.

I look forward to working with him. I am going to miss Senator Sessions, who is now our Attorney General, someone I worked together with for 20 years. I have been here 30 years, so together, as I said yesterday, we have 50 years.

Luther Strange is going to hit the ground running. He brings a lot of knowledge, a lot of integrity to this job, and I look forward to working with him for the people of Alabama and for our great Nation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the nomination of my colleague and friend Jeff Sessions to be the Attorney General of the United States.

Why? We have had this debate. It has gone on a long time, and we have heard from a lot of proponents and opponents of Jeff Sessions. Who would know Jeff Sessions better maybe than I would? I have worked with Jeff Sessions since he came to the Senate 20 years ago. Between us we have been here 50 years, 30 years for me, 20 years for him. Our staffs worked day and night on issues that have affected our State and affected the Nation.

I first really got to know Jeff Sessions when he was the Attorney General of Alabama. He had been the U.S. attorney. He was pretty well known, but I didn't know him. We didn't really know each other until he became the Attorney General.

I urged him to run for the U.S. Senate. I thought he could win, but I thought not just that he could win but that he could bring something to this body. I thought he would be a good colleague, he would be a good Senator for the State of Alabama and for the United States of America, and he has been.

When you deal with people day after day--remember, we all know each other as colleagues here. There are just 100 of us. It sounds like a lot of people, but it is not. When we interact on committees, when we deal with each other, when our families are thrown together, we talk, we debate, we maybe even fight a little bit at times over issues. We get to really know somebody.

I know Jeff Sessions pretty well. I believe he is competent as a lawyer, he was a good lawyer, he was a good prosecutor, and he served our State as Attorney General. He has been active on the Judiciary Committee where he has chaired a subcommittee. He has been active on the Budget Committee. He has been active on the Armed Services Committee. He has been active right here in the Senate--our Senate--on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and he is well respected.

What kind of Attorney General do we want? We want somebody who is competent, somebody with integrity--integrity above everything. That is what counts in this job. This is a very, very important job. These are big shoes. Jeff Sessions can fill those shoes, and I am happy and proud to be here and to vote for him tonight. I wish my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would join us.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs has adopted rules governing its procedures for the 114th Congress. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 2, of the Standing Rules of the Senate, on behalf of myself and Senator Brown, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the committee rules be printed in the Record.

Madam President, this afternoon I rise in support of this continuing resolution which is now before the Senate. Overall, it is a relatively clean bill that carries forward current levels for discretionary spending and avoids another government shutdown. It contains a minimal amount of what we call anomalies or deviations from a straight continuation of previous-year funding.

The anomalies it does contain are limited in duration and subject to relitigation when we return after the break. The bill is also consistent with the total level of discretionary spending enacted in the Bipartisan Budget Act for the fiscal year 2014. But most significantly, this legislation will authorize assistance to elements of the Syrian opposition to help confront the threat presented by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL.

While I believe action against this menace is long overdue, it is unfortunate, I believe, that the action once again requires the involvement of our military and our resources. This authority for training and equipping appropriate moderate elements in Syria is no panacea. We should remember this. We should not expect quick and easy progress in turning the tide against this new terrorist threat that has developed in the region while this administration withdrew and hoped for the best.

History and our experience in the region tell us that this will not be the last time Congress will struggle with this issue. Even if we can identify, train, and equip a large number of fighters in a relatively short period of time, there will come a time when more will be required to defeat this enemy. It will not be of a short duration. It is unfortunate, I believe, that

the President has chosen to ignore the fact, thereby avoiding an honest discussion with the American people.

Nevertheless, I believe today it is important that we give the moderates in the region a fighting chance. If proper training and equipment can do that, we should support it until it becomes clear that we must pursue other means to achieve our goals. When that time comes, I expect Congress to have a full and open debate on that issue. But for now, Congress, I believe, has the responsibility to carefully track what the administration is doing with any funds that it reprograms for this assistance and how this fits into a broader regional strategy there.

The language in this bill will ensure that the administration provides the information to the Congress that we need to do our job. Once again, support for this continuing resolution will achieve two very important goals: one, avoiding a government shutdown, and maintaining spending levels currently in the law--very important. For these two reasons, I will be supporting the bill.

During the break that we are about to go on, and when we return in November, Senator Mikulski, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, and I will be working closely on an omnibus bill to put in place funding for the remainder of the fiscal year. It is my hope that we will be able to, once again, reach an agreement and complete the work of the committee before this Congress adjourns. I believe that this is an achievable goal as long as both sides come to the table with reasonable expectations. We have done it before. I expect that we can do it again.

Madam President, my colleague from North Carolina has just spoken on behalf of the nomination of Robert McDonald to be the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and I will do likewise. He has also spoken of his background as a graduate of West Point, as an Army officer, and as the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world.

I had the occasion to meet with Mr. McDonald, and he could be the man of the hour. I hope he will be. He looks that way now.

With that in mind, I rise today in support of Robert McDonald's nomination for Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is my hope that Robert McDonald will bring a renewed commitment, energy, and acumen to address the Department's systemic problems that we all know exist.

The allegations against the Department of Veterans Affairs are incredibly serious. Therefore, I rise in defense of our Nation's veterans. Our veterans have put themselves in harm' way to defend us, and I think it is only right that we do everything in our power to defend them and their interests when they return home.

Allegations that veterans were not only denied timely access to care but that scheduling delays, secret waiting lists, and lost records may have led to veterans' deaths are totally unacceptable. These allegations of mismanagement and cover-up at the Veterans' Administration are beyond disturbing; they are sickening, they need to be corrected, and they need to be corrected immediately.

Our veterans deserve better. Our veterans have earned these benefits through their dedicated service and sacrifice to our Nation, and the VA must correct these problems, not just study them. It is my hope that Robert McDonald will actively work to address these tremendous challenges.

But according to the VA's recent nationwide audit, new patients using the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System waited an average of over 74 days to see a primary care doctor. That is totally unacceptable. That is nearly three times greater than the national average of 27 days for new patient wait times. I look forward to working with the new VA Secretary to review the Department's plan to initiate corrective action, both in Alabama and across the Nation.

While the VA's wait time statistics are certainly disturbing to all of us, the problem does not end there. Allegations that VA employees may have submitted false records to justify their own receipt of performance bonuses suggest the possibility that the deceit and mistreatment I have described may also have been compounded by a lot of fraud.

In May, Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski and I wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and called on the Department of Justice to begin appropriate criminal and civil investigations into allegations of misconduct at the Veterans' Administration. We have also recommended that the Commerce-Justice- Science appropriations bill--and we serve as the chair and ranking member of that committee--provide the resources for these investigations. The Veterans Affairs and Military Construction appropriations bill provides an additional $5 million to investigate VA scheduling practices. And legislation introduced this week requests an additional $17 billion to improve the VA over the next 3 years.

While I commend these efforts to initiate corrective action, I believe it is only a starting point. A lack of funding is not the mainspring of the VA's troubled past. I look forward to working with the Presiding Officer and others--with the new VA Secretary--to ensure these problems at the VA are rectified as soon as possible before any more veterans are adversely affected.

Solving the issues at the VA has never been more imperative than it is today, as American service members continue to risk their lives every day for our Nation. Support for our Armed Forces must never waiver, and it must be just as strong when they return home. Who will fight our wars in the future if we do not prove that we respect our veterans today?

Veterans have risked their lives for the freedoms we all enjoy and thus should receive the care they most assuredly deserve and have earned. Defending veterans' access to timely medical care today is the very least, I believe, we can do because they defended us first.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, our side is eager to schedule floor consideration of appropriations bills with a full and open amendment process, and the MILCON-VA bill would be at the top of our list.

Would the Senator from Maryland agree to modify this consent request as follows: that following disposition of the highway bill this evening, the motion to proceed to S. 2648, the Senate border supplemental bill, be withdrawn and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4486, the MILCON-VA bill; I further ask that the first amendment in order be offered by the Republican leader or his designee, and that the two sides then offer amendments in alternating fashion; that following the disposition of all amendments, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and the Senate proceed to vote on passage.

Madam President, I object to my distinguished chair's motion to consider and pass the MILCON-VA appropriations bill. This is not because I oppose the underlying bill, as I have said. This a bill that has wide bipartisan support. Its support is predicated upon the premise that we will engage in what we call ``regular order'' here. Regular order, by its very nature, includes the ability to offer, consider, and to vote on amendments.

If we were to agree to this unanimous consent request by the Senator from Maryland, we would be trading away every Member's prerogative on both sides of the aisle to offer and to vote upon amendments. I would, therefore, encourage the chair and the majority leader to revise their unanimous consent request to allow for an open amendment process. Until then, we will be compelled to object.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I wish to honor the life and legacy of my friend John Key McKinley, a Tuscaloosa native, who passed away on June 12. John was a dedicated philanthropist and skilled businessman who will be forever remembered as a dear friend to the State of Alabama and to the University of Alabama.

Born in Tuscaloosa in 1920, John graduated from Tuscaloosa High School. He went to earn a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and a master's degree in organic chemistry from the University of Alabama. He was inducted into Tau Beta Pi and the Scabbard and Blade Society at the University and was a member of the Capstone Engineering Society. While in college, John was also a cadet in the ROTC and rose to the rank of cadet colonel and brigade commander. However, John's contributions go on well beyond his days as a student--he was a generous benefactor and steadfast supporter of the university throughout his life.

After graduating from Alabama in 1941, John began his career at Texaco. He left Texaco in August 1941 to join the Army and serve in Newfoundland and Europe during World War II. In August 1944 shortly after D-day, John landed on Utah Beach and took part in battles across France, Belgium, and Germany--including the Battle of the Bulge as the Allied troops moved through Western Europe and onto Berlin. As a result of his unwavering bravery during the battle for the Roer River, he received the prestigious Bronze Star. He also rose to the rank of major during his service in the Army.

Following the war, John returned to Texaco, where he held numerous positions within the company. He excelled in research and development-- holding over a dozen patents from petroleum additives and grease components--and also continued his education. In 1962, he graduated from Harvard University's Advanced Management Program. Less than 10 years later, John was named the company's president, and in 1980 he became Texaco's president, chief executive, and chairman until his retirement in 1986.

In addition to his work at Texaco, John served on the board of directors for several companies, including Texaco, Inc., Federated Department Stores, Burlington Industries, Martin Marietta Corporation, Merck & Co., Inc., Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, Manufacturers Hanover Corporation, and Apollo Computer, Inc. He also served on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Opera, the Peregrine Fund, the Americas Society, Business Council for Effective Literacy, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. John also took an active role in many civic and professional organizations, such as the Brookings Council, the Business Council--Washington DC, and President's Commission on Executive Exchange.

John's contributions did not go unnoticed. He was awarded the George Washington Honor Medal by the Freedom Foundation, the Gold Medal by the National Institute of Social Sciences, the American Eagle Award by the Invest-In-America National Council, and the Wallace Award by the American-Scottish Foundation. He was inducted into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame in 1982 and was installed in the Alabama Academy of Honor in 1983. Additionally, the Belgian Government presented John with the Commandeur de L'Ordre de la Courrone in 1984, which is the highest decoration given to a corporate leader in recognition of significant contributions to Belgium's economic sector.

I had the honor of knowing John and his wife Helen, who preceded him in death, as well as their two sons, John Jr. and Mark. I offer my deepest condolences to them and to all of their loved ones as they celebrate his many life accomplishments and mourn this great loss.

Mr. President, this morning I wish to join my longtime colleague and friend, the senior Senator from Maryland and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Barbara Mikulski, in supporting the consideration of three bills before us today. All three bills received strong bipartisan support at the full Committee on Appropriations level.

I am pleased we have begun to reestablish regular order in the appropriations process. We started that last year, and we need to continue it, and we are.

After the uncertainty of sequestration and last year's disagreement over the Budget Control Act caps, this past December's Murray-Ryan budget deal provided the clarity needed to move us toward a regular budget and a regular appropriations process. The Murray-Ryan deal, which became the Bipartisan Budget Act, provided a compromise solution that ended the congressional deadlock over top-line discretionary spending.

While I appreciate that the chairwoman was operating in a tight fiscal environment, we did not ultimately agree everywhere on how to allocate funds within the new caps. All 14 Republican members of the Appropriations Committee wrote to the chair on May 21 of this year expressing our concerns over the use of budgetary mechanisms in subcommittee allocations. In that letter we also stated and we continue to express our opposition to increasing the level of total CHIMPs in the Federal discretionary budget beyond current levels.

While we continue to have concerns about how the majority reached total 302(b) allocations, the bills before us today for the most part reached their allocations by making tough choices; that is, shifting resources from lower to higher priority programs.

The allocations for the CJS, transportation and housing, and Agriculture bills conform to the intent of the Murray-Ryan deal. Both the Commerce-Justice-Science bill and the Agriculture bill actually decrease spending compared to the current enacted levels, while still being sufficient to meet the needs of the agencies. I am pleased to have worked with the chairwoman to ensure that the CJS bill successfully balanced the important and competing interests of law enforcement, scientific advancement, and U.S. competitiveness. The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill has a moderate increase of only 1.4 percent, after taking into account the scorekeeping difference between OMB and CBO on FHA loan receipts.

I believe passing these funding measures will give Congress a voice in government spending that it was constitutionally intended to have. Instead of ceding spending discretion to the executive branch or simply locking in place priorities that have become outdated--as a continuing resolution would do--this bill includes hundreds of limits on how taxpayer dollars can be spent. While I might not agree with every item in each bill, I think we have found solid middle ground upon which both sides of the aisle can comfortably stand.

Once again, I thank the chair, Senator Mikulski, for her willingness to work together, and I encourage my colleagues to come to the floor and offer their amendments so we can debate the merits of them.

Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, again I rise today in support of, specifically, the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, where I am the ranking member for the Republicans.

I appreciate the leadership, as I have said earlier, of the chair on this particular bill. We have worked together for many years. I chaired this subcommittee at one time, and I believe the bill being considered today reflects a strong bipartisan effort.

The competing interests of the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill always prove challenging, but I believe this bill strikes the appropriate balance.

The allocation for the CJS bill; that is, the Commerce-Justice- Science bill; is $51.2 billion, which is just below the fiscal year 2014 enacted level--yes, below. Working within this allocation, we sought to balance priorities, hold agencies accountable for their work, and demand efficiencies to stretch limited Federal dollars. Ultimately, these efforts ensure that Federal resources are spent efficiently and effectively.

The bill before us provides robust funding for the Department of Justice and law enforcement grant programs totaling $28 billion. It focuses attention and resources on some of the most difficult issues plaguing the Nation, including human trafficking, gang violence, child predation, a growing heroin crisis, threats to cyber security, and domestic terrorism.

Grant programs such as VALOR, Byrne, veterans courts, crime lab improvements, violence against women, and the COPS Program will receive funding to advance the important work being done at the State and local level in our Nation.

Moreover, the bill ensures that the Department maintains its focus on evidence-based programs and activities that have a proven record of effectiveness. This requirement emphasizes the committee's commitment to ensuring that Federal dollars are not just spent but are spent wisely.

The bill also includes $8.6 billion for the Department of Commerce, which is responsible for a range of issues, including weather forecasting, economic development, trade promotion, and fisheries conservation, among others.

The bill prioritizes resources to support NOAA's next generation of weather satellites that will enable the National Weather Service to continue to provide timely warnings for dangerous weather outbreaks that we all experience. To ensure that these weather satellites stay on budget and are delivered on time, the bill continues and expands stringent oversight requirements involving the inspector general. I believe our Nation cannot afford cost increases and schedule delays in these programs, and we expect that these oversight requirements will help avoid such a scenario. These satellites are essential to weather forecasters across the country. Without them, forecasters would be unable to provide important warnings about devastating storms, tornado outbreaks, and hurricanes, putting the safety of the American people at risk.

The bill also provides sufficient resources and direction to improve the management of the Nation's fisheries, including new approaches to manage red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. These new approaches should provide a more equitable system for commercial fishermen and increase the number of fishing days for recreational anglers.

The bill also provides $18 billion for NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In order to preserve the planned launch schedule in 2017 for the heavy lift launch vehicle, or SLS, the bill includes $1.7 billion for SLS rocket development, which is very crucial. It also maintains focus on these efforts by requiring NASA to follow its own internal guidance regarding joint confidence levels in future funding requests.

The bill also preserves important funding for ongoing activities of the International Space Station and other vital science research missions.

In addition, the bill safeguards the advancement of efforts underway to develop a U.S. vehicle to transport our astronauts to the space station. I believe those efforts must continue in a transparent way to ensure that the government is not saddled with mounting bills and no recourse.

I commend the chair for working with me to include language that requires certified cost and pricing data for the crew vehicle development contract. The goal of the language is not to up-end a fixed-price contract; rather, the goal is to make certain that the price NASA has agreed to pay for vehicle development matches actual development expenditures. NASA and its contractors have a history of cost overruns and schedule delays, whether the contract has a fixed price or not. With no other U.S.-based options to get to the space station, I believe we cannot find ourselves at the eleventh hour with an overburdened program that requires a bailout to succeed.

Once again, these measures are included to ensure that the government is not just spending taxpayer money, but that it is doing so in a cost- effective manner.

I reiterate my belief that the bill reflects the Senate's priorities and the needs of our Nation. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam President, first of all, I thank the Senator from Florida for his remarks, especially in the area of NASA, the funding of NASA, the importance of NASA, which he knows very well. We have worked together a long time and of course some of us--the Presiding Officer might not remember--but he was an astronaut himself in another part of his life. We go back a long time to our House days. We came to the House at the same time. But we have worked together on NASA because we believe in science, we believe in space, we believe that it is great for America in many ways.

I point out again that we have a bipartisan effort on the floor right now. We have three bills: the agriculture appropriations bill, which came out of the Appropriations Committee 30 to 0, with Republican and Democratic support; the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill-- where I serve as the ranking member of the subcommittee and Senator Mikulski serves as the chair of the subcommittee--which came out 30 to 0; and the transportation, housing bill, which came out 29 to 1.

We are talking about working together. We are working under the Murray-Ryan numbers. That is what we are trying to stay within. I would like to see us move these three bills. If we can do this, we are going to regular order, which we need. I think it shows--when we have this kind of bipartisan effort coming out of the Appropriations Committee to the floor--we are saying to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle: Look, we believe these are fair bills, we believe it is a bipartisan effort, and we want to fund these agencies because they are important to this country and also there is some certainty out there. We do not need to go back to uncertainty in this body or in this government.

I thank Senator Nelson for his remarks.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, along with my fellow Alabama colleague Jeff Sessions, I wish to pay tribute to Charles D. McCrary, who retired this month from his position as the president and chief executive officer of Alabama Power Company.

Mr. McCrary's involvement with Alabama Power extends back to the summer of 1970, when he joined the company following his freshman year at Auburn University. During a long and distinguished career, he assumed positions of increasing responsibility, rising from vice president for Southern Nuclear Operating Company, to president of Southern Company Generation, chief production officer of Southern Company and president of Southern Power Company. On October 25, 2001, Mr. McCrary became the tenth president and CEO of Alabama Power, which generates electricity for over 1.4 million Alabama customers.

A Birmingham native, Mr. McCrary attended Shades Valley High School and received his bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from Auburn University, followed by a juris doctor from Birmingham School of Law. He was admitted to the Alabama State Bar in 1979.

Mr. McCrary is married to the former Phyllis Brantley of Birmingham and is the father of two sons, Doug and Alex.

Throughout his tenure at Alabama Power, Mr. McCrary has served the company and its customers with the highest standards of integrity and professionalism. He also oversaw Alabama Power during some of our State's most severe natural disasters, including Hurricane Ivan in 2004, which caused 825,701 outages, the largest number of outages in company history; Hurricane Katrina in 2005 with 636,891 outages; and the tornado disaster on April 27, 2011 with 412,000 outages. In the wake of these disasters, Mr. McCrary initiated the policy of publicizing when customers could expect their power to be restored. This practice of announcing utility restoration commitments has since become an industry standard.

Mr. McCrary also pioneered ``Target Zero,'' a program for ensuring that employees are properly trained and equipped to do their jobs safely. This practice too has become a touchstone within the utility industry.

Mr. McCrary is a dynamic leader both in his community and throughout the State of Alabama, and serves as chairman of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama and on the boards of Regions Financial Corporation, Mercedes-Benz U.S. International Inc., Protective Life Corporation, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Southern Research Institute, and the Auburn University Board of Trustees.

Committed to fostering economic development at both the regional and State levels, Mr. McCrary has advanced cooperative efforts between cities, counties, and business leaders in order to bring several industries, including automotive, aerospace, and steel manufacturers to Alabama.

Please join me and Senator Sessions in congratulating Charles on his retirement and in thanking him for his leadership at Alabama Power, for his dedication to improving his local community, and for his decades of service to the great State of Alabama. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

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

Madam President, I rise today in opposition to S. 1926. In July of 2012, after over 7 years of negotiations in the Congress, the Congress finally passed the Biggert-Waters Act, the first significant flood insurance reauthorization bill since the creation of the National Flood Insurance Program in 1968.

One of the goals of the reform at that time was to ensure--yes, to ensure--that the 5.6 million flood insurance policyholders in this country could collect on their policies if they were ever to suffer a flood loss, something that cannot be guaranteed by the Flood Insurance Program that is currently $25 billion in debt.

The program basically is bankrupt and only operating by the grace of the American taxpayer. Historically, the flood insurance premiums have not covered costs because the program was not designed to be actuarially sound. Essentially, it was flawed from the beginning when it was created in 1968.

The National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 authorized subsidized rates to encourage participation in the Flood Insurance Program, especially for properties in high-risk locations. The Biggert-Waters legislation changed all this by requiring that the program be actuarially sound, that flood insurance rates reflect actual risk, and that the program eliminate its debt.

The sponsors of the legislation before us now have said that the moment Biggert-Waters was signed into law by the President they began working to roll back the reforms. Before they had any clear knowledge of how the changes in that legislation would be implemented, how mapping would affect homeowners, how flood insurance rates would change or whom might be pulled into the program and whom might be pulled out.

If my colleagues are hoping to dismantle the Flood Insurance Program, then they should support this legislation because that is exactly what it will do. However, if they are looking to address the unintended consequences of Biggert-Waters, then we should take a more measured approach like we do on most legislation. If there are affordability concerns that they are seeking to address, then I think we should find a way to address them.

If they are attempting to address economic impacts that were not contemplated in the Biggert-Waters Act, then we should find alternative approaches that minimize those impacts.

If they believe that the rate at which Biggert-Waters phases in risk- based premiums needs to be reconsidered, then we should discuss alternative increases.

Unfortunately, this legislation does not specifically address those issues. S. 1926, coupled with the provisions that the sponsors included in the recently passed omnibus appropriations act, will stop all changes in the Federal Flood Insurance Program. Those efforts will ensure that mapping revisions which we desperately need do not move forward, that premium increases are halted, and, even more disturbing, that homeowners never truly learn their real flood insurance risk.

I believe people in America deserve to know the cost and risk of where they live. Taxpayers deserve to have those who choose to live in harm's way assume their own risk. The proponents of this legislation want to continue to burden, I believe, an already over-burdened and bankrupt Federal insurance program. They are not seeking to address a few discrete problems with the flood insurance reforms passed in 2012.

Make no mistake, they want to stop it all. I concede, like any legislation, there were issues with the implementation of Biggert- Waters that were not anticipated. But those can be addressed in other ways that do not require the ``stop everything'' approach that the proponents of this legislation are basically advocating.

Congress is often criticized for being unable to fix anything. In 2012, we took a very significant step toward fixing the National Flood Insurance Program after 7 years of work. Now we have a bill before us that will undo virtually every reform that was enacted less than 2 years ago.

I urge the proponents of the bill today to follow regular order and to take this bill through the committee process where it can be debated and amended and where people can be heard. Absent that, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against this legislation in favor of a more measured approach which will preserve what is needed in the Biggert-Waters legislation and change only that which needs to be changed.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I will join my friend and long-time colleague, the senior Senator from Maryland and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee Senator Barbara Mikulski, who has just spoken, in strongly supporting passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2014. This bill is a product of a bipartisan and very collegial negotiation between both parties in both Houses of Congress. It is in very large part a compromise of what the House and Senate produced in their respective committee processes last summer.

We, of course, have our differences and each of us would like to have many features in this bill different, but that is the nature of a negotiation and ultimately of a compromise, and that is where we are today.

There is much we would like and much we do not like in this bill, but on balance I believe it represents a middle ground upon which we can all comfortably stand. It is certainly far better than the alternative, which would be another confrontation, another government shutdown, and another giant step further away from establishing some sense of regular order.

It is a matter of record that I did not support the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. It is and remains my strong preference that we continue to reduce our discretionary spending levels and, more importantly, our long-term mandatory spending levels. As I have said many times, once the Congress has decided what our spending levels are to be, I believe it is the responsibility of the respective appropriations committees to decide how those funds will be spent. The bill before us does exactly that.

This legislation adheres to the statutory budget caps for defense and nondefense spending set by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. It carries forward a spending level for defense programs that avoids a $20 billion sequester for 2014. The bill funds total discretionary spending below the 2004 level when adjusted for inflation.

Enacting this funding measure will allow Congress finally to advance its current priorities instead of relying on the spending priorities of the past, which of course is the unavoidable consequence of a continuing resolution. Seven out of twelve bills in this omnibus have been relying on appropriations priorities dictated by the fiscal year appropriations for 2012. Instead of giving the executive branch virtually

unfettered discretion, this bill includes hundreds of limits on how the executive branch can spend taxpayer dollars. It provides continuity for key government functions and avoids the uncertainty of additional continuing resolutions.

Since the President took office, we have enacted 20 continuing resolutions. This bill today provides no new money to implement ObamaCare by holding flat the funding for certain accounts at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service. It funds the financial regulators who implement Dodd-Frank at a level that is $424 million below the President's request.

We will hear many times today that this bill is not the bill any individual Senator would have written, and that is true. It includes concessions that many would not like to make. But it also contains funding or limits on funding for priorities that are important to Members of both sides of the aisle. In my view, this is the prerequisite for a legislative compromise and is what we have achieved with this bill.

I again thank the chair of this committee Senator Mikulski and commend her for setting a tone that made this agreement possible. I join with her in strongly urging our colleagues to support this measure, just as the Members of the House did yesterday by a vote of 359 to 67.

I yield the floor.

The remarks by the Senator from Oklahoma are very interesting and telling. I listened to him carefully, and I believe basically he is right on the point. I believe basically that we all agree with the Senator that it is important to reduce the waste and duplication in our government. He points out a lot of it. GAO has done it too.

Our staff has met with the GAO several times on ways to address this problem. We know the problem; we have to act on it, and we have to take it very seriously. GAO, as Senator Coburn said, is coming out with a new report. If we work on this, the government is going to be more efficient. We

are going to save money, and we are going to respond to problems in America much better. We are a long way from doing this. I appreciate his remarks this afternoon and I hope a lot of my Senators were looking at that and listening to him.

Madam President, I want to pick up on what Senator Mikulski was talking about. Senator Nelson has not only been an advocate for the space program for NASA--and he is. As most everybody knows, has been up there. I was traveling with him one time, and I believe we were over Asia, and he was showing me from the plane--we couldn't see as well as he could--the rotation. I was very impressed.

He has been a stalwart in the advancement of the space program. We both worked hand in glove with him.

I do believe this is a pretty good appropriation considering where we are. I am hoping we will get back to regular order since Senator Mikulski and I have advocated for this. We are hoping maybe later today we can vote this bill out with a vote like the House had yesterday.

Madam President, I would like to respond to some of the remarks by my colleague and friend from Iowa. I think he is right on point when he said this is the first time we have been able to bring the appropriations process--I hope--back to regular order, which is what we need. No one wants to shut the government down. My goodness, neither side wants to do that. It is no good, and the American people don't want it. This is a good bipartisan effort. Senator Mikulski and other members of the Appropriations Committee have worked together.

I have been at odds sometimes--and a lot of times together--with Senator Harkin. I first met him 35 years ago when I first went to the House. He had been there a couple of years--a veteran. We have worked together on a lot of issues.

Senator Harkin is absolutely right when he says we can't say enough about the leadership of the chairperson of this committee, Senator Mikulski. She has reached out to both sides. She wants the process to work, as do most of us, and this is an example of that.

I hope later this afternoon that we are going to get a good vote, just as the House did, on this bill. This a big step in how we should be running the government.

I yield the floor.

No objection.

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

Madam President, we have had a spirited debate today for very important reasons, and I will conclude my remarks on this bill by observing that, with very few exceptions, we have heard nothing but positive comments from our colleagues today here in the Senate.

We have also heard what an important step this will be to reestablish the regular order of the Senate appropriations process. In the appropriations world, regular order means receiving the President's budget, holding hearings, marking up bills, and bringing them to the floor of the Senate with an open amendment process, which both sides of the aisle need and want.

The passage of this omnibus bill will be a giant step, I believe, in that direction, which is in the best interests, in the long run, of each individual Senator as well as this entire institution.

I would be remiss if I did not once again recognize the chair of the Appropriations Committee Senator Barbara Mikulski, my colleague, and the leadership that she demonstrated in creating an environment in which a compromise could be reached here. Anyone who has attempted to bring a single bill to the floor of the Senate understands what a difficult undertaking that can be. This particular legislation contains 12 separate appropriations bills.

I also recognize the efforts of the respective ranking members of each subcommittee. The Christmas holiday, as we all know, is usually an opportunity to refocus their attention on their families and their home States. This past year, however, we asked them to once again go the extra mile, to skip their

holidays, to make this bill a reality. Because of that and their work, they have done that--without hesitation.

As has already been mentioned by a number of my colleagues, no bill ever reaches the floor of the Senate without the effort of many different staff members. In this instance it took the effort of literally dozens of staff from both sides of the aisle to bring this together. I personally thank them all for their incredible dedication and professionalism and literally unceasing effort over the past several weeks.

I urge my colleagues once again to support this important legislation, to fund the government and move this body one step closer to being the place we would all like it to be.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, last night here in the Senate we confirmed Janet Yellen to be the next Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. I firmly opposed her confirmation. In 2010 I also voted against Dr. Yellen's nomination to serve as Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve. I want to explain.

At that time I stated my deep concerns about Dr. Yellen's Keynesian bias toward inflation as a member of the Federal Open Market Committee and her poor record of bank regulation as president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve. Those concerns have not faded; rather, they are magnified in light of the importance of the position to which Dr. Yellen has now been confirmed, and that is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.

It is not just that the Chairman of the Fed is perhaps the most powerful individual in the global economy; it is that the institution itself is in utterly uncharted waters. I believe we need a Federal Reserve Chairman with the record and resolve to navigate our economy through this incredibly delicate situation. In my judgment, I thought Dr. Yellen was not that person.

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet currently stands at $4 trillion.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the balance sheet as of January 1 of this year.

A recent Bloomberg analysis contains figures that help us put this staggering number--$4 trillion--into perspective.

I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record that Bloomberg article.

The article contains the following three comparisons that I found more than interesting. Four trillion dollars is equivalent to 24 percent of the U.S. GDP. That is greater than the GDP of the world's fourth largest country--Germany. Think about it. Four trillion dollars is twice the amount of all student and auto debt in this country. Yes, $4 trillion far surpasses even the amount of money the Federal Government spends in an entire year.

This brings me to my next point. Many hold the misconception in this country that China is the world's largest owner of U.S. debt. That is not true. In fact, the Federal Reserve's balance sheet shows the Federal Reserve itself is by far the largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds. With $2.2 trillion in Treasury debt, the Fed holds nearly $900 billion more than China does, if you can think in those terms. The Fed holds more in Treasury bonds than do China and most of the eurozone combined.

The rate of acceleration with which the Federal Reserve is purchasing Treasuries should be alarming to all Americans. On the day of President Obama's first inauguration, the Federal Reserve held $475 billion in Treasuries. Today it holds $2.2 trillion in Treasuries. That represents a 363-percent increase in the past 5 years.

It is no coincidence that President Obama has greatly accelerated our national debt over that same period of time. There is a connection. When he took office, the national debt stood at a large $10.6 trillion. That is a lot of money. Today it stands at $17.3 trillion--5 years later. I believe the Federal Reserve is aiding and abetting the failed policies and the reckless spending of the Obama administration.

But the Fed's binge on Treasuries alone doesn't tell the full story of its exploding balance sheet. The Federal Reserve's portfolio is also loaded with nearly $1.5 trillion of mortgage-backed securities. I have long been concerned that this aggressive and extraordinary purchasing program is artificially propping up home prices, and this is especially pertinent since an overheated housing market greatly contributed to the financial crisis that caused this situation in the first place.

Taken altogether, the Federal Reserve has added more than $3 trillion to its balance sheet since early 2008, just before the investment bank Bear Stearns failed and the Federal Reserve stepped in.

I realize that sometimes it is easy to become lost in all of these huge figures I have been sharing. I brought a simple chart that illustrates the magnitude of the Federal Reserve's actions. It shows here the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet by decade, from its creation in 1913, 100 years ago, to present day. As we can see, it took 95 years for the Federal Reserve's balance sheet to reach $1 trillion. But look at the incredible spike in just a few years since, in the red here. Here we are today, just 5 years later, at $4 trillion and growing.

Let's call this what it is: a backdoor stimulus program through monetary policy. Very complicated, yes, but very important. It dwarfs even the fiscal stimulus package President Obama rammed through Congress during his first days in office about 5 years ago. President Obama's fiscal stimulus package totaled $787 billion--a lot of money-- and I have just described the Fed's monetary stimulus package as nearly four times larger and growing.

This highly unconventional monetary policy poses huge risks to our economy--namely, inflation in the future and a devaluation of our currency. I realize that current inflation expectations are relatively low and anchored. However, again we are in completely uncharted territory. Should inflation expectations become unglued, prices could increase uncontrollably. There is simply no playbook that I am aware of on how to deal with such a situation successfully.

Yes, I also understand that the Fed has recently announced it will modestly scale back its so-called quantitative easing program. The Fed will still purchase tens of billions of dollars of securities each month.

Make no mistake--the Fed's balance sheet will continue to expand rapidly. How long will this continue? We don't know. How large will the Fed's balance sheet ultimately grow? We don't know. Will the Fed be able to contain inflation if it does begin to rise? Again, we don't know. And when will the Federal Reserve actually begin to unwind the balance sheet--which will be tricky? Again, we don't know. How exactly does the Federal Reserve plan to unwind the balance sheet? Again, we don't know, and I don't believe they know.

I raise these points because I met with Dr. Yellen in my office and attended her confirmation hearing in the Banking Committee. I received no meaningful answers to any of those questions, only the usual platitudes that so often mark such meetings.

If I may, I will now turn briefly to the subject of bank regulation, which is very important in this country--a primary and critical function of the Federal Reserve.

I have been a member of the Banking Committee since I first came to the Senate in 1987. I served on the committee through many difficult times in the financial markets, including the savings and loan crisis and the 2008 financial crisis. In all of my experience, I have never seen a financial institution fail that was well managed, well capitalized, and well regulated. The

fact is that so many financial institutions failed in 2008 and 2009 in no small part because the Federal Reserve failed spectacularly in its role as their regulator. I think that is a given.

As President of the San Francisco Fed from 2004 to 2010, Dr. Yellen presided over a regional housing bubble and failed to restrain the excesses in the market. Yet, despite this record of failure, she now runs the most powerful bank regulatory institution in the world--the Federal Reserve. I guess failure begets promotion in President Obama's view. We have seen it time and again.

This is all the more important considering that the Fed gained even greater power under the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law despite the fact that the Federal Reserve's own failures contributed to the need for financial reform in the first place.

In light of Dr. Yellen's weak touch as a bank regulator and her strong inclination to print more and more money, I firmly opposed her nomination. Only time will tell, but I believe a vote in the affirmative is one many of my colleagues will come to regret.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, last week in Illinois President Obama attempted to blame opponents of the ObamaCare for the law's broken promises. He lashed out at what he called ``folks out there who are actively working to make this law fail.'' Those were his words. He further said: ``[A] politically motivated misinformation campaign'' is afoot. He strongly implied that fault rests not with those who conceived the law but those who have not, in his estimation, ``committed themselves to making [it] work.''

Think about it a minute. This flailing, of course, was nothing more than an effort by President Obama to dodge and deflect accountability for the law that bears his name. Let's be real. ObamaCare is not a failure because so many Americans reject it, rather so many Americans reject ObamaCare because it is a failure. I believe we should focus on what truly matters.

Americans are growing increasingly anxious about how the law will affect them and their families. They wonder what it will mean for health insurance and tax bills. They wonder whether they will be able to get the care they need when they need it. They wonder whether the quality of American health care will remain the best in the world and, yes, they wonder how a government reorganization of one-sixth of the economy will impact a weak jobs market. Unfortunately, neither the outset nor the outlook provides consolation.

President Obama has frequently sought to downplay the debacle surrounding the rollout of his health care law. He says ``that glitches and bumps'' are to be expected. But as the Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel notes, the Democrats didn't ``count on the hiccups turning into cardiac arrest,'' and that is what happened.

Since the enactment of ObamaCare, a laundry list of unworkable provisions has been repealed or delayed. But recently the administration announced two particularly notable delays.

First, the administration will delay implementation of the law's employer mandate until 2015 because workable

reporting requirements are not yet in place. This provision requires all employers in this country with more than 50 employees to provide adequate health care coverage for full-time employees, defined as those employed at least 30 hours per week or pay a penalty. In anticipation of this mandate many employers are cutting back hours for current workers and holding off on hiring new ones.

I welcome any relief from ObamaCare for anyone in this country, but why should such relief not apply to individuals and families as well as businesses? If the administration hasn't gotten its act together by now, what leads us to believe it ever will? Instead of temporarily delaying part of ObamaCare for some, I believe the best course would be to permanently delay all of it for everyone.

The administration also recently announced postponement of a critical taxpayer protection under ObamaCare. Taxpayers were previously told the government would verify that applicants actually qualify for subsidies before receiving them. Now the administration says it is not ready to do that until 2015, although it will still go ahead with enrollment in the program in 2014. So for the coming year, the Obama administration will trust but not verify anything. The honor system, I believe, is no taxpayer protection.

These are not run-of-the-mill glitches and bumps, as the President would say. These provisions are central to the legislation and may foreshadow major problems to come, as we find out every day. These provisions are unworkable or problematic not because people don't like them but because they were poorly designed. This isn't about a lack of commitment on behalf of those forced to comply with these mandates. Rather, it is about a lack of confidence on behalf of those who conceived and crafted these provisions.

In light of the disastrous rollout of ObamaCare, Americans are also apprehensive about the cost--yes, the cost. How will all of this impact their health insurance premiums? What will be the tax burden? What will a new entitlement program do to our $17 trillion debt, which is growing?

With respect to premiums, President Obama told the American people his health care overhaul ``could save families $2,500 in the coming years.'' Those were his words. But despite this bold claim, health insurance premiums for the average American family have increased over $3,000 since 2008, and this is according to the Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefit Survey, which is very well respected.

Moreover, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis finds that premiums for healthy consumers could double or even triple under ObamaCare. Can we imagine that?

Although ObamaCare has not decreased premiums, it has certainly increased taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office--CBO--and the Joint Committee on Taxation, ObamaCare imposes a $1 trillion tax hike on the American economy over just the first 10 years--a $1 trillion tax hike. Their analysis finds 21 tax hikes in ObamaCare due to the law's various mandates and restrictions. Among these, several affect individuals making less than $200,000 and married couples making less than $250,000--a clear violation of President Obama's often repeated campaign promise not to do so.

Despite this massive tax hike, ObamaCare will still add $6.2 trillion--yes, $6.2 trillion--to the debt in the years ahead. This is based on the Government Accountability Office projections. This clearly violates yet another promise by the President that he would ``not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficit--either now or in the future.'' Goodness.

I believe ObamaCare will not only fail to control costs but will also destroy the best quality health care in the world--ours. Why do I say this? In 2009, Dr. Martin Feldstein, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan and a Harvard professor, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled ``ObamaCare Is All About Rationing.'' He backed up his statement by citing a report issued by President Obama's own Council of Economic Advisers which explained how the President would propose to reduce health spending by eliminating certain treatments--by rationing.

Dr. Feldstein went on to compare the Obama strategy to that of the British national health service. He concluded the existence of such a program in the United States would not only deny lifesaving care but would also cast a pall over medical researchers who would fear that government experts might project their discoveries as ``too expensive.''

Think of the implications of rationing health care. What does it mean for a patient sitting in the doctor's office when they get a life- changing diagnosis? I know that feeling. I have been there. It reassured me to know we have the best health care in the world and that everything possible would be done to save my life. I want others who encounter that situation to have the same reassurance. But will they?

Despite what President Obama may say, it is not just Republicans who have deep concerns about health care. This week, on the same Wall Street Journal opinion pages, Howard Dean, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and Governor, as well as a physician, concurred with Dr. Feldstein. Mr. Dean wrote that ObamaCare's independent payment advisory board--IPAB--``is essentially a health care rationing body.'' By setting doctor reimbursement rates for Medicare and determining which procedures and drugs will be covered and at what price, the IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them. That was the plan.

Mr. Dean went on to say, ``These kinds of schemes do not control costs. The medical system simply becomes more bureaucratic.''

We all know now ObamaCare is a bureaucratic nightmare. With more than 20,000 pages of new rules and regulations, the law expands government to an unprecedented level, creating 159 new boards, commissions, and government offices. Think of it.

Adding to these concerns, Deloitte's 2013 Survey of U.S. Physicians finds that due to recent developments in health care, ``the future of the medical profession as we know it may be in jeopardy as it loses clinical autonomy and compensation.'' The survey by Deloitte also found that ``6 in 10 physicians''--6 in 10--``say it is likely that many physicians will retire earlier than planned in the next 1 to 3 years.''

Again, sitting in that doctor's office, I remember breathing a little easier to know we have not only the most advanced treatments but also the most skilled and experienced physicians in the world. We don't want to jeopardize that, do we?

In addition to concerns about the quality of care, the Obama administration has backtracked on still another of the President's promises. In 2009, he stated unambiguously: ``If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.'' The President's words.

Despite this pledge, the Department of Health and Human Services, under the Obama administration, recently posted the following on healthcare.gov: ``Depending on the plan you choose in the marketplace, you may be able to keep your current doctor.'' It says ``may'' be able to keep your doctor. That is not what the President told the American people.

A University of Chicago study underscores this finding that more than half of current individual insurance plans do not meet ObamaCare's standard to be sold on the exchanges. So much for that ironclad promise.

But there is another area: ObamaCare is a job killer. How will ObamaCare affect jobs? In President Obama's recent Illinois speech I mentioned earlier, he made the following curious statement about Republicans and job creation: ``They'll bring up ObamaCare despite the fact that our businesses have created nearly twice as many jobs in this recovery as they had at the same point in the last recovery when there was no ObamaCare.''

This is a non sequitur. At a minimum, President Obama implied that ObamaCare has not hurt job creation. At worst, he implied it has helped.

In stark contrast, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's second quarter 2013 Small Business Survey in America finds that ``71 percent of small businesses--and that is the job creation machine in this country--say the health care law makes it harder to

hire.'' The same survey finds that ``one-half of small businesses say that they will either cut hours to reduce full-time employees or replace full-time employees with part-time workers to avoid the mandate.''

In addition, Gallup finds that ``41 percent of small business owners say they have held off on hiring new employees'' in response to ObamaCare.

The 1-year delay on ObamaCare's employer mandate provides momentary relief. But in light of sustained high unemployment in this country, I find it deeply troubling that perhaps the best thing President Obama has done for American business during his time in office is to provide only a brief reprieve from his own signature achievement.

Notably, labor unions agree with businesses now, that ObamaCare will hurt the economy. Recently, in a scathing letter to Democratic leaders in Congress, the president of the Teamsters Union, the UFCW, and UNITE- HERE, wrote that ``ObamaCare will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour workweek that is the backbone of the American middle class.''

This brings me full circle to where I began my remarks. President Obama conveniently blames Republican opposition for the stumbles and failures of ObamaCare, despite the fact that Americans across the political spectrum have spoken up about its many flaws.

President Obama rammed his health care legislation through Congress without a single Republican vote. Why? Because he knew he did not need our votes to put the entire Nation under his health care plan. Yet now he claims that ObamaCare works for those who are ``committed to it.'' Committed to it?

Republicans are committed to finding solutions that actually lower health costs, that do not tax and spend us into oblivion, that preserve the world's highest quality health care, and that foster economic growth. We have said all along that ObamaCare would fail on each of these counts.

I believe opposition to ObamaCare is not responsible for its failures, and commitment to it will not negate its deep flaws. The only way to achieve the goals we all share is to begin by repealing this failed law so we can replace it with a plan that works. I hope we can.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, as we all know, we have a jobs crisis in America. High unemployment and weak economic growth have festered for nearly 5 years. American families are increasingly dependent upon government, and businesses are being suffocated by it all over this country.

I believe our ability to emerge from this jobs crisis stronger than before depends upon government performing its proper role in the economy. In my view, that role is to establish the conditions for job creation and economic growth in the private sector. Through stable fiscal policy, a simplified tax code, and streamlined regulation, the government can create an economic environment conducive to risk-taking and innovation that leads to real job creation in this country. Unfortunately, the same toxic combination of government overreach and inaction which has failed to produce a jobs recovery in this country thus far also threatens to prolong the jobs crisis, I believe, for years to come.

We learned in the last few days that President Obama is planning a PR blitz to gloss over his failed economic agenda. Over a series of speeches he will give around the country, he said he will discuss his vision for the future. But he will offer nothing new. According to the New York Times, his jobs plan is ``largely repackaging economic proposals that the President has offered for years.'' We need a fresh free market approach to job creation. Stale Obama policy leftovers will not cut it. They are not new ideas. It is not a new beginning.

I will preface my remarks here on the fiscal, tax, regulatory, and monetary policy challenges we face in this country with a more detailed description of the current macro-economic conditions, starting with job numbers.

The official unemployment rate in the United States is 7.6 percent. That makes 54 straight months of unemployment above 7\1/2\ percent. However, as grim as those figures are, they do not tell the full story. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the real unemployment rate in this country--known as U6--is 14.3 percent unemployment. U6 includes those who are unemployed, those who want to work but have stopped searching for a job, and those working part time because they cannot find full-time work. Some 22.6 million Americans fall under this category I have just described. That is the real unemployment. That is sad.

The real unemployment rate was 14.2 percent when President Obama took office in January of 2009. It peaked at 17.1 percent in late 2009 and early 2010 but has not fallen below 13.8 percent during his time in office. By all measures this has been a jobless Presidency thus far.

Digging further into the numbers reveals more troubling trends. The number of people working part time because their hours were cut back or because they cannot find full-time work increased by 322,000 people last month to 8.2 million people in this country. The percentage of the unemployed who have been without work for 27 weeks or more also remains dangerously high at 36.7 percent.

An analysis by the Hamilton Project in February of this year found that we will not get back to full employment for another 10 years based on recent job-creation numbers. Meanwhile, economic growth remains sluggish.

The most recent figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis indicate that the U.S. real gross domestic product, GDP, grew at a tepid 1.8- percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2013--this year.

Average annual real GDP growth was just 0.8 percent over President Obama's first term in office, the full 4 years.

We are experiencing the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression. As a consequence, government dependency in this country is on the rise. Under President Obama, the number of Americans on food stamps has increased by 47 percent to 47 million people; 8.9 million Americans collect disability pay, and that number is increasing by 70,000 people a month, unheard of in the past.

These are alarming figures. How did we get there? I will explain.

Overspending. The current job crisis, I believe, is a product of the 2008 financial meltdown we all went through. No one denies that President Obama was dealt a tough hand coming into office. He was. But the question is, What did he do about it?

President Obama's first act in office, if you will recall, was to ram a $787 billion stimulus package through Congress. He promised the American people it would keep the unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent. Instead, the unemployment rate hit 10 percent in October of 2009 and remained above 8 percent for the next 43 consecutive months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But President Obama's spending binge was just getting started. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the congressional budget deficit in 2009 was $1.413 trillion. In 2010, an additional $1.294 trillion. In 2011 it was another $1.3 trillion, and in 2012 $1.087 trillion--not billion, trillion. Although the 2013 deficit we are in now is projected to get below $1 trillion, it will still be $183 billion higher than any pre-Obama deficit.

Looking at the big picture, the national public debt now stands at just under $17 trillion, an increase of nearly 60 percent under President Obama.

What has been the result of this spending spree? Taxpayers got more debt, but job seekers didn't get more work.

Compounding our fiscal difficulties, Social Security and Medicare remain on an unstable long-term footing. These programs alone already account for 38 percent of Federal spending. But over the next 25 years, the Congressional Budget Office projects their share--that is Social Security and Medicare--of GDP to increase by 40 percent.

According to the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, Medicare is expected to run out of money in 13 years, and Social Security will go broke by 2033. Saving these essential programs requires Presidential leadership. Unfortunately, there has been none to speak of. President Obama's spending binges have precipitated multiple budget showdowns and, as a result, they have also presented many opportunities for spending and entitlement reform.

But President Obama has not risen to the occasion yet, despite broad consensus that we must take action to save Social Security and Medicare. President Obama used the power of his office to campaign pre- and postelection for one thing, tax increases.

Tax increases are not the solution to a spending problem. Tax hikes do not create jobs. Tax hikes will not generate growth. Tax hikes kill jobs and allow President Obama to spend more and for Congress and the President to borrow more. I believe what we need in this country is structural tax reform, not tax increases.

According to the most recent data from the Internal Revenue Service, the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those making $369,000 or more, pay 37.38 percent of all income taxes. I wish to say it again. According to the IRS, 1 percent of the taxpayers paid 37 percent of all income taxes.

The top 5 percent of taxpayers, those making $161,000 or more, paid 59 percent of all income taxes. Think about it. The top 10 percent of all taxpayers, those making $116,000 or more, paid 70 percent of all income taxes.

The top 25 percent of taxpayers, those making $69,000 or more, pay 87 percent of all income taxes.

The top 50 percent of taxpayers, those making $34,000 or more, pay 97 percent of all income taxes.

Meanwhile, the other 50 percent, those making $34,000 or less, pay 2.36 percent, a little over, not quite 2.5 percent of all income taxes. In addition, approximately half of U.S. households pay no income tax.

Despite these imbalances, President Obama increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans by $617 billion in January of this year. Still, a Heritage Foundation analysis of Treasury Department data finds that President Obama's fiscal year 2014 budget contains an additional $1.1 trillion in proposed tax increases. This is a tax-and-spend administration.

The size and complexity of the Tax Code adds to the tax burden on the economy. The code contains 55,600 pages, I am told. Taking into account all explanatory materials and IRS rulings, the CCH-Standard Federal Tax Reporter comprises 70,000 pages. Even the instructions for the easiest tax form, the 1040EZ, run 46 pages.

The total cost of complying with the individual and corporate tax requirement in this country was $168 billion last year. According to the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service, there has been approximately 4,680 changes to the Tax Code since 2001.

The Tax Code is filled with various credits, deductions, and corporate welfare. Analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation finds that these so-called tax expenditures total $1.3 trillion. We could drastically simplify the Tax Code and lower individuals' rates by eliminating these provisions alone.

Unfortunately, President Obama's approach to taxes is the same as his approach to spending: more, more, more--but no structural reforms that would help us establish the conditions for job creation and economic growth in this country, which we desperately need.

Overregulation of the economy further deteriorates the conditions necessary for job creation and economic growth. The aggregate regulatory burden on American families and businesses is staggering.

A study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates that total costs for Americans to comply with Federal regulations reached $1.806 trillion in 2012. This translates to nearly $15,000 annually per family or 23 percent of average household income.

According to the American Action Forum, the Federal Government so far this year alone has published regulations that will result in $61 billion in compliance costs and 80 million hours of paperwork.

Despite the failure of the stimulus package, President Obama put the unemployed on hold for more than a year

while he forced government-run health care through Congress. He promised his plan would reduce health insurance premiums by $2,500. Instead, premiums have already increased by that amount, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation employee health benefits survey. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis finds that premiums could double or even triple for healthy consumers, even under ObamaCare.

All together, ObamaCare is 2,400 pages long and creates 159 new boards, commissions, and government offices. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the 10-year spending estimate for ObamaCare is $1.88 trillion. Analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation shows that the law creates or raises 21 taxes totaling $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years.

The impact of ObamaCare on hiring is not surprising. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Q2 2013 Small Business Survey, 71 percent of small businesses say the health care law makes it harder to hire people.

The same survey finds that one-half of small businesses say they will either cut hours, reduce full-time employees, or replace full-time employees with part-time workers to avoid the mandate. In addition, Gallup finds that 41 percent of small business owners say they have held off on hiring new employees in response to ObamaCare.

I welcome recent news that the Obama administration will temporarily delay the employer mandate. But in light of the evidence that ObamaCare is increasing health insurance costs and making it harder for the unemployed to find jobs, we should delay the whole law permanently for everyone. We should repeal it.

Congress should start over and craft legislation that will actually lower health care costs and preserve high-quality care without crushing businesses with unnecessary regulations.

President Obama's expansion of government did not end with ObamaCare. In 2010, he forced through Congress his purported response to the financial meltdown, the Dodd-Frank legislation.

We were told that the financial regulatory system needed to be streamlined to prevent future bailouts, and that is true. Instead, Dodd-Frank created more government agencies than it eliminated. Moreover, the law totals 2,300 pages and calls for 400 new rules.

A study by scholars at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University estimates that Dodd-Frank had already generated 2,109 restrictions in the Code of Federal Regulations by the end of 2011, and there is more to come.

At this rate, they project a 26-percent increase in restrictions in relevant sections of the code once all Dodd-Frank rulemakings are finalized in the future. Dodd-Frank will create jobs only for regulatory compliance officers, not for people working every day in the United States.

Earlier this year I introduced legislation that would require regulators to perform a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of new Dodd- Frank regulations. Under the legislation, a regulation dies if its costs exceed its benefits to the economy.

Unfortunately, the Democratic majority in the Senate has not brought up this legislation for consideration. Some observers have subscribed to the cynical view that the legislation is nothing more than an effort to undercut financial reform.

I am the only current Member of the Senate who voted against both financial deregulation in 1999 and the Wall Street bailout in 2008. I subscribe to the view that regulations should protect taxpayers without harming job creators.

President Obama's regulatory zeal finds an outlet now in a war on coal in this country. Aware that it does not have the votes to jam his carbon tax agenda through Congress, he now will direct the Environmental Protection Agency to implement it by way of regulation. We all know his environmentalist crusade will kill jobs.

An analysis by the Heritage Foundation estimates that drastically reducing the percentage of coal in our Nation's energy portfolio would, by 2030, kill more than 500,000 jobs and increase electricity prices by 20 percent.

In contrast, a Wood Mackenzie study estimates 1.4 million American jobs could be created if the government adopted policies encouraging U.S. energy exploration and production.

I believe the Obama environmental agenda will do more to put family budgets in the red than it will to make the world green.

Instead of waging a war on coal jobs, I believe President Obama should approve and expedite the Keystone Pipeline. This would create tens of thousands of jobs and decrease energy bills for families and businesses. This is the type of clear-headed energy policy we should be pursuing in this country.

In light of the existing and increasing regulatory burden, it is not surprising the Federal Reserve estimates that manufacturers, domestic producers, and other nonfinancial American companies are sitting on a record $1.78 trillion stockpile of cash. Why? If we are to create the conditions for real job creation in this country, we must start by streamlining the regulatory burden on the economy. The rules, restrictions, and mandates facing those who wish to undertake an entrepreneurial endeavor or expand their business through investment and innovation is mind-numbing.

Monetary Policy

I would also like to talk a few minutes on monetary policy--very dry, complicated, but very important to all of us.

On July 17, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told members of the House Financial Services Committee ``if we were to tighten policy, the economy would tank.''

What does he mean? He was referring to the Federal Reserve's aggressive use of nontraditional monetary policy to prop up markets since the financial meltdown of 2008. The implied message is striking: The Fed is taking big risks through monetary policy because administration policy is not helping the economy.

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet quantifies just how big a risk Chairman Bernanke feels he must take with so-called monetary stimulus. It currently stands--the Fed balance sheet--at $3.5 trillion, and continues to grow at $85 billion a month under the Fed's so-called quantitative easing program. Among the assets included in the Fed's balance sheet are $2 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities and $1.2 trillion in Federal agency mortgage-backed securities.

To put the acceleration of the Fed's balance sheet into perspective, it took 95 years from the Fed's creation 100 years ago--1913--to reach $1 trillion. The Fed then added the second trillion in just 6 weeks, followed by the third trillion this past January. Under the current quantitative easing program, the Fed's balance sheet will reach $4 trillion in less than 6 months. Where does it end--$5 trillion, $6 trillion, $10 trillion?

As with fiscal policy, we are in uncharted monetary policy waters. The Fed's unprecedented measures carry substantial risk and uncertainty to every man, woman, and child in this country. Should inflation increase, and it will, the Fed would have to tighten monetary policy to contain it. However, should the Fed tighten monetary policy, it risks stalling an already weak economy here. As deep as our fundamental economic challenges already are, the thought that one wrong monetary policy move by the Fed could cripple our entire economy is deeply troubling.

In conclusion, I think we face a serious confluence of economic challenges in this country. It is obvious to me that President Obama's policies have not worked and they will not create work or jobs. Real job creation is a result of entrepreneurship and innovation and risk in the free market. I believe the government's role is to establish conditions for that to occur. We can do this by stabilizing our Nation's finances, simplifying our Tax Code, and streamlining our regulatory framework.

The more President Obama and this administration cling to the tired liberal ideology that more government is always the answer, the longer this job crisis will persist. America deserves better.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee Senator Mikulski for moving ahead to complete action on this, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. This is the first bill reported by the Appropriations Committee to be considered by the Senate on the floor.

I believe it is important that Congress exercises constitutional authority over the funding of government. If we do not pass appropriations bills, the undesirable outcome is a government shutdown, which none of us wants. I believe, however, that the Senate is still on a precarious path.

The majority is pursuing a top-line discretionary spending level of $1.058 trillion for the fiscal year 2014. This exceeds the Budget Control Act level by over $90 billion. The Budget Control Act is the law that establishes and enforces, through sequestration, limits on discretionary spending.

In fiscal year 2013, most discretionary programs were forced to take arbitrary across-the-board cuts. We did not have to go in that direction for 2014. Over 1 month ago, all Republican members of the Appropriations Committee signed a letter to Chairwoman Mikulski calling for a top-line number of $967 billion that complies with the law.

There could have been an alternative to sequestration. The Appropriations Committee could have written spending bills that adhered to the budget constraints of the law. This would have allowed Congress, not an indiscriminate formula, to make spending cuts of its choosing and to establish priorities, which we ultimately will have to do.

This level would have also given Senate and House appropriators a better chance to conference individual bills. Instead, several of the appropriations bills between the two Chambers are so far apart that aligning them would be difficult, if not impossible.

Regrettably, because of this disagreement, the endgame will probably be a continuing resolution. Every year that we have a continuing resolution or a series of them is another year that we drift further away from the regular order. In addition, even a continuing resolution for 2014 based on this year's

discretionary spending would require another sequester under the Budget Control Act.

Given the direction we are headed, I wish to vote against all appropriations bills that adhere to a total of $1.058 trillion. It is not because the bills are entirely unworthy of support. That is not true. It is because they will ultimately lead us to a statutory dead end and erode the ability of Congress to control how the government is funded, as we have done before.

Therefore, I intend to oppose the motion to proceed, not because I don't think the bill has merit, as I said, but because in many ways it does. I will oppose the motion to proceed because it will inevitably lead us, once again, to an impasse that will result in further continuing resolutions and take us further away from any semblance of regular order.

I yield the floor.