Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise, along with my colleague from New Hampshire Senator Shaheen to talk about the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act. This is one of those pieces of legislation we ought to pass around here. It is bipartisan. It is good for the country. It is part of an energy plan for America that can help bring the jobs back, help fix our trade deficit, help make our manufacturers more competitive, help save taxpayers money, and actually help to clean the environment. That all sounds pretty good, doesn't it, and it does so without a single mandate. It does so without any new spending. It is fully offset, and, in fact, I would make the strong argument it is going to save taxpayers a lot of money. Why? Because putting energy efficiencies in place in the Federal Government, the biggest energy user in the world, we are going to see a lot of savings to U.S. taxpayers.

Over the last several months we have been working to clear a few last few hurdles that stand in the way of passing this legislation. I am pleased to say from what I am hearing from the other side of the aisle--Senator Shaheen can talk more about this--it looks as though we are going to have a good shot to move this early next year.

Before we leave for the holidays, I wanted to have a chance to talk about it a little bit. I know Senator Shaheen did, I know Senator Wyden, who is here with us, the chairman, and Senator Murkowski, the ranking member on energy, are all highly supportive of this legislation. After all, it got out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee with a strong bipartisan vote, 19 to 3. This doesn't often happen with regard to energy policy around this place. This is one of those things where Republicans and Democrats alike can come together to do something good for our country.

It is also important we do it now because it gives the economy a shot in the arm at a time we need it. There is a lot of talk in this place about an ``all of the above'' energy strategy. To me, this fits perfectly with that. On this side of the aisle we talk a little more about the production side. In other words, we ought to be using more of the energy in the ground in America right now and I think we should. We should be producing more energy. At the same time, the energy we produce we should use more efficiently, and it has all those benefits we talked about earlier if we do that.

We still import a lot of oil. In combination with China it contributes to our trade deficit. In fact, the entire trade deficit one could say is due to energy imports and trade with China alone. By doing away with some of those energy imports, because we are using energy we have more efficiently here, we are going to see lower trade deficits.

The bill creates jobs and that is why it is supported by over 260 trade associations and companies, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and others. But it is also good for the environment, which is why the coalition also includes the Alliance to Save Energy, the Sierra Club, and others--again, a big reason this passed the Energy and Natural Resources Committee with a bipartisan vote of 19 to 3.

Simply put, the legislation the senior Senator from New Hampshire and I have worked on for 2\1/2\ years makes good environmental sense, makes good energy sense, makes good economic sense. It makes sense to help move this economy forward.

I visited with businesses and job creators all over my State of Ohio. They tell me the same thing. Energy efficiency is critical to their ability to compete. Think about it. We do live in a global economy. We live in an economy where we are competing in Ohio not just with Indiana but with India. As a result, we have to look at our cost of doing business, and one cost of doing business of course is labor. We don't want to compete with developing countries on labor rates. We want our labor rates to be good. We want benefits to be good.

Another aspect we could look at, of course, is the quality of our goods. We don't want to cut corners on the quality of the manufactured product we produce in this country. In fact, we want to make sure we produce the best in the world. But energy is an area where we can cut costs. By making our manufacturers more competitive by reducing their costs, we are going to be able to compete globally, add more jobs in the country, and again be able to help on our trade deficit. That is why this legislation is so important, because what the Federal Government can do is help the private sector take advantage of the best research that is out there, the best practices that are out there, so our companies can reduce their costs putting those savings toward expanding companies' plants and equipment, hiring more workers.

The proposals contained in this bill are very commonsense reforms needed for a long time. Again, there are no mandates on the private sector, none. In fact, many of our proposals come as a direct result of conversations we had with people in the private sector as to what they actually want and need. That is how we put this together.

It is also about how the Federal Government can become more energy efficient. We talked earlier about the fact that the Federal Government is the largest user of energy in the world. Think about that. Our bill basically says to the Federal Government: Why don't you start practicing what you preach. There is a lot of talk about green energy, green technology, and so on at the Federal Government level. But actually, it turns out the Federal Government itself is inefficient. We have lots of studies that show that.

More importantly, we have ideas to make the Federal Government more efficient and less wasteful. It directs the Department of Energy to issue recommendations that employ energy efficiency on everything from computer hardware to operational and maintenance processes, energy efficiency software, and power management tools. It also takes the commonsense step of allowing the General Services Administration to update building designs to meet efficiency standards that have been developed since those designs were finalized. They cannot do that now. And that makes no sense.

The Federal Government has been looking for places to tighten its belt. Energy efficiency is a very good place to start. It will save taxpayer money and help the environment in the process.

All this adds up to a piece of legislation that Americans across the political spectrum should be able to support, again fully offset, no mandates, and requires the Federal Government to become more efficient. All this makes sense.

What will the impact be? There is a recent study of our legislation that says that by 2025, the Shaheen-Portman legislation is estimated to aid in the creation of 136,000 new jobs while saving consumers $13.7 billion a year in reduced energy costs by the year 2030. It is the equivalent of taking millions of homes off the grid. It is the equivalent of the entire energy use of the State of Oklahoma, for instance, if we just put some of these commonsense efficiency standards in place.

This legislation is not everything everybody wanted. Some of the environmental groups would like to have gone further, and some of the business groups would probably like to see some other things to help them. But this is legislation that is sensible. It will make a difference. It is bipartisan. It can pass in the Senate significantly, and it can also be legislation that will be mirrored in the House of Representatives and passed.

There is a bicameral interest. A number of House Democrats and Republicans are on board. They are interested in our moving this legislation in part so they can then move legislation in the House and we can get it to the President's desk for his signature.

The Secretary of Energy has made energy efficiency one of his new priorities. So this is something we should and can do.

We all often lament the fact that there is not much bipartisanship around this place and not much is getting done; and it is true. It is true. The budget agreement was good this week. We had to do something. It is far from perfect, as I have said, even though in the end I voted for it because I think we need to move forward on this issue and have a budget for the first time in 4 years. But this is an example of bipartisan legislation that is positive and that can help move the country forward.

Any true, all-of-the-above energy strategy has to include not just producing more energy but using it more efficiently. Produce more, use less. That is good for jobs, good for taxpayers, and good for the environment.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I hope we will hear from the Senator from New Hampshire who has been my partner in this effort for the past 2\1/2\ years.

Would the Senator yield?

I yield to my colleague from Ohio.

I wish to thank the Senator and our colleague from Pennsylvania, Mr. Toomey, for the work on this issue.

Municipalities all around the country, including my State of Ohio, were shocked to hear about this. I appreciate joining my colleague from New York in a letter to the EPA.

Cash-strapped cities in New York, Ohio, and other States are happy to know they are not going to have to take on this burden. It makes sense to stop, take a look at this, and be sure we are not forcing these hydrants--that are otherwise in good shape--to be repaired and replaced. It is not something that is in the budgets of these cities.

I appreciate the Senator's work on it and look forward to ensuring that this does not move forward into regulation but also that we figure out a more sensible way to deal with the issue.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the budget agreement before the Senate. We had a vote today on moving ahead to that legislation, and I supported that movement. I supported the cloture vote and will support the underlying budget agreement because it does take modest steps to reduce the deficit. It does so without raising taxes. It also relieves some of the sequester's worst impact on our national security, and it also prevents another government shutdown next month and also next year.

I also support it because it is time for us to have a budget. We have not had a budget for 4 years. It will enable us to begin the process of having appropriations bills again. In the appropriations process, of course, we have oversight over the Federal departments and agencies and we prioritize spending, which is very important. Among other things, this will give us the opportunity to root out some of the waste and fraud and actually determine what programs are working and not working to be able to use the power of the purse that Congress has, to help be sure taxpayer funds are being used efficiently and effectively.

As Members know, this agreement was the culmination of what is called a Budget Conference Committee between the House and the Senate. So it was Democrats and Republicans but also the House and Senate coming together. That has not happened in 4 years. So we have not had a budget in 4 years. We have not had a budget conference in 4 years. If you think about that, is it any wonder that during those 4 years Congress has racked up historic debts and deficits?

The deficits of the past 4 years have been the largest deficits in the history our country, and one reason is we have not had the discipline that comes with having a budget and being sure there is some accountability for the spending. We have not made the hard choices our constituents have to make every day, how much to spend and what to spend it on. That is what a budget is supposed to do.

This budget agreement we will be voting on this week is far from perfect. There is a lot I don't like about it. In fact, I just supported the attempt to amend it on the floor of the Senate to improve it, but I do believe that with a divided Congress--Republicans in charge in the House, Democrats in charge in the Senate--it was the best we could hope for. There were no tax increases, as the Democrats wanted. We just heard from one of my colleagues about how more taxes are needed, but there were no tax increases in this budget agreement.

There is actual deficit reduction, although I will acknowledge that the deficit reduction is way too small. There is about $22 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years compared to the existing law.

It does provide some sequester relief for the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense was facing across-the-board sequester cuts which were kind of arbitrary across-the-board cuts of about $20 billion starting on January 15 and over the next few months.

This relief is very important to our military. We have heard from them. It is important to our readiness. It is important to our troops. It is important to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and other bases around the country. It is important to our war fighters who are stationed around the globe tonight and putting their lives on the line for us. So I think the sequester relief for the Department of Defense that is in the budget agreement is important.

While this might be the best 2-year budget agreement that is imaginable in a time of a divided government, such as we have with all of the dysfunction in this town, it is certainly not the comprehensive agreement the American people deserve.

Through this agreement, Congress has now accomplished the bare minimum of what the American people should be able to expect from Congress. After all, Congress does have, as I said earlier, the power of the purse, and that is in the Constitution. Every dime has to be appropriated by the Congress. We should be the ones determining how taxpayer dollars are spent, and we certainly need a budget.

There are some who took to the floor today, and will tomorrow I am sure, who will say this is a great budget agreement; this shows everyone how Washington can work and come together to fix a problem. Fair enough. We avoided a government shutdown. Yes, we are not going to gut national security, and, yes, we will have a small deficit reduction--again, about $22 billion.

Let's be honest about the opportunity Congress missed this week with this budget agreement. When it comes to the very real budget and fiscal problems we face as a country, when it comes to the mandatory spending, which is two-thirds of the budget and is on autopilot, that is the part that is driving our country toward bankruptcy and threatening to undermine important vital programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

We have done nothing on that side of the ledger in this budget agreement. We kicked the can down the road one more time and missed the opportunity. As we all know, unless we address these fiscal problems, the day of reckoning is coming.

This is a pie chart of Federal spending that will kind of show where we are relative to 1965 when mandatory spending--again, this is the part Congress does not appropriate. It is on autopilot. It is 34 percent of the budget. Defense is 43 percent of the budget, domestic discretionary is 23 percent.

Here is where we are today: Mandatory is 66 percent of the budget. We went from 34 percent to 66 percent. Remember, this is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, also interest on the debt. By the way, defense spending has gone from 43 percent down to 18 percent. Yet the sequester disproportionately takes most of the savings out of defense, which is one of the reasons this budget agreement was needed.

We have seen big growth in mandatory spending. By the way, over the next 10 years, it goes from 66 percent to 76 percent. What does that mean? That means it crowds out discretionary spending--defense spending, research spending, education spending, infrastructure spending. That is what is happening.

Our deficits are going to record highs over the next couple of decades and mandatory spending is exploding and it is squeezing the other spending in our budget.

Over the next decade, the Federal Government is going to collect revenue of about $40 trillion, spend about $46 trillion, and run a deficit of $6.3 trillion. Over the next 10 years, there will be another $6.3 trillion on top of the $17 trillion debt.

In that 10th year, by the way, 2023, the best case scenario has a projected annual deficit of nearly $1 trillion--$895 billion for 1 year. By the way, it assumes no wars, it assumes a decade of prosperity, and it assumes 10 years of historically low rates. It is quite a rosy scenario. If any of these factors fall through, things could be much worse, and it could be well over $1 trillion.

This is not a problem that can be solved by just cutting discretionary spending. Over the next 10 years, Washington will spend more than $22 trillion on these vital programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. If we

were to cut our defense budget over the next decade all the way down to zero--have no defense spending at all, zero--we could pay for just one- quarter of that cost of the $22 trillion.

If we removed every penny of potentially identifiable waste in government--which we should do, by the way, and that is why we need to get back to appropriations--we could pay for less than 10 percent of this exploding cost on the mandatory side.

If we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan today and ended all bailouts and corporate welfare, reversed the tax cuts for all Americans making less than $450,000 a year that we kept as part of the fiscal cliff agreement, repealed ObamaCare altogether--if we did all of those things, we would cover just 20 percent of the cost of those programs, this $22 trillion.

In other words, even if we wanted to try to do it by cutting this spending, we could not do it because there is not enough money in that part of the budget. So it is not just a matter of choosing spending priorities and it is certainly not a matter of raising taxes.

Earlier my colleague talked about how we needed to raise more taxes for different things, and I understand a lot of people are saying that, but let's be honest about this: It is a bad idea at a time of a weak economy to raise taxes. Plus, over the next decade, you know what happens on taxes. Over the next decade we have been told by the Congressional Budget Office that taxes will be--as a percent of the economy, which is the way economists tell us we ought to look at it--at historically high levels.

So the economy is already weak, tax revenues are headed toward their highest sustained levels in history, and when it comes to taxes, there is an alternative, which is let's reform the Tax Code.

What we should be doing is restraining spending, reforming these vital but unsustainable programs, while also raising more revenues through growth, and economic growth can come through tax reform. That tax reform gives the economy a shot in the arm. It helps bring back the jobs. It increases revenue through growth. That is why we need both entitlement reform and tax reform.

The issue of entitlement reform is a tough one politically. A lot of Members of Congress are hesitant to touch it. It is called the third rail of American politics. That is akin to the electrified rail in the subway system, where if you touch it you are electrified. Let's start small. How about means testing of Medicare. This could be a first step in the right direction.

Under Medicare, the average two-earner couple retiring today pays $119,000 in lifetime Medicare taxes, yet receives $357,000 in lifetime Medicare benefits. So $1 of taxes for $3 of benefits. That is how Medicare works. That is for a typical family in Ohio or around the country. When we multiply this by 77 million retiring baby boomers, we can see why we have an unsustainable program, because not enough money goes in to pay for the benefits going out.

Providing $3 in benefits under Medicare for every $1 paid in taxes for low-income seniors is one thing. We want to be sure low-income seniors are being taken care of. For the most part, in their working years, they probably didn't earn enough income to pay large Medicare taxes, and the program is designed to see that they do receive the medical coverage they wouldn't otherwise get. But should upper income seniors--seniors who are on Medicare--receive benefits that far exceed what they pay into the system? That is what happens now. Is that fair? I don't think so, when the program is going bankrupt, when our kids and grandkids are facing massive tax increases to pay for a problem that we all foresee and yet fail to correct.

By the way, I tried in this latest budget agreement to say, on the mandatory side of the ledger, why don't we deal with means testing of Medicare. That would provide enough revenue to provide relief on sequester. We wouldn't be doing things such as TSA fees or things such as reducing the benefits for our military. It was rejected. I talked to a number of Democrats about it who said we can't touch that. We can't touch even means testing of Medicare without raising taxes. So, in essence, raising taxes on the wealthy is necessary to reduce benefits for the wealthy. That is the point we are at. That is how tough it is. That is why we need a new approach. That is why we need some leadership--in the House, in the Senate but also in the White House. We need a President willing to help us on this, to talk about it.

Have we ever heard the President talk about the fact that there is $3 of benefits coming from Medicare for every $1 paid in? Have we ever heard the President talk about the fact that entitlements are otherwise going to bankrupt the country? We need a little straight talk and honest dialogue about this.

If we do nothing, as we have done with this budget agreement in the Senate with regard to mandatory spending, entitlement spending, and as we have done time and time again, the Social Security disability trust fund will go bankrupt in 2016, a couple years from now. Medicare will follow in 2026--again, every year, much more being paid out than being paid in. Social Security, already in a cash deficit, meaning there is more money coming out in terms of benefits than there are payroll taxes going in every year--but it will collapse, the trust fund will collapse in 2035. Medicaid has no trust fund, so it will not go bankrupt itself; it will just continue to grow at unsustainable levels, helping to bankrupt the country, but also, in that case, it may take the States down with it, and States will tell us it is generally their largest and fastest growing expense, Medicaid.

So these are issues we must address. On the floor of this Chamber, we often talk about the next generation. We hear speeches about protecting the elderly and ensuring every American gets the benefit of the bargain made when Social Security and Medicare came into being. I agree, but to do that we need to improve and preserve these programs, and we need to stop blaming one another for what happened because, frankly, Republicans and Democrats alike are responsible for this. We have done one thing that is truly bipartisan in the last few decades; that is, we have overspent and we have overpromised, Republicans and Democrats alike. Because we helped create this mess together, we have to work together to resolve it.

With this vote on the budget this week, another budget crisis has passed, and that is good. We are on the road to avoiding another government shutdown in January and again next year. That is the most basic job of government, and I think that is good. We have a little bit of deficit reduction, we didn't raise taxes on a weak economy, but we need to aim higher. Perhaps in the context of the debt limit debate that is coming up in a matter of only a few months, we can get more serious about the underlying problem, because it is that underlying problem that is driving our future deficits. We all know that. We all agree on that. We all know it has to be fixed. So let's do it this coming year.

We have seen how divided government can achieve something important but small. That is what happened with this budget agreement this week. In 2014, next year, let's see how divided government can achieve something big and critical to economic growth and jobs and to the future of our children and grandchildren. That is our solemn responsibility in the Congress, to ensure that we are leaving a better world to future generations. We cannot do this if we do not address this fiscal crisis.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I would like to speak on the nomination.

Mr. President, I am glad to have this opportunity to come to the floor of this great body to talk about issues that are of great concern to the people of Ohio whom I represent and to the country. We are facing a lot of challenges right now. Certainly health care costs are on the rise, as we have seen, but jobs are also hard to come by.

There is a middle-class squeeze going on out there where paychecks are down and health care costs are up, and belief in the American dream, as a result, is on the decline. Some say for the first time since polling has begun people think that future generations are not going to be as well off as we are. This is sad, and there is work we can and should do to address this.

It starts with dealing with some of the gridlock in Washington and getting some things done. One of my concerns about what the majority has done in terms of taking away the rights of the minority to be heard on nominations is creating a very tough environment to break through that gridlock and get things done.

I think about the judiciary. Today we are talking about a court judge who is up for a nomination and the question is whether she is going to be confirmed. Right now, under the current rules that exist, Republicans have no voice, in essence, because the 50 votes from Democrats--and there are 55 Democrats--can put up a judge and get the votes and put anybody through they want.

Under the system that has prevailed in this body for decades, and one consistent with the intention of the Founders, you have to get 60 votes. In other words, the minority would have some voice, and specifically Republicans, in that there are 45 of us and we would have to supply about 5 votes. That makes a big difference in terms of the kinds of judges who are nominated and ultimately confirmed.

There has been a lot of discussion about what is going on here on the floor in terms of ending the ability of the minority to have their voice heard. I think we also need to focus a little on what impact this will have on the judiciary.

When someone is appointed to the DC Circuit Court--somebody was recently confirmed yesterday and the day before for that body--these are lifetime appointments. Instead of having to go through a process where you have to figure out how to get some Members of the other party to support you, right now--under the new rules that were done by breaking the rules, and again, inconsistent with the intent of the Founders who allowed their voices to be heard--they don't have to get the minority. They can do it with just 50 votes. Again, with 55 Democrats, there is no need to consult with Republicans or to get any support. In fact, they can allow five Democrats to vote the other way.

I worry this will polarize the judiciary. I think we are polarized enough in this place. I think Washington is becoming dysfunctional for a lot of reasons, but one is this increased polarization. Now to have this rule change only creates a difficult environment to get work done, but it will also put judges on the judiciary with lifetime appointments; these judges who, frankly, are more liberal under the Democrats and more conservative under the Republicans than they would otherwise be.

In States such as mine where there is a Republican Senator and a Democratic Senator, we work together to try to put judges forward. Democrats realize in the majority they have now, they have to get some Republican support, so they work with us. You tend to get center-left judges nominated and confirmed right now.

Again, under the new rules that Leader Reid and the Democrats have insisted on, that will not be required. Why would you have to consult and work with your counterpart in your State or Republicans on the other side of the Chamber?

When there are 50 votes, you can put forward any judge you want. I do think this will result in judges who are not center left but left and not center right but right. This will polarize the judiciary more, and that concerns me.

I hope, as we are thinking about how we deal with our own procedures--and I know this is an issue that has been debated a lot in the last few weeks because of the decision the Democratic leadership made to take away this right--we also think about what impact this will have on the judiciary. Do we want a more polarized judiciary where some of these ideological differences make it difficult for them to operate just as it makes it difficult for the Congress to operate? I don't think so.

I don't think that is what the American people want, and I know it is not

what the Founders intended when they gave the minority a voice in this body, and I hope we can get back to a regular order where we have a limitation on amendments that is reasonable with reasonable time limits so we can get our work done.

Let's allow amendments to be offered. Let's allow the voices to be heard. Let's allow--in the case of these nominations--input from the other side.

I am very concerned about where this is headed. The logical extension of what the Democrats have done, of course, is to extend this to legislation as well, which I think creates more of a problem than we have already in terms of legislation being passed here that is not reflective of the will of the people, that is not subject to the checks and balances we would have under a rule where we have to get 60, not 50, votes in order to pass legislation.

A prime example is ObamaCare. Let's be honest. The reason it got through the Senate was because a special provision was used called reconciliation, which is supposed to be used for budget matters, revenues, and spending.

I believe that was an inappropriate use of reconciliation as do many other observers who are objective observers and have followed this place for a long time.

ObamaCare was pushed through, not with 60 votes--because after the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, they didn't have 60 votes to get ObamaCare through because not a single Republican would support it because Republicans supported an alternative plan. So without a single Republican supporting it, Democrats chose to ram it through with 50 votes. That is all they needed because they used this so-called reconciliation provision that, again, is supposed to be for budget issues, not health care.

I think the results are now plain to see. We have law in place that is affecting my constituents and affecting the constituents of every Senator, that has very negative consequences. Did we need to do something to reform the health care system? Yes. Was the status quo acceptable? No. Is it acceptable now? No.

There are smart reforms to reduce costs, smart reforms add more choice, to allow markets to work better in health care, to not only provide for better quality and better choice but also lower costs. Those were not pursued. We still have the opportunity now to do that.

I talked earlier about the fact that health care is a big concern to the American people. It certainly is among my constituents in Ohio. We do a tele-townhall meeting periodically. We had a couple of them last month where I will get maybe 25,000 Ohioans on the phone at any one time and talk to them about the issues of the day and hear their questions and concerns.

During the tele-townhall meeting, we ask a poll question, such as what is the most important issue you think is facing the country? We ask whether it is national security and terrorism, energy policy and costs at the pump, health care and health care costs, jobs and the economy, or some other issue.

It is interesting in that every single tele-townhall meeting I have had over the past few years has always been that jobs and the economy is the No. 1 issue. Again, there may be 25,000 people at any one time. When we asked the poll question, that has been the No. 1 question. Usually the No. 2 issue is debt and deficit and spending.

The last two tele-townhalls we did last month--guess what the No. 1 issue was. It was not jobs and the economy or debt and deficit. It was about health care because people are so concerned about what ObamaCare is doing to them and their families.

I will let them speak for themselves. Some of us were on the floor a few weeks ago talking about this, but since that time I have received a lot of stories from people I represent.

Here is one from Susan from Batavia which is in Clermont County in southern Ohio. She says:

I am a single mom. I pay for my own health insurance. I am

active and fit. I have cycled over 4,000 miles this year. I

am seldom sick. In the 3 years I have paid for my own

insurance, I went to the doctor once for illness. My rate was

$146 a month. In September I received a letter from Anthem

saying that my plan does not meet the requirements of the

Affordable Care Act and will be discontinued as of January 1,

2014. I was offered the same coverage I had--not for $146 a

month but for $350 a month.

To Susan from Batavia, thanks for your story and letting us know what is happening and how this is affecting you as a single mom who is taking care of herself, doing the right things, and had a plan that worked for her and was told, no, the government knows best. You can't have your plan. Here is the plan you have to have, and in order to have comparable coverage we are going to raise your rates by over double.

This is from Mike from Westlake in northeast Ohio. Mike says:

I own a small business. Our health insurance rates for

single employees under 30 went from $198 per month last year

to $650 per month this year. That is a 260-percent increase

thanks to ObamaCare. This bill is going to put small

businesses out of business.

Here is one from William from Columbus, OH:

We were paying $540 per month but received a letter from

Anthem stating that the rates would increase to $662 per

month beginning September 2013 and then $1,014 per month in

September 2014 as a result of the requirements per ObamaCare.

If that wasn't bad enough, our family doctor of 25 years

informed us that he will end his practice on January 1,

2014. The reason being is the government requirements of

ObamaCare just made it too difficult to continue.

That is William from Columbus, talking about an issue of price, obviously, going from $540 a month to $1,014 per month. But it is also about choice because his doctor is stepping out because of ObamaCare.

Rachel from Solon says:

My family owns a small business. We were notified that our

current health care plan is substandard at $860 per month. To

comply, we now must pay $1,880 a month. This is beyond

outrageous.

That is what Rachel says. I agree with her: $860 to $1,880 per month--more than double--in order for her to have health care as a small business owner for her and her husband.

Jon from Dublin:

We currently have a high-deductible plan from Anthem and

pay $331 per month. We are perfectly happy with our plan. It

provides wellness visits for free, which is what we really

need, and then catastrophic coverage in case of something

very unpleasant. When I recently reviewed our coverage and

tried to renew it, I asked what an equivalent plan would cost

under the exchange. The quote I received was for $833 per

month.

Remember, he was paying $331 per month. He likes his plan with wellness visits and catastrophic coverage. It goes from $331 per month to $833 per month.

Back to his letter:

The deductible even went up from $11,000 to $12,700.

So this notion that people have to get out of these plans because their deductible is too high--the one that is acceptable based on ObamaCare and this top-down approach is now a higher deductible.

He says:

My family simply cannot afford this plan.

Here is Sarah from Raymond, OH. Sarah writes--and this is painful. These are painful. But Sarah writes:

I am literally crying right now because of our insurance.

My family's new monthly cost starting January 1 is $323.82

biweekly and $647.64 a month, a difference of $420 in what we

currently pay, and the new plan offers less with more out-of-

pocket expenses. The ACA has failed and it is hurting my

family, not helping.

Here is Chuck from West Chester:

I tried to give this health care thing the benefit of the

doubt. I went to the Web site and all the estimates are more

expensive than my canceled policy. My canceled policy was not

only cheaper; it was better, and I don't qualify for any

subsidies. Do I have any choice besides paying more money?

Chuck, I am probably not qualified to give advice, but I will anyway. Your choice is to pay a penalty or pay more. That is what the government is telling you. That is what ObamaCare is telling you.

Cynthia from Canton, OH:

I am a substitute teacher. Recently I received notice that

I was not getting jobs every day like I have been for most of

the past 13 years. I am a good, dependable sub, and I work

for $70 a day before taxes. I contacted the school system and

was told that they are watching any sub to prevent over 30

hours a week because of the Affordable Care Act.

Cynthia's letter to me, unfortunately, is something that I am hearing all over the State of Ohio. It is that people are being told: We need to keep you under 30 hours. She is finding out

as a substitute teacher in Canton, OH, that she can't get the jobs she used to get because they are telling her they want to watch the subs to prevent anybody getting more than 30 hours a week because of the Affordable Care Act. My colleagues probably know this: Under the act, if a person works over 30 hours a week, that person is considered full- time; therefore, the company has to provide the health care insurance that, again, this top-down approach insists on; not the health insurance you may want or your employer may think is appropriate, but the health care insurance that the Affordable Care Act thinks is appropriate. So companies are telling folks, as in the case of this substitute teacher--private and public sector--we need to keep you under 30 hours because we simply can't afford that kind of health care.

Here is Mark from Urbana, OH:

My wife and I are farmers. We have our own private health

insurance, which is not cheap. We just learned that our

insurer is canceling our plan and that the ObamaCare plan

will double our premiums to more than $1,000 per month. My

wife is 55 years old. We do not need maternity coverage or

free birth control or so much other coverage mandated by

ObamaCare. We are modest, middle income people. What we need

in this country is a policy to make health care more

affordable. We can do this if we let Americans determine

their own health care needs and shop for the best and most

affordable care. Why not medical savings accounts for

everyone? They would be privately owned so that no one is

chained to their employer-sponsored plan. Why not require

that health care providers post prices of their services? We

can come up with much better alternatives to ObamaCare.

Please help us.

I agree with him. We can come up with much better alternatives, including letting people save money for their own health care. Why should we want to discourage that? By the way, those HSA savings accounts that Mark is talking about that he would like to see for everyone, those are made less attractive because they take away some of the health care tax benefit.

So we are moving the wrong way. We are moving away from people taking care of their own health needs and encouraging them again to focus on wellness and prevention, understanding that it is their dollar that is at stake and allowing them to build up a little nest egg if they are healthy and if they are able to avoid a health problem, and if they do have a problem, they have coverage, with a high deductible, and they have coverage to take care of it. People should be able to make that decision on their own if that is what is best for them and their family.

Here is Brian from Mentor:

My family's Aetna plan has been canceled due to ObamaCare.

My old plan was $454 per month with a $5,000 per person

deductible. The same deductible policy to buy a new plan is

$1,038 per month--

more than double for Bryan.

Dean from Sandusky:

Ever since I lost my job in 2009, I have been purchasing my

own health insurance. Last month, I received a letter in the

mail stating that my plan is being canceled due to the ACA. I

was told to look at plans on the exchange, which I did, and

found a comparable plan that is over twice the cost of what I

now have. In addition, this is over half of my monthly

pension. I simply cannot afford this.

I have always been a responsible, hard-working, self-

dependent person. Now, because of the actions of our

government, for the first time in my life I will not have

health care coverage. I am 59 years old now and I need this

coverage. I am outraged, to say the least. How can our

government do this to us? I will remember this come election

time.

That is Dean from Sandusky. He lost his job and picked up a plan on the individual market that worked for him. He is now going to have to pay twice as much. He can't afford it. He is not covered. He is on a fixed income. It sounds as though he is going to go without coverage.

By the way, new polling data is out showing that a lot of young people are going to go without coverage. One number is 28 percent of them are; another number is closer to half. I don't know how many. But a lot of young people I talk to say they would rather pay the penalty and take the risk than be covered. That is a problem for them, but it is also a problem for the Affordable Care Act because it is based on those people coming into the system and, frankly, providing the ability for others to get coverage under the risk pools that are set up under ObamaCare.

So the stories I have told are real people facing real problems and they are problems that Washington created for them and their families. They were fine with their coverage. They liked their coverage. I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have their own stories about people who are getting coverage and benefiting from it, particularly those with preexisting conditions. I understand that. But these stories really obscure the question we should be debating on the floor. I agree we should cover people with preexisting conditions, and so do most Republicans. The question is how do we do it.

So when Democrats come to the floor and tell me, Rob, you have all of these stories about people who cannot afford health insurance anymore and are having a really hard time on the individual market, but we will tell our stories of folks with preexisting conditions, my answer is that I also believe we ought to cover those people. I don't dispute that. We want to get coverage for more Americans. That is not the question we are debating. The real question is whether ObamaCare, with its mandates, its top-down, centralized controls is the way to accomplish those goals.

If the President and my friends on the other side of the aisle believe that the only way to increase coverage is to make everyone to pay more, to force millions of Americans to give up their insurance, to make people lose their doctors, then they should say that is what their plan is because that is what is happening.

A lack of honesty and transparency, in my view, is one of the great failures of the Affordable Care Act. I believe ObamaCare was sold to the American people under false pretenses. President Obama famously said, ``If you like your health care, you can keep it.'' He said, ``If you like your health care, you can keep it, period.'' But the one thing he could not do then was keep his word. He had to have known it then. All of the information coming out indicates that was knowledge he should have had, yet he kept saying it. What began as a broken Web site and cancellation notices has turned into sticker shock for millions of Americans who are seeing their health care costs soar under ObamaCare. By the way, as I said earlier, these rising costs are not a mistake in ObamaCare; they were intended in ObamaCare. Under ObamaCare, millions of Americans have to pay more for insurance in order for the program to work. The Web site can be fixed. I assume it will be at some point, although they are certainly having a tough time with it. But this basic premise that is the heart of ObamaCare that other people's costs have to go up, and pretty dramatically, cannot be fixed.

The reason goes back to a critical choice made at the beginning of the health care debate. There are different approaches to covering the uninsured, covering those with preexisting conditions. The approach favored by Republicans, at least many Republicans, including me, would create real economic incentives to bring the uninsured into covered access to health care while taking critical steps to reduce the costs of health care. One of the reasons people aren't covered is cost. The best way to lower the number of the uninsured is to make it easier and less expensive for people to get insurance in the first place.

The President chose to take a very different approach. He chose not to focus on the costs, which have gone up; not to focus on providing incentives for people to get coverage, but instead a top-down, centralized approach. He turned to mandates. ObamaCare requires that all Americans purchase insurance. It mandates what type of insurance that coverage includes, and it requires that private insurers accept all comers, including those with preexisting conditions.

Again, we all want to ensure that those with chronic conditions receive health care, but it also changes the way health insurance underwriting works. Normally, insurance works by pooling resources for some future harm. So for those who have preexisting conditions, obviously the harm is already present and their premiums are not going to be able to pay for their care, for the most part. That is why these high-risk pools in States are something I support and others support, providing tax incentives for that. But the offset is these often have astronomical costs. That is how ObamaCare was designed.

So this notion of these costs are going up and we didn't intend that--of course they intended it. It is exactly the way they intended it. ObamaCare needs more money than these policies would provide, so these private plans we talked about earlier--people in the individual market--many of which are high deductibles, low cost, catastrophic plans, many of the people who have these plans are young people who are relatively healthy. These folks were forced to buy insurance they didn't need because ObamaCare needed the money. The plans they had met the needs of those people--met the customers' needs--but, frankly, didn't meet the government's needs. So those plans were regulated out of existence, padded with extra benefits and consumer protections that many of those who chose this policy didn't want, as Mark from Urbana said, and will never use. Sometimes these policies are double or triple, and we have heard cases where they are five, 10 times more.

What we have seen in the individual market is only the beginning. Next year, the same mandates and government outreach that have hit the individual market will come to effect for the employer-based market as well, where the vast majority of us get our health care, through our employer. So at some point 80 million Americans will likely see their health plans canceled or sold and replaced by--when the employer-based market comes under the ObamaCare mandates, which, as we recall, is going to happen about a year from now, because it was put off for a year--that was the delay the President put in effect--we are going to see much more of this.

Again, there is a better way. There is a way to put this partisanship behind us and do this together. We talked earlier about the fact when you cram something through with all votes on one side of the aisle and ignore the other, we tend to get a policy that doesn't work for the American people.

That is exactly what we are seeing here. There is a better way, and we still need to pursue it. Instead of having less choices and higher costs for all Americans, there is a way to put together a plan that actually helps people.

This is something that Republicans and Democrats alike need to focus on. Instead of a top-down, centralized, government-knows-best solution, we need to go to solutions that actually reduce the costs of health care and provide more choice in health care. It can be done.

ObamaCare should be repealed and replaced, in my view, but it should be replaced. The status quo is not acceptable. I think the failures of ObamaCare point the way as to what we should do--reduce the costs. There are steps we could take today; for instance, remove the shackles of government regulations from the market. Let health care insurance and health care be less expensive. Let health care insurance be sold across State lines. That is something you can do with Federal legislation that will provide more competition. It will lower the cost. There are some areas in my State where there are only a couple plans. I am told under ObamaCare, in some States there are only a couple plans. You want to have more competition, not less.

We should give people the ability to get health care on their own. We talked about health savings accounts. We should help create a healthy, vibrant individual health care market by giving people a tax incentive to purchase health insurance comparable to incentives they would receive with employer-provided coverage where there now are tax incentives to provide health care coverage. Let's deal with these frivolous lawsuits. That reduces the costs.

So I appreciate the fact that one of my colleagues has joined me on the floor and is going to continue this discussion. But I wish to go back to where we started. It does not have to be this way. What we are doing in the Senate by taking away the rights of the minority is not going to help us with regard to getting better judges. It did not help us in terms of cramming ObamaCare through with 51 votes rather than the normal 60 that should have been required. It does not help for us to now continue down this track of a government, one-size-fits-all approach to health care. We have heard the stories. We see what is happening and have not even hit most Americans yet because they get coverage from their employer.

Instead, let's work to together. Let's provide more choice. Let's reduce the costs. Let's ensure that everybody has access to health care that works for them and their families. If we do that, the American people might regain a little bit of trust in this institution and in this town.

Madam President, I would like to yield the floor, if I could, for my colleague and your colleague from North Dakota.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor Simeon Booker as he receives an honorary doctor of letters from Youngstown State University on December 15, 2013. Mr. Booker has devoted his life's work to chronicling the history of the civil rights movement in America.

As an African-American college student in the 1940s and 1950s, Mr. Booker experienced discrimination firsthand at what was then Youngstown College. Refusing to accept the indignities he found there, he transferred to Virginia Union University where he continued to champion the rights of Black students.

Early in his career, he was hired by his hometown newspaper, the Youngstown Vindicator, where he would write local columns focused on the city's African-American population and summaries for the local Black baseball leagues. He went on to work for the Cleveland Call and Post and was offered the esteemed Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in the 1950s.

Mr. Booker became the first Black reporter for the Washington Post in

1952, and also wrote for Jet and Ebony magazines. Mr. Booker was witness to the rise of the great civil rights leaders of that time-- Martin Luther King, Jr., the Kennedy brothers, Whitney Young, and many others. He wrote about Martin Luther King's nonviolent movement for civil rights, and covered the 1963 March on Washington.

Mr. Booker has received recognition from his peers, having been awarded both the Newspaper Guild Award and the Wilkie Award. As a journalist, he became the first African-American to win the National Press Club's Fourth Estate Award in 1982. He most recently authored ``Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter's account of the Civil Rights Movement,'' an account of a half-century of American history. Earlier this year, he was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.

I would like to honor Simeon Booker for his lifetime contributions to our country in the fields of journalism and civil rights and congratulate him on his recognition at Youngstown State University.

Mr. President, I think it is great that we have the opportunity to come to the floor today to talk about what our constituents are telling us. We do not do that enough.

Last night I had a tele-townhall meeting. We had about 25,000 Ohioans. At every one of these tele-townhalls, we do a poll asking what the most important issue is. And of the tele-townhalls we have done, which is one a month, every single time it has been jobs and the economy--until last night. Last night it was health care. That is because most of the questions I got were about health care coverage and people concerned about losing it.

Let me read a letter from one of my constituents. It is indicative of what I am hearing all around the State. This is from Dean. He lives in Sandusky, OH. He writes:

Ever since I lost my job in 2009 I have been purchasing my

own health care insurance. Last month I received a letter in

the mail stating that my plan is being cancelled due to the

ACA. I was told to look at plans on the exchange, which I did

and I found a comparable plan that is over twice the cost of

what I now have.

In addition, this is over half of my monthly pension. I

simply can't afford this. I have always been a responsible,

hard-working, self-dependent person. Now, due to the actions

of our government, for the first time in my life I will not

have any health insurance coverage. I am 59 years old and I

need this coverage. I am outraged to say the least. How can

our government do this to us? I will remember this come

election time. Please get rid of this insane law. This is

unacceptable.

Well, to Dean and to my other constituents, I agree with you. It is unacceptable. We should repeal the law--it does not make sense--and then replace it with one that actually reduces the cost of health care and keep the promise the President made, which is that people can keep the health care they have.

Madam President, I rise today to thank my colleagues for their support earlier today of an amendment that I offered strengthening the protections for religious liberty in the ENDA legislation, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. This amendment was cosponsored by Senators Ayotte, Heller, Hatch, and McCain. I thank Senator Collins for the key role she played in its passage.

I firmly believe that no one should be subject to unjust discrimination, so I support the basic premise of ENDA, which is that people should be judged by their experience, their qualifications, and their job performance, not by their sexual orientation. The bottom line is people should not be able to be fired just because they are gay.

I believe the legislation currently before this body will help create that level playing field and ensure employment opportunities for all. But it does not mean it is a perfect bill. It should be improved and my amendment seeks to ensure that this legislation, designed to promote tolerance of one kind, doesn't enshrine intolerance of another kind.

Religious liberty is an important part of the Employment Non- Discrimination Act already. The underlying bill includes a significant exemption for religious employers. But we have to be certain that in pursuit of enforcing nondiscrimination, those religious employers are not subject to a different kind of discrimination that would be government retaliation. My amendment seeks to ensure the government cannot penalize a religious employer because it qualifies as exempt from the nondiscrimination requirements of ENDA. It protects a church or religious charity or religious school from adverse action by the government on the basis of adhering to its religious tenets, in a manner that would otherwise be unlawful under ENDA. In practical terms, this means the government cannot use activities protected by ENDA's religious exemption as a basis to deny religious employers government grants, contracts, their tax-exempt status, or other benefit.

My amendment prohibits the government from punishing a religious institution for adhering to its deeply held beliefs and thereby seeks to keep the State from intervening in matters of faith.

It does something else important too. The underlying bill specifies certain broad purposes related to addressing employment discrimination. My amendment adds to this introductory section an explicit reference to the fundamental right of religious freedom. It establishes as a basic purpose of ENDA that workplace fairness must be balanced against and made consistent with religious liberty. I believe the

principles of religious liberty and nondiscrimination go hand-in-hand. When we think about nondiscrimination, many of us think about the great civil rights movements of the 20th century, but as we know the fight for tolerance goes back further than that, really to the very foundation of our Republic.

On my mom's side, some of my ancestors were Quakers. They came to this country as so many before them in search of religious freedom. At first that was something hard to find in this country. When they arrived, members of this new sect were often persecuted. Their views and practices were judged to be unorthodox, even strange. Sometimes they were imprisoned. Their books were burned. Some of the colonies did not want them inside their borders.

They knew a little bit about religious freedom, and they certainly knew something about discrimination. It was their experience and the experience of so many other groups of different faiths that made freedom of conscience a cornerstone of our founding documents. The First Amendment begins, ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.''

Religious freedom, therefore, is our first freedom and the amendment that protects it is really our first nondiscrimination law. Any law we pass which seeks to prevent discrimination will not succeed if it does not at the same time protect religious liberty.

The religious liberty protections in ENDA are not perfect. My amendment makes them better, and that is why I appreciate my colleagues giving this amendment the support it deserves.

I am looking forward to the passage of this legislation with this amendment and, again, I appreciate the work of the Senator from Maine and others.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor a friend and fellow Cincinnatian, Judge S. Arthur Spiegel, on the occasion of his 94th birthday and would also like to recognize him for his service to our community and our Nation.

On April 5, 1980, Judge Spiegel was appointed as a United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio by President Jimmy Carter. He was confirmed on May 20, 1980 and began his duty on June 5, 1980.

With 33 years of Federal judicial service, including as Chief United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of Ohio and by designation on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, he took Senior Status on June 5, 1995. He continues to serve on the Court as Cincinnati's oldest sitting judge and continues to handle a full docket and hundreds of cases a year.

Judge Spiegel served his country valiantly in World War II in the Pacific campaigns while serving as a flying artillery spotter in an unarmed light aircraft. He was a United States Marine Corps Captain from 1942 to 1946 in the First Marine Division.

Judge Spiegel received a BA from the University of Cincinnati in 1942 and obtained his LL.B. from Harvard University in 1948--postgraduate University of Cincinnati, 1949. In addition, he was awarded an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters by Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion in 1996 and a Distinguished Alumni Award, College of Arts & Sciences from the University of Cincinnati in 1997.

Judge Spiegel has served as a role model to many lawyers in private practice and on the bench. His intelligence and strength of character have been revered by many and he has set the highest standards of professionalism for those appearing in his courtroom. He was a co- founder of the Potter Stewart American Inn of Court in Cincinnati, which was one of the first establishments of this kind, and serves to mentor and teach professionalism and trial techniques to law students and young lawyers.

Judge Spiegel is a member of the American Bar Association, the Ohio Bar Association, the Cincinnati Bar Association and the Federal Bar Association. He was a lecturer on labor law, debtor/creditor rights, and appellate advocacy at the University of Cincinnati College of Law from 1970 through 1975. He was also a Delegate, Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference from 1967 through 1970; a Life Member, Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference beginning in 1971; and was a District Judge Representative for the Sixth Circuit, United States Judicial Conference in 1996 and 1997.

He has served on numerous boards of trustees in his community. He served on the Mayor's Friendly Relations Committee from 1961 to 1965 and the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission from 1967 to 1973, including serving as its first Chairman from 1965 to 1967. He was also a Board Trustee for Bowling Green State University from 1973 to 1981 and has been a Trustee and Trustee Emeritus for The National Conference for Community and Justice since 1973.

In recent years, Judge Spiegel has served on the Roundtable of the Black Lawyers Association of Cincinnati, which aims to broaden the opportunities in the legal profession for minorities. He regularly meets with students of local high schools regarding the role of the courts in our society and also conducts naturalization ceremonies in the local schools. He received the Award of Recognition from the Black Lawyers Association of Cincinnati in 1995.

A civil rights advocate both on and off the bench, Judge Spiegel served as the first Chairman of the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission, an organization with the mission of helping the community overcome prejudice and discrimination. As an active participant in the civil rights movement, Spiegel worked to calm tensions after race riots in the late 1960s.

A true renaissance man, Judge Spiegel is a pilot, painter, tennis player, writer, horseback rider and self-taught mechanic.

He is married to Louise Wachman Spiegel, and they have four sons, Thomas, Arthur M., Andrew and Roger, and seven grandchildren.

Today, I would like to recognize my friend and an Ohio icon and commend him for the many contributions he has made to our community and to the legal profession.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about an opportunity-- actually something good that this body could do for the American people and for our economy and for the taxpayers. Tomorrow, the Senate budget conference that was established as part of this recent agreement that was made over reopening the government and extending the debt limit will meet. This will be the first public meeting of the group. We have had some other meetings, including the one I just had with some of the Members of that group, but this is the first opportunity for us to meet as House Members and Senate Members, Republicans and Democrats, in this budget conference, and it could not come soon enough.

The opportunity we have with this group is that in the wake of what happened at the beginning of this month--which was, again, a government shutdown and then a debt limit debate and then pushing right up against the debt limit--the opportunity we have now is to finally deal with this issue of government shutdowns and to deal with the underlying problem of overspending that forces us to extend the debt limit time and time again.

So let's start with government shutdowns.

The agreement opened the government for 3 months. That is right. In January, we once again come to this cliff where the government shuts down unless we act. So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody. In January we hit this again.

It does not have to be that way. Earlier this year I introduced, with Senator Tester from Montana, bipartisan legislation that would have prevented the last shutdown and would prevent all shutdowns in the future. It is called, appropriately, the End Government Shutdowns Act. It is pretty simple, and it addresses several critical issues we saw firsthand during this last shutdown.

It would end the chaos we saw on Federal services and citizens who depend on them. It would give government agencies the predictability they need to plan their budgets based on these appropriations levels. It would add certainty to the economy, and more certainty in the economy is certainly needed right now as we try to bring back the jobs. It would also take away the pressure for these haphazard, last-minute budget deals, which inevitably have stuck in them little provisions that nobody finds out about because they are all done at the last minute to avoid a government shutdown.

Here is how this would work: When we do not have spending bills agreed to by the time the fiscal year comes to an end--and that would be October 1--then the spending continues just as it was the previous year. So it is the same level of spending, except that automatically it would begin to reduce spending after 120 days and 90 days. So Congress would have 120 days to come together and figure out a budget. That is the carrot. The stick is that after 120 days the spending would be ratcheted down 1 percent and then again every 90 days another 1 percent.

I think it has become painfully obvious that Congress needs encouragement to get its work done, and this certainly would be encouragement. By the same token, we would not have these government shutdowns. That gradual decline in spending, by the way, would treat all spending equally. So all discretionary spending would be treated the same way--no exceptions for liberal spending priorities or conservative spending priorities. It would be the same for everybody. Both sides of Congress would feel the pain, and both sides then might be more willing to actually get the work done.

Is this the ideal solution to end government shutdowns? No, it is not. The ideal solution is that Congress actually does its work, which is our constitutional duty--the power of the purse--and that is to sit down and have these appropriations bills pass. That requires oversight of the agencies and departments which are badly in need of it. It then requires prioritizing spending in

12 different areas. That is how it should work. This legislation, the End Government Shutdowns Act, would actually encourage that to work, again, because it would establish this situation where, instead of doing a last-minute deal where you can kind of throw in these provisions that Appropriations Committee members might want, you actually have to go through the process; otherwise, it just continues the spending from the previous year and then ratchets it down over time.

Sadly, Congress has shown it is pretty much incapable of doing appropriations bills without some sort of pressure. The Congress has not completed all regular appropriations bills by the October 1 deadline since 1997. Here in the Senate, actually, over the past 4 years, during the current administration, the Obama administration, and under Democratic control here for the last 4 years, we have passed all of one appropriations bill on time. So that is 1 out of 48 that has been done on time. It was a MILCON bill in about 2011, as I recall.

Congress does better with a deadline. Again, we see this with the debt limit and with what we just went through these last few weeks. We can do better. This legislation would keep the impetus for Congress to act without including the threat of another costly and destructive shutdown. I think it is a good idea. It is one that is already bipartisan. It should be adopted by both sides. We had a vote on it earlier this year. It got nearly half of this Chamber. I hope others will take a look at it. I think particularly with what we have just gone through, it is something our constituents would think would make a lot of sense. I hope it gets the support it deserves in this body.

Of course, in addition to dealing with government shutdowns in this budget conference that we are meeting on this week, we also have a chance to address the debt limit--which is going to come up soon also because February 7 is the date that was chosen there. Now some say, well, the Treasury Department can use extraordinary measures to shift that beyond February 7. I suppose they could. But instead, why not deal with the underlying problem--why we need to extend the debt limit-- which is the overspending.

It is as though you have maxed out on the credit card. It is a lot like that. We can spend only at a certain level in Congress, and then we have to have statutory authority to go beyond that limit. When you max out on the credit card, you do not just go to the bank and say: I would like to extend it. You have to deal with the underlying problem; otherwise, you cannot keep your credit card and you cannot keep your credit.

So dealing with the debt limit is the other part that I think gives us an opportunity. Over the past 2 weeks I know the administration has said repeatedly: Even though we would not negotiate on the debt ceiling before, even though the President refused to talk to Congress about it--which was unprecedented, by the way; no President in history has ever said that--but he said over the last couple weeks: If you all extend the debt limit and if you reopen government, then I will talk. So now is the time to talk, and the President should talk. I have worked for two Presidents: President Bush 41 and President Bush 43. They did talk to Congress about debt limits. Why? Because it is a tough vote, because our constituents get it, because it is akin to maxing out on the credit card and they want to know we are not just going to extend it again without doing something about the underlying problem. So this budget conference gives us the opportunity to do that, and I hope the administration will engage with us.

It has been 4 years since we have had a budget conference. Think about that. The debt has gone up $5.9 trillion since we had the last budget conference around here. Almost $6 trillion later we are sitting down again, and things are only going to get worse if we do not do something to deal with the underlying problem.

The two-thirds of the budget that is on autopilot--the mandatory spending--obviously is where not just the biggest part of the budget is but the fastest growing part of the budget. It includes vital programs to our seniors, for those in poverty--Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security--vital but unsustainable. These programs cannot be sustained in their current form. By the way, that is not me saying it. That comes from data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The President himself has talked about this. By the way, the Congressional Budget Office says that Social Security and health care entitlements alone are 100 percent of the long-term increase in deficits. Revenues are starting to pick up. The discretionary spending is now being capped. The issue is this part that is on autopilot. By the way, it is 66 percent of spending now. It is 77 percent of spending in 10 years. The health care entitlements alone are going to increase 100 percent over the next 10 years based on what the Congressional Budget Office has told us.

I have heard rumblings in the press that this upcoming budget conference is just going to kick the can further down the road; in other words, we are not going to deal with the issue. We are going to say let's just extend the debt limit a little bit further and push off the issue.

I think it is time for the can to kick back. If the can kicks back, that means we will actually tackle some of these tough problems. After all, that is why the American people hired us. That is why they sent us here. If we are not going to do it now, I do not know when we are going to do it. I think divided government is actually an opportunity to do it.

It is time for leadership in the Senate and the House, and certainly from the President. It is time to come to the table. As I said earlier, the President has indicated he now is willing to do it. Do so in good faith and try to put our country on a stable fiscal path. If we do nothing, by the way, if we allow these annual deficits to continue, they will more than quadruple. Annual deficits will more than quadruple to $3.4 trillion within three decades. That is based on the Congressional Budget Office.

We already have a debt that is about $140,000 per household in America. We are talking about annual deficits quadrupling. If we let mandatory spending reach that point where it becomes 100 percent of the deficit--which is what they project--if we allow our national debt to reach two and a half times the entire size of our economy--it is about the size of our economy now, and it would go up to two and a half times the size of our economy--it will be the next generation that will pay, and pay dearly, and our legacy will be one of bankruptcy, skyrocketing interest rates, skyrocketing unemployment rates, and the collapse of these vital programs we talked about earlier: Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

Again, this is not ideology; this is math. It is fact, and it is fact that has been reiterated by the Congressional Budget Office, the trustees of Social Security, the trustees of Medicare, their trust funds time and time again.

This is our opportunity to begin to do something about it--at least take the first steps--both in terms of ending government shutdowns, as I talked about, but also dealing with this underlying problem that everybody acknowledges and that has to be dealt with if we are not going to have for future generations these issues of bankruptcy, higher interest rates, lower value of the dollar, higher unemployment.

The single greatest act of bipartisanship in this Congress over the past few decades has been overpromising and overspending. We created this mess together, and we can only get out of it working together. I have suggested where we can start: $600 billion in the President's own budget. In his own budget he has $600 billion-plus in savings on mandatory spending over the next decade. But whatever we do, I think we can call agree that we are tired of the gridlock, we are tired of the stalemates, we are tired of getting nothing done.

It is time to make some progress, and this is an opportunity to do it. These past few weeks have been trying. They have been tough on the American people, as they have looked at us and said: Wow. Are these guys going to figure it out? And we just kicked the can down the road. But we also set up this process and this structure. Let's take advantage of it. Let's use this opportunity to do something important for the future of our country and for the good of the people we represent. Let's seize it.

I yield back my time.

Madam President, today I wish to honor the 100th anniversary of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Columbus. The center promotes physical, intellectual, and spiritual wellness for the 6,500 members across Central Ohio.

Joseph Schonthal, an immigrant from Austria, founded the Jewish Community Center in 1913 to assist immigrants from Eastern Europe as they settled into their new life in the United States. The center provided those immigrants with a community center to learn and to grow. Mr. Schonthal also established Camp Schonthal in the center, one of the first Jewish camps in the region.

Today, the Jewish Community Center has several centers located around Columbus that provide adult, youth, and early childhood programs. The center is home to several cultural events a year and hosts a recreation and wellness center.

The Jewish Community Center recently opened the Columbus Jewish Day School to provide children from kindergarten through the fifth grade with a general curriculum, while also helping to foster their Jewish heritage.

The Jewish Community Center of Greater Columbus provides the Jewish community in Central Ohio with educational and cultural programs for members of all ages. I congratulate all who were involved in making its first 100 years a success.

Mr. President, I just listened to my colleague from Michigan talking about the need to reopen the government and the need to deal with the debt. Of course, I agree with that, as do my colleagues on this side of the aisle. We also heard discussion about the fact that we should not be manufacturing crises. Unfortunately, we have a crisis on our hands; that is, the crisis of debt at record levels, so I wish to talk about that a little today and talk about why this discussion is so important, particularly on extending the debt limit because that would be the place naturally for us to deal with the problem that faces this generation and certainly future generations reaching this historic level of debt.

In a matter of days, we are told, our Nation is going to be reaching this debt limit which is $16.7 trillion. Think about that. That is sixteen thousand billion dollars. It is impossible to comprehend that number, but let's try: $16.7 trillion would produce a stack of $1 bills 1 million miles high. That is enough, by the way, to go to the Moon and back. It is now bigger, by the way, than our entire economy. Only once in our history have we had debt as a percent of our economy so large and that was after World War II. We were able quickly to address that. We didn't have the long-term liabilities we have now, and we had very high defense spending from World War II we were able to reduce. But other than that, we have never been here before. I would say we are in uncharted territory.

By the way, it is not just that we have this huge level of debt and deficit and the overhang on the economy, but it is the fact that the economy is also weak. I think they are related. I think this huge level of debt and deficit is akin to a wet blanket over the economy.

Here is an interesting chart. It shows the debt limit rising twice as fast as the economy has grown in the last 2 years so the debt increase has gone up by about $2.4 trillion and unfortunately our GDP increase has been less than half of that. That is the problem we are trying to face. It is a lot of back-and-forth.

I know for some people it looks as if this is politics. It is not. It is about a fundamental issue. There are fundamental disagreements, and I respect those disagreements, but we have to address this problem and we have to do it in the context of the debt limit. If we do not, we will simply be kicking the can down the road again and letting down the people we represent. If you divide that debt among the American people, each of us--every man, woman, and child in America--owes around $50,000. By the way, of course, that is far more than the annual per capita income for that man, woman, and child in America. If you think about that, it is about $140,000 to $150,000 per household on average. That is where we are today.

I don't think it is constructive to be pointing fingers of blame because, frankly, for decades Republicans and Democrats alike have spent more money than the government takes in. There have been more promises made than can be kept, and we have gone through a process of mortgaging the future of our kids and grandkids as a result. Here we are. In some respects, the greatest single act of bipartisanship here in the Congress has been the overspending. The question is not how we got here but what we are going to do about it. Where are we going?

Yesterday the President said that raising the Nation's credit limit by another $1 trillion really pays for last year's deficit spending, not next year's spending. I guess we could have that debate. I would say it is about the future because we are borrowing more money to pay the bills of the country going forward, and that is what many of us want to talk about--how, going forward, we can reduce those bills.

The truth is that whether you say you are paying for the past or paying for the future, it really doesn't matter to the American people and it doesn't matter to our children and grandchildren who end up paying the bill. Long after we are gone, this huge level of debt and deficit is going to be something they are going to have to deal with.

We all know the consequences if we don't raise the debt limit. Without a debt limit increase, the Federal Government will be unable to borrow to meet its expenses. We are borrowing 20 cents of every dollar the Federal Government spends, so the government would be unable to meet all of its obligations.

There has been discussion about meeting the interest on the debt, and that is only about 8 percent of revenue coming in. I assume that could be met, but it is true that there are other obligations that can't be met if the government can't borrow because the government is spending more than it takes in and needs to borrow to make up the difference.

The deficit, some have said--including some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle today--is lower now, and somehow that is an indication that we are OK in terms of the deficit. I would remind folks that the deficit this year is the fifth largest deficit in the history of our country--in our entire history. It is over $640 billion. More

significantly, the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan group around here that analyzes this stuff, says it is temporarily lower than $1 trillion. In other words, they say that within a decade it will get back up to $1 trillion. Whether it is $640 billion or $1 trillion, it is way too high.

Entitlement spending, by the way, will then push these annual deficits up to the equivalent of $3.4 trillion a year--five times what they are today--within a few decades. That is based on the Congressional Budget Office. At that point, the national debt would be 2\1/2\ times as large as the entire economy. Today it is about the size of the economy; it is a little bigger. It would be 2\1/2\ times as large as our whole economy. I saw one CBO report recently that simply stops calculating the interest cost at that point because they cannot foresee our economy functioning under those kinds of conditions. Think about your own family budget or think about your business. You could not function either. The bank would not be able to lend you any money.

Both of these outcomes--default today and bankruptcy in the future-- are unacceptable. That is why it is time for us to work together to try to do something about them. As the debt ceiling is raised, it is time to address the underlying problem. That is what we are saying.

By the way, the American people are saying that too. Based on the polling I have seen this week, the American people by better than a 2- to-1 margin are saying: Don't raise the debt limit without doing something about the spending. They get it because for them it is like the credit card--when you reach the limit, you realize you have to do something about the underlying problem, which is how much you are spending.

The President says: ``Pass the debt limit increase now and we will address the spending later.'' I wish it were that simple, but I think he knows, as well as everybody in this Chamber and every person who is watching at home today, that Congress simply doesn't reduce spending unless it is forced to do so. If you don't think that is true, let me remind you of what the history is here. In the past three decades--I have gone back and looked at all of these deficit reduction plans that did get through Congress, and there were not many, but there were some. In every single instance where there was any significant deficit reduction, it came as a result of what? A discussion about the debt limit because that is the time in which there is some pressure here in Congress to actually do something about it. I found one in 2005, which was a relatively small reduction in spending, but otherwise every single one of them--the Gramm-Rudman rescissions in the 1980s; the 1990 Andrews Air Force Base agreement that the first President Bush conducted with Democrats; the 1993 balanced budget talks; the 1997 balanced budget agreement Bill Clinton negotiated with Newt Gingrich--a Democratic President and a Republican Speaker; and, of course, the pay- go rules that many Democrats are fond of, those pay-go rules came out of a debt limit discussion; and finally, we only have to look back a couple of years ago to the Budget Control Act. As my colleague has said on his side of the aisle, there have been some successes in reducing spending on the discretionary side of spending--which is about one- third of the budget that is appropriated every year--that came out of the Budget Control Act, which is a result of what? The debt limit. In other words, Members listening to the folks back home.

I am listening to my constituents back home in Ohio right now, and they are saying: Don't max out the credit card again and go over the limit unless you do something about the problem. It is little wonder that the American people, by this margin of 2 to 1 that I talked about, are saying: Don't do it without the spending reductions. They know that is the only way the spending cuts are likely to happen.

Why is it that any increase in the debt limit should also include progrowth provisions? Well, because one way to get at the debt and deficit is spending restraint. We talked about the discretionary spending being about 35 percent of the budget, and we made progress there. The other 65 percent of the budget is the mandatory spending side, and we have not made progress there. The other part would be revenue, and on the first of this year taxes were raised by $620 billion. What we have not done is deal with the mandatory side.

Finally, of course, economic growth helps. As we are extending the debt limit, we should also look at how we can help give the economy a shot in the arm. Tax reform is the way to do that, and I think there is a consensus in this body that we need to do it. That would seem to make sense as well.

We have already made progress on one of the three legs of the stool, which is dealing with the discretionary spending. It has been pretty much flat for the last couple of years. By the way, for the first time since the 1950s there has actually been a reduction in spending for 2 years in a row, but that is only 35 percent of the budget. The fastest growing--again, 65 percent of the budget--we have not dealt with. That 65 percent grows to 76 percent of the budget in the next 10 years based on the Congressional Budget Office.

On the tax side, the same Congressional Budget Office tells us that starting in 2014--that is next year, around the corner--taxes as a percentage of our economy will be above the historic level. In other words, there will be more taxes coming in from the tax increases that, in part, we passed earlier this year, but the part we have not dealt with is mandatory spending. It is the biggest and the fastest growing part of our spending. Let's face it. It is politically difficult to deal with, but that is what we were hired to do, and that is what the President was hired to do in terms of providing leadership.

With ObamaCare, of course, we added a new health entitlement program to this part of the budget--the 65 percent. These health entitlements were already growing more quickly than the rest of the budget, even the rest of mandatory spending. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office tells us that in the next 10 years the health entitlement programs grow by over 100 percent. These are vital programs--Medicare and Medicaid-- but they have to be reformed so they are sustainable in the future and are there for our kids and grandkids. With 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day and health care costs continuing to rise, we have a real problem, and we have to address it. All of us know that--Democrats and Republicans alike, as well as the President and the Congress. Again, history tells us the best way is to link this with the debt limit because that is the opportunity and has traditionally been the opportunity to make progress.

By the way, over the long term, overall revenue is projected to increase and discretionary spending is projected to be flat. The entire increase in our deficit--these huge debts and deficits going forward that I have been talking about--is due to the mandatory spending. Again, that is the Congressional Budget Office, not me.

A good place to start, of course, would be some of the mandatory spending reforms the President has proposed. That would seem to be less controversial. If they are in the President's budget, that means he supports them. The President sent up a budget this year, and he included over $700 billion of spending reforms on the mandatory side of the budget. That is why what I have been advocating is, let's start there. Let's look at the President's own proposals. These are not the proposals that all Republicans support, but after all we should have a negotiation.

This notion that the President says he refuses to negotiate has never been true. Every President has negotiated. I think the American people are confused by this. How could the President of the United States say in the context of this debt limit discussion that he refuses to even talk to the other side? That makes no sense. The first President Bush rolled up his sleeves; we talked about the 1990 agreements. President Clinton rolled up his sleeves; we talked about the 1997 balanced budget agreement he negotiated with then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. That is what Presidents do. We need them to lead, particularly on these tough issues.

As we talked about earlier, these are politically tough issues. The President says he doesn't want to be held hostage over the debt limit. He is not. He has been given the opportunity to lead using his own proposals--at least that is my suggestion.

We can also take a very simple step as we are going through this to be sure that this newest health care entitlement, which is the Affordable Care Act, which is a new entitlement program, doesn't become even more of a deficit driver than many of us on this side fear it will already be. The Affordable Care Act includes a provision that requires that when you get your subsidies under the exchanges, you have to verify your income. That makes sense. You have to verify your income between 100 percent of poverty and 400 percent of poverty. Below that it would be Medicaid, and above that it would be the subsidies under the exchanges.

Under a final regulation the administration put out, they said: We know you should verify your income, and that is what the law says, but we are going to give all of the exchanges another year to do it--not until 2015. Well, obviously the concern there is that will be an invitation for fraud, waste, and for big new expenses.

As a result, the Federal Government body in charge of this, the CMS, came out and said: No, for Federal exchanges, we will require people to file their income, but not for State exchanges. There are about 17 States and the District of Columbia that have State exchanges. They said to them: You guys can wait--in fact, not just until 2015, but there is no date certain.

That is something we in the Congress should deal with. The Democrats here in the Chamber who voted for the Affordable Care Act certainly should support that because the intent of the bill when they signed up for it and when the President supported it was, of course, that you would verify your income. That is an example of a simple step we could take to prevent the distribution of subsidies until we have a system to verify those subsidies are going to the right people.

Finally, let's give the economy a shot in the arm. As part of this process, let's take a step forward and say: Let's reform the Tax Code. We are going to differ about the details, but let's get started on it.

So my proposal would be, as we have a vote on extending the debt limit, let's do these important reforms we talked about on the monetary side, but let's also commit to tax reform. Let's force the process. Let's facilitate it. Let's expedite it.

The American people are not looking for us to just get the spending under control; they want to see this economy grow. Again, they are not happy with this, where the debt is increasing at twice the rate of the economy. They want to see opportunities for their kids to get a job. They want to see the opportunity to have the dignity and self-respect that comes with a job.

We know that tax reform, done properly, will promote growth, it will create jobs. Again, we are going to differ on some of the details, and that is OK. Let's get started on it.

Perhaps the President doesn't think that spending and the deficits are a real problem. If he thinks that, he should say it. He says just the opposite. He has said he does think it is necessary for us to address these problems. In fact, in his own budget, he sent proposals forward. So what we need to do is get together and negotiate and talk and deal with this underlying problem. A debt that is nearly $17 trillion is unacceptable to everybody, I hope, and I would think we would welcome the sign that Republicans are giving now that we want to negotiate, we want to talk.

Negotiations, by the way, I don't think are a sign of weakness. I don't think coming to the table is a signal of a failure of leadership. I think just the opposite; I think it shows strength and shows leadership. Again, I can promise my colleagues Republicans don't support all of the President's suggested savings in his budget, and a purely Republican agenda would look very different from whatever might emerge from bipartisan negotiations. But, again, the American people sent us here to get this done.

Using President Obama's own proposals, let's take that first step toward entitlement and progrowth tax reform and onto some common ground to break the gridlock in DC and finally do something positive about that underlying problem we all acknowledge.

Yes, we face serious problems, real challenges, but we also have an opportunity to do something positive, to deal with the problem we all acknowledge--something that will not only prevent a debt limit crisis today but a debt crisis tomorrow.

I hope to move forward on this important project. I think we owe it to the people we represent.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Madam chair, we find ourselves here in Washington with the government shutdown in place and a debt limit approaching, and I read this morning in the newspaper that a senior White House official has said with regard to the shutdown, ``We are winning . . . It doesn't really matter to us'' how long it lasts.

That is not the right attitude. Today I call upon the White House to stop the political posturing, to come to the table so we can find common ground and end this government shutdown and negotiate something sensible on the debt limit. This notion that a senior White House official would say, ``We are winning . . . It doesn't really matter to us'' how long it lasts, shows that it is politics, not substance that matters.

It may not matter to the White House how long it lasts, by the way, but it does matter to the American people because they expect us to fulfill our constitutional duties, to get our work done, and not to take America to the brink. They expect us to do the job that we were sent here to do.

It matters, by the way, to a lot of Americans because they are being affected by it. There are 8,700 civilian employees at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside of Dayton, OH, who are being affected. It matters to the roughly 1,800 Ohio National Guardsmen across the State of Ohio who have been furloughed.

We can stand here and point fingers at each other as to how we got here. The truth is that how we got here is we didn't do our work. The fact that we have a continuing resolution at all, which is a continuation of funding from last fiscal year, is a mark of failure. It is a mark of failure because it means that the Congress didn't do the appropriations bills that it was supposed to do. There are 12 of them, and the idea is that Congress sits down and has hearings about the departments and agencies to provide proper oversight to the Federal Government, and then they put together appropriations bills in 12 different areas. That hasn't happened. Congress did not pass these appropriations bills in an orderly way. If they did, there would not be a continuing resolution.

We can talk about the fact that over the last 4 years, under the leadership of the majority in the Senate, we have passed exactly 1 appropriations bill out of 48, on time--1 out of 48. That was the military construction bill. I think it was in about 2011. That should be a relatively easy one to pass.

The House has done better. They have passed more appropriations bills, and they passed a budget consistently every year. This year--in the fourth year after 3 years of no budget--the Senate did pass a budget, and I applaud the Senate for that. I do support going to conference with those budgets, but the fact is that Congress has not done its work, and that is why we are here. Only 1 appropriations bill out of 48 in the last 4 years has passed this Senate on time--one.

There is another way to get around this, and we can talk about that. There is legislation called the end government shutdown bill, which simply continues funding from year to year. If we

get to September 30, and any appropriations bill is not done, it says we will have the same level of funding as the previous year, except after 120 days there is a 1 percent reduction in funding, and after another 90 days, there is another 1 percent reduction in funding, and so on. The reason is to encourage the appropriators to meet and get their work done, so we put a little inducement in there.

That legislation is bipartisan. We voted on that legislation in the Chamber earlier this year. It was supported by 46 of the 100 members. It was supported by every Republican except for two, and it was supported by three Democrats. It is my legislation, and we tried to bring this up as an amendment last week on the continuing resolution. It would have made all the sense in the world. Instead of us having this discussion we are having now in the context of a government shutdown, if we had passed the end government shutdown amendment to the CR last week, we would continue funding from last year knowing it would be reduced by 1 percent in 120 days, which gives us plenty of time to get the appropriations together, and then another 1 percent after 90 days, and another 1 percent after the next 90 days.

We wouldn't be sitting here today in the situation of a government shutdown had we passed that. The majority refused to allow that amendment to even come up for a vote. I don't know if we could have passed it or not. Again, 46 of us supported it last time. My sense is, given the fact that we were heading toward a government shutdown, we could have gotten a majority of this body to support that. But we don't know because, as is the case so often, the leadership here blocks amendments, so we never had the opportunity to have our voices be heard as Senators.

Without a doubt, there is plenty of blame to go around, but whatever brought us to this point, it is where we are. I can promise this: As long as the White House and the majority in this Chamber continue to refuse to talk about it and negotiate, and as long as they refuse to attempt to find common ground--any common ground--we are not going to make progress. As long as they treat it as a political opportunity, one to score political points, then we are not going to be able to move forward. It is a failure of leadership because governing is about talking, negotiating, discussing, debating, and then finding common ground. It is hard, but it is what we are hired to do.

We talk a lot in this Chamber about this notion of finding common ground, and I support it strongly. We don't do it enough. But to find common ground, you have to step off your own territory and on to some territory in the middle, and that requires negotiations. It requires sitting down with both parties and talking. It is what the American people, by the way, want us to do. They do it in their lives every day. We do it in our marriages and in our businesses. Yet, there is this unbelievable quote from this morning that I talked about by some senior official at the White House saying, ``We are winning . . . It doesn't matter to us'' how long it lasts.

We have legislation coming over from the House to this Chamber that says: Let's have a conference. That is the conference between the House and the Senate. So there is a formal process where we have conferees over here--people to represent the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, and to represent the House, Republican and Democratic conferees. They come together and discuss, in this case, the continuing resolution and the debt limit, and that was tabled here. In other words, the majority here did not want to move to conference, so they blocked it. To me that seems to be the wrong approach. Let's have a conference and a discussion.

By the way, this is on top of a hard-line position the President has taken, and I have talked about this over the last month because the President has been saying it for the last month. He has refused to talk about or negotiate on the debt limit. That is coming up in only a couple of weeks. As important as the government shutdown debate is, in my view, the debt limit discussion is even more important because it puts our country's economy at risk.

I don't think we should be taking a position on anything if we don't talk, but certainly not on the debt limit discussion. The irony, which has been pointed out by others, is that we have a President of the United States who says he will negotiate with President Putin of Russia, but he will not talk with the Speaker of the House who is in the other party. To me it is irresponsible. It is a failure of leadership, and I don't think it is sustainable. I hope it is not.

By the way, the President has said he refuses to talk about the debt limit because we should just extend the debt limit without any preconditions, without any reduction in spending, without even any discussion of what should go along with a debt limit extension. That, my friends, is not consistent with the historical precedent either. Every President, Republican and Democrat alike, has engaged in negotiations and discussions about the debt limit, in part, frankly, because the debt limit is a hard vote. The folks I represent back home get it. For them it is kind of like the credit card. Their deal is: OK, Congress has once again gone over their limit on their credit card.

I have to be careful which credit card I hold up. I am not advertising for any particular one. This happens to be a MasterCard.

They are saying: Before you guys extend the limit on the credit card, let's deal with the underlying problem. It's kind of like if your teenager puts you, as a parent, in a position of having gone over the line on the credit card. We have teenagers here who I am sure have never done that. Your parents would probably say, after they rip up the credit card, let's get at the underlying problem, which is the spending problem. Why are we spending more than we are taking in to the point we have to keep extending the limit on this credit card?

The American people get it. That is why every President--Republicans and Democrats alike--has had to come to Congress and say: OK, how are we going to work together to extend this debt limit while also dealing with the underlying problem, which is the fact that we are spending too much? But this President refuses to do it.

I have gone back and looked. For the last 3 decades the debt limit discussion is the only thing that has led to Congress doing anything substantial on spending. This is a period at which Congress has consistently spent more than it has taken in. Congress and the Presidents--Republican and Democrat alike--have led the country into deficits and debt. We are now at historic levels. This year the debt is just under $17 trillion. We are in uncharted territory. This year it is higher than ever. Yet this President is saying, unlike other Presidents, that he refuses to even talk about it.

I will tell you what has happened. Over the last 30 years, every substantial deficit reduction has come in the context of a debt limit debate. Some may remember Gramm-Rudman back in the 1980s. It was considered historic legislation at the time, when we had smaller deficits and a much smaller debt. But it provided rescissions--across- the-board spending cuts. It was bipartisan. It came out of a debt limit discussion.

In 1990, when President George H.W. Bush, the first President Bush, went out to Andrews Air Force Base, with Republicans and Democrats alike, to negotiate a budget agreement, it was in the context of a debt limit discussion. The pay-go rules that many Democrats now talk about favorably came out of the discussion about the debt limit.

The 1997 balanced budget agreement with Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton that ended up leading to the balanced budget we got a couple of years later came out of a discussion about the debt limit. Most recently, of course, the Budget Control Act came out of a discussion about the debt limit.

So this notion that Presidents never talk about or negotiate on the debt limit is just not accurate in terms of our history. In fact, just the opposite is true. It is the only time we have been able to reduce spending.

I see the distinguished majority leader is on the floor, so I will be short.

We need to figure out how to come together. The President needs to engage. It is time to govern. If the President refuses to talk, we will not be able to come to an agreement. If he does engage, as history has shown us, tough decisions can be made.

I have gone through a litany of times when we have done it. I have also talked about the fact that this year we have a bigger debt than ever, a bigger deficit than any of those historical examples I gave. Therefore, there is a greater need than ever for us to come together and find that common ground.

I will be happy to yield.

I have not.

Madam President, if the Senator will hold for a moment, first, I thank the Senator for referring to the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. I have not seen it yet so I look forward to reading it myself. It sounds as though it is consistent with what I was pointing out, which is it would only make sense that the American people would want us to reduce spending when we extend the debt limit yet again-- again, at historic levels now. The American people get it. They know we can't keep spending more than we take in, so they expect us to do something about the underlying problem.

Madam President, I wish to ask my friend from Mississippi a question. He has been stalwart on budget debates and he is a guy who has always held the line, in the House and in the Senate. He voted for the Budget Control Act because he believes we need to get our spending under control. He also wants to ensure that we deal with the part of the budget that is not being talked about because the whole continuing resolution debate is about 35 percent of the budget. The other 65 percent, which is the faster growing part, based on the Congressional Budget Office, parts of that--the health care entitlements--will grow over 100 percent over the next 10 years. I ask the Senator from Mississippi if he is hearing back home what I am hearing from my constituents, which is they want us to do something on the spending before we extend the credit card limit again.

I wonder if he could tell us what he is hearing back home, given his background.

The Senator raises an important point, which is that the larger part of the budget--the 65 percent of the budget that is not being debated as part of a continuing resolution, not subject to congressional appropriations and the faster growing part of the budget--is an issue the President actually did address in his own budget. In fact, he laid out a number of proposals called mandatory spending reforms that would help to reduce some of the debt by reducing some of the cost increases on that 65 percent of the budget.

By the way, 65 percent today, 10 years from now will be 76 percent of the budget. The departments and agencies that are appropriated every year are only 35 percent, soon to be reduced to 24 percent of the budget. So that is a very good point the Senator makes.

The President himself has pointed out that we need to make changes. Yet he refuses to negotiate, refuses to talk, refuses to consider any of these proposals. It doesn't seem to make sense, and it is certainly not in the interests of the American people, the people from Mississippi and the people from Ohio.

I thank my colleague from Mississippi for joining me. I look forward to reading the new material he has provided for the Record today. I thank him for his leadership.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, over the next couple of days we will have a chance to vote on ObamaCare. This will be an opportunity for us to allow our views to be expressed on both sides of the aisle. I am glad we are going to have that opportunity. We will see what happens. But I think it is certainly an opportunity for us to have a good debate about why we think it is important for us not just to change ObamaCare but to actually start over and do it right. It is a time for us to undo the mistake this Senate made 3 years ago when that legislation was jammed through the process--without a single Republican vote, by the way--which is something the American people are tired of. The partisanship, on that particular vote, I think has led to a bad result.

ObamaCare was sold, by the way, to the Nation under false pretenses. We were promised that ObamaCare would bring premiums down. You remember those discussions: This is a way to get health care costs down and reduce premiums. In fact, what we are learning--and there is a new report out this week--is that premiums are going up.

We were promised that Americans would be able to keep the insurance they have. That was a specific commitment made. Yet millions of Americans are losing the insurance they have. It is insurance they like, and they cannot keep it.

We were promised that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor; everything will be fine. In fact, many Ohioans and many Americans are losing their doctors.

We were also told that ObamaCare would help grow the economy and create jobs. Unfortunately, just the opposite is happening. More Americans are looking for work because many of the jobs that are available now are part time, in part because of ObamaCare encouraging more part-time work. There are companies that are not expanding because they do not want to reach that magic number of 50 employees.

As we talk today, we are learning that there are even more problems with the implementation of ObamaCare. One of our Democratic colleagues on the floor said he thought

this implementation was going to be difficult. In fact, one Democrat who was prominent in the legislation said it is likely to be a train wreck. Well, unfortunately, that train wreck is occurring. We see the District of Columbia this week making changes. We see today apparently the administration now saying the small business part of the exchanges is not going to go forward as planned. We have already seen a 1-year delay in terms of the business mandate and on and on. So that train wreck is already upon us as we move toward October 1.

Let me give one example of the impact of ObamaCare. In Columbus, OH-- my home State of Ohio--the Wall Street Journal reported that premiums could increase by as much as 436 percent. Some of my colleagues will take issue with that number. Maybe it is not going to be 436 percent, but the point is that we know it is going to be more expensive, we just do not know how much. That is part of the uncertainty the law creates. In other words, sometimes uncertainty is the worst thing, and that is what we are seeing not just in Ohio but around the country. We do not know what the effect is going to be on our families. We do not know what the effect is going to be on small businesses. We do not know what the effect is going to be on our economy.

Throughout this debate over the continuing resolution, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have talked about this uncertainty. They have talked about how a showdown going up to a potential government shutdown creates uncertainty in the economy. I agree. I do not think we should shut down. In fact, I am offering an amendment to say we should never be shutting down government. It is called the no government shutdown amendment. It is bipartisan. In the budget debate we actually had a few Democrats support it, I am sure against the urging of their leadership, and I appreciate that.

Uncertainty is a problem, but, boy, talk about uncertainty--in the implementation you have some things delayed, others things not delayed, a lot of confusion about how the legislation is going to work. Every day it seems as if we discover a new wrinkle in the law that is going to cost more money and cause more problems in terms of people just understanding what their options are.

The effects of ObamaCare, by the way, do not stop at the hospital door, and they are not limited to our pocketbooks. If you ask Americans what is the most important issue to them, they will tell you it is the lack of good jobs--jobs and the economy. ObamaCare kills jobs.

Take the Cleveland Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic, as some of you know, is the largest employer in northeast Ohio. It has been talked about on the floor by other Members. They have about 40,000 employees.

By the way, it is one of the few things that both President Obama and Governor Romney agreed on in the campaign, which was that the Cleveland Clinic is providing cutting-edge health care that should be a model for the rest of the country. They do a terrific job.

A week ago the Cleveland Clinic announced it is cutting $330 million from its budget. What does that mean? That means a bunch of my constituents in the Cleveland area are going to lose their jobs. Why is the Cleveland Clinic having to cut $330 million from their budget? According to their own spokesperson, to prepare for increased costs and decreased revenues because of ObamaCare.

So, look, it is something I have heard about again and again when I visit with small business owners throughout Ohio. I hear it from our employers, who say they have no choice but to freeze growth. I have a friend who runs a small company in the Cleveland area. He has 47 employees. He has confided in me: You know what. I am not going to 50. Even though I have some additional business--he is starting to see a little pickup in his particular sector--I am not going there. I don't want to get to 50 because I simply don't want the uncertainty and the cost associated with the new mandates and requirements I would have to endure because of ObamaCare.

So you have the ``49ers''--employers who are sticking at 49 or fewer because they do not want the onerous requirements of ObamaCare when they cross that threshold of 50 employees.

Others, of course, are reducing the hours of folks who already work for them to well under 40 hours because they have to get under the 30- hour-a-week threshold in ObamaCare. It is so very sad.

You go to somebody and say: You know what. You have to come in at 28 hours now because the health care I am going to have to offer under ObamaCare is not something I can afford. It does not fit within our bottom line.

And this person says: I have a car payment or I have a house payment.

This is sad, and it is having an effect in my State, and I know it from talking to people, but I also know it just by looking at what these requirements are doing to small businesses. It is no surprise to me that this ``underemployment'' figure we see every month in the employment numbers is growing. Those are the people who are not working full time but working part time. Unfortunately, if you look over the last few months, we have seen a big increase in part-time jobs and not full-time jobs.

In 2010, I do not think many of my Democratic friends thought they were voting for a bill that would kill jobs. I really do not. I do not think they would have voted for it. I cannot believe they thought ObamaCare would drive up premium costs and make health care harder to get, as it has, but that is what is happening. That is why I believe it needs to be repealed and replaced with more sensible reforms.

The current health care system--before ObamaCare--is far from perfect. It cries out for reform. But, unfortunately, the prescription of ObamaCare is not making things better but worse.

I know this is hard to believe, but sometimes Congress makes mistakes. In this case, in my view, Congress made a big mistake. But we can fix it, and we can replace it with real bipartisan health care reform that does foster an environment where jobs can be created, that does provide for health care to be available rather than harder and harder to get. We can get there but only if we start by--in this vote today--saying: Let's defund it, let's repeal it, and let's replace it with something better.

As we learn more about the effects of ObamaCare, we are seeing some courage on the other side of the aisle. I know one of my colleagues today on the Democratic side said he could look to delaying ObamaCare's individual mandate for a year, for instance. That only makes sense. We have already told the businesses they are going to get a 1-year delay, but a woman or a guy who works at that business is told: You have a mandate even though your business does not, and you have to pay a fine if you do not get health care. So 22 House Democrats voted in favor of delaying the individual mandate as well. So I think on both sides of the aisle you are beginning to see some interest in at least having a delay to be able to try to improve this legislation.

But the Senate has the opportunity to speak here this afternoon. We are going to vote on this amendment as to whether to defund ObamaCare. I have heard from my constituents. I am sure you have heard from yours. Overwhelmingly, I say to my colleagues, what I am hearing is they do not want this law to continue. Do they think the health care system is perfect? No. But they think what ObamaCare is offering makes it worse, not better.

Republicans cannot do it alone. We have 46 votes here. You need 60. But in an act of bipartisanship and real political courage, maybe we will have a good result this afternoon and begin this process of moving toward a better system. I urge my colleagues to show that courage so we can turn to a better way to lower health care costs, to increase health care choices, and ultimately to improve the quality of care for all the families we represent.

I yield back my time.