Floor Statements

Mr. President, we are in the midst of a nomination discussion, and that takes place in the midst of a health care discussion. Last night, the House and Senate conferees struck an agreement on the budget resolution that will clear the way for final votes later this week, but it includes reconciliation instructions for health care and student loan forms which are quite controversial. We are told the reconciliation would not be used until after October 15, and some might find that reassuring. I am not one of those who does because if we are going to deal with the health care problem, we must recognize that it is enormously complex.

Health care spending is projected to be 17.6 percent of our GDP, which is nearly one-fifth of our economy, and a bill dealing with that is going to have to be scored by the CBO before any committee can report it out. At the moment, there is only one bill with respect to health care that has received a CBO score. It is the bill offered by Senator Wyden and myself, along with 12 cosponsors, known as the Healthy Americans Act. It has been scored by the CBO as revenue-neutral during its first 2 years and then saving money for the Federal Government thereafter. With 12 cosponsors--a mixture of both Republicans and Democrats--it would seem to me that this would be the bill from which we begin our discussions in a truly bipartisan manner, and it would not require the straitjacket of reconciliation to make it possible for the majority to move ahead. We have a score. We have a framework. We have language. It is not perfect. Even some of the cosponsors have indicated that in its present form they might vote against it, but at least it is a place to

begin. It is a place to start the conversation. We do not need the kind of enforcement of majority rights that reconciliation would give us.

To start over again fresh with a proposal from the administration would mean that a bill has to be drafted--something we have already done; the bill would have to be referred to CBO--something we have already done; CBO would have to go through the difficulties of scoring it--an enormous challenge. I don't believe they would be able to get all that done in a timely fashion. Then we would be told on the floor: Well, we have run out of time. We have to deal with health care so we are going to move to reconciliation as the way to jam the thing through in a hurry. Let's understand right here in the beginning that that kind of activity is not required.

Let's turn to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and her role with respect to the health care debate. My normal pattern has always been to say that the President has the right to whomever he wants, and I have not voted against Presidential nominees unless I felt they were completely inappropriate or incapable of carrying out their duties.

I have respect for Governor Sebelius. I think she is a valuable and potentially productive appointment for the President, but I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that she is the wrong appointee for this particular assignment. She has backed a partisan process for health care reform. She refuses to support patient safeguards and comparative effectiveness research, and, perhaps most strongly for me, she has already endorsed a Government-run public health care plan, something I would have to vote against. I think most of my colleagues-- if not all of my colleagues on the Republican side--would vote against it, not for partisan reasons but for the flat fact that it doesn't work. We have seen examples of that throughout the world, and we understand it doesn't work.

I have constituents who have relatives and friends in Canada who come to me and say: Based on our experience with our relatives and friends in Canada, we absolutely do not want a Canadian system. This is just an anecdote, but it is illustrative of the kind of thing that goes on in the Canadian system where they ration care by delay. They don't ration it by regulation, they simply ration it by delaying the ability of people to get access. As has been reported to me, if you can demonstrate as you go into the Canadian system that there is some problem related to heart disease, you get moved to the head of the line. So some of my constituents have told me that their relatives in Canada have discovered that if they go to see a doctor with a cold or with the flu or with some other problem, they always say, ``And this threatens my potential for heart disease'' in an effort to get ahead of the line and move forward in the Canadian system that would otherwise delay their access to a doctor. If you haven't learned that trick, you wait for 3 months, 6 months, whatever. This is the kind of Government- run public health plan Governor Sebelius has indicated that she would support.

There is also the troubling problem that she failed to disclose relevant information to the Finance Committee with respect to her taxes. We have had that happen with other Cabinet nominations, and it has become something of a cause celebre with many Americans who are following this. It has become the butt of jokes on the late-night talk shows. It is unfortunate that she has fallen a victim to that as well.

She has also been less than forthcoming with respect to her relationships with some of her political donors. She had a political relationship with a doctor who was involved in partial-birth abortions and was obviously anxious to see to it that he had access to public officials who would support him in that. That is an issue which carries a great deal of influence with my constituents, and it is another one that troubles me.

So while I think Governor Sebelius might be well qualified for some other position, I do not intend to support her for this position. As we deal with health care problems, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is a key player in helping us solve this problem, and I believe she carries a little bit too much baggage for this particular assignment.

So once again we have the framework for a bipartisan solution. It can be the beginning point of the discussion. A bill has been written around it, and it has been scored by the CBO. Why don't we start with that instead of threatening reconciliation for a whole new program that might start with the administration?

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I understand from the distinguished Budget Committee chairman that they have accepted this amendment by unanimous consent. Therefore, I congratulate them on their wisdom and thank them.

This is a serious amendment, which I hope will survive conference. I am glad to have it accepted. It deals with the tax treatment of charitable contributions. I am happy to have it accepted by the other side so that the Senate is on record saying they want the President's budget not to change the tax treatment of charitable contributions.

Madam President, assuming a voice vote means approval, I am willing to take a voice vote.

Mr. President, I call up amendment 954, as modified.

I have only one copy which I gave the clerk. We found that some of the numbers had been omitted.

Mr. President, according to CBO, the stimulus bill will spend over $150 billion between fiscal years 2011 and 2014. My amendment will remove that amount from this budget resolution because it seems to me we do not need to fund the same things twice.

By reducing the proposed spending amounts in the budget resolution, Congress will be recognizing that we have already passed money to spend in that area. For those who say, yes, but the stimulus is different, we are all hoping that the need for stimulus will be passed by the time we get to 2014 and it will not be stimulative but, rather, inflationary. It is for that reason that I offer the amendment.

Madam President, I have listened with interest to the comments of the Senator from Arizona. I would like to point out one fact to fellow Senators and to the country: In this proposed budget, there is roughly $2.2 trillion worth of revenue. There is also roughly $2.2 trillion worth of mandatory spending. The mandatory spending eats up all the revenue. That means everything else we spend in a discretionary way--and that includes defense--is going to come out of borrowed money. That is the first time we have ever had that situation outside of wartime. It is a cautionary note. I salute the Senator from Arizona for his remarks.

I rise to comment upon an amendment I have submitted, No. 759. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Hatch be added as a cosponsor of the amendment.

This amendment deals with the tax treatment of charitable contributions. In the trillions of dollars we have been talking about today, it may seem a relatively small amount. But to the people who are involved in it, it becomes a very major issue. It is worth focusing on. As I have said before, I have been called upon by arts organizations in the State of Utah that are very concerned that the contributions that keep them alive have dropped off as a result of the slowing down of the economy. They are hoping they might recover some of that dropoff from Federal dollars. Interestingly enough, the President's proposal calls for a reduction in the tax incentive for people to give money to charitable contributions. So the President is proposing something that will hurt the charities, will cause their income to go down in the name of fiscal responsibility and saying we need more Federal money, so let's change the tax treatment so we get more Federal money from those who would otherwise contribute to charitable contributions, and then turns around and watches the charities come in and say: We have to make that up or we will have to start laying off people. The President talks about saving jobs. The nonprofits provide over 10 million jobs. If they cannot get the money from their contributors and they cannot get the money from the Federal Government, they will lose jobs. It is foolish for us to say: All right, in the name of fiscal responsibility, let's take the money away from the contributors and bring it into the Federal coffers and then, to save the jobs, let's take the money out of the Federal coffers and give it to the charities so the Federal Government becomes the decisionmaker as to which charities get the money rather than the people themselves.

Charitable giving is an almost unique American experience. As we look at other countries around the world, they do not have the level of charitable contributions we have. We contribute an enormous amount to nonprofit organizations, and we do it on the basis of what we want to support. We, unlike European nations, do not have governmental support in the form of expenditures made to churches. You go to churches in other countries, and it is the government that supports them.

Their pews are empty by comparison to the religious services held in the United States because people don't take it seriously. Here the Government stays out of funding churches and says: If you want to have a viable church, a viable religious experience, you have to provide sufficient incentive to the people who align themselves with your church that they will support it out of their own pockets.

That is what has made religion so viable and vigorous in America, because people do support it out of their own pockets, and it does not have a direct Government expenditure, but it does have Government approval of those kind of expenditures in the tax treatment of charitable contributions, tax treatment which the President now says he wants to change. That is a foolish thing to do, and that is why I have offered the amendment, along with my cosponsors. I hope the amendment will be voted on in appropriate fashion tomorrow.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues Senators Bingaman, Hatch, Udall of New Mexico and Kyl as we introduce the Indian School Bus Route Safety Reauthorization Act of 2009. This legislation reauthorizes an important program that has served the Navajo Nation and specifically Navajo children since 1998. The funding provided in this program is used exclusively to maintain roads that provide bus routes for Navajo children. Two thirds of the 9,700 miles of the Navajo public roads are unpaved, dirt roads. Many of these roads are traveled everyday by children heading to school on the bus. When the rough rains and snows of winter hit, the deficient roads are frequently impassable. Damage caused by winds and rains can create huge holes and gullies that often make the roads unfit for a school bus even in good weather!

This program was started in 1998 to ensure the local governments, working in partnership with the Navajo, are able to maintain the roads and ensure the school bus routes are usable and in good condition. Before children can learn at school, they have to get to school! Congress answered the urgent call for help by providing direct funding to the counties that contain the Navajo reservation to help ensure that children on the reservation can get to and from their public schools. This program was reauthorized in SAFETEA-LU in 2005 and we urge our colleagues in the Senate to join us in supporting this important project again in 2009.

This bill provides for $2 million annually to be shared equally among Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. The funding goes directly to the counties that contain the Navajo reservation. These funds can only be used on roads that are located within or that lead to the reservation and that are used by school buses.

I want to take a moment and pay tribute to San Juan County, UT. San Juan County has done a commendable job of working with their Navajo neighbors to ensure a strong working relationship and to truly serve the Navajo members of their community. The Navajo Nation comprises 40 percent of the San Juan County land area and the county maintains 611 miles of roads on the Navajo Nation. Of these, 357 miles are dirt, 164 miles are gravel and only 90 miles are paved. On the reservation, the county has three high schools, two elementary schools, two BIA boarding schools and four pre-schools. The funds reauthorized in this bill will allow San Juan County to continue their commitment to ensuring busses can reach the students and thus the students will be safely transported to school.

I am proud to again bring this authorization before the Senate and I look forward to working with my colleagues here and in the House to ensure that this important measure is included in the upcoming transportation authorization. I thank my colleague Mr. Bingaman for his strong work on this legislation and look forward to working closely with him as well as Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Inhofe of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Voinovich of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee to ensure that this legislation is again included in the comprehensive 6-year transportation reauthorization.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues Senators Bingaman, Hatch, Udall of New Mexico and Kyl as we introduce the Indian School Bus Route Safety Reauthorization Act of 2009. This legislation reauthorizes an important program that has served the Navajo Nation and specifically Navajo children since 1998. The funding provided in this program is used exclusively to maintain roads that provide bus routes for Navajo children. Two thirds of the 9,700 miles of the Navajo public roads are unpaved, dirt roads. Many of these roads are traveled everyday by children heading to school on the bus. When the rough rains and snows of winter hit, the deficient roads are frequently impassable. Damage caused by winds and rains can create huge holes and gullies that often make the roads unfit for a school bus even in good weather!

This program was started in 1998 to ensure the local governments, working in partnership with the Navajo, are able to maintain the roads and ensure the school bus routes are usable and in good condition. Before children can learn at school, they have to get to school! Congress answered the urgent call for help by providing direct funding to the counties that contain the Navajo reservation to help ensure that children on the reservation can get to and from their public schools. This program was reauthorized in SAFETEA-LU in 2005 and we urge our colleagues in the Senate to join us in supporting this important project again in 2009.

This bill provides for $2 million annually to be shared equally among Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. The funding goes directly to the counties that contain the Navajo reservation. These funds can only be used on roads that are located within or that lead to the reservation and that are used by school buses.

I want to take a moment and pay tribute to San Juan County, UT. San Juan County has done a commendable job of working with their Navajo neighbors to ensure a strong working relationship and to truly serve the Navajo members of their community. The Navajo Nation comprises 40 percent of the San Juan County land area and the county maintains 611 miles of roads on the Navajo Nation. Of these, 357 miles are dirt, 164 miles are gravel and only 90 miles are paved. On the reservation, the county has three high schools, two elementary schools, two BIA boarding schools and four pre-schools. The funds reauthorized in this bill will allow San Juan County to continue their commitment to ensuring busses can reach the students and thus the students will be safely transported to school.

I am proud to again bring this authorization before the Senate and I look forward to working with my colleagues here and in the House to ensure that this important measure is included in the upcoming transportation authorization. I thank my colleague Mr. Bingaman for his strong work on this legislation and look forward to working closely with him as well as Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Inhofe of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Voinovich of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee to ensure that this legislation is again included in the comprehensive 6-year transportation reauthorization.

I have listened with interest to my friend from Illinois where everything works, every proposal makes sense, every Federal appropriation is carefully handled, and every citizen of the State of Illinois personally prospers. That would be a great world. I hope we can get to it. I don't think this budget takes us there.

I rise to discuss another aspect of this budget, to discuss amendment No. 759, which I have submitted.

I ask unanimous consent that Senators Thune and Ensign be added as cosponsors.

This amendment has to do with the tax treatment of charitable contributions. The budget the Senator from Illinois discussed has to be paid for. One of the ways President Obama has proposed that it be paid for is to change the tax treatment of charitable contributions for those evil people in America who earn more than $250,000 a year. I say ``evil'' in a sardonic sense because, in fact, we all recognize they are essential to the economy. Without them, we would not have the tremendous amount of income tax revenue we do have. We understand that they are paying the lion's share of the income tax. We should not demonize them. But some people have in their response to this and say they earn too much, and we should not allow them to accumulate too much.

One way we are going to make sure they don't accumulate too much is to see to it that they are not allowed to deduct the same percentage of their income taxes for charitable contributions that other people are.

Let's talk about this for a moment. Taxpayers with incomes in excess of $250,000 contributed $81 billion to charities, according to the IRS. That is an average contribution of $22,000. The people with incomes below that have made an average contribution of $2,700, nearly 10 times less. So the charitable contributions made in this country clearly come in the bulk from those who earn over $250,000 who would see the tax benefit from making that contribution go down if President Obama has his way.

I have two interesting personal comments to make about that, one from my son who was having a debate with one of his liberal friends. His liberal friend said to him: Jim, you don't earn over $250,000 so this would not affect you. Why are you so concerned?

He responded: I work for a nonprofit. If their contributions are cut as a result of this, it will affect me. More importantly, it will affect those people whom this nonprofit serves.

I take my son Jim as an example. The nonprofits in this country employ 10.2 million people. When we talk about this budget saving jobs, we have to ask: How many of that 10.2 million people will lose their jobs as they see the contributions go down as a result of this change in tax treatment?

President Obama says: You should make the contribution regardless of the tax treatment. The tax treatment should not stand in the way of your doing good work.

I agree with that. But if the tax treatment holds down the amount of money you have available to do good work, it will impact it.

George Washington made this comment with respect to charitable contributions:

Let your heart feel for affliction and distress of everyone

and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

What is happening is that President Obama is suggesting that the proportion of your purse will go down as a result of Federal action.

Now I go to the second personal experience that comes out of this. I have long been known as one who is a strong supporter of the arts. I supported the arts when some members of my party wanted to eliminate them, particularly the National Endowment for the Arts. I was here on this floor to argue in favor of that and have been happy to see the arts amount go up each year since we saved it as a result of the action we did in the Senate. Our friends in the other body had zeroed it out in their budget, and we did our best and succeeded in saving it.

A group of arts people have been to see me this week, thanked me for the work I have done--and I thanked them for that--and then described their problem. Their problem is, of course, that their contributions are down. Why? Because the economy is down. So they are having to lay people off. They are saying: Can't we get an even bigger Federal contribution to make up for the fact that the private contributions are down?

Step back from those two comments and see how ironic it is. The President is saying: We are going to change the tax treatment so there will be less incentive for private contributions. The people who live on the basis of these contributions are saying: Our contributions are down. Will you please increase the tax contribution so we can make up the difference?

The President's proposal sets up a situation which takes away with one hand and then presumably gives with another. There is a proposal in this deficit for more money for the arts.

I support that proposal, as I say, because I have always been in favor of some money for the arts, but not for enough money from the Federal taxpayer to make up the amount that will be lost if we follow President Obama's proposal. My amendment will deal with that.

Over one-third of the charitable contributions that are paid go to faith-based organizations, to churches. We have always recognized the importance of religion in this country. Freedom of religion is the first item mentioned in the first amendment. The Founding Fathers thought that freedom of religion and saying that Congress shall in no way interfere with religions was the most important thing they could say in the first amendment. It is there ahead of freedom of speech, ahead of freedom of the press, ahead of the right to petition the Government for a redress of your grievances.

We are going to say to those faith-based organizations, all right, the large donors who make the contributions to the church universities or to the major church activities, they are going to be discouraged by virtue of this tax treatment President Obama has proposed. Yes, you can still pass the plate for the small parishioners. And I do not wish in any way to denigrate the importance of the widow's mite, but anyone who has ever run a major fundraising organization knows that you start out with the big contributions first, and

then you try to add to those the smaller contributions and get everybody involved.

I come from a constituency that has a long history of faith-based contributions and that has used those contributions for tremendously valuable purposes. Originally, to bring people to Utah, they organized what was known as the Perpetual Emigration Fund. People of means put money into that fund so people who could not afford to come to Utah could borrow from it; and then, when they were there, they would pay it back. That is why it was called the Perpetual Emigration Fund. We do not need that anymore.

We now have what is known as the Perpetual Education Fund. People of means put substantial amounts into this fund, which then makes loans to those who cannot get an education otherwise. We heard the Senator from Illinois talk about the importance of educational loans and the importance of Pell grants. This is a fund that makes loans of all kinds, primarily to people at the bottom of the economic ladder, to give them a trade, to help them get the skills they need to support their families--mainly young people who do not have families yet and may not be starting families because they are afraid they cannot afford it.

The large contributors who contribute to this fund are now being told: Well, we still need your money. We still need this effort for all of these young people who need this benefit. But the Federal Government is going to take a little more off the top than they used to.

For those who say: Well, I have only so much to give, and I have to reduce it in order to be able to pay the extra tax, it is the Perpetual Education Fund that will pay the price.

So we have submitted this amendment that would make it clear that nothing in this budget could be used to put in place the President's proposal, and I hope when the time comes, all of my Senators will vote for it.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, President Obama's budget is sending mixed messages to the American people. I know he faces a very difficult time, as do we all. I know he is trying to get the best counsel he can, and I applaud him for that. I do not have a degree in macroeconomics and I know some of the finest macroeconomists in the country are on President Obama's team. I do not know anybody, however, on President Obama's team who has ever run a small business. So, if I may be so presumptuous, I would like to share some of the realities of running a small business with the President's team and see if we can't understand why many of the things that are in the President's budget, in fact, will have directly the opposite effect than he wants.

It is the goal of the administration to increase job creation and spur economic growth. That is a legitimate goal. However, we must understand this about how you increase job creation: You must be sure small businesses are properly taken care of because small businesses provide more than half the jobs Americans hold and small businesses create the new jobs. When large businesses start downsizing, buying people out and laying people off, where do they go? In many instances, those who do not go on unemployment end up in small businesses.

If I may offer my own credentials, I have run businesses that were as small as two people--myself and my secretary. I was recruited to be the CEO--a very high-powered title--of a business that had only four employees. I made number five. We grew that business to the point that there were thousands of employees and the business was ultimately listed on the New York Stock Exchange. So I offer that to the macroeconomists on President Obama's team, to say that if you want to increase jobs and if you want to increase economic growth and thereby increase tax revenue to the Federal Government, you should pay attention to small business.

One of the worst things that can happen to you when you are trying to grow a small business is to make money. That sounds counterintuitive, but it is true. Why? Because you need that money to finance your growth, but the Government shows up and says we want ours in taxes. So you want the tax rate to be as low as possible. The business that I described, that went from four employees to the New York Stock Exchange, was built during what the New York Times and other critics called the decade of greed because the top tax rate was 28 percent, and they thought that was terrible. It was only 28 percent, the top marginal tax rate? That is awful. That only goes for the greedy Americans.

That meant that for every dollar we earned in that business, we got to keep 72 cents of it, which we could use to finance the growth of the business. That business was grown with internally generated funds. Yes, we had a bank line and yes we drew on the bank line, but it was the internally generated funds that made it possible for us to create those thousands of jobs.

Because there were a small number of us in that business, we took the

business income onto our personal tax returns. That is allowed under the Tax Code, under what is known as Chapter S, under the Tax Code. We were an S corporation. So while my tax return showed the amount I was paid while I was the CEO of that company, it also showed my share of the profits of the company. None of that came to me. All of that was reinvested in the company. But for tax purposes, it showed up on my tax return. So I, very quickly, for tax purposes, was an American earning more than $250,000 a year. I was not, but my tax returns showed that I was.

Now, the top tax rate was 28 percent. This was while Ronald Reagan was President. If we were to start that business today and the President's budget were to pass and the President's Tax Code were to be enforced, we would now be paying not 28 percent but 42 percent because you would go to 39.5 percent and then you would have the other add-ons connected with Medicare and the other things that have been changed. I do not believe the business would have survived. I think that tax burden would have been so heavy that we would not be able to make it.

Let me give you the numbers from my own State, to show how important this is. In the State of Utah, we have 68,758 small businesses that employ less than 500 people; we have 65,693 small businesses that employ less than 50 people, and we have 61,057 small businesses that employ less than 20 people.

So the number of people employed by small businesses in Utah--this rules out the farmers, this is not agriculture--is 760,096 in businesses with less than 500 people each. That is 61 percent of Utah's entire employment population.

Now, if you increase the taxes on all of those people on the assumption that they are rich, you increase the taxes on every one of those businesses because they are rich. Look, the owners of the businesses are filing tax returns to show over $250,000 so they must all be Wall Street brokers and traders. Right.

Now, they are people who are struggling to make the business grow, struggling to provide the jobs. Make no mistake, the tax increases proposed by President Obama's budget will hurt Utah's small businesses, hundreds of thousands of our employees, our State's economy, and that means, at large, our national economy. So it is a mixed message. The goal is job creation, but the budget will hurt the greatest engine of job creation which is small businesses.

Second, the administration's goal is to increase service in America and invest in the nonprofit sector. That sounds wonderful. Then they turn around and say: If you invest in the nonprofit sector, you, American citizens, we are going to take away a portion of your tax deduction for the gift you give to charity. This is a double hit.

If I am running my small business I have just described, the tax man shows up and gives me less than I can give to charity, and then if I do give some to charity, the tax man shows up and takes more of that away from me by eliminating part of my tax deduction for charity. That is a mixed message. We want you to do this, but we are creating an economic incentive that makes it difficult for you and will penalize you.

Now, finally, the administration has the goal to protect the majority of Americans from tax increases. The President has said over and over that he will not increase taxes for 95 percent of Americans. That sounds wonderful until you turn around and recognize that he is proposing a new energy tax at the gas pump and on your utility bill that will hit 100 percent of Americans.

So on one side: Well, we are not going to hit you on the income tax side. But we are going to take it away from you on the gas pump and utility side. This is because he wants to create a cap-and-trade program. Other countries have cap-and-trade programs. I was in the United Kingdom. I talked to the people about theirs. As they were outlining how it works, I said to them: Do your ratepayers understand they are paying this? This is not money that is created in Heaven.

The answer I got was: Well, they are beginning to. We all saw the reaction of Americans when gas was $4 a gallon at the pump, and we all felt the heat as our constituents came us to and said: You have got to do something about this; this is far too much for us to pay for gasoline.

Then when the prices came down, that political outrage began to disappear. However, if you do cap and trade in the way the President wants, those prices will start to creep up again. It will be at the gas pump, it will be at the utility. So it is another mixed message.

We have three mixed messages. We want to create jobs, but we are going to tax the greatest engine of creating jobs. We want people to get involved in national service, but we are going to tax them and penalize them if they do. We want Americans, ordinary Americans, to go without tax increases, but we are going to increase their taxes on energy and hit them with a fund that will amount to approximately $650 billion, by virtue of the carbon tax that will come through the cap- and-trade program.

What is the consequence of all of this? My colleagues have talked about the fact that the record spending is going to double the national debt in 5 years, triple it in 10 years. How is the administration going to pay for that? In the ways I have described. They are going to do it through increased taxes.

There is one last thought I want to leave everyone. We can determine here in the Congress how much we spend. We cannot determine here in the Congress how much we take in. We can pass a tax law that will project a certain amount that will come in, but that projection will not come to pass if the economy is not strong. Money does not come from the budget. Money comes from the economy. If the economy is weakened, if the generations of economic growth are weakened in the ways I have described, we will not have the money with which to pay the debt.

So we come back to that which the distinguished Republican leader has said at the beginning of this debate: If you take the President's budget all in all, it spends too much, it taxes too much. And when the taxes do not cover what is being spent, it borrows too much.

I may not be a macroeconomist, but I have a long history of running a business and knowing how devastating the tax man's arrival can be to that business. I have a history of creating jobs, jobs that pay taxes as the employees are compensated. I know this aspect of our economy is one that the Obama administration would be well advised to pay attention to.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for the benefit of the Senate, I would like to discuss with the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water the congressional intent with respect to the funding provided by the pending legislation, H.R. 1105, regarding the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program.

The pending legislation provides a total of $47 billion for eligible projects pursuant to title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, to remain available until committed, of which $18.5 billion shall be for nuclear power facilities.

In order to address budget scoring issues raised by the Congressional Budget Office, regarding third party financing, the conferees included legislation recommended by CBO counsel. CBO staff believes there is concern that the Federal Government might incur mandatory spending as a result of entering into power purchase agreements for energy projects that also receive loan guarantees from the Department of Energy.

While CBO acknowledges that this scoring issue is separate from the 1-percent subsidy cost that CBO has assessed the title XVII since fiscal year 2007, the conferees were obliged to include language drafted by CBO that would mitigate the possible scoring impact.

The language is drafted to capture as many possible third party financing options and as a result has created several unintended consequences. Specifically, the omnibus language could inadvertently have an adverse impact on a number of pending projects, for numerous title XVII eligible projects including the American Centrifuge Plant, ACP. The ACP project will employ more than 3,000 people in Ohio and thousands of employees with contracts to build this facility including ATK and Hexcel located in Utah.

First, I would like to thank the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water for his work since taking over this subcommittee in 2007 to support the loan guarantee program and his willingness to find the necessary resources, when budget requests were insufficient.

I know the chairman is familiar with this frustrating interpretation and ask if he would be willing to work with me and others to find a solution to these inadvertent problems and to correct them in the first possible legislation following the enactment of this legislation?

Would the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water also agree with me that the Department of Energy should therefore continue to work on the pending loan guarantee applications for those projects which could be adversely impacted by this legislation if not corrected, such as those for renewable projects and for USEC's loan guarantee application for its ACP project?

Mr. President, I rise today to join with our Chair, Senator Kohl, in a colloquy to correct a clerical error in the attribution table accompanying Division I of H.R. 1105. Senator Bond is listed as having requested the ``Beef Improvement Research'' project under the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service. My staff has confirmed that this project was not requested by Senator Bond and, as such, Senator Bond's name should not be listed as a requestor.

I thank the Chair for his assistance in this matter.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes.

I ask the Chair to notify me when I have consumed 8 minutes.

Mr. President, I have two items I wish to discuss, one that has already been raised on the floor by my friend, Senator DeMint, with respect to his proposed amendment No. 573 to the underlying bill. As I understand it, Senator DeMint will be offering an amendment dealing with the fairness rule. I was a cosponsor of this legislation in the last Congress and I am happy to support it in this Congress; that is, the position that says we should not allow the FCC to reinforce what has been called the fairness rule that was dropped some years ago. Who can be against fairness? Well, I am in favor of fairness, but I am opposed to censorship, under the mislabeling that we have here, the fairness doctrine is nothing more than censorship. The Federal Government would say to a radio or television broadcaster we have

determined that the broadcasting that you have been doing is not fair and so you are going to be ordered by the Government to present a different point of view on your show and we will determine whether it is fair or it is not. The fairness doctrine was imposed on the grounds that radio was such a pervasive medium that anything that was said on radio regarding politics should be balanced by someone who holds a different point of view. Right away, this raises the question of how many points of view?

We have seen Presidential elections where we had President Clinton, where we had Pat Buchanan, where we had Ralph Nader, and some minor candidates, and who determines which one is important enough to qualify for a fairness opportunity on radio? According to the so called Fairness Doctrine, the government determines. Who determines, therefore, what is one position that deserves putting down so that other positions can be raised in the name of fairness? The Federal Government. What do we get into when the Federal Government has the authority to make these kinds of decisions? Again, there is a word for it and it is called censorship.

One way to deal with an argument, to use the Latin phrase ``reductio ad absurdum,'' which means ``reduce it to an absurdity.'' Take it to its ultimate end. If we are going to take the Fairness Doctrine to it's ultimate end, then we are going to say to the late night comedians, when you make a joke about a Democrat, since you are on the airwaves, you must make a joke of equivalent nastiness about a Republican. When you put down the President, you must find an equivalent Republican figure to put down in the name of fairness. The consequence of all of that, of course, if it were enforced, would be that the late night comedians get shut down all together.

We have already had an opportunity for fairness, if you will, with respect to talk radio. When a group of people got together and financed a liberal talk show host--one who aspires to enter this body at some time--the public spoke. The station went out of business. Let the public decide what they are going to listen to and let the public decide how they are going to pick. There are so many outlets for different points of view that we do not need to go back to the Fairness Doctrine and impose Government censorship on the way people think and respond.

Mr. President, I wish to speak of one of Utah's most outstanding citizens, Larry H. Miller, who passed away recently.

Larry Miller is a true American success story. He graduated from high school. He wasn't able to cut it in college and ended up working in a parts department in an auto dealership. Not a very auspicious beginning for someone who became a billionaire, but Larry Miller had two things that many people do not have. No. 1, he had in effect a photographic memory. I understand that if you went to Larry Miller while he was running this parts department and asked for an axle or for a head lamp or for any other auto part, he knew exactly where it was. Somehow he had that in his head and he made a tremendous success out of that. He ultimately began his career by buying an auto dealership and then built a string of 40 auto dealerships.

The other thing he had was an incredible work ethic. Larry Miller worked hard every day and demanded that kind of performance from those who worked with him.

He is best known in Utah for the fact that he was the minority owner of the Utah Jazz, the NBA's least successful team financially. The Jazz reached the point where they had to be sold because they couldn't survive anymore. They were losing money at every turn. The majority partner made a deal whereby the franchise would be sold to someone outside of the State. As minority partner, Larry Miller was required to sign the deal. He picked up the pen to sign the deal and then he couldn't bring himself to sign it, and he turned to the majority partner and said, Sam, I can't do it. So he bought the majority partner out, kept the Jazz in Utah, and then he presided over the revival of the Jazz. They won more games. They have been in the playoffs more than most people. They have been to the national finals twice and the only reason they haven't won an NBA national championship is because the Chicago Bulls had Michael Jordan at the time. Against any other team or any other star, the Jazz would have won the NBA championship. I remember the last failed game very well, and the shot Jordan put up that won the game that was fantastic, but that was Jordan's legacy.

Larry Miller is known for all of these things, but that is not how I wish to remember him before the Senate here today, because this man, who was a philanthropist and gave his money to community colleges to help people who were more like him in terms of their academic needs, became in his later years a history buff. He fell in love with the Founding Fathers. I remember talking to Larry Miller about John Adams, about Thomas Jefferson, and recommending a book to him. He had just read McCullough's book on John Adams and I said, Have you read Joseph Ellis's book, ``Founding Brothers''? He said, no. I said, I will send it to you. I got caught up in all of my difficulties and all of my distractions and realized I had failed to keep my word. So finally, with some embarrassment, I got hold of Larry and said, I apologize I have not sent you a copy of ``Founding Brothers.'' He said, that is all right, Senator. I went out and bought one on my own. He followed through where I didn't.

He fell in love with this country, not as an entrepreneur, although he did that way; not as someone who had been very successful and blessed by this country, although he did that way; but toward the end of his life he fell in love with this country as one who studied its history and understood its underpinnings. He was generous. He was inventive. He was tenacious. The people of Utah have been more than blessed by the fact that he chose Utah as his home. We miss him terribly and extend our deepest sympathies to his family.

Mr. President, as we come to the final vote on the stimulus package, I express my great regret that I am going to be unable to vote for it because we clearly need a stimulus package that works. The economy is in serious trouble, and we need to do the very best we can to restore confidence in our economy and in our future.

Indeed, confidence is the basic issue. Confidence is what it is all about. We have had glimpses that have led us to believe some sense of confidence could be restored. Unfortunately, in my view, we have squandered the opportunity.

Let me put it in context. Let's go back to the time when President Obama was newly inaugurated and people were looking forward to the stimulus package and the activity with respect to banks and what would happen in the financial industry. If I can quote from an editorial that appeared in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend of February 7 and 8, they were talking about the gamble that the stimulus package represents. This is what they had to say:

The biggest gamble with this stimulus is what it means if

the economy doesn't recover. Monetary policy is already as

stimulative as it can safely get, and the Obama

administration is set to announce its big financial fix on

Monday.

That Monday was the Monday of this week, Mr. President. It goes on to say:

Stocks rallied Friday on expectations of the latter,

despite the job loss report, with big bank stocks leading the

way. If done right, this will help reduce risk aversion and

gradually restore financial confidence.

Again, confidence is what we need to get the economy going in the right direction. Continuing to quote:

We hope it does, because the size and waste of the stimulus

means we won't have much ammunition left. The spending will

take the U.S. budget deficit up to some 12 percent of GDP, about double the peak of the 1980s and into uncharted territory. The tragedy of the Obama stimulus is that we are getting so little for all that money.

What did they mean when they talked about getting so little? Picking out a few examples, again quoting from the Wall Street Journal on the same day and an editorial on that issue, they point out:

The Milwaukee public school system, for example, would

receive $88.6 million over two years for new construction

projects under the House version of the stimulus--even though

the district currently has 15 vacant school buildings and

declining enrollment. Between 1990 and 2008, inflation-

adjusted MPS spending rose by 35 percent, per-pupil spending

increased by 36 percent and state aid grew by 58 percent.

Over the same period, enrollment fell by a percentage point

and is projected to continue falling, leaving the system with

enough excess capacity for 22,000 students.

Yet they are going to receive $88.6 million to build new capacity. Do the schools they represent have difficult conditions? Back to the editorial and quoting:

In general, MPS facilities have been described by school

officials as being in good to better-than-good condition--

Reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel--

the kind of situations that create urgent needs for

renovation or new construction in some cities have not been

on the priority list for MPS officials in recent years.

So we are going to spend money to build Milwaukee schools and they don't have students to fill them. That is the kind of thing the Wall Street Journal was talking about.

Let's look at what happened this week. Now, I go not to an American publication but to the Economist, printed in Great Britain, which has perhaps a more objective view than a publication focused on American politics:

There was a chance that this week would mark a turning

point in an ever-deepening global slump, as Barack Obama

produced the two main parts of his rescue plan. The first,

and most argued-over, was a big fiscal boost.

They are referring to the stimulus package.

The second, and more important, part of the rescue was team

Obama's scheme for fixing the financial mess. . . .

They refer there to the unveiling of the program that Secretary Geithner gave us on Tuesday of this week. They go on to describe the situation:

America cannot rescue the world economy alone. But this

double offensive by its biggest economy could potentially

have broken the spiral of uncertainty and gloom that is

gripping investors, producers and consumers across the globe.

Again, Mr. President, they are pointing out that we have a significant crisis of confidence. They say it applies to investors, producers, and consumers. Then they gave their judgment:

Alas, that opportunity was squandered. Mr. Obama ceded

control of the stimulus to the fractious congressional

Democrats, allowing a plan that should have had broad support

from both parties to become a divisive partisan battle. More

serious still was Mr. Geithner's financial-rescue blueprint

which, though touted as a bold departure from the

incrementalism and uncertainty that plagued the Bush

administration's Wall Street fixes, in fact looked

depressingly like

his predecessor's efforts: timid, incomplete and short on

detail. Despite talk of trillion-dollar sums, stock markets

tumbled. Far from boosting confidence, Mr. Obama seems at

sea.

These are comments not of an American publication, or of a Republican or Democratic partisan, but the comments of an objective observer from overseas. They go on:

The fiscal stimulus plan has some obvious flaws. Too much

of the boost to demand is backloaded to 2010 and beyond. The

compromise bill is larded with spending determined more by

Democrat lawmakers' pet projects than by the efficiency with

which the economy will be boosted.

I will give you an example that fits that category. Quoting from the Wall Street Journal of today:

An obscure Commerce Department office with a $19 million

budget and fewer than 20 grant officers would end up in

charge of $7 billion in grants to expand Internet access in

rural areas.

Mr. President, you have had executive responsibility at the State level. I have had executive responsibility in the private sector. Think for a moment about the workings of this situation. There is an office with 20 employees administering a $19 million budget that is going to receive, under this stimulus package, a check for $7 billion and then being told: Spend it wisely in expanding Internet access in rural areas.

Mr. President, $7 billion does not get spent by 20 people overwhelmed by the task. It does not get spent expanding Internet access in rural areas without careful studies and an intelligent plan laid out.

That is an example of what ``The Economist'' is talking about when they say, and I go back to their quote:

The bill is larded with spending determined more by

Democrat lawmakers' pet projects than by the efficiency with

which the economy will be boosted.

They go on to talk about more details of the stimulus plan, as well as the Geithner plan, but they summarize it this way under the heading, ``A great failure of nerve.'' They say:

How serious is this setback? One interpretation is that Mr.

Obama's crew mismanaged expectations--that they promised a

plan and came up with a concept. If so, that is a big

mistake. Managing expectations is part of building confidence

and when so much about these rescues is superhumanly complex,

it is unforgivable to bungle the easy bit.

More worrying still is the chance that Mr. Geithner's

vagueness comes from doubt about what to do, a reluctance to

take tough decisions, and a timidity about asking Congress

for enough cash. That is an alarming prospect.

I wish I could support this stimulus package. I am more than happy to reach out to the administration and do whatever I can to help solve this problem because our country is in serious difficulty and the world, as a whole, is in even more.

I regret, in the words of ``The Economist,'' that this is an opportunity that has been squandered. I hope in the coming weeks we can do something to regain the opportunity and regain the momentum we need in order to get to where we need to be.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, we are awaiting the conference report on the stimulus package. The papers and the airwaves are full of the fact that this will be the largest expenditure we have made in peacetime perhaps in our history.

I think it well, as we wait for the details of the package, for us to pause for a moment and take a longer look, beyond the recession, beyond the financial circumstances we are facing at the moment, and look down the road at what we are facing as a nation as a whole.

So I am going to make a historic pattern today and then introduce, at the end, a bill I believe is necessary for us to deal with our financial problems. Let's go back a moment in history to the year 1966. Why do I pick 1966? Because that was the year we significantly expanded the entitlement spending in the United States. That was the year we adopted Medicare as a Federal program.

As you see from the chart, at that time the mandatory spending constituted 26 percent of the budget. By ``mandatory,'' I mean spending that we have to do. People are entitled to receive that money whether we have the money or not; it is mandatory under the law.

The largest portion of the mandatory spending in 1966 was Social Security.

We were paying roughly 7 percent of our budget for interest. We had nondefense discretionary spending which was 23 percent. The big item, the big ticket item that dominated the budget in 1966 was defense. It constituted 44 percent of Federal spending in 1966.

Let's see what has happened since that time. Let's see where we are today. In fiscal 2008, this is where we are. The mandatory spending has grown from 26 percent to 54 percent. Interest costs are roughly the same. They were 7 percent; now they are 8. Nondiscretionary spending has shrunk to 17 percent. Defense discretionary, even though we are in a wartime, is 21 percent. It is clear the mandatory spending is taking over control of the Federal budget. And interest costs, of course, are mandatory. We owe those interest costs.

If you add the two together, 54 and 8, you get 62 percent of the Federal budget beyond the control of Congress. That is, when we pass the appropriations bills, when we make our decisions what to spend money for, we are spending money in the minority; whereas, 62 percent majority is out of our control. When you take away the defense spending and assume that has a semimandatory aspect to it and put defense spending in the mix, that means the Congress only has control of 17 percent of the budget, an amazing change in the roughly 40 years from 1966 until today.

What does the future look like? I must make the point that every projection we make around here is wrong. Every projection is an educated guess. But the educated guess of what will happen 10 years from now is that mandatory spending will have grown to 61 percent and interest costs to 10 percent. That is 71. The Congressional Budget Office won't make a guess as to the divide between defense and nondefense discretionary spending. So all discretionary spending will be 29 percent, if we divide it in half, as it has historically been. That means the Congress, just 10 years from now, will only control 10 percent of the Federal budget. All the rest of it will be on automatic pilot. That is a startling thing to look forward to.

So as we talk about the stimulus package, we need to pause and pay a little attention to the entitlement spending that will go on and the kind of spending that will be built up, and we are adding to that with this stimulus.

Here it is in the projections of what it will be. It constitutes a wave. Indeed, it has been referred to almost as a tsunami of spending. It is broken down into the three primary sources of mandatory spending, the three biggest entitlements. At the bottom is the one that is the biggest now, and that is Social Security. But Social Security does not grow as fast as the next one, which is Medicare. And then on top of that is Medicaid. One can see this tsunami of spending will take our mandatory spending, which at the moment is less than 10 percent of GDP, up to more than 20 percent of GDP.

Let me show another chart that illustrates the same point in a slightly different way. You have the same entitlements. We have added in this chart discretionary spending. The solid line across is the average revenue of the Federal Government. It is recorded in percentage of GDP. We have historically had a revenue average of 18.4 percent of GDP. As we can see in 2007, the expenditures were slightly above that line. The largest portion of the expenditure was the combination of defense and nondefense discretionary spending. But the projection, as you go out, you see that at some point the entitlements will take over every dime we take in. The largest portion of it will be Medicare. Social Security will still be there. Medicaid will still be there. Discretionary spending will shrink even further as a percentage of what we are dealing with.

Why is this happening? Is this some kind of a plot that somebody is involved in? No. This is a result of the demographic changes that are occurring in our country. This chart summarizes it with the headline: ``Americans Are Getting Older.''

If you go back to 1950, the percentage of Americans who were age 65 or older was about 7 percent. It grew, the percentage, at a relatively slow level and then actually began to shrink. Why did it begin to shrink, the percentage of Americans 65 and over? This is a reflection of the Great Depression. People had fewer children in the Great Depression. So it follows that 65 years later, there were fewer people who were of retirement age. But following the Great Depression, you had the Second World War and then, when people came home from war, you had what historians refer to as the baby boom. All of those who came as a consequence of that are called the boomers.

Starting in 2008, which is now history, the line started upward in a dramatic fashion. In the next 20 years, we are going to see something happen that has never happened in American history. In the next 20 years, the percentage of Americans who are over 65 is going to double. That is what is driving all the numbers I put up before, all the changes in entitlement spending. These people are already born. This is not a projection that depends on guesses. This is something we can be sure of because the demographics of these folks are already there.

Now the projection is that 20 years from now, when the baby boomers finish retiring, the rate of increase will slow down again and go back to the somewhat gentle rate it was before we got into this situation. But that is the reality we are dealing with. In the next 20 years, the percentage of Americans who are 65 or over is going to double.

Let's look at some of the detail behind these demographics. Seniors are living longer. Not only are we going to get more of them, but they are living longer. That is why that trend is not going to turn down once the baby boomers have been absorbed. If you go back to 1940, after you reached 65 in 1940, if you were a male, your life expectancy was another 12 years, female 13. The chart shows how it has changed. Now if you are male and you reach 65, your life expectancy is another 16 years. If you are female, it is another 19 years. And roughly a short decade away, a male will go to 18 and female to 21. That means all the entitlement programs geared toward our senior citizens are going to be tapped into for many more years than was the case when they were put in place.

If we go back to the history of Social Security, we realize Social Security was something of a lottery. When Social Security started in the 1930s, roughly half of American workers did not survive until they were 65. So it was a lottery with 100 percent of the people paying in and only 50 percent taking anything out. Those who paid in got nothing for having done so. Those who survived to 65 got the benefit of their survival. Now you see they are living longer today, something like 75 or 80 percent of workers who join the workforce at age 20 are still alive at 65, so the lottery doesn't work anymore. Instead of half the people paying into the lottery, not getting anything out, you have more than three-quarters of the people who pay into the lottery getting something out. Then, once they get it, they get it for longer. The life expectancy of Americans is going up, as was shown in the last chart. This

shows the trend lines for male and female.

Again, in 1940, the life expectancy of Americans who had reached 65 was, for males, about 75. When we get out into the future, it will be 86. Put those two facts together. More people survive to 65 and, then, more people who get into the pool over 65 stay there for more years.

All this means that the financial structure of Social Security is simply unsustainable. Social Security cannot deal with these demographic changes. This is not a Republican plot or a Democratic plot. This is the demographics of the reality of the fact that Americans are healthier, living longer, and surviving to older age. So you get this reaction to the Social Security situation.

We go to the next chart that shows how Social Security works, in terms of the lottery I was discussing. In 1945, the program was still in its infancy. So this is a bit of a distortion. There were 42 people working and paying into the program for every one retiree drawing out. As the program matured and more and more of the workers retired, this number very appropriately came down. By 1950, there were still 17 workers paying into the program for every one retiree drawing out. Today there are three workers paying into the program for every one drawing out. With the demographic realities I described in the previous charts, we are looking at a time when there will be two workers for every retiree. That means, if the retiree is going to take out $1,000 a month, each worker has to be putting in $500 a month in order to make that happen and for a long period of time. This is how we have dealt with this demographic change throughout our history. We have dealt with it by raising taxes. Every step along the way, as the number of workers to retirees has gone down, the amount of taxes every worker pays has gone up.

Here is the history of the payroll tax increases: In 1937, you paid taxes on $3,000. That was it. Now it is $106,000. It has gone up and up all the way through.

This is unsustainable. You cannot continue to deal with the demographic changes in Social Security by simply ratcheting up the taxes. You have to do something to stabilize Social Security in a way that it will be there for our children and our grandchildren.

There is a reported survey--I have seen it many places, but I have never seen the source--that says a poll shows that among the young people in America, more believe in the existence of UFOs than believe Social Security will be available for them when they retire. I have grandmothers come up to me spontaneously on the streets in Utah and tell me how concerned they are their children and grandchildren will not have Social Security. I have people entering the workforce who come to me and say: Senator, my biggest question is, Will Social Security be there for me? And, increasingly, people are sure it is not.

The legislation I introduce today is geared to make sure Social Security will be there for our children and our grandchildren and that it will be there at roughly the same level it is for us; that is, they will not have to accept significantly less than we accept in order to make this program work.

How do we do that in the face of this demographic challenge? How is that possible? Well, one of our colleagues in the Senate for many years, Senator Pat Moynihan of New York, had the answer. Senator Moynihan looked back on how Social Security benefits were calculated, and he said: We calculate the increase in Social Security benefits on the wrong base. I do not want to get too technical, but the term that applies is ``wage-based'' increases for cost of living. Senator Moynihan pointed out the cost of living is not going up as rapidly as wages are. So if we would just adjust the base from wage base to cost- of-living base, a true cost-of-living base--that means we would slow down the rate of growth in benefits, and in slowing down the rate of growth in benefits in that fashion, we would solve the problem. It would become solvent.

That is fine. But what if you are someone who depends upon Social Security as your sole source of retirement? It was never intended that would be the case when it was put in place, but it has become that way for too many Americans. If they were to give up the benefit that comes from an overpayment--that is the form of wage-based adjustments--to go to the true payment of cost of increasing, which is the cost of the Consumer Price Index, it would hurt them. They would give up significant benefits. On the other hand, if you look at people such as Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey, they do not really need to have Social Security go beyond the true increase in cost of living.

So the solution is to say, for those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder, we keep Social Security benefits exactly as they are. For Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey and those who are at the exact top end of the economic ladder, we take Senator Moynihan's idea and we put it in place and say: You will have to struggle by with a Social Security plan based on the actual increase in cost of living rather than an inflated increase in cost of living.

What about those of us who are in between, the people at the bottom and the people at the very top? For those of us who fall in between those two areas, we get a mix, a blend, if you will, of wage base or cost-of-living base. It is called progressive indexing. All of the details are available in hearings that have been held on this subject which I chaired when I was chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and in other publications that have addressed this question.

What will this do to the actual benefits of the people in Social Security? We have asked the Social Security Administration to tell us. Now, again, these are projections, and as projections, they are subject to some kind of challenge. But they are the best analysis that people can make.

We start out with people who are currently 55; that is, only 10 years away from the 65 retirement date, although Social Security, by the time they get there, will be at 67. But what is going to happen to them under the bill I am introducing?

As shown on this chart, the dark bar is what a 2009 retiree will get. The red bar is what a 2019 retiree will get. These are in constant dollars; that is, an adjustment has been made for inflation. You see in every instance, the 2019 retiree will get more than the 2009 retiree.

Now, this is for the low earner. These are the people who are at the bottom third of our economic structure. Then the medium earner, and the high earner. So you see, in every case, people are made whole and protected.

This last chart is for the max earner, the maximum earner, who, quite frankly, probably does not exist. That would assume that somebody entered the workforce at age 20, earned $106,000 a year the first year, and continued to earn that level going on up through his entire career. The maximum he could possibly draw from Social Security: that would be that one.

But 82 percent of Americans fall in these two categories. So for someone age 55, under this bill, they come out just fine. They have nothing they should worry about.

Well, what about somebody who is 45, a little bit younger? What happens to them? Again, these are the estimates made by the Social Security Administration. Once again, the low earners, they do better under the Bennett plan. The medium earners, they do better under the Bennett plan. The high earners, virtually the same under the Bennett plan.

We can make the statement that we are going to hold everybody harmless. We will adjust Social Security in a way that makes it solvent, while at the same time preserving the same level of benefits we have for those of us who are currently drawing Social Security benefits, and we can see the same level of benefits would be available to those who come after us.

We will reach out all the way to 2075 and see what the estimates are from the Social Security Administration. These are people who will be born in 2010. It is a little hard to make a projection as to how much money they will have when they are not alive yet, but the projections are made.

Once again, under the bill I am introducing today, in 2075, the people at the bottom will do substantially better comparing today's benefit of $800 to the potential benefit of nearly $1,300 because they are the ones who are held harmless in the way Social Security benefits are currently calculated. So

they will get a significant position of significantly greater benefit than they do under current law. The medium earner--well, they also will do better. The high earner also will do better. Even the max earner will come out essentially the same.

Now, I cannot guarantee these numbers. You cannot guarantee with any certainty what the numbers are going to be in 2075. But the fact is that the Social Security Administration, looking over a past version of this bill I have introduced, has said everyone can look forward with some certainty--this is my description of it, not their words--everyone can look forward with some certainty to seeing that his or her Social Security benefits will be roughly the same as the benefits that are being paid to retirees today, and the system will be solvent, not requiring any increase in taxes throughout the life of the system.

We have had a lot of debates about Social Security, and we have had a lot of proposals about Social Security. To my knowledge, this is the only one that can say the two things I have just said; that is, that everybody's benefit, wherever they fall on the economic continuum, will be held at roughly the same level as today's benefit--in the case of the low earners, substantially better--and it can be done without raising any taxes. That is why we call this the Social Security Solvency Act.

Let me go back to the charts I put up in the beginning to stress once again the importance of bringing entitlements under control.

As shown on this chart, this is where we were in 1966 before entitlements started to get out of control. We in the Congress controlled 23 percent of the budget in nondefense discretionary spending and 44 percent of the budget in defense spending. So we controlled the majority. Today, we have shrunk that to the point where we control only 17 percent of the Federal budget, with 21 percent for defense spending, and the mandatory and interest costs have grown to a majority--a significant majority. Looking ahead just 10 years, if we do not do something about the entitlements, the mandatory spending will be 61 percent, 71 percent when you add interest costs. If you divide defense and nondefense in this historic pattern, we will only have 15 percent of the entire Federal budget under our control for nondefense discretionary spending.

We are talking about the largest single expenditure in our peacetime history. As we adopt it, we should do so against the backdrop of what we are looking at in mandatory spending down the road and realize if we are going to be able to afford this stimulus package, we have to have the courage to tackle mandatory spending at the same time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from Oregon for his kind words. He was not here when I put up one chart which has now been taken away that showed the tsunami of entitlement spending, consisting of a band of three programs. The largest portion of that tsunami band was made up of health care spending. I will confess to having taken the easy route. Social Security is the easiest one to fix because we can make the kinds of changes I described here that go back to the effort started by Senator Moynihan.

Here is the chart. We can see Social Security is the easy one and eventually the small one. Medicare and Medicaid are the ones that are going to overwhelm us. They are the most difficult ones to fix.

So I am honored to have the Senator from Oregon say what he has to say because he has been the leader in recognizing that this challenge; that is, the challenge of dealing with the health care costs, is the tougher challenge, but, as with most tough challenges, it is also the one that will produce the biggest reward. It is where the biggest opportunity lies.

As I have said many times and repeated here on the floor of the Senate, one of the things I realized while working with the Senator from Oregon is that the best way to get all of these costs under control and turn these lines downward is to get quality going in our health care program. The bill I have had the honor to cosponsor, along with the Senator from Oregon, is focused on getting proper quality into our health care system.

If the Senator from Oregon is successful, with whatever help I can give him along with those others who have joined us, he will have made a significant contribution to our country, not only in terms of the benefits that come from having done health care right but from the economic impact of having done health care right. He will have made it possible for us to even consider such expenditures as a target in the stimulus package because this is the backdrop against which we are going to have to pay for those. So I thank the Senator from Oregon for his kind words, but I thank him even more for his valiant effort and his leadership on the whole issue of trying to deal with the health care challenge.

Mr. President, I again stress how grateful I am to the Senator for his leadership and how happy I am to be one of his cadre of loyal followers on this issue.