Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following staff of the Finance Committee be allowed on the Senate floor for the duration of the debate on H.R. 4: Andrew Fishburn and Eric Roberts.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, later, as we move to the bill on small business, I will be offering, I hope, a second-degree amendment to the amendment offered by Senator Johanns, and I speak today on behalf of middle-class families and on behalf of small businesses.

I wish to start by saying that I fully support--as I have already done in a series of votes--repealing the 1099 reporting requirement, but I strongly believe we have to do so in a manner that does not--does not--increase the burden on our small businesses and employees. The amendment of Senator Johanns certainly helps only small businesses through the repeal of the 1099 provision, but--and this is less well- known--I believe it actually hurts small business employees. It is a double-edged sword. The Johanns amendment risks driving up health insurance costs and cutting health insurance coverage for small businesses.

As you know, the affordable care act provides tax credits to families who earn under $74,000 per year to help them purchase health insurance. Those tax credits are set at the start of the year. At tax time, when families actually report their annual income, the tax credits are reconciled with their annual household income to ensure they receive the correct amount of assistance. But because income and other family circumstances can change during the course of a year, individuals might end up getting excess tax credits even though the amount of the payment was correct at the time.

For example, a family with an unemployed worker who secures a job at a small business midway through the year--and, hopefully, can do so, as we continue to work on this economy to have it grow--has rightfully received a tax credit while unemployed but could face a stiff tax hike to repay the amount of the subsidy because the family's annual income ends up higher for the second half of the year. This family received the correct amount and did nothing wrong. Let me say that again. These individuals did nothing wrong. While unemployed, these individuals needed those tax credits to be able to get health insurance. That is why we passed this reform, to help those very same middle-class working families in need.

Now, under current law, we provide a reasonable repayment requirement if the tax credit an individual receives exceeds the amount they should have received because of unexpected changes in income or family status. We don't give them a pass, but we don't expect all families with an annual income of $70,000 to have $10,000 in savings to pay the surprise tax bill they will get in April, either. So we set caps on what they would have to pay back depending on what they earn. The Johanns amendment makes harmful changes to these repayments for middle-class families. Under the Johanns amendment, some families could have to pay back as much as $12,000 in some cases, and that is too high a price. We shouldn't ask small business employees to take that much of a hit. They are the ones who are going to the exchanges to purchase coverage. They are the ones working for the mom-and-pop shop that doesn't offer coverage.

My amendment isn't about these families alone, however, as difficult a situation as they may be in. This amendment is about what the Johanns offset could do to health care costs and coverage for small businesses and for those who make their living from small businesses. This risky offset could drive up premiums and force more individuals to refuse coverage. We are not talking about paying back tax credits; we are talking about driving up the costs on families and small businesses, many who have never even taken a tax credit to begin with.

My amendment would simply direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to decide the offset in the Johanns amendment and determine its effect on small business. What is so wrong about that--determining its effect on small business? We are trying to help small businesses by eliminating the 1099 provision. Let's make sure we continue to help them and not put extra costs on them. Specifically, we want to determine whether there is an increase in health insurance costs or a decrease in health coverage for small businesses. If the study finds either, then current safe harbor provisions would remain in effect--the same safe harbors we supported in the SGR bill, or the doc fix, in December.

Passing 1099 would not be affected. That would move forward. So the claim that somehow, ultimately, 1099 wouldn't be eliminated is false. The 1099 would not be affected. That would move forward. We would eliminate that responsibility from small businesses. So you can be both for my amendment and the Johanns amendment because it would still repeal 1099.

Let me make it clear. We all want 1099 repealed, and I have voted in a series of ways to do exactly that. My amendment does not in any way affect or delay the repeal of 1099. The only potential change my amendment makes would be to the risky offset in the underlying amendment and only if this study finds that it actually hurts small businesses.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have come to the floor arguing that a study would simply delay repeal of 1099; that further studying this risky offset would prolong the 1099 issue; that if we just passed the amendment without protecting small businesses, this bill can go right to the President. Well, we have actually passed 1099 repeal already and shown we have the votes necessary to make this become law. It is not going to the President to become law in this bill because this bill hasn't even cleared the House.

At the same time, I have heard no mention of what this offset could do to small businesses and their health care costs--not one word. I did hear that further studying the impacts it may have on small businesses would only delay repeal of 1099. A simple read of my amendment would be enough to know that is incorrect. My amendment directs a study to be done after--after--repeal of 1099 is signed into law. Let me make it clear. Nothing in my amendment slows down repeal of 1099.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are also trying to frame this debate as either you are for or against small businesses. But they are helping and harming them at the same time with the Johanns amendment. With this second-degree amendment, we can have a conversation about helping small businesses and ensuring that small business employees will not get hurt at the end of the day.

Now, we haven't had the Joint Tax Committee determine a revenue score as yet, but it is important to point out that this amendment does not spend--does not spend--an additional dime. It simply protects small businesses from higher health care costs and coverage cuts.

If there is any revenue score associated with it, that would only be due to the study finding that this offset drives up health care costs or drives down health coverage for small businesses. Would we not want to know that?

We are all here supposedly arguing to try to enhance the opportunity for small businesses to have less burdens, to be able to grow, to be able to prosper, to be able to create jobs. Well, we certainly would want to know--we certainly would want to know whether this offset drives up health care costs associated with small businesses or drives down the health care coverage for small businesses.

Why is anyone afraid of that? Why is anyone fearful of that? So to those who may consider opposing my amendment, think of this: On the one hand, if you do not believe this offset will hurt small businesses, there is no harm in voting for it because you believe the study will not show premium increases or coverage cuts. So the offset would remain in place. If you believe my amendment would have a revenue score, then you are assuming the offset hurts small businesses. It is one way or the other, not a gray area.

The idea of protecting small businesses in this manner has precedent. I have a history working across the aisle to support small businesses, including cosponsoring a Republican amendment to the Wall Street reform bill which requires regulators to ensure new rules do not harm small businesses. We thought it was a good idea then to protect small businesses in the event new rules might unfairly impact them. I strongly believe we should come together now to protect small businesses if this risky offset drives up health care costs on small businesses or forces cuts in their coverage.

I would just simply ask, who in the world, especially during these fragile economic times, would want to do anything that could raise costs on small businesses? Let's protect them and the 1099 repeal by supporting my second-degree amendment.

Now, I listened to my colleague from Nebraska with whom I have worked on some bipartisan efforts on housing for the disabled. We get along very well. I respect him, and actually I supported 1099 repeal as one of the 20 Democrats who voted for his amendment in November and other issues such as housing for the disabled. So it is with some regret that we find ourselves in a different view.

There have been questions raised about the sincerity of our opposition to the manner in which the offset is included in the Senator's amendment. The Senator from Nebraska says an almost identical offset was passed unanimously by the Senate just 4 months ago. I think our definitions of ``almost identical'' are very different.

Yes, it is true we made changes in the payback tax to pay for the doc fix in December, but that provision was very different from the one we are debating today. The one today, unlike before, removes protections we included in December in the doc fix to protect families from unlimited tax liability which could be as high as $12,000. I mean, you are talking about taxing these families, through no fault of their own. What family of three making $74,000 annually, gross, can afford an unexpected $12,000 tax bill in April? I cannot think of many. But that is exactly what could happen under the Senator's amendment.

That was not the case--not the case--in the provision that was enacted at the end of last year in the doc fix. We provided a phaseout that would have avoided this clip and thus tax shock on middle-class families.

The Senator from Nebraska also said my second-degree amendment was just a delay tactic. That simply is not true. I and 80 of my colleagues have already passed 1099 repeal in the Senate this year. So to question our support for 1099 repeal would be misleading.

My understanding is that the Johanns proposal is an amendment to the small business bill we are debating, which has not passed the House. So this amendment we are debating today would not go directly to the President for his signature. It still needs to go through the whole process of the House. We are not delaying anything in that regard.

Finally, the only way there would be any revenue shortfall--I say to those who would make the assertion that our amendment creates a revenue shortfall, well, then, what you have to be saying, if you make that statement, is you believe the savings from the Johanns offset comes from increasing premiums and reducing coverage on those who earn it through making our Nation's small businesses run. That is not a proposition I think they want to assert.

So I will come back to the floor later to offer this second-degree amendment. And because it works to both repeal 1099 and ensure there is not a tax on our small businesses and small business employees or a diminution of health care coverage, I am sure we will get the support of our colleagues.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I understand we are in a period of morning business.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 20 minutes.

Mr. President, as someone who voted to freeze salaries, to end earmarks in this budget process, as someone who has already voted to cut $45 billion from the budget, I rise today in recognition that business as usual cannot continue. I recognize the critical importance of addressing our Federal deficit--a deficit, I would add, inherited by this administration, a deficit driven by two wars, both unpaid for, and the unprecedented need for governmental action to mitigate the wild excesses of Wall Street and American financial markets, excesses that were effectively condoned by the last administration, whose policies took this Nation to the brink of a second Great Depression and cost millions of American jobs.

I never forget that time in late 2008 when Chairman Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, came before members of the Banking Committee and members of the leadership and described the circumstances that were unfolding in the country in which a series of financial institutions, according to Chairman Bernanke and then-Secretary Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury--they said: We are going to have a series of financial institutions collapse, and if they collapse, they will create systemic risk to the entire country's economy, and every American will feel the consequences of that collapse. I remember how hushed that room was.

I remember also the question being put to Chairman Bernanke: Surely you must have enough tools at the Federal Reserve to get us through this period of time. I remember the response to that question, which was basically: Senator, if you and your colleagues do not act in a matter of days, maybe a week, we will have a global financial meltdown, which really meant a new depression.

Chairman Bernanke is an academician. His expertise is in depression- era economics, how this Nation got into the last depression, how Roosevelt got us out of it. So when he made that statement, it was all the more chilling. It is from that moment in 2008, before this President took office and Democrats were in full control here, that, in fact, we were facing the challenges we are today.

Those of us who believe in a free market also know you cannot have a free-for-all market. We had economic policies for the Bush 8 years, two wars raging abroad, an unregulated market that allowed for the free- for-all that brought us on the brink of a new depression, and that is what we are meeting the challenges of today.

Those choices then and the choices we make, what we choose to cut and what we determine is in our interest, will speak volumes about our values, our priorities as a people and as a Nation.

Mr. President, I favor smart cuts, not dangerous ones. In an independent analysis of H.R. 1, which we are going to be voting on tomorrow--the Republican vision of where we should take the country-- shows we are losing about 700,000 jobs. But we are trying to grow jobs in America. We have finally gotten into positive gross domestic product of our Nation's economy. We are seeing job growth. I would like to see it be even more robust, but H.R. 1 takes us back the opposite way and threatens the very essence of this economic recovery--700,000 jobs.

Don't believe what I say because I say it is so, but because those in the know say it--Ben Bernanke: ``The GOP's plan will cut jobs.'' Economist Mark Zandi: ``The GOP plan would cost 700,000 jobs.'' Here is another analysis: House spending cuts will hurt economic growth. So what we have is economist after economist telling us that H.R. 1 is a recipe for disaster when it comes to the question of jobs in America.

That analysis which says we would slash 700,000 jobs directly impacts the lives of middle-class and working families struggling to get back on their feet. They are severe cuts that run roughshod over the green shoots of economic recovery just to satisfy a political agenda. I favor smart commonsense cuts--cuts made with a surgeon's knife not a meat ax; cuts that are thoughtful, surgically precise cuts that actually reduce the deficit, not cuts that eliminate jobs and disinvest in educational opportunities for millions of promising young Americans, not cuts that hurt middle-class families struggling to make ends meet, make our workforce less competitive, our communities less safe, and strip away basic protections Americans have come to take for granted.

In my view, we can preserve our values and invest in the future, invest in out-educating, out-innovating, out-greening, and out-growing the world and still cut the deficit. To begin with, Secretary Gates of the Department of Defense has identified $78 billion in defense spending cuts alone. He has identified $178 billion in program reductions over 5 years, including delaying or terminating high-profile weapon systems.

I agree with Secretary Gates that we can live without the Marine Corps variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well as the Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. The Secretary has identified $54 billion in cuts in overhead costs and improved efficiency across defense agencies and the civilian

bureaucracy by reducing the number of defense contractors and wholly redundant intelligence organizations, among other improvements. Again, these are smart decisions that do not burden military families or affect our defensive capabilities.

I would add to that list of smart defense cuts the elimination of $1.75 billion for the F-22 aircraft and $439 million for an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program, a cut for which I voted. These, among others, are smart cuts. But I think it is a mistake to pursue a budget-cutting strategy that costs this Nation 700,000 jobs through 2012, as the Republican plan will do--20,000 of those jobs from my home State of New Jersey, including more than 3,000 community health center jobs and 3,400 transportation and infrastructure jobs.

Another smart cut would be to do away with corporate subsidies that do nothing but pad the profits of companies that do not need them to be profitable and grow. We can repeal, for example, oil subsidies, as I have proposed, that would save $33 billion over 10 years on a windfall giveaway program to big oil that hardly needs a government handout. Over the past decade, BP, Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and Conoco have had combined profits of just under $1 trillion. Yet we have a system that provides them billions in subsidies every year. That is simply outrageous.

Even traditional oil industry supporters, such as former President George W. Bush and Shell's former CEO, have admitted when oil prices are this high oil companies do not need subsidies. They have the economic incentive they need to explore and drill. In 2010 alone, last year, they made over $75 billion, and that includes the $41 billion BP has spent trying to clean up the spill in the gulf--cleaning up the environment and paying for the economic damage they caused.

The fact is, cutting unnecessary defense programs and cutting oil subsidies are among the smart cuts that will save money while doing no harm to middle-class families. But the Republican plan, on the other hand, will take money away from the one thing that will allow millions of young people to reach their goals and prepare them to help America meet its competitive future; namely, a good education. That is a terrible mistake.

It is a mistake to cut the average New Jersey undergraduate's Pell grant by more than $845, an 11-percent cut. It is a mistake to take $115 million in Pell grants from 183,000 promising students in my State, as the Republican cuts would do. It is a mistake to cut funding to 18,000 students in Union County, NJ, or 16,500 in Middlesex County and 15,500 in Essex County, and to continue to cut Pell grants by $56 billion over the next 10 years. It is simply a mistake not to invest in education.

We are globally challenged for human capital in the delivery of a service or the production of a product. The boundaries of mankind have largely been erased in pursuit of that human capital so that an engineer's report is done in India and sent back to the United States for a fraction of its cost, a radiologist's report is done in Northern Ireland and read to your local hospital by your doctor, or if you have a problem with your credit card--as I recently did because there was a charge that wasn't mine--you end up with a call center in South Africa.

In the pursuit of human capital for the delivery of a service or a product we are globally challenged, which means for the Nation to continue to be a global economic leader it needs to be, at the apex of the curve of intellect, the most highly educated generation of Americans the Nation has ever had. That is how we will grow this economy and prosper and compete in the world. Yet the Republican budget moves us exactly the opposite way.

It is wrong to leave 4,000 New Jersey children without access to Head Start while at the same time continuing tax cuts for millionaires and multimillionaires. It is shortsighted to cut job training.

I went to a job training site in one of our counties. The place was packed--packed with individuals who have worked in the past but are unemployed now and looking to get the additional training that will make them competitive in a tough job market. So instead of helping our fellow Americans be as competitive as they can be for the job opportunities that may exist, we are going to cut job training for 70,000 New Jerseyans rather than seriously look at cutting farm subsidies. We need to be smarter about the cuts we make.

I think we would all agree that there are certain farm subsidies that are no longer needed, and we could certainly make smart cuts in some of those programs. We are all well aware that farm subsidies are not about the small American farm. I want to nurture that small American farm, including back home in New Jersey. We call New Jersey the Garden State. We are proud we are No. 2 in blueberries, No. 4 in asparagus. If you had cranberry for Thanksgiving last year, it probably came from the pine barrens of New Jersey with cranberry bogs. But that small farmer is not who we are talking about. This is about systematic efforts to move land from small farms to large corporate farms that mass-produce commodity crops such as cotton.

We pay out billions in agricultural subsidies every year that have created problems such as the ones we saw in Brazil earlier this year. Brazil went to the World Trade Organization and complained that what we were doing was an unfair trade practice, and the World Trade Organization agreed. So to avoid retaliatory tariffs--in essence, taxes against our products by Brazil--the United States agreed to pay $147 million in assistance to Brazilian producers. Yes, you heard me right-- $147 million that American taxpayers are now paying to subsidize not American farmers but, because of our unfair trade practice, we are now subsidizing Brazilian farmers with our tax dollars. Something is wrong about that process.

We need to put an end to such ridiculous policies and save taxpayers billions of dollars. But instead of saving billions in smart cuts like that, the Republican plan under H.R. 1 goes after homeland security funding. That bill will cut homeland security investments by $3 million in my home State of New Jersey alone--home, according to the FBI, of the two most dangerous miles in America because of the chemical causeway along the Hudson waterfront that creates a real challenge-- directly affecting the budgets of first responders such as the courageous men and women who responded on September 11. It is dangerous to cut more than $22 million in port security grants and more than $16 million in transit security grants from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

I have worked hard, from implementing the 9/11 recommendations to fighting for port cargo screening. We don't need a nuclear or biological weapon coming into our ports or a threat like we saw from the terrorists in Mumbai in our transit systems that would result in a devastating attack and then further threaten our economy. Yet that is exactly what the Republican budget does.

I believe it is dangerous to cut $4.5 million in transit security grants for northern New Jersey, more than $3.5 million from the Philadelphia area and southern New Jersey, leaving families in my State and throughout that corridor who travel between States less safe.

I have a different take than my Republican colleagues on how we achieve deficit reduction. Quite simply, it comes down to one truism that we should keep in mind during this budget process, and that is this: You show me your budget, and I will show you your values.

We have that in our own family budgets. Families struggle together to have a place to call home for their families, to educate their children, to put food on the table, to be able to realize their hopes and dreams and aspirations. And how we spend our money as families speaks to our values, and, of course, the work we do to earn that money. That is true about the Nation's budget. The Nation's budget is a reflection of our collective values as a country. Those values are clearly evident in what we choose to fund and what we choose to cut.

I would remind my colleagues this debate is about more than numbers on a page. It is a portrait of America, a reflection of who we are and what we want this Nation to be. To make cuts simply to reach a numerical goal that isn't established by any sound science is to say that we care more about the

bottom line than about investing in people, investing in jobs, in education, in infrastructure, in building and growing this economy, and protecting a safe, clean way of life that we have too often come to take for granted.

I want to talk about that for a moment.

From the moment we get up in the morning, to the moment we go to bed at night, the Republican plan would make cuts that affect the daily lives of millions of Americans and millions of jobs in every economic sector.

In America, when you turn on the tap for a glass of water or take your child fishing at a local lake, someone is at work--someone with a family--who is making sure the water is safe to drink and the lake is not polluted.

But the Republican plan cuts $700 million from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and $250 million from the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund that have helped municipalities and communities put people to work on water quality protection projects.

The Republican plan cuts almost $1 billion from clean water and that means cutting not just funding, but jobs of those whose work is to keep our water safe and clean.

Is that a smart cut? Does that reflect who we are and what we want this Nation to be?

If you live on a river, a flood plain, or on the coast and a storm strikes, you know that in America there will be someone there to help if there is a flood or a coastal emergency.

The Republican plan, even after the disastrous experience in the wake of Katrina, cuts $30 million from flood control and coastal emergencies. Is that what we learned from New Orleans? Is that what we, as a nation, believe is a smart cut?

If you wake up in the middle of the night and your child is sick and you don't know why, or you think that child may have accidently ingested something poisonous, or your child is diagnosed with a life- threatening disease, in America you can call the Poison Control Center, take your child to a community health center, know that the Centers for Disease Control is doing its job.

In America you know that the National Institutes of Health is working every day to find the next treatment or cure that affects our families, friends, and neighbors, $300 million of that in New Jersey, bringing thousands of new 21st century jobs to my State to help continue our economic recovery.

But the Republican plan cuts $755 million from the CDC; $1 billion from the National Institutes of Health; $27 million from Poison Control Centers; $1.3 billion from community health centers and 3,400 community health center jobs in my State of New Jersey--3,400 more unemployed New Jerseyans.

We may not immediately make the connection between what these cuts mean and our lives, but they have consequences to our lives, to our families, to our prosperity. It also means some people will lose their jobs.

This morning millions of Americans got up and scrambled a few eggs and made some bacon for breakfast.

Fortunately, in this country we know it was someone's job to inspect those eggs. It was someone's job to inspect that bacon and make sure it was safe to eat. The Republican plan cuts $53 million from Food Safety and Inspection Service, the loss of more safety inspectors at a time when we have heard numerous reports of tainted food and the need for more, not fewer, food inspectors keeping our food supply safe.

Is that reflective of our values? Is that what we think of as life in America?

If you were a middle-class New Jerseyan who, after a year of looking for a job, finally had an interview and wanted to take the train because you thought it would be a faster, easier, and more convenient way to get to that interview, you may find there are not as many opportunities because the Republican budget cuts $224 million from Amtrak. In a post-September 11 world in which multiple modes of transportation are critical to our security, for so we learned on September 11 that when there are no trans-Hudson crossings through the tunnels or through PATH, which is the rail connection between New York and New Jersey, we had ferries that took people out of Lower Manhattan and to New Jersey hospitals. Multiple modes of transportation is not only about economic opportunity, it is about security in the post- September 11 world. Yet the budget cuts $224 million from Amtrak, which is how we send our businesspeople to sell their products between cities, go to great research universities and to hospitals to be cured. You would be forced to take the car, buy the gas, burn the fuel, fight the traffic, and park in the city to get to your interview. Is that how we invest in our infrastructure? Is that the type of smart growth that will help us achieve a greener, cleaner future?

When you park the car and walk to your interview you expect to have enough police on the street to protect you from gangs and criminals.

Well, this Republican plan cuts the National Drug Intelligence Center by $11 million; law enforcement wireless communications by $52 million; the U.S. Marshals Service by $10 million; the FBI that deals with domestic terrorism by $74 million; State and local law enforcement assistance by $256 million; juvenile justice by $2.3 million; and the COPS Program that puts police on the street and provides them with state-of-the-art equipment they need by $600 million; $600 million from the COPS Program means fewer cops on the beat.

Are those the kind of cuts that we want.

Are those the kind of cuts that will keep our communities safe? Are they smart cuts that reflect our values in a post 9-11 world?

Let me also mention one thing that is not specifically a cut in the Republican plan, but something it does that runs contrary to our belief as a nation that the air we breathe should be clean and safe.

The legislation presented by the Republicans eliminates many environmental protections with cuts to the EPA's budget, but it is also loaded with policy riders designed specifically to gut the Clean Air Act.

I believe that is wrong. I believe it runs contrary to American values, and I consider any attack on the Clean Air Act to be an attack on New Jersey.

Because of the emissions of dirty, old out of state coal plants, every county in my State is deemed to be out of compliance with the Clean Air Act. One of these coal powerplants is the Portland Generation Station just across the Delaware River in Pennsylvania. It emitted 30,000 tons of sulfur dioxide in 2009--almost three times the amount of all seven of New Jersey's coal plants combined.

This sulfur dioxide wafts into Warren, Sussex, Hunterdon and Morris counties and acts to cause and exacerbate a whole host of respiratory illnesses from asthma to heart disease.

We simply cannot gut the one piece of legislation that protects the very air we breathe and makes it safe for our children to go out and play without fear of being sick. This Republican plan that guts the Clean Air Act does not reflect our values as a Nation. It is simply not reflective of who we are, what we want this Nation to be, or what we want for our children's future.

The list of H.R. 1's short-sighted dis-investments in this Nation's future goes on and on. ``Show me your budget and I'll show you your values.''

The Republican proposal before us is, in my view, an affront to American values, not a reflection of them.

I for one do not believe for one second that it reflects who we are and what we want this Nation to be. I do believe that at a time that we are finally growing this economy, these indiscriminate cuts, as many economists have said, will throw this economy right back to the deep recession we are coming out of. That means fewer jobs here in America. That certainly cannot be part of our values. That is why I will be voting against H.R. 1, to protect American values and protect American jobs.

I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator for that clarification. I too am very concerned about continuity in the World Trade Center Health Program. The mandatory funding will start on July 1, 2011, and it is critically important that the transition be as smooth as possible. I would like to thank the Senator for ensuring that this program will be able to continue under the 2011 CR, and I would like to ask, on behalf of all of us and our constituents, that we work together to ensure that the fiscal year 2011 discretionary funds support the full and timely implementation of the mandatory program. It is very important that funding is provided to ensure that NIOSH and the World Trade Center monitoring and treatment programs can seamlessly continue their work.

Mr. President, pursuant to the previous order, I ask that my amendment be modified with the changes that are at the desk.

Mr. President, this modified amendment, cosponsored by Senator Bennet, would allow the Patent Office Director to prioritize patents that are important to the national economy or national competitiveness. The amendment will ensure that patents that are vital to our national interests do not languish in any backlog at the Patent Office and that they ultimately promote the national economy and national competitiveness.

My understanding is that by previous agreement the amendment, as modified, is agreed to.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending business and I call up amendment No. 124, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. President, the goal of the patent reform legislation is to incentivize investment in the American economy, to create jobs, and allow this great country to continue to win in the global marketplace.

The amendment I am offering here today would do just that. It would incentivize innovation and investment by prioritizing patents that are vital to the American economy and American competitiveness. It will enable us, in essence, to incentivize that innovation by creating that prioritizing.

My amendment would allow the Patent Office to prioritize patent applications that are vital to our national interests.

Specifically, the amendment says the Patent Office Director may prioritize the examination of applications for technologies that are important to the national economy or national competitiveness, such as green technologies designed to foster renewable energy, clean energy, biofuels, agricultural sustainability, environmental quality, conservation, or energy efficiency.

Currently, the Patent Office runs a green technology pilot program. An application for green technologies may be fast-tracked, leading to an expedited decision. This fast-track process is reserved for a small number of applications that are vitally important, so it has little to no adverse impact on other patent applications.

Currently, the patent process is rather lengthy. Patent decisions regularly take 2 to 3 years for a final decision. Our country is at risk of having vital new technologies buried in a sea of paperwork at the Patent Office. We want to make sure patents that are important to our national economy are fast-tracked rather than sidelined.

The goal here is to create jobs at home. We have to make sure the Patent Office has the resources and ability to prioritize patents that do just that--create jobs, incentivize investment, and support innovation. The Patent Office supports this amendment because they need the tools to make sure this bill reaches its intended goal of improving America's economy.

This amendment will create green jobs and support America's transformation to a self-sustaining economy that, among other things, is not reliant on foreign oil.

It is vitally important we do our best to ensure that all Americans have good-paying jobs and that we secure our Nation's economic future.

I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. It codifies an existing, successful program at the Patent Office. It is good commonsense policy that can help America propel forward in the 21st century.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

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

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

Mr. President, I would like to recognize Brigadier General (Retired) William S. Greenberg, one of my constituents, who was honored on October 14, 2010, with the Rutgers Law School Alumni Association Public Service Award. Bill Greenberg has a long association with Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He is a member of the Newark law class of 1967. In 1966, as president of the Student Bar Association, he gave a memorable speech accepting the new law school building on behalf of the student body. He was joined in that ceremony by then-Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren.

Following his graduation from Rutgers, he enlisted in the 5th Squadron of the 117th Cavalry of the 50th Armored Division, the Jersey Blues, and was selected as the outstanding enlisted cavalry trooper of the training cycle while at Fort Knox. Returning to New Jersey, he served as law secretary to Judge Robert A. Matthews, a Rutgers Law School alumnus, then sitting as a judge of the New Jersey Superior Court, Chancery Division, in Hudson County, and later as presiding judge of the Superior Court, Appellate Division.

Bill Greenberg began a long and distinguished career as a lawyer, bar leader, and soldier, author, public servant, and benefactor with McCarter & English, New Jersey's oldest and largest law firm and one of the region's most respected, where Bill is a senior partner today.

Throughout his career, his connection to Rutgers has remained strong, as exemplified by his support of the Justice Morris Pashman Scholarship Fund. He was chosen one of four commissioners of the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation by his Rutgers Law classmate, the late Alan J. Karcher, then-speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly. During a public-service leave from McCarter & English, he served as assistant counsel to Gov. Richard J. Hughes, himself a graduate of Rutgers Law School. He represented the Governor in an important case involving senatorial courtesy before the New Jersey Supreme Court. This was the first of many important cases Bill Greenberg has argued. He has more than 100 published opinions to his credit. During his more than 40 years of private practice, he has founded his own law firm, served in many public positions, has been a noted litigator and bar association leader, as well as an author and benefactor of many educational and charitable institutions.

He served as prosecutor of Princeton. He was a commissioner of the New Jersey State Scholarship Commission. He was appointed by the Supreme Court of New Jersey to the Mercer County Ethics Committee and the Civil Practice Committee. He also served as a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on the admission of foreign attorneys, a groundbreaking effort by the New Jersey Supreme Court to permit Cuban lawyers who had emigrated to New Jersey to be permitted to take the bar examinations.

He was a trustee of both the New Jersey State Bar Association and the New Jersey State Bar Foundation. He served as chair of the Military Law Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association. In addition to holding many offices in the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, New Jersey--the New Jersey Association for Justice--he served as its president. He is an author and frequent lecturer on many litigation matters, and for over 20 years he has been the author and editor of the Civil Trial Handbook, Volume 47 of the New Jersey Practice Series, now in its fifth edition.

Civic minded and charitable, Bill Greenberg serves as a vice president of the Thanks To Scandinavia Educational and Charitable Trust of New York, which gives educational scholarships to recognize the efforts made by the Scandinavian countries to save Jews during World War II. He is chairman of the Mary Sachs Charitable Trust in Harrisburg, PA, established by his great aunt, which has over the past 50 years distributed millions of dollars in scholarships and other aid to educational and charitable organizations in central Pennsylvania. He and his wife, the former Betty Kaufmann Wolf of Pittsburgh, have established the Dr. Peter Scardino Trust at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to aid needy cancer patients. In addition, he and his wife have established endowed scholarships at Johns Hopkins and Brown Universities for needy students and have contributed substantially to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

He recently received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Johns Hopkins and serves on its undergraduate advisory board. In December 2009, he was selected Lawyer of the Year by the New Jersey Law Journal, the leading law publication of record in our State. This year, he received the Major General Howard Louderback Award for lifetime service from the New Jersey Committee of the Department of Defense Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve.

I was pleased to recommend Bill Greenberg to the White House to be Chairman of the Reserve Forces Policy Board. He was selected by Secretary Gates for that important position in August 2009 and reappointed in August 2010. This board, created by Congress in 1952, is the principal policy adviser to the Secretary of Defense for Reserve component matters. I was pleased to make this recommendation because of General Greenberg's background of 27 years of military service in the Reserve components as an enlisted cavalry trooper, a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps, and as a flag officer. More importantly, he established the Military Legal Assistance Program of the New Jersey State Bar Association for wounded or injured reservists called to duty after September 11, 2001. He personally and with members of his law firm, McCarter & English, has represented over 50 individual soldiers at Walter Reed in obtaining adequate

military and veterans compensation. He is widely recognized as an expert in the field as well as a selfless advocate for individual soldiers and veterans in their legal struggles.

To those of us who are privileged to know Bill Greenberg personally, he brings passion, energy, hard work, patriotism, and dedication to all that he undertakes. These qualities have been recognized by his colleagues in the legal profession and in the Pentagon, where he has served with distinction and has consistently put foremost the interests of the individual reservist and the veteran. The American soldier has no greater friend than Bill Greenberg.

Mr. President, it is time to stop discrimination. It is time to repeal don't ask, don't tell. This is a policy that should have been repealed long ago--long ago. It should have been repealed for its discriminatory nature. It should have been repealed because the Defense Department's own report makes it clear that those who pointlessly cling to this discriminatory, wrongheaded, shortsighted policy, by claiming the mantle of national security, have absolutely no ground--no ground-- to stand on.

Don't ask, don't tell is a ridiculous notion, a bad policy, and a relic of a bygone era. It is keeping brave, able, educated, technically skilled, multilingual, trained soldiers, men and women who want nothing more than to defend their country from doing so.

We are preventing them from making our military even stronger, making it better, and contributing to what we need in a modern military force. In my view, a vote to repeal this antiquated policy is a smart vote. It is the right vote. It is the fair vote. It is a just vote. It is a vote to keep our military strong, keep good people in the military, who want to serve.

Americans who now must remain anonymous, such as an anonymous marine currently serving in Afghanistan says:

So far the military has been my source of work and income

for the last 6 years. I don't want that all taken away from

me and me being discharged anything but honorably.

He says:

We face the same challenges as all other marines or

soldiers but with an extra burden.

Or another anonymous servicemember--a decorated Midwesterner, a shining example of an American marine, with a chest full of ribbons-- like others, he risked his life, but, like other marines denying who they are, he was deeply apprehensive about seeking the medical care he needed when he got home for fear of being ousted and losing everything he had worked and sacrificed for, everything he had served for.

He suffered in silence, careful in whom he confided, saying:

You never know who you can trust.

An Arabic linguist--someone whose talents we sorely need against some of the enemies we have today--named Bleu Copas was discharged under don't ask, don't tell, even though he was never identified as gay and his accuser never revealed himself. Imagine that, in a country that values the rule of law and justice, that your accuser never has to reveal themselves, never be subject to cross-examination, never testing the veracity, the truthfulness of what they are saying, and yet have this person be discharged.

This is no way to run a military. We are talking about patriots. We are talking about men and women who want to serve, who are serving, who yearn to serve, who put their lives on the line.

When a C-17 from the 436th Airlift Wing flies into Dover, DE, when rows of flag-draped coffins fill a hangar and the solemn dignity of fallen heroes brings silence and tears to all of us as a nation, do we ask the faith, the color, the sexual preference under those flags? I think not.

Listen to the arguments and rationale of those military leaders who know best.

Former Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander said:

The policy is an absurdity and borderlines on being an

obscenity. What it does is cause people to ask of themselves

that they lie to themselves, that they pretend to be

something that they are not. There is no empirical evidence

that would indicate that it affects military cohesion.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili, said:

Within the military, the climate has changed dramatically

since 1993. . . .

Conversations I've held with servicemembers make clear

that, while the military remains a traditional culture, that

tradition no longer requires banning open service by gays.

Three-star Retired LTG Claudia Kennedy said:

Army values are taught to soldiers from their earliest days

in the Army. Those values are: Loyalty, duty, mutual respect,

selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage. We

teach our soldiers that these are the values we expect them

to live up to.

She goes on to say:

I believe that as an institution, our military needs to

live up to the values we demand of the servicemembers. . . .

Military leaders need to respect all servicemembers. We

need to recognize that loyalty and selfless service are

exhibited equally, by servicemembers of every color, gender

and sexual orientation.

I think about her words ``selfless service.'' When you voluntarily, in an all-volunteer military, come forth as an American and say: I want to serve my country, I am willing to put my life in harm's way in behalf of the defense of the Nation and my fellow Americans, does that somehow get diminished--that selfless service get diminished--because you are gay?

I think about personal courage. When you are on the battlefield, and you are being shot at, and when you are protecting those who are in your company, and when you are injured, and when you are bleeding, does that personal courage get diminished because you are gay?

Certainly not. Certainly not.

And most convincingly, and to the point, Retired Navy VADM and U.S. Congressman Joe Sestak said this:

We have to correct this. It's just not right. I can

remember being out there in command, and someone would come

up to you and start to tell you--and you just want to say,

no, I don't want to lose you, you're too good, [too

valuable].

Let's take the advice of these military leaders who know that this is a bad policy and it should be repealed. It is a policy that the Pentagon report itself says, if repealed, presents little risk to military readiness and cohesion, and little effect on morale.

In fact, 62 percent of servicemembers responded to the Pentagon's own survey that repeal of don't ask, don't tell would have a positive or no effect on morale.

As a member of that committee, I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute to finish this statement.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Let me close by quoting from a letter from the Human Rights Campaign. I think it puts it purposely and exactly:

. . . take a moment to truly comprehend the lives ruined

over the last 17 years because of this discriminatory law.

The soldiers, sailors, airmen, translators, doctors and more,

whose military careers were ended, whose livelihoods were

threatened, whose friendships were cut off, all because the

forces of bigotry and fear held out for so long.

They can never get those years back. But I hope they know

that their sacrifice meant something. Their courage and

integrity helped a nation understand what it means to serve.

And that, more than anything else, helped bring about this

historic change.

That is the vote I hope we will have--one that creates historic change and honors the courage, the integrity, and the service of these men and women.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first of all, I want to send a heartfelt thanks to the distinguished Senator from Illinois, who has been spending nearly a decade trying to make the dreams of tens of thousands of students a reality. This is really an American dream. This is American as anything else. If there is a person who has fought incredibly hard to make that dream a reality, it is Dick Durbin. So I am thrilled that before I came to the Senate, while I was arguing for this very same passage in the House of Representatives, there was a Dick Durbin here in the U.S. Senate raising the voice of all of those who have no voice, trying to call upon the conscience of the Senate to do what is morally right--morally right.

So I salute him, regardless of the vote tomorrow. I hope it is a measure that passes and makes a dream a reality, but he really deserves an enormous amount of credit.

Mr. President, I rise in what will probably be the last opportunity before the vote tomorrow--I do not know who is watching. I do not know how many of our colleagues are tuned in. I hope they are. I am not even speaking to a broader audience. In my mind, this is about 100 Members of the U.S. Senate who have an opportunity to cast a vote that ultimately can transform the lives of tens of thousands of young people who call America their home.

For years, as young people--so many of them who Senator Durbin showed pictures of; and those are only a fraction of the stories we could tell--they have stood in classrooms in America and pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States proudly. The only national anthem they know is the ``Star-Spangled Banner,'' which they sing proudly. The only way of life they have known is an American way of life. They have understood what the rules are, and they have lived by those rules in an exemplary fashion. I would be proud to call any one of those young people my son or daughter.

This is an opportunity for the Senate to do what is right with the vote that takes place tomorrow. The House of Representatives has done what is right. It has passed this legislation. It is time for us to do the same. The time has really come to harness and develop the talent that all of these young people have to offer our country. And they possess some enormous skills and intellect.

We have seen it. It is intellect that could be put for America, at a time in which we are more globally challenged than ever before, where the boundaries of mankind have largely been erased in the pursuit of human capital for the delivery of a service or the production of a product. We are globally challenged, so we need to be at the apex of the curve of intellect--the most highly educated generation of Americans the Nation has ever known.

These young people--valedictorians, salutatorians, engineers, scientists, doctors--all have the opportunity to help America achieve even greater greatness. That is what their dream is all about. That is what an American dream is all about.

The time has come to allow thousands of young men and women, who often are kept from enrolling in colleges, even though they are accepted--this is not about giving anyone anything they cannot achieve. They have to, obviously, on their own merit, be able to gain acceptance to a college or university or on their own merit and

desire be able to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States.

That passion is there. The first soldier of an American uniform to die in the war in Iraq was LCpl Jose Gutierrez, a Guatemalan who, at the time of his death, wearing the uniform of the United States, was not even a U.S. citizen at the time. He was a permanent resident. He was willing to serve his country and die for it.

It is an opportunity for these young people, who, in many ways, have lived in the darkness, and, who, through no choice of their own--if we said these young people came to this country of their own volition, of their own choice, of their own determination, maybe--maybe--we might look at it differently. They were brought here by parents at ages in which they had no knowledge and no choice of what their path would be. They were brought here by parents fleeing dictatorships, fleeing oppression, sometimes fleeing dire economic circumstances. But, above all, they made no choice in that. They did not know they were violating any rules, regulations, or laws. They came because their parents brought them.

How many times have I heard in this Chamber that the wrong of a parent should not be subscribed to a child? Yet that is what all those who oppose the DREAM Act are saying: The child must pay for the choices their parents made. Is that an American value? I think not. I think not.

We have an opportunity to have them make full contributions to the American economy through their ingenuity, through their skills, through their hard work. That is what the DREAM Act has always been about.

I will tell you one story of many that are here. It is of a young man, 20-year-old Piash Ahamed, who, as a child, emigrated with his family from Bangladesh to New Jersey.

After his parents lost their bid for asylum, through no fault of his own, he became an undocumented immigrant. He has been lobbying for passage of the DREAM Act ever since. He said to me:

New Jersey--

And this is so true. It is beyond New Jersey. It is all of these students--

New Jersey has already invested so much money in me, and

other undocumented students that are living here, when we

went to elementary, middle school and public high school. . .

. It doesn't really make any sense for them not to give us an

opportunity to finish and actually pay back to America and

contribute more through our talent, through our taxes,

through so many different ways.

The Dream Act is for people such as Piash Ahamed. It is about helping him and creating the best educated American workforce possible-- creating future doctors, future teachers, future businesspeople, future nurses, investors, and entrepreneurs. They are an economic resource we cannot afford to waste.

I bristle when I listen to some of my colleagues who have come to the floor and, right away, whenever we are talking about anything that relates to immigration, slap the name ``amnesty'' on it, and it becomes something that cannot be touched.

It is not amnesty. Amnesty is when you do something wrong and you get something for nothing. These young people are not going to get something for nothing. They are going to have to serve the Nation. They are going to have to serve the Nation through their intellect, their ingenuity, their ability to produce for America or they are going to serve the Nation in the Armed Forces of the United States, willing to risk their lives--their lives--like LCpl Gutierrez did in Iraq, when he lost his life for the country they call home, for the country they believe in.

They are going to have to qualify. They are going to have to pay tuition. They are going to have to pay taxes. They are going to have to pay fees. As a matter of fact, I am sure the distinguished Senator from Illinois knows that the House version we are voting on is ultimately saying: You have to pay a fee.

As a matter of fact, not only is it not a cost to the government, it is a surplus to the government, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It is going to produce revenue, already, just by the mere act of giving them the possibility of realizing their dream. In essence, they are going to have to pay for their dream. But they are willing to do that, and it is going to create a revenue stream for the Nation.

That is not amnesty. It is not amnesty to wear the uniform of the United States, risk your life. It is not amnesty to give your intellect. And even then, there are those who say: Well, you are going to give them a pathway. Well, that pathway has been elongated. It is incredibly long.

I know some of my colleagues like to come here and say, well, you are going to permit something that they call chain migration. I used this during the last time we had immigration debates. Chain migration. You know when you want to dehumanize something, you don't talk about people. You don't talk about children. You create a sense of something that people can say: Oh, it is chain migration. We don't feel too compassionate about this if we can make it into a dehumanized sense because if this person gets status, then they will be able to claim their relative, and that relative will be able to claim their relative, and so there is this sphere.

These students are not going to be able to do that, certainly not under the bill we are considering a vote for tomorrow. So there is none of that. Let's dispel that too.

At the end of the day, the DREAM Act is a true test of what America is all about: an opportunity to earn your way toward status, to move from being undocumented through no fault of your own to have a temporary status that I think will last a decade before you can do anything else. You have to have a lot of proof of your mettle during that period of time; that you are worthy of becoming a permanent resident of the United States--after a decade. You have to be of good moral character. You have to go and prove yourself even more by successfully attending college or completing honorable military service, even in order to appease those who have raised every bar so this would not be considered--calling the legislation amnesty, which it is not because amnesty is something for nothing.

I have said before, there are even further restrictions that have lowered the age cap as to who can qualify. It keeps intact the ban on instate tuition. I don't like that. I think if you can ultimately be accepted to a college or university and you are living in that State-- but all right, for those who said that was a problem, well, now there is a ban on instate tuition. You are going to have to pay out-of-State tuition. It prohibits these students from obtaining Pell or other Federal grants and creates a conditional nonimmigrant status that doesn't grant legal permanent residency for at least a decade.

At the end of the day, the DREAM Act is an ultimate test of American values as a nation of immigrants. I often think about people who serve in this Chamber. The only people who can actually make a claim of being not the descendant of immigrants are Native Americans. After that, everybody at some point in their history was an immigrant.

There has been expansive support for the DREAM Act, and it has been bipartisan support. Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, former Secretary of State, he supports the DREAM Act.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is the Defense Secretary now in this administration, but a Republican held over by President Obama and asked to serve because of his great leadership, he has recommended in the 2010 and 2012 strategy plan for the Defense Department's Office of the Under Secretary for Defense and Personnel Readiness to help the military shape and maintain a mission-ready, All-Volunteer Force, he wants to see the DREAM Act passed.

David Chu, the Under Secretary of Personnel and Readiness at the Department of Defense during the Bush administration said:

Many of these young people who may wish to join the

military have the attributes needed--education, aptitude,

fitness, moral qualifications. In fact, many are fluent in

both English and their native languages.

We have seen the challenges that we have globally from far off countries where our enemies are not simply armies of a country but of individuals. The languages that could be brought to bear to help us in our national security and in our defense intelligence, in our abilities to understand those entities, all from an American perspective, though, all of these students have that opportunity to do that for America.

Moreover, university presidents, respected education associations, leading Fortune 500 businesses such as Microsoft support this legislation and have called upon the Senate to pass the DREAM Act. In fact, in my home State of New Jersey, the presidents of 11 of New Jersey's community colleges, in consultation with their board of trustees, sent a letter to the New Jersey Congressional Delegation saying help pass the DREAM Act. The letter was signed by the presidents of community colleges in Bergen, Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Essex, Hudson, Mercer, Middlesex, Passaic, Sussex, and Union Counties.

One of the vice chairmen of the board of trustees at one of the community colleges said in an article:

Although the DREAM Act is Federal legislation, many of us

felt it was important the State's community colleges take a

stand as the system is often the first stop for many of these

students whose ineligibility for State or Federal aid limits

their higher education choices. Our role is to educate our

students. Our role is not to engage in overall immigration

policy.

They want to see the DREAM Act become a reality.

I received a letter from Rutgers University's president, a State university, Richard McCormick. He said:

Young people who have grown up in New Jersey, earned good

grades in our high schools, and taken an active part in civic

life; however, because of their undocumented status, cannot

take the next steps towards a rewarding future.

It is a future that would help my State and, as those stories represented, help States across the country.

In fact, to my Republican colleagues, I would remind them that former Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee explained the economic sense of allowing undocumented children to earn their citizenship. He said:

When a kid comes to this country and he's 4 years old and

he had no choice in it----

His parent made that choice----

he still, because he is in this State, it is the State's

responsibility--in fact, it is the State's legal mandate--to

make sure that child is in school. So let's say that child

goes to school. He is in school from kindergarten through the

12th grade. He graduates as valedictorian because he is a

smart kid. He works his rear end off and he becomes the

valedictorian of the school. The question is: Is he better

off going to college and becoming a neurosurgeon or a banker

or whatever he might become, and become a taxpayer, and in

the process having to apply for and achieve citizenship, or

should we have him pick tomatoes? I think it is better if he

goes to college and becomes a citizen.

That is Mike Huckabee.

So I will say this to my friends and many of my colleagues. Not every State is like New Jersey where we have a rich history of immigrant populations that have contributed enormously. Some of the people we have serving our country today came from those backgrounds. As a matter of fact, some of them, their lineage comes through people who came into this country undocumented. Yet they have risen to prominence and helped contribute to America. Some of them are some of our outstanding military leaders.

So this is not about amnesty. You have to earn it. This is not about chain migration. You would not be able to claim anyone at all. In my mind, this is all about family values. I hear a lot about that on the Senate floor. This is about an opportunity to take these children who are part of the American family and give them their opportunity to help America succeed.

We wouldn't be in this challenge we are in if our Republican colleagues weren't insisting on a supermajority via the filibuster. There are enough votes in the Senate. A majority of the Senate is willing to vote to make this dream come true. But since our Republican colleagues have used the rules of the Senate to require not a simple majority of 51 of 100 Senators but to require a supermajority of 60, we are in this predicament; otherwise, this bill would pass tomorrow, be sent to the President, and I know the President would sign it, and the dreams and the aspirations, but most importantly the intellect, the service to country, the service to the Armed Forces would begin to become a reality, all to the Nation's benefit.

So we are here in this set of circumstances because our Republican colleagues have insisted on a supermajority instead of a simple majority that would clearly pass.

Now, for some who don't have immigrant communities such as Illinois or New Jersey, maybe their populous doesn't quite understand the value. Maybe they don't have an understanding of the great vitality and the heartfelt sense of these young people being as American as anyone else. I understand that. We come here by virtue of being elected from a State, and we certainly advocate for the interests of our States. But we are collectively called upon to serve the interests of the Nation. This is an opportunity to serve the interests of the Nation.

The final point I will make is, those are all policy arguments. I hope there will be some profiles in courage tomorrow, individuals who may see this as a political risk. Every vote can be ultimately determined as a political risk. As a matter of fact, for those who believe this is a political risk and voted for the Defense authorization bill to move forward, the majority leader made it very clear when we had that vote in which nearly every Democrat of the Senate voted in favor, he made it very clear there were going to be two amendments that were going to be offered in that bill: don't ask, don't tell and the DREAM Act.

So the 30-second commercial is there already. It is there. Anyone who thinks that somehow voting against the DREAM Act tomorrow is going to save them from that 30-second commercial, they are wrong. It is there. I have to be honest with my colleagues.

As the only Hispanic in the Senate at this point--although this is not uniquely a Hispanic issue. As we can see, these children come from all over the world. The young man I mentioned from New Jersey is from Bangladesh. But the Hispanic community is looking at this vote--40 million. They are the ones who are already U.S. citizens. You may say: Well, what do they care? They understand what this vote is all about. It is not just about these children, which should be enough. They understand this vote is about them, how they are viewed in this country, how they are perceived in this country, whether everything they have done--you know, I bristled when I listened--which is why I wrote my book, ``Growing American Roots,'' because I was tired of seeing all these pundits on the shows who suddenly think that all Hispanics just came here yesterday. We all just crossed the border in an undocumented fashion, and we are all takers instead of givers to the society.

Well, the oldest city in America, St. Augustine, FL, was founded by a person named Pedro Menendez. I am looking at a title search to see if I have any relationship for property in St. Augustine, FL. But it is the oldest city in America, Pedro Menendez, the Governor of Louisiana before Louisiana was a State, who led an all-Mexican division to help stop the British advance on George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

Admiral David Farragut, if you come with me to Farragut Square, I think most Americans wouldn't know that Farragut Square is actually named after ADM David Farragut, a Spaniard who, during the Revolutionary War, led the naval forces on behalf of the Union and coined the famous American phrase: ``Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,'' a Spaniard.

The wall of the Vietnam Memorial is loaded with names of Hispanics who gave their lives for this country.

The first soldier to fall in Iraq was LCpl Jose Gutierrez, a Guatemalan who wasn't even a U.S. citizen. The all-Puerto Rican division during the Korean War was one of the most highly decorated in the history of the United States.

You can't find a Major League baseball team without a good part of its roster being Latino. You can't turn on the TV without watching Eva Longoria in ``Desperate Housewives.''

You can't go to the movies and not see someone such as Jennifer Lopez in one of its leading roles. You can't turn on music--and the list goes on and on.

This community understands what this vote is all about. I don't know how any party can aspire to be the majority party with the largest minority in the country growing exponentially, as we will see by the next census, and continuously take votes and cast aspersions upon a community and think that it can achieve political success.

This DREAM Act is about as much motherhood and apple pie as you can

get in the immigration debate. It is about children who didn't have a choice but have made the most of the life they were presented. They have done incredible things in the country they call home--the one they sing the ``Star Spangled Banner'' about, pledge allegiance to, and the one they are giving it all to.

So this community is going to be watching tomorrow's vote. I certainly hope that when they watch that vote, they are going to see one of the finest moments of the Senate doing what is right--not just by these children but doing what is right by this country--fulfilling our creed. That is what tomorrow's vote is all about. That is what I hope each and every Senator will think about as they cast it. That is the opportunity we have.

This is not just about the dreams of these young people. This is about the dreams that have gone from generation to generation and have made America the greatest experiment and enterprise in the world. That is what tomorrow's vote is all about, Mr. President. I hope we will cast a vote that will make that dream come true.

With that, I yield the floor.

If my colleague will yield, I am sure the distinguished Senator from Illinois knows from his long political history that when you toss and turn, you know what is right. You don't toss and turn if you have a commitment and conviction of the choice you are going to make. You toss and turn when you know what the right choice is, but for other reasons you may not be willing to make that choice.

Madam President, I rise in support of a treaty that I actually think is of vital importance to our national security, to our national interests, and to our international reputation in the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

Let me first start off by recognizing Senator Kerry, the chairman of our Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Lugar, the ranking member. They have done an extraordinary job. I smile as I listen to some of my colleagues say it has not been reviewed enough, it has not been vetted enough. We have had an incredible number of sessions on the question of what the treaty contains and flushing out all of its points and points of view. In a very bipartisan way, the committee has worked assiduously to bring us to this point so that Members can make an informed decision. So I wish to salute the chairman for his incredible work in that regard.

The original START treaty expired on December 5 of last year, 2009. So as of today, December 16, 2010, it has been 376 days since the United States lost the ability to conduct onsite inspections--lost it-- not knowing what has happened with those weapons. It has been 376 days since we lost our ability to monitor and verify Russia's nuclear arsenal.

Now, I know some say our relationship with Russia has gotten a lot better. Yes, but it is their arsenal that we care about. It is about an arsenal that now has a Russian leadership that we are having better relationships with, but we never know what that relationship will be tomorrow. Good relationships are built on firm understandings, and the treaty creates a firm understanding of our respective obligations. That is why we need to move forward and ratify START.

Now, I agree, I have heard some of my colleagues suggest that there are other nations--namely, Iran and North Korea--that presently present maybe a greater threat to our security and the security of our allies, but that is not the point. The point is that the threat of loose nuclear materials anywhere in the world--anywhere in the world, whether in Russia, Iran, or North Korea--is a major concern. The point is that the severity of the threat from those nations does not diminish the threat presented by the Russian nuclear arsenal. Those threats in no way negate the need to continue our nonproliferation regime and conclude a treaty with Russia and then move on to continuing to address the serious threats presented by Iran and North Korea.

Let me just say that on one of those two, on Iran, since my days in the House of Representatives, I have been pursuing Iran, well before some people looked at Iran as a challenge. When I found out the International Atomic Energy Administration was taking voluntary contributions for the United States to help create operational capacity at the Bushehr nuclear facility, I raised those issues and sought to stem the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars going for that purpose. So I understand about Iran and North Korea, but that does not diminish the importance of knowing about this nuclear arsenal.

It is true that political developments in the past two decades have greatly diminished the probability of nuclear war between our nations. But the fact remains that Russia continues to have more than 600 nuclear launch vehicles and more than 2,700 warheads. It is because of those numbers that this Chamber needs to do what is in our national security interests and ratify START now. We need the ability to track and verify Russia's nuclear arsenal. We need onsite inspections. We need the enhanced flexibility of short-notice inspections of deployed and nondeployed systems. We need to be able to verify the numbers of warheads carried on Russian strategic missiles. We need the ability-- provided for the first time in this treaty--to track all accountable strategic nuclear delivery systems.

We need a verification regime. Trust, but verify. Trust, but verify. We know those words well. They have been spoken on this floor many times by many of our Republican colleagues, some who are now willing to turn their back on the truth of those words. The truth is that at the heart of this treaty, the ability for this Nation to verify Russia's nuclear arsenal remains paramount to our security. It remains paramount to continued bilateral cooperation between the United States and Russia.

For these reasons, START has broad bipartisan support, including support from the Secretaries of Defense and State and National Security Advisers for a whole host of Presidents--President Nixon, President Ford, Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush. All of those people have come together regardless of their partisan labels or views, and they all believe this is in our national security interest and necessary if we are to show the world that we demand as much of ourselves as we ask of others.

So as we press the Iranian and North Korean Governments to come into compliance, this treaty demonstrates to all nations that have nuclear aspirations that we are willing to live by the rules; that nonproliferation of nuclear weapons is not an empty wish but a national policy that is in our national interest and the interests of the world; that our willingness to accede to oversight and monitoring of our nuclear weapons and facilities, our willingness to reduce our nuclear arsenal in the interest of global security, and our willingness to cooperate with willing partners is part and parcel of American policy. It is what we believe is right, what we will live by, and what we will demand of all nations.

I hope that with respect to global nuclear security, we can see clear to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Some have suggested in this Chamber that we can't do that. We certainly can. We can ratify START and continue to press Iran and North Korea.

You know, this is the one issue I would have hoped we--and we certainly do in some respects, certainly in some of our leadership on the committee, Senator Lugar and others--it is the one place the Senate has always enjoyed a bipartisan effort. Put the country first in the case of all of those in the world and understand that on this there is no division.

It was Senator Vandenberg, a Republican from Michigan, who once famously said:

To me, bipartisan foreign policy means a mutual effort to

unite our official voice at the water's edge . . .

He went on to say:

It does not invoke the remotest surrender of free debate in

determining our position. In a word, it simply seeks national

security ahead of partisan advantage.

But, sadly, I believe the efforts by some to derail START are politically motivated, putting partisan advantage ahead of national security. Nothing that protects us from the spread of nuclear weapons should be politically motivated, not in this brave new world.

Let's be clear. This treaty does not in any way diminish our commitment to keeping this Nation safe and strong. It imposes no limits on current or planned ballistic defense programs by the United States. In fact, the President has committed to a 10-year, $80 billion plan to modernize our nuclear infrastructure, which represents a 15-percent increase over current spending levels.

The truth is that the United States retains overwhelming strike capacity under this treaty. Under this treaty, we will retain 700 deployed launchers and 1,550 deployed warheads. Keep in mind the overwhelming strike capacity this represents to assure any adversary of a devastating response to any attack on the United States or our allies, which is at the heart of our deterrent posture. In real terms, just to give us a sense of what this means, we will retain enough strike capacity to end civilization as we know it and destroy the entire ecosystem of the planet--far beyond the destructive power of the weapons used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Let's keep in mind that one standard nuclear warhead has an explosive force equal to 100,000 tons of conventional high explosives. The use of 1,000 nuclear warheads has a destructive power of 100 million tons of dynamite and the ability to darken this planet in a nightmare nuclear winter beyond our imagination.

So any argument to the contrary, any argument that we do not retain an overwhelming nuclear strike capacity, is, in my view, a political argument, and I believe that some who have come and said that we can't do this--and then, in the midst of this discussion, in the midst of this treaty debate, I hear omnibus discussions. I cannot believe that something that is about the national security of the United States, making sure future generations of Americans never face that nuclear winter, somehow gets lumped in with all of the other political conversations.

I know I have heard the leadership on the other side of the aisle say their Number 1 goal is for this President to fail at all costs and to make him a one-term President. But, my God, I thought this had nothing to do with that. I thought this had nothing to do with that. I would hope that on an occasion such as this where we are talking about the Nation's security, the ability to verify, the ability to understand what Russia's nuclear weaponry is all about goes beyond the success or failure of this President. It is about the Nation being able to succeed.

Finally, I have heard a lot of talk about how late this is and that it is almost Christmas. I certainly want to be with my family as much as anybody else, but I have to be honest with you, I want my family and I want the family of every New Jerseyan I represent, of every American for whom I am part of this Senate to have the security that they will never face that nuclear winter.

I cannot accept the statements I have heard here. I was not going to include this in my remarks, but I have heard now several times that we are here so late. Well, you know, this 2-year session of Congress has been so challenging because, time and time again, colleagues-- particularly on the other side of the aisle--have used a procedure in the Senate--a right they have, but it is a right that has clearly been abused--to filibuster. What that means is that which we grew up understanding as Americans from the day we were in a classroom and we were taught about a simple majority rule--well, here in the Senate, that simple majority of representing the people of the United States, the 300 million people, is 51. But under the rules of the Senate, when one Senator wants to object to moving forward, ultimately we don't need that simple majority that Americans have come to understand; we end up needing 60. Of course, since neither party possesses those 60 votes, we often end up in a stalemate and are not able to move forward. That has been used time and time again. I would have to do it over 100 times just for the one session of the Congress, for the 2 years of the Congress, to remind people why it is so late in the process--because, time and time again, that process has been used to delay. Even when that process has been broken and the 60 votes have been accomplished, there have been votes that soar in the 80th or 90th percentile of the Members of this body voting to support the proposition. But the time was killed. It is the time not of the Senate but the time of the American people.

Then I have to hear some of my colleagues, in the midst of a debate about a nuclear treaty--understanding that we are trying to prevent and to verify the possibility that weapons get out of the hands of those who have the authority over them, among other reasons to have this treaty--talk about the omnibus. Well, I just find it beyond my imagination, especially when colleagues who are railing about on that are part of asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks in the omnibus. Then they come and say: Oh, this is a terrible thing, and the treaty is being brought up at the same time, and somehow we should not be able to move to this treaty because of that issue, even though what they rail against is what they have blatantly participated in. This issue is too important--too important to be wound up in that.

In the end, the purpose of this treaty and of U.S. efforts to thwart other nations from going nuclear is to ensure that future generations will not live with the specter of a nuclear winter and the destruction of civilization as we know it.

We have an opportunity to move--and I would hope move quickly--to do what is right, to ratify START, and lead the world by example. By leading the world by example, then we can also make demands on the rest of the world to make sure they obey and agree and ultimately concur and ultimately live by the same example. That is our opportunity, and that is an opportunity we should not lose.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to support the tax cut package before us today to help middle-class families and workers hit hardest by this economy, and that is exactly what this bill will do. It will ensure that middle-class taxes don't go up January 1, that laid-off workers can provide for their families while they continue to look for work, that an average household in my home State will receive $1,400 in payroll tax relief, and it will protect 1.6 million middle class New Jerseyans from a surprise alternative minimum tax hike of up to $5,600.

This is an important moment for the middle class in America.

This is a time to come together, like the Senate did last night, to ensure this bill passes and our economic recovery continues. Many families are sitting around the kitchen table at night wondering how they can afford to feed and clothe their children, much less buy gifts for them during this holiday.

Middle class families are wondering how they are going to pay the mortgage. How they are going to pay the tuition for their college-bound children next semester.

I will vote for this package, not because I agree with every provision, particularly those that give bonus tax breaks to the wealthiest and most able to sacrifice during this economic recession, but because it will help families in my State and across this country who really do need our help.

I will vote for this package because, at its core, it is a middle- class tax relief package.

I will vote for it because it extends tax relief of more than 3,000 for a typical working family and doubles the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000.

I will vote for it because the $120 billion payroll tax cut is an effective way to create jobs and increase the consumer demand sorely needed by our Nation's businesses.

I will vote for it because it includes a 2-year extension of the alternative minimum tax relief legislation, which I sponsored, so 1.6 million New Jerseyans will not face an additional tax bill of up to $5,600.

I will vote for this package because it preserves transit benefits to New Jersey commuters. This provision, which was not included in the original deal, but I worked hard to restore, will allow commuters to receive up to $230 in transit benefits tax free.

It extends the low-income child tax credit and earned-income tax credit to ensure that a working family with three children could continue to receive a tax cut of more than $2,000.

It helps students and their parents by extending the partially refundable American opportunity tax credit, worth up to $2,500, that helps 8 million students and their families cover the cost of tuition.

It helps save and create green jobs by extending what's known as the 1603 Treasury grant program, widely credited with maintaining strong growth in the renewable energy sector in 2009 and 2010, despite the severe economic downturn, and has saved tens of thousands of jobs in the wind and solar industries.

I worked hard to restore this particular provision because it has provided more than $66 million in grants to fund 155 solar projects in New Jersey alone.

And most importantly, for those who are unemployed, it includes a long-overdue 13-month extension of Federal support for 99 weeks of unemployment insurance for workers who have lost their jobs during this economic downturn, something our Republican colleagues fought against all year, a helping hand they refused to extend unless the rich got even more in tax cuts, even though extending unemployment benefits is a policy that most economists agree is one of the most effective measures to create jobs.

It helps small business owners by creating the largest temporary investment incentive in American history by allowing businesses to expense all of their qualified investments in 2011.

Estimates from the Treasury Department indicate this could generate more than $50 billion in additional investment in the U.S. next year.

The bill includes a provision I cosponsored to incentivize restaurant owners to upgrade their facilities by extending for 2 years a provision that allows them to write off their costs much faster than they could otherwise, 15 years as opposed to 39 years.

And it helps small business owners by extending for 2 years the research and development tax credit which incentivizes companies to create jobs in America by giving them a tax credit for qualified research spending.

The R&D tax credit is truly a jobs credit with 70 percent or more of the credit attributable to salaries and wages of U.S. workers performing research in the United States. I have cosponsored legislation to make this credit permanent, and I hope we will.

Unfortunately, our friends on the other side of the aisle decided that if we were going to pass a bill to help the middle class, it could not move without additional benefits for the wealthiest.

In order for us to help the middle class, we are being asked by our Republican colleagues to give millionaires an additional windfall.

In order to pass an extension of desperately needed unemployment benefits as emergency spending, we must also pass a windfall for estates worth more than $5 million.

Yes that is correct, apparently now Republicans believe you must offset help for laid-off workers with estate tax cuts for the heirs of millionaires and billionaires.

Now, people who have worked hard and built personal wealth should be applauded for their success. Their hard work, their creativity, their ingenuity should be applauded and admired.

People who work hard and prosper, they love their country too, and they are in the best position to be helpful to our nation in this tough economic time.

Many of them are willing to contribute if we ask, and we know from experience that reverting to the tax rates the wealthiest and most successful paid during the Clinton era of prosperity did not hurt our economy.

This package certainly is not ideal. Let me be perfectly clear, I do not think we should be giving the wealthiest Americans, those who are the most able to share in the sacrifice needed in today's economy, even more in tax cuts just to keep taxes from increasing on the middle class. But that is the hand we have been dealt. We had votes on extending middle class tax cuts, and we could not garner enough Republican support to pass them.

Now the decision is not whether or not to support tax cuts for the wealthy. The decision before us today is whether we are going to stand up for the middle class and protect them from the tax increase that is looming 2 weeks from now.

The bottom line is that this package meets our priority on this side of the aisle, of making a real difference in the lives of middle class families affected by layoffs, families struggling to make ends meet, and, in the process, help further stimulate our fragile economy, rather than allow it to slide back into recession.

If we can achieve that, then this compromise is well worth it.

I hope that those on the other side who have shamelessly stood for putting more money in the pockets of millionaires and billionaires regardless of the cost, regardless of the fact that doing so has failed to create jobs, will not come back a year or 2 years from now and have the audacity to blame this administration or members on this side of the aisle for fiscal irresponsibility, that we will never again be lectured about deficits by those who demand billions of dollars in deficit spending for the heir of estates worth more than $5 million.

That is what a Republican world looks like. It is a world of blue smoke and mirrors in which they tell us we can see castles, kingdoms, an economy that is not real and jobs that are not there.

The negotiations to get to this point revealed much about the priorities of each party, and frankly the tactics employed by my Republican colleagues do not sit well with me and many of my fellow Democrats.

But the bottom line is that most of my colleagues recognize, as I do, that this package will make a real difference in the lives of middle class families struggling in difficult economic circumstances.

And I believe it will have strong support, that it will benefit millions of average Americans who simply want us to do what is right for them.

It is my hope that this package is the last time we will be forced to cut a deal for the wealthy just to protect middle-class families.

I listened with great interest to the words of the President when he spoke about tax reform recently. We have an opportunity to reform the Tax Code, to simplify what has become a nightmare for millions of Americans, to get rid of so much preferential treatment for special interests currently in the code, and to lower income tax rates for everybody.

We should have a Tax Code that reflects the general interests of the American people, not one that forces the less politically connected to pay more in taxes than those with powerful allies.

And I expect that the next time this issue comes up, we will not be discussing whether or not to extend the failed tax policies of the Bush administration, but how to best simplify the Tax Codes so tax rates for everybody can be reduced permanently and responsibly.