Floor Statements

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, September 15, 2011, at 10 a.m. in SD-106 to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Future of Employment for People with the Most Significant Disabilities.''

For further information regarding this hearing, please contact Andrew Imparato of the committee staff on (202) 228-3453.

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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, on Monday, we observed but did not celebrate Labor Day. I say ``observed and did not celebrate'' because we are painfully aware that there are at least 29 million underemployed and unemployed Americans in our midst. Last Friday, the Department of Labor sent shock waves through the global economy by reporting that the U.S. economy created zero net jobs in August. A growing chorus of economists is warning against the dangers of making immediate draconian cuts to the Federal budget--something that, by its very nature, will drain demand, reduce growth, and destroy jobs.

Tragically, too many Members of Congress refuse to listen. Over the summer, they have insisted on a mindless march to immediate austerity-- an approach that threatens to strangle the weak economy.

Inside the Washington bubble, some of our political leaders continue to insist that the biggest issue is the budget deficit. Outside the beltway, ordinary Americans are desperately concerned with a far more urgent deficit, the job deficit.

I am also concerned about a third deficit, the deficit of vision and leadership in Washington. I am disturbed by our failure to confront the current economic crisis with the boldness and vision that earlier generations of Americans summoned in times of national challenge.

Smart countries, in tough economic times, do not just turn a chainsaw on themselves. Instead of the current slash-and-burn approach, which is being sold through fear and fatalism, we need an approach that reflects the courage and determination of the American people. By all means, we must agree on necessary spending cuts and revenue increases, but we also must continue to invest in that which will spur economic growth, create jobs, and rebuild the middle class.

I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of restoring the middle class in America. I have given several floor speeches on this very subject. In the committee I am privileged to chair, the HELP Committee, we have had hearings on what has happened to the middle class. In fact, on September 1, our committee issued this report: ``Saving the American Dream: The Past, Present, and Uncertain Future of America's Middle Class.'' I commend it to my colleagues.

Restoring the middle class is essential to boosting demand and revitalizing our economy. It is the only way to restore long-term fiscal balance at the Federal level.

Economists across the political spectrum, from left to right, agree that a major cause of our current economic stagnation is a chronic lack of demand. For nearly three decades, workers' incomes have been stagnant. Simply put, they lack the purchasing power to drive America's consumer economy. Without adequate demand, businesses are reluctant to invest and hire.

Adjusted for inflation, average hourly earnings in 1970 were $18.80 an hour or $39,104 annually. Again, average hourly earnings in 1970 were $39,104. However, by 2009, those inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings had actually declined to $18.63 an hour or $38,750 a year. Imagine that. From 1970 to 2009, average hourly earnings went down. One might say: So what.

This second chart will show what is happening to the middle class. This chart shows the rising cost of essentials. At the same time earnings have stagnated or gone down a little bit, the costs that make up the largest part of a family budget have skyrocketed. Here is the food budget, up 2 percent; gas, up 18 percent; rent and utilities, up 41 percent; health expenditures, up 50 percent; public colleges, up 80 percent; price of a home, up 97 percent; cost of a private college, up 113 percent. No wonder the middle class is finding it harder and harder to make ends meet.

However, at the same time, let's look at what is happening at the higher end of the income spectrum and see what happened to CEO compensation during this same period of time. Average hourly earnings have gone down, as I said. The value of the minimum wage--I will talk about that in a minute--has gone down 19 percent from 1970 to last year. But the median executive compensation has gone up 430 percent in the same time. Is there any surprise that people are upset around America, that middle-class families are kind of edgy today? Sure, they are edgy. How are they going to send their kids to college or buy a new home or get out from the ones that are already underwater, provide rent or buy gasoline for cars in rural areas where they have to drive to go to work, to school or to go to church?

How do we boost income and restore people's purchasing power? There are a number of ways we need to do this. I will suggest one to start with. We need to restore a robust right to organize unions and bargain collectively. I say that unabashedly. It is no coincidence the decline of the middle class has coincided with the dramatic decline of union membership in the United States. Why? Because unions provide workers with the leverage to ensure that they share in their company's gains through wages and benefits and are not just providing company CEOs with even larger pay packages. That is just one step.

Another very practical step we can take to boost purchasing power and boost the economy is to increase the minimum wage. The minimum wage today is $7.25. If we raised the minimum wage to make up for what it has lost to inflation over the last 40 years, it would be $10.39 an hour. As we saw, the average CEO pay has gone up 430 percent, and the minimum wage--adjusted for inflation--should be $10.39 an hour today. But it is only $7.25. So the minimum wage has gone down, and the median executive compensation has gone up 430 percent. A raise in the minimum wage puts money in the pockets of low-income consumers who are likely to spend it at local businesses.

Most important, of course, we have to create more jobs--but not just any jobs, quality jobs with fair wages and real benefits that can support a family and help hard-working people build a brighter future. That is the way we will put demand back in the economy and get the economy moving again.

Tomorrow evening, the President will present to Congress his plan for boosting job creation and helping to lift the economy. I urge the President to point out that there are some things--big national undertakings--that the private sector simply is not capable of doing. At critical junctures, going back to the beginning of our Republic, the Federal Government has stepped up to the plate. Congresses and Presidents have to act decisively to spur economic growth, foster innovation, and help create jobs. We need that kind of bold action today.

The mantra I hear from my friends on the Republican side is that government can't create jobs. That is nonsense. Smart government can create jobs. Shortsighted government can destroy jobs. For example, the brief shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration this summer put nearly 70,000 private sector construction employees out of work. Draconian cuts proposed by House Republicans to the new Transportation bill would destroy an estimated 490,000 highway construction jobs and nearly 100,000 transit-related jobs. That is dysfunctional government, making the problem even worse.

By contrast, across our history, an often visionary and bold Federal Government has funded and spearheaded initiatives that have expanded private commerce, given birth to countless inventions and new industries, and created tens of millions of jobs.

During the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, with the private sector paralyzed by the Great Depression, the Federal Government responded with an astonishing array of initiatives to restart the economy, restore opportunity, and create jobs. I still have on my wall in my office--and I will bet I am the only Senator on the floor today who can say this--the actual WPA form of my father when he worked for the Works Projects Administration. He got a job to help feed his family. Some of the things my father worked on in the WPA exist today--still used by the public, still used by kids going to high school. A lot of times people say: Well, that was all well and good, but that didn't stop the depression that was World War II. Well, what was World War II but massive government infusion into the economy?

By the end of the Second World War, wartime investments in plants and equipment and making tanks and airplanes and all kinds of things, which we then turned over to the private sector, created an industrial colossus the likes of which the world had never seen. Franklin Roosevelt and President Truman were followed by a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower. President Eisenhower--I am sure a very proud Republican--was also determined to move America forward. He championed one of the greatest public works projects in American history--the construction of the Interstate Highway System. A 1996 study of that system concluded:

The interstate highway system is an engine that has driven

40 years of unprecedented prosperity and positioned the

United States to remain the world's preeminent power into the

21st century.

This kind of visionary thinking, by both Democratic Presidents and a Republican President, is by no means a relick of the distant past. In more recent times, the Federal Government has funded and spearheaded scientific discovery and innovation that has had profound impacts on our economy--spawning scores of new industries and creating millions of high-value jobs. I will just mention a few.

Specifically, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency--called DARPA--invented the Internet, making possible everything from e-mail to social networking to the World Wide Web. Federal researchers at that same agency--DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-- invented the global positioning satellite system.

I can remember when I first came to the Congress as a House Member on the House Science and Technology Committee and we first started authorizing funding for the GPS system. A lot of people at that time said: Oh no, no. This is not the role for the Federal Government. Only the private sector can do it. But the private sector could not undertake that at that point in time. So the Federal Government put up the satellites and the private sector took over, and now we have Garmin and TomTom and we have all kinds of things now for airplanes and cars and boats--all made by the private sector employing people in private- sector jobs--because the Federal Government put forth the money and the investment to put that system into place.

Need I mention NASA, and the number of technological breakthroughs over the years--everything from microchips to CAT scanner technology. And of course any discussion of the Federal role in promoting our economy would not be complete without mentioning the National Institutes of Health. More than 80 Nobel prizes have been awarded for NIH-supported research.

One might say: Well, how has that benefitted us? Recently, the Battelle Memorial Institute, a nongovernment research institute, reported on the Federal Government's $3.8 billion investment in the Human Genome Project from 1988 to 2003. Battelle estimates this Federal investment of $3.8 billion in taxpayer money has produced a staggering $796 billion in economic output. In 2010 alone, this ``genomic revolution'' generated $67 billion in U.S. economic output and supported 310,000 jobs.

These are the kinds of investments that are some of the best ways to reduce budget deficits. They will help many of the 29 million unemployed and underemployed get jobs and become taxpayers again. With the private-sector engine again threatening to stall out, there is a critical role for the Federal Government in creating demand and preventing a slide back into recession.

The most obvious way forward--with support across the political spectrum, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--is to dramatically ramp up Federal investments in infrastructure in order to boost U.S. competitiveness. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that America faces a $2.2 trillion--trillion dollars--infrastructure backlog. Bringing this U.S. infrastructure into the 21st century would create millions of private-sector jobs--especially in the hard-hit construction industry--while modernizing the arteries and veins of commerce.

As someone once recently said: Think about it this way: We are still driving on Eisenhower's highways and going to Roosevelt's schools. It is time to do it for the next century.

There can be no economic recovery, no return to fiscal balance without the recovery of the middle class. And there will not be a middle class unless and until we come to grips with the need for Federal investment in education, innovation, research, and infrastructure. It means restoring a level playing field with fair taxation, vibrant unions, a strong ladder of opportunity to give every American access to the middle class.

I hope President Obama will be bold, as Presidents in the past have been. I hope he will put forward a very bold, visionary, challenging-- challenging--proposal tomorrow night, to challenge us to the better side of our human nature and to recapture again what we have done in the past. In that way, we can rebuild the middle class and put America back to work. I believe that is the only way we will be able to do that.

Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Wednesday, September 14, 2011, at 10 a.m. in SD-430 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Securing the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain.''

For further information regarding this hearing, please contact Elizabeth Jungman of the committee staff on (202) 224-7675.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Madeleine Bien and Mandy McClure of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's proceedings.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, September 7, 2011, at 10 a.m. in SD-106 to mark-up the following: S. 958, the Children's Hospital GME Support Reauthorization Act of 2011; S. 1094, the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act; and, any nominations cleared for action.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the committee on (202) 224-5375.

committee on health, education, labor, and pensions

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Subcommittee on Children and Families of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, September 8, 2011, at 10:15 a.m. in SH-216 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining Quality and Safety in Child Care: Giving Working Families Security, Confidence, and Peace of Mind.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the subcommittee on (202) 224-9243.

committee on health, education, labor, and pensions

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Tuesday, September 13, 2011, at 10 a.m. in SD-428 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Is Poverty a Death Sentence?''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the subcommittee on (202) 224-5480.

Mr. President, are we in a quorum call?

Mr. President, the debt ceiling agreement that will soon come before the Senate is a clear and present danger to the fragile-- indeed, faltering--economic recovery. To say this is the wrong policy at the wrong time is a gross understatement. One has to ask the question: Is anyone paying attention? We just learned economic growth fell to a 1.3-percent annual rate in the second quarter. The first quarter growth was revised downward sharply to just four-tenths of 1 percent--virtually flat.

The economy created a meager 16,000 jobs in the month of June--again flat, not even keeping up with population growth. Last month, over 25 million Americans could not find full-time employment. Let me repeat that: over 25 million Americans are effectively out of work. This includes those formally looking for work and those so discouraged that they are no longer looking but want to work. State and local governments continue to slash funding for jobs at a stunning pace, destroying an estimated 500,000 jobs in the last 2 years. Let me repeat that: In the last 2 years, State and local governments have destroyed an estimated 500,000 jobs. Those are consumers too. Those are people who shop and buy cars and clothes and houses and go out to eat at restaurants and things such as that.

According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, in the first half of 2011, all government spending fell at a 3.5-percent annual rate, enough to knock three-quarters of a percentage point off the GDP. On top of this wreckage, this so-called budget deal is proposing to slash funding in investment by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years--an unprecedented step that will further destroy demand and directly kill millions of public- and private-sector jobs.

This is what Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of the bond investment firm of PIMCO, said just yesterday on one of the network shows in regard to this budget deal:

Unemployment will be higher than it would have been

otherwise.

Speaking of this budget deal we are talking about, he said unemployment will be higher because of it.

Growth will be lower than it would be otherwise, and

inequality will be worse than it would be otherwise.

He added:

We have a very weak economy, so withdrawing more spending

at this stage will make it even weaker.

For months now, Washington politicians have been distracted by the phony manufactured crisis about raising the debt ceiling. This city has been obsessed with this. The rest of the country, for a very good reason, is more concerned with a far more urgent deficit than the budget deficit. They are more concerned about the jobs deficit--25 million people out of work. In a recent CBS News-New York Times poll, 53 percent of the public polled named jobs and the economy as the most important problem, while only 7 percent named the deficit.

So I oppose this misbegotten, misguided deal they have conjured up in return for raising the debt ceiling. I don't oppose raising the debt ceiling. I wish to make that clear. I believe we have a constitutional obligation to pay our debts and to make good on our debts, as we have done since the Revolutionary War. What I am objecting to is the deal that was put together in order to permit us to perform our constitutional obligation.

I oppose it for four reasons: Reason No. 1 is this deal will destroy millions of jobs, as I have said, in both the public and private sector. By shutting off Federal funding in investment--a critical engine sustaining our sputtering economy--it could easily plunge America back into recession.

Please read your history, see what happened in 1937 and 1938. We were coming out of the Depression and all of a sudden Congress decided to tighten down the screws and plunged us right back into higher unemployment.

Secondly, I have always advocated a balanced approach to deficit reduction, including both spending cuts and revenue increases. This deal--the one we are going to have before us this evening, I guess-- rejects a balanced approach. It rejects any sense of equity and fairness.

As my friend, the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, said earlier on the floor: This is not fair. Are we concerned about fairness or is that just sort of passe? Is that something we should even be concerned about, whether something is fair? I think we ought to be concerned about fairness. This is the message that is coming across loudly and clearly in the phone calls coming into my office and the e-mails I am getting from Iowa and around the country.

This deal offends people's basic sense of fairness--that Congress would slash funding for things such as student loans and cancer research and Head Start programs and Vista and legal services or cut essential funding for seniors--senior volunteer programs, senior centers, and Meals on Wheels--cutting support for people with disabilities, cutting the safety net for a lot of the most vulnerable people in our society, hurting the middle class. We can do that, but we simply can't ask for one more dollar of shared sacrifice from the millionaires and billionaires who have made so much money in the last decade and who have received, thanks to this Congress, huge tax breaks.

This deal is not fair.

Third, I oppose this deal for the simple reason that I oppose paying ransom to hostage takers. Since the 1930s, Congress has routinely raised the national debt 89 times, including 7 times during the recent Presidency of George Bush, and 18 times under Ronald Reagan. Did Democrats hold the economy hostage? Did we say: Oh, no, we are not going to raise the debt unless you do this, this, this, and this? No. Did we filibuster? No.

Oh, there is always a skirmish on raising the debt ceiling. Ever since I have been here, for the past 35 years that I have been here, 36 years now, there is always a skirmish on it. But do you know how it has always worked? The majority always has to come up with the votes so there is no default. Well, that is not the way it is working this time.

This time congressional Republicans are holding our Nation hostage, threatening to default on our national debt and plunge America into an abyss that we don't even know what would possibly happen; that would affect our

bond rating for years in the future, affect the interest rates that everyone pays on their car loans, their student loans, housing, and everything else. They would plunge America into that unless their demands are met.

Let's be clear. This is not a negotiating tactic; this is blackmail. Republicans have basically said: We will inflict grievous harm on the economy if Democrats do not meet our demands. Well, President Obama said it earlier. We are not going to go into default. So with this kind of a lopsided deal, the ransom is paid, the hostage is released. But what a terrible precedent this sets. Make no mistake, Republicans will use these same despicable tactics down the road in the future.

Now, if I sound like I am picking too much on Republicans, let me just say, with this kind of precedent, I can see a Republican President--and there will be another one sometime, but I hope not too soon. But there will be a Republican President and there will be a Democratic Congress, and Democrats will use this as a precedent: We will hold it hostage.

Is this the way we want to start running our country? What a terrible precedent this sets. It reminds me of the precedent that was set starting back in the 1980s with the use of the filibuster in the Senate.

Now, I say to the President that I have for years advocated that we do away with the filibuster over a short period of time; that we allow things to be slowed down but not be stopped because of a filibuster. I didn't just say this now; I said it in 1990s. It was right after Democrats had lost control of the Senate and Republicans had taken over, and I even advocated doing away with the filibuster then because I said it was escalating. It was a tit-for-tat. When the Republicans were in charge, we filibustered; and then when we got in charge, they filibustered, but they added a few more. Then when we got in charge, we filibustered, but we did it a little bit more than what they did. This went back and forth.

I predicted in 1995 that if we didn't nip that in the bud, it was going to get out of hand. Sure enough, it got out of hand. That is what I mean. That is what happens. You set a precedent like that, and there is no end to it.

So I think the precedent that has been set bodes ill for our country, not just for Republicans but for Democrats too.

President Obama had an alternative, however, to capitulating to the Republicans' hostage taking and their blackmail. In remarks in the Senate on Saturday and many times, I have urged the President to respond to this unprecedented threat by taking the unprecedented action under the 14th amendment to the Constitution of basically eliminating the debt ceiling. I know the occupant of the chair, the distinguished Senator from Delaware, has advocated this for some time also. It is deeply regrettable that President Obama preemptively took this option off the table.

Throughout history, where meaning is unclear, where precedent was nonexistent, the American people, through their elected officials and through their President, have acted boldly to protect the interests of the United States and to save our country.

I have heard it said that people around the President at the White House--well, they got attorneys to weigh in on this and the Justice Department. I understand that the Vice President said this morning to the House caucus that the authority was unclear as to whether the President could take such action.

Again, I repeat: Where there is no precedent, where the meaning is unclear, we can't run across the street to the Supreme Court and ask for an advisory opinion. They don't give those advisory opinions. But when the country is in a crisis mode and our future is at stake, I believe the President can act boldly, should act boldly, must act boldly, both to prevent the country from falling into a crisis but also to prevent this kind of hostage taking, this kind of blackmail that we either do it this way or we will not raise the debt ceiling.

I pointed out in my speech Saturday, and I point out again, Thomas Jefferson concluded the treaty with the Louisiana Purchase--and he himself wrote letters, and I have copies of those letters. I have read them, letters to Senator Breckenridge anguishing over whether he had the constitutional right to do this.

In one letter he said: I believe Congress is going to have to pass a constitutional amendment and send it to the States for their ratification before I can do this. But, finally, Jefferson came to the realization that if he didn't take this action, the whole western part of the United States at that time might never become part of the United States. Think about that. We might have been facing a part of the United States that belonged to France.

So Jefferson acted boldly. In fact, there were critics at that time who said he didn't have the authority to do that, and they had a vote in the House of Representatives, by the way. I think it carried by a couple votes.

Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. There is nothing in the Constitution that gave him the power or the authority to do that, but he did it. He did it to help save the country and to right an egregious wrong.

More recently, Franklin Roosevelt--you can read about it in the history books. In the 1930s, it was clear if we didn't come to the assistance of Great Britain, it was going to fall to Nazi Germany--not that they needed our men but they needed our material. They needed the kind of material that we could supply in a short amount of time so they could defend Great Britain against Nazi Germany.

So Franklin Roosevelt concluded a lend-and-lease program. That is what it was called, the lend-and-lease program. Even President Roosevelt at that time said in his writings he considered this probably unconstitutional. But he had to do it to save our country because it was a crisis, and he acted boldly to do it.

There was no clear authority for him to do that, but, as I point out, there was no prohibition against him doing that either. There was no prohibition explicitly in the Constitution to prohibit Thomas Jefferson from making the Louisiana Purchase. There was no express prohibition against Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. There was no express prohibition against Franklin Roosevelt signing the lend-and- lease deal.

So, again, I point out, where meaning is unclear--and in the 14th amendment the meaning is kind of unclear. But we do have a court case, Perry v. U.S., 1935. Read what Chief Justice Hughes wrote in his opinion. He said quite clearly that Congress has the power to borrow money. He said that is a good thing. It may be used to save our country sometime. But, he says, Congress does not have the authority to alter or destroy those obligations. We cannot alter or destroy those obligations once we make them.

So as I argued Saturday, and I continue to argue, if Congress either through action or inaction destroys or alters those debt obligations, then I think it is up to the President of the United States to step into the breach.

Is there clear authority for the President to do this? No. I submit there is no clear prohibition against him, either, to do this. So when I cast my vote later today against this deal, I am not casting a vote to send our country into default. I would not do that. If I thought that my vote was the determining vote to send this country into default, I would not do that. That is not the way I see it, Mr. President. The way I see it is even if we turn this down, the President can use his Presidential power and authority to sign an Executive order getting rid of the debt ceiling so that, constitutionally, we make good on our debt obligations.

Read Perry v. U.S. I think you can see it there. So if this deal goes down either in the House or the Senate, the President can act before tomorrow to save this country. He may not want to do it, but he should do it. And he should have put that out there a long time ago.

Each one of the three cases I mentioned, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, three great Presidents, took action to save the country, and they did the right thing.

Mr. President, my fourth reason for opposing this deal is because, in truth, it is not about reducing the deficit. First and foremost, this deal is about preserving hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest in our society. Bear in

mind this is the singular purpose and goal of today's Republican Party: not reducing the deficit but preserving and expanding tax breaks for the wealthy. Here is why I say that.

Back last December when Republicans demanded the deal to preserve the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, that deal added a whopping $800 billion to deficits in just 2 years: this year 2011, next year 2012. Here we have it. We are being asked to raise the debt ceiling. A big portion of that is to pay for tax breaks to the wealthiest just in 2 years because of that deal last December where the Bush-era tax cuts were extended for 2 years, the wealthy can get billions in tax breaks for 2 years. So now what we are being asked to do is to pay for these 2 years' of tax breaks to the wealthiest by slashing funds to the most vulnerable in our society.

So that is the game here. The game here is to preserve those tax breaks even though we have to slash funding for the most vulnerable.

In December, Republicans' No. 1 priority was preserving tax breaks for the wealthy even if that meant adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit. So last December Republicans said: We have to extend the Bush-era tax breaks for 2 years. That tax bill added $800 billion to our deficit. I didn't hear a peep out of them, not one peep from the Republicans about the impact on the deficit.

Now, in recent weeks and months Republicans have repeatedly rejected grand bargains to reduce future deficits by nearly $4 trillion. Why did they reject the Reid proposal and proposals by the administration and others? Because each one would have required some modest sacrifice from millionaires and billionaires to help pay for those tax breaks they got. Republicans adamantly opposed this.

In his remarks last evening announcing this debt ceiling bad deal, as I call it, President Obama said the result ``would be the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was President.'' That bears repeating. President Obama said the result ``would be the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was President.''

For the record, the American people do not want to take down Federal funding and investment to the level of the Eisenhower years. To do so would be tantamount to repudiating what we have done since then to make our country better and more fair, to make our country more of a middle- class society, more a country where people born into poverty can aspire to be in the middle class to get a good education, good health care, decent housing, a ``Head Start.''

To return to the spending of Dwight Eisenhower would be tantamount to repudiating the Great Society programs. We always hear from Republican friends how the Great Society was a failure, what a failure the Great Society was. I respectfully disagree. Head Start a failure? It was a Great Society program. Medicaid? Of course Medicaid now is exempted out of this measure. How about the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, title I, where we have agreed to put money out to the States to help low-income students and schools in poor areas? That is a Great Society program. How about the Higher Education Act? Student loans help a lot of kids go to college.

I have here a list of some of the Great Society programs: the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967; Job Corps--that is another one which is going to get slashed because of this, Job Corps; VISTA; Upward Bound; food stamps, now called the SNAP program, which enables low-income people to have a decent diet during economic downturns; LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program; the community action programs that do so much for the elderly and the poor. I mentioned the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Bilingual Education Act to help kids-- learners of English as a second language. I mentioned Medicare and Medicaid. How about the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Land and Water Conservation Act and on and on. I am not going to read them all. These are all parts of the Great Society programs. They made our country what it is today. But, they do cost money.

We have cleaner air, cleaner water, better educated kids, better health care, better cancer research--all kinds of research done at the NIH. These programs, along with Social Security, undergird the middle class in our society. They create a ladder of opportunity to allow disadvantaged Americans to work, move upward, and become part of the middle class. These programs define America as decent, compassionate, and, yes, as a great society.

The President is sorely mistaken if he believes the American people want to slash the budget to the level of the Eisenhower years and turn back the clock on half a century of progress.

Mr. President, I hope that is not what you meant. I hope that is not what you meant. To turn spending back to the level of the Eisenhower years is not a bragging point. That is not something positive. To me, that is a big negative.

What we need is to have a better and more fair tax system to pay for all the things that make our society great. We are not having the right debate here. We have not had the right debate for a long time. The debate ought to be about what is happening to our society.

I just read a recent interview with Bill Moyers. Bill Moyers was asked what his greatest fear was. His greatest fear was that we in America would accept greater and greater inequality, wealth inequality, as the norm; that we would accept a greater and greater inequality as normal. Here is maybe what he was talking about. From 2005 to 2009, the median net worth of Hispanic households went down 66 percent. The median net worth of African-American households went down 53 percent. The median net worth of White--Caucasian--households went down 16 percent. The median net worth right now of a White--Caucasian--family in America is 20 times that of an African-American family and 18 times that of a Hispanic family. This is twice the gap since before the recession, and it is the biggest gap since this data was collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1984.

Do you see what is happening? Our country is pulling apart. There are fewer and fewer people at the top getting more and more wealth and more and more people at the bottom, destroying the middle class.

From 2005 to 2009, the median net worth--I keep stressing ``median net worth.'' What that means is you take all the things you own--your house, car, TV sets, all the stuff you own--and you subtract that from all your debts and obligations--mortgage, things such as that for the middle household with half having more and half having less. The median net worth from 2005 to 2009 of African-American households went from $12,124 to $5,677. The median net worth of Hispanic households went from $18,359 to $6,325. Keep those figures in mind--median net worth of African-American households in 2009, $5,677; Hispanic households, $6,325. That is their net worth. That is everything. White households, in 2009--from 2005 to 2009, the net worth went from $134,992 to $113,149. So as of just 2 years ago, the median net worth of White households was, indeed, 20 times that of African-American households and 18 times that of Hispanics. Here is Hispanic households: net worth, $6,325; median for Whites, $113,149. Again, that wealth, as I say, is the sum of all their assets--their houses, their cars, their bank accounts--minus their debts, including mortgages, loans, and credit card debt.

The share of wealth? In 1988, the top 5 percent of Americans, in terms of wealth, had $8 trillion in assets. That was 1980. In 2010, that top 5 percent had $40 trillion in assets. That is more than 60 percent of the national wealth. The other 95 percent of America has the remaining 40 percent.

Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, Rev. Jim Wallis, said, ``A budget is a moral document.''

``We are making choices,'' he added, such as whether to cut $8.5 billion for low-income housing or whether to retain a similar amount in tax deductions for mortgages on vacation homes for the wealthy.

As Senator Menendez said earlier, it is not fair. This is the debate and discussion we should be having in America, in the Senate, and in the House. There is this huge disparity in wealth in this country, and it is getting worse year by year. Yet our Republican

friends say: Give more tax breaks to those at the top.

The American people get it. They understand this. They know there are over 25 million of them out of work. They know that wealth disparity is opening up a huge gap. The middle class is being destroyed in our country, and this so-called budget deal is going to make it even harder for anyone to succeed in becoming a middle-class person.

I just want to say that the most important thing we can do right now, the single most important thing we can do--I hate to say this--is not ``balance the budget,'' which is not what we are going to do now--this is raising the debt ceiling. That is not the most important thing. Slashing government spending is not the most important thing right now. The most important thing is to marshal the forces of the Federal Government to put people back to work, to get jobs going in our society.

There is a lot of work to be done. There are highways to be built and bridges to be built and schools to be remodeled, new technologies, new power systems, new clean energy, a smart grid, cleaning up the environment. Anyone who has suffered through the heat wave in the last couple of weeks knows something is going on in this country. Something is going on. We need more clean energy.

We need to make sure those children who are born today whose parents do not have anything, whose net worth is so little they don't have anything, we need to make sure that they have decent health, that they have early education programs and Head Start Programs. We need to make sure that every child has the best school and the best teachers in America, make sure that our streets and our neighborhoods are safe so families can go out and walk in the evening or at night and feel safe. We need to make sure the food we eat is duly inspected so we can have a high assurance we are not going to get sick and make sure the drugs we need are available, that the medicines we need, are affordable.

There are a lot of jobs that need to be done in this country, and we can put a lot of people to work. That should be the role of the Federal Government.

Some people say--I have heard it said many times: Government doesn't create wealth, only the private sector creates wealth. The government consumes wealth, it doesn't create it.

I had a hearing in my committee about a month ago or so, the HELP Committee, and we had the head of the National Institutes of Health down, Dr. Francis Collins. The head of NIH had an interesting story to tell. It had to do with the Human Genome Project, mapping and sequencing the human gene. We did it. It was a tremendous scientific accomplishment. Dr. Collins headed that effort. So we mapped and sequenced the human gene. The Batelle organization in Ohio, a research organization, analyzed it and said we had to put in taxpayers' money, $3.8 billion worth of tax dollars into this. In the last 10 years, the private sector--because of this research that was done in mapping and sequencing the human gene--has put in over $790 billion in investment, creating thousands of jobs all over this country, making huge breakthroughs in the genetic causes of so many diseases and finding interventions to help cure diseases and keep people healthy. Private investment never would have been done if we had not put $3.8 billion into the NIH to map and sequence the human gene.

The Interstate Highway System would never have been completed by any private company. We did, through the power of the Federal Government. You know what. It was not Federal Government workers out there working on that highway. It was young kids like me. When I was a kid, I was working out on the Interstate Highway System making summer money to go to college in the fall. I didn't work for the government; I worked for a private contractor.

There are plenty of jobs that need to be done, and we need to put people to work. That is the single most important thing we can be about. Yet what we are doing, as I quoted earlier, is we are actually going to make it harder. Economists say the deal could complicate the task of putting people to work. There is broad agreement that the United States needs to pay down its debts, but most economists say the government should have waited a year or more for the economy to strengthen. We sure missed a big window of opportunity to reduce our debt in our strong years when the asset prices were booming. This time it is different. Instead we are stuck trying to do it now when the economy is so weak, and we should not be cutting and slashing. We should be investing and putting people to work.

Again, I urge my colleagues to reject this misguided, counterproductive debt ceiling deal. Let's stop this precedent of taking a hostage of the United States until we get what we want. Mark my word, if we do this, it is going to happen again. Then maybe sometime when there is a Republican President and the Democrats are in charge, then the Democrats will turn on the screws and we will hold them hostage for something. It is a terrible way to run a country. It is a terrible way to run a democracy.

I urge my colleagues to reject this misguided, counterproductive debt ceiling deal. Let's join together to pass a truly balanced approach to bring deficits under control, one that first invests in putting people to work. Then as the economy begins to grow and the private sector begins to invest, then we start cutting spending, reducing the deficit. Let's have a balanced approach that will allow us to continue to invest in education, infrastructure, research, and the other things that will create jobs and boost our economy, that will build the middle class. This bill is a job killer. This debt ceiling deal is a job killer. A lot of economists agree with that. We should reject it.

Mr. President, you have the pen, and you have the Executive order and you can get rid of that debt ceiling. Take a bold action to save our country and say: No, we are not going to let any group of Congressmen or Senators of any political party take our nation hostage again.

I ask unanimous consent the time until 8 p.m. be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Elle Charles and Ashley Crawford, of my staff, be granted the privilege of the floor for the rest of today's proceedings.

Madam President, how much time is remaining?

Madam President, I will take 11 minutes. I ask unanimous consent that when the time comes back on the Democratic side, I be granted an additional 5 minutes.

Madam President, I would like to remind the American people why we are in the midst of the present crisis, days away from when the United States of America, the wealthiest Nation in the world, will not be able to pay its bills. Let me be clear. The Senator from Oklahoma earlier had a chart up saying we are broke, broke, broke. We are the wealthiest Nation in the history of the world. We have the highest per capita income of any major nation in the world. If we are so rich, why are we so broke?

The issue here, despite what some may suggest, is not about new borrowing or new spending; it is about paying the bills for what we have already incurred. Yet the Republicans, after running up a huge credit card bill under George Bush, do not want to pay the bills. As every American knows, if you use your credit card, you run up debt, and you have to pay the bills. And throughout American history, whether a Democratic or Republican Congress or a Democratic or Republican President, that is what we as a nation have done.

On this point, it could not be more clear than this letter to Senator Howard Baker from President Ronald Reagan:

The full consequences of a default or even the serious

prospect of default by the United States are impossible and

awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and

credit of the United States would have substantial effects on

the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar

in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such

a result.

President Ronald Reagan, 1983. It can't get much clearer than that. However, today Ronald Reagan would find himself losing in a Republican Party primary because he would not be pure enough for the tea party.

Because Republicans in the House are unwilling to do what even Ronald Reagan said needs to be done, we find ourselves in the midst of a manufactured crisis--a manufactured crisis--one without precedent: one House of Congress willing to jeopardize the economy of the United States unless the country capitulates and accepts policies that otherwise do not enjoy majority support, policies that could not pass the Congress, policies that would be vetoed by the President. This is simply unprecedented.

I believe this unprecedented action requires an unprecedented response. As at other critical junctures in our history, the President must act boldly to protect our Constitution and, more important, our country. The Constitution never envisioned that one House of Congress would willingly destroy the economy of the United States in order to obtain policy objectives it could not achieve through the normal legislative process. Yet that is the situation in which our Nation finds itself.

The legislative process is hard. It is frustrating. Trust me, there are many ideas and proposals I have fought my entire career on to become law, and they are never the way I envisioned starting out because you make compromises along the way. Yet rather than engaging in the hard work of persuading the American people, persuading a majority of the House, persuading a majority of the Senate, persuading the President--a task which often takes years and multiple elections--the House Republicans want to short-circuit the legislative process by holding the economy hostage.

For example, if the Republicans in the House put forward a bill to eliminate Medicare, it would not get anywhere. Yet, with their cut, cap, and balance budget amendment, it would shrink the government to the size it was prior to Medicare even taking hold, and that would mean we would have to do away with Medicare. However, that could never pass here on its own.

Likewise, I read that Speaker Boehner recently suggested to the President that the House would vote to allow the United States to pay its bills if the President would agree to repeal health care reform--in other words, take health insurance away from 30 million Americans and allow health insurance companies to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions.

The House could never achieve these policy objectives through the normal process, so they hold the economy hostage. Think about that. This is not just the attitude of the Republican Party with respect to the debt limit. The Republican Party has adopted an entirely new approach to democracy that is wholly undemocratic. If they cannot win elections or win the court of public opinion, they insist on holding the country hostage.

The minority leader has been frank about this approach to governing. In a recent speech about a balanced budget amendment, the minority leader of the Senate, the Republican leader, said the following:

The time has come for a balanced budget amendment that

forces Washington to balance its books. . . . The

Constitution must be amended to keep the government in check.

We've tried persuasion. We've tried negotiations. We've tried

elections. Nothing has worked.

Say again? Say again? We have tried elections, and nothing has worked? What is he implying?

Furthermore, I would say to the Republican leader, we had surpluses in 1998 and 1999 and 2000 and 2001. We had 4 years of surpluses. Yet, somehow, ``We've tried elections. Nothing has worked.'' Is he implying that somehow we need to have another course of action outside of elections, outside of persuasion, outside of negotiation?

President Bush's former speech writer, David Frum, recently commented on increasingly absurd and unrealistic demands put forth by House Republicans before they will agree not to destroy the American economy. He noted:

Why doesn't the new Boehner bill just require Obama to

resign in favor of a Republican before the second debt

ceiling increase? Tidier.

Sadly, that is not too far from the truth. In the face of this radical--radical and cynical--approach to governing, we are faced with a manufactured crisis. Indeed, the ramifications for our economy, for our middle class, indeed for America's ability to trust and believe in their government--the stakes could not be higher.

In response, in the absence of a balanced approach that could be agreed upon broadly in the Senate and the House, I believe the President must act boldly. He must carry out his constitutional duty to honor the commitments the U.S. Government has made. I believe the President, under the 14th amendment of the Constitution, must honor the obligations of the U.S. Government.

As the Supreme Court noted in Perry v. United States, Chief Justice Hughes' opinion:

The fourteenth amendment, in its fourth section, explicitly

declares: The validity of the public debt of the United

States, authorized by law, . . . shall not be questioned.

While this provision was undoubtedly inspired by the desire

to put beyond question the obligations of the government

issued during the Civil War, this language indicates a

broader connotation.

Chief Justice Hughes goes on to say:

The Constitution gives to the Congress the power to borrow

money on the credit of the United States, an unqualified

power, a power vital to the government, upon which in an

extremity its very life may depend. The binding quality of

the promise of the United States is of the essence of the

credit which is so pledged. Having this power to authorize

the issue of definite obligations for the payment of money

borrowed--

Listen to this--

the Congress has not been vested with authority to alter or

destroy those obligations.

One more time. Congress has unlimited power to borrow, but ``the Congress has not been vested with authority to alter or destroy those obligations.'' I do not think it could be more clear. It could not be more clear. Congress has not been vested with the authority to alter or destroy the Nation's credit obligations. Of course, that means the Congress cannot through its actions repudiate the Nation's debt, but it also means, through its inaction--failing to raise the debt ceiling--it cannot repudiate our country's obligations. Thus, rather than somehow prohibiting the President from taking action to protect the full faith and credit of the United States, as some have suggested, I believe the clear reading of the 14th amendment, as supported by Perry v. United States, I believe the President is obligated--obligated--to ensure that, in the words of the 14th amendment, the public debt not be questioned.

I know legal scholars have spent some time in recent weeks debating the meaning of the 14th amendment with respect to the debt ceiling. But where there is debate on the meaning of the Constitution, where there is no precedent, where the courts have not weighed in, where under our system of government we cannot just walk across the street to the Supreme Court and ask them for an advisory opinion, I want to remind the President that the Constitution does not belong to law professors, it does not belong to political pundits, it does not belong to columnists; rather, it belongs to the American people. And you, Mr. President--you, Mr. President--have been entrusted by the American people, in a very clear election, as it says right here in the Constitution, ``to faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States and to the best of your ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.''

So the 14th amendment makes clear the full faith and credit of the United States cannot be destroyed. The only case on point ever decided by the Supreme Court said the Congress cannot alter or destroy those obligations--cannot. So if the Congress, through inaction--through inaction or action tries to destroy or alter those obligations, I believe it is incumbent upon the Chief Executive to exercise his authority--to exercise his authority--to make sure the full faith and credit of the United States is not jeopardized--is not jeopardized.

The President should use his authority to do so.

I will give you three examples where there is no precedent, where there is no clear authority in the Constitution, but where the President exercised that kind of authority.

Thomas Jefferson purchasing the Louisiana Purchase.

In Thomas Jefferson's letter to Senator Breckenridge, he agonized over whether he, as President, had the authority under the Constitution to consummate the treaty for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. But in the end--he even said in his letter that perhaps we need a constitutional amendment to go to the Congress and the States and be ratified before I can do this. But in the end, he realized that would take a long time, it might fall through, and all kinds of bad things would happen. So even one of the Framers of our Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, took action even though there was no clear authority in the Constitution for him to do so. In fact, Members of the House went after him for it. But he decided it was better, as he said, to ensure the future benefits of the United States rather than some minor violation of the Constitution.

A second example: President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. There was no authority whatsoever for him to do that, but he did it, even though some people, at that time, went after him because he didn't have the clear authority in the Constitution to do so.

A third example: Franklin Roosevelt and the lend-lease program in Great Britain to make sure they could fight off the Nazi invasion of Great Britain, a clear success. Franklin Roosevelt wrote that he didn't think that was probably constitutional, but he instructed his Attorney General--he gave his own Attorney General a legal opinion, from the President, saying that the country needed to have this done. He went ahead and did it. Again, some people took after him on it, but we all realized it was the right thing to do for the survival of our own country.

Those were just three instances--three big ones--where, again, there was no clear authority by the Constitution but no prohibition in the Constitution for the President to do so, and where the vital security of the United States was at stake.

I will close on this: I believe this is just like those times. The security and the future improvement of the United States and future generations depends upon the President taking this action boldly and forthrightly to preserve the integrity and to make sure the obligations and the full faith and credit of the United States is not questioned.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I meant to be here earlier when Senator

Rockefeller was on the floor speaking about the situation with the Federal Aviation Administration. However, I was unavoidably detained while chairing a hearing on the HELP Committee that just adjourned a few minutes ago. I wanted to be here to discuss with Senator Rockefeller the sad situation we are facing right now with the shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration.

We are now in the sixth day of the defunding of the Federal Aviation Administration. What that means is that right now we have some 4,000 FAA workers who are furloughed, and tens of thousands of people out of work in airport construction jobs--infrastructure. These are people who are not working for the government; they are working for private contractors who have a contract with FAA for runway construction, putting in lights, safety measures, things like that. So tens of thousands of people are out of work in the private sector because of the cutoff of FAA reimbursements to these businesses around the country.

It is costing the Federal Government about $25 million in tax revenue a day--$25 million a day in lost revenue. That money would be plowed back into the economy to pay for aviation operations and for the people who are working out there on construction jobs building runways, lighting systems, and things like that.

At a time when we have so many people who are unemployed in our country--and the underemployment rate is really somewhere between 16 and 18 percent--with over 23 million people in America out of work, what do the Republicans do? They hold up funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, which puts 4,000 more FAA people on furlough and tens of thousands of people working on construction jobs around the country out of work. Why would the Republican Members of this Congress do such a thing? Because they want to overturn a National Mediation Board decision that was handed down a little over a year ago to align the election procedures under the National Railway Labor Act with the provisions that have always been in place under the National Labor Relations Act.

Let me explain that. Under the National Labor Relations Act, which has been in existence since the late 1930s, if you have an election to see whether workers want to organize a union, you count the yeas and you count the nays of those who vote. If the yeas are more than the nays, the workers form a union. If the nays are more than the yeas, they don't form a union. Under the Railway Labor Act, an odd thing took place. Under that, it said that if you have an election for a union, you count the yeas, you count the nays, and then all those people who didn't vote, you put them in the ``nay'' column. Interesting. If you don't vote, you are an automatic no.

What the National Mediation Board did a year ago was realign this using rulemaking procedures. They said that from now on you would only count the yeas and the nays. You would not assign to one side or the other those who didn't vote. To most of us, that just seems to make plain old common sense. After all, any election for your local school board--and we know the turnout is pretty low; school board elections usually turn out maybe 20 percent of the electorate, maybe less than that. Yet I submit there is probably no more important election in America today than school board elections. I will not get into that right now. What if we said: In all these school board elections, take the yeas, and then all the people who didn't vote, they are a no.

What if we did that in Senate races? That strikes home to people around here. Say a Senator is running for reelection, and if you are lucky, you get a 60-percent turnout of voters. That means the people who don't vote are considered a ``no'' vote on the incumbent. Is that what we want to see? If you don't vote, that is a ``no'' vote on your reelection. Most people would think that is inherently unfair. It is inherently unfair.

The same is true in elections on whether workers want to form a union. There are a lot of reasons people don't vote in an election. Maybe they are sick and they can't go vote. Maybe they can't make up their mind one way or the other. Maybe they said: Well, I see this side, and I see that side, and I cannot make up my mind, so I am just not going to vote. Some people just say: I don't care which side wins; I am disinterested in this election. Thankfully, in America, we don't have somebody forcing somebody to vote. So it makes common sense that if you don't vote, you should not be counted on one side or the other.

The National Mediation Board put this rule in place. They went through all the hearings, the comment period, and all the stuff necessary to pass the rule. Then it was brought up in the Senate within the last year under a procedure called the Congressional Review Act, wherein there is an expedited procedure for the Senate to take up and vote on a regulation as to whether we want to overturn it. It is an expedited procedure, an up-or-down vote. That was brought up here, and, as the chairman of the committee that has jurisdiction over labor, I debated it with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. It was a fairly good debate, I thought, and we voted. The Senate voted not to overturn that regulation. Well, you would think that would be the end of it. No, you would be wrong.

What does that have to do with the FAA? Because the Republicans in the House and some in the Senate are saying they are not going to let this FAA reauthorization bill get through unless and until we overturn the decision--this rule of the National Mediation Board which basically says that if you don't vote in the election, you are not counted on one side or the other. They are holding the FAA hostage--4,000 workers furloughed, tens of thousands in airport construction out of work, $25 million a day being lost in revenue that would be taken in so we could put these people back to work. It is all because they want to make it harder for workers to form a union.

Think about it this way. We are going to have a Presidential election next year. Let's say all the people who don't vote would be tallied as a ``no'' vote for the incumbent President, assuming he runs for reelection. Some of my Republican friends would probably like that, and I understand that. Do you think the American people would think that is fair, that if you don't vote, you are counted as a ``no'' vote?

A Federal district court--they took this to court--also rejected a legal challenge to these new rules, finding that the National Mediation Board was acting well within its legal authority in modernizing the election.

We see this time and time again. It is happening now in this Congress. Whenever we try to make things more fair or to use a legitimate procedure to address something that I think most people would think would be unfair; that is, counting somebody who didn't vote as a ``no'' vote--when we do that, Republicans always try to find an end run to try to undo that.

We are down to about 10 percent of our labor force that is now unionized. My friends on the other side will not be happy until there are no more unions in America. They will not be happy until unionization is less than 1 percent, and then only a company-sponsored union, not an independent union.

Right now, Republicans are voting to change the law in the middle of a trial as a special favor to the Boeing company. Boeing was accused of retaliating against its workers for going on strike.

As I have pointed out in numerous talks on the Senate floor, there is a judicial process that has been used by both labor and management for more than 70 years to settle disputes. That process has been to go to the NLRB--and management has done it, as well as labor--to find out if a certain thing was wrong or if a union has overstepped its bounds or if management has overstepped its bounds. The NLRB tries to mediate and get the two sides to agree, but if they can't, a process is set in motion whereby the General Counsel--who, by the way, was a career person, not a political appointee, as some have said--then begins an investigation to see whether the facts as presented warrant the next step, which is bringing the case to an administrative law judge.

That is what happened in this Boeing case. I have heard all this nonsense about how they are trying to take jobs out of South Carolina, trying to destroy right-to-work States. That is nonsense. Right now, the case is before an administrative law judge to see whether Boeing actually retaliated

against its employees for their exercising a legal right to organize and bargain collectively as a union.

Did Boeing retaliate against them for doing that? I don't know. My Republican friends seem to think they know. But it should go through the process before the administrative law judge, and that finding can be appealed by either side--management or labor--and it goes to the NLRB, and then they make a decision, which could be appealed to the Federal appeals court or circuit court. That decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court. Yet the Republicans want to interfere in that process and make it a political decision as to whether this case should go forward. Just as they are wrong to try to change the rules in the middle of a case going forward to benefit Boeing, what is happening now with the FAA is also wrong. They are trying to interfere in the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration to change a rule from the National Mediation Board.

The other day, one of my colleagues was talking about when are we going to stop doing favors for the union bosses or big unions or something like that. I never thought the National Mediation Board rule was a favor to a union. I always looked upon it as a fair decision, regulation, to make it in line with the National Labor Relations Act. Why should we have two separate kinds of election procedures for forming a union in this country? Take it to the American people. It is common sense. I think that most people would say that someone who doesn't vote shouldn't be counted as a ``no'' vote? As I said, we don't do that in the National Labor Relations Act. We have had this sort of anomaly for years. We finally tried to get it straightened out, and that is what is costing us these jobs and $25 million a day.

There is another issue they have brought up, and that is the essential air service at a number of small airports. We can debate that. We can talk about essential air service to small airports. The bill would eliminate it. That is about $16 million a year--$16 million a year--that it would save. Clearly, that is not what the Republicans care about. Every week--every week--they hold up the FAA reauthorization, it is costing the Federal Government some $150 million in uncollected taxes to support our airports. So in order to save $16 million a year, they are willing to cost the government $150 million a week. Boy, that is some kind of economics on the part of my Republican friends. So strictly from a budget perspective, the House's obstructionism is not just absurd, it is grossly counterproductive.

Again, this is uncalled for, what they are doing, to hold up the FAA reauthorization. As I said, we are now going into the sixth day, and it is going to have an effect on air travel. It is going to have a profound effect on air travel the longer this plays out. So I ask the House Republican leadership to get off of this obstructionism--get off of this--and let us deal forthrightly on the bill before us--which is the FAA reauthorization--and quit trying to overturn this rule of the National Mediation Board.

On essential air service, I think there are probably some compromises that can be made. There are some adjustments and modifications that can be made. I think that is probably so. We ought to work in good will in doing that on the longer term bill. But it is not right to hold up the FAA reauthorization right now on either the essential air service objections or their trying to overturn the decision of the National Mediation Board.

Again, I want to thank Senator Rockefeller for his leadership on this issue and for his vigorous opposition to the House Republicans' effort both to eliminate totally essential air service and to try to do a backdoor, end run around the National Mediation Board's rule on providing for fair elections for those who seek to belong and to form a union in the airline or railway industry.

With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I thank the Senator from New York for his very lucid remarks and for his great leadership in trying to get through this mess.

I say to my friend, a lot of people in the country are looking and thinking that this is some kind of food fight; that somehow everybody is to blame for this here in Washington.

I ask my friend, the Senator from New York, isn't it true that there are some 50 members of the Republican caucus in the House who have said forthrightly that they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling under any circumstance? One of those, of course, being Representative Bachmann, who is seeking the Presidential nomination on their ticket, said she would not vote to raise it under any circumstance.

Does the Senator know of any one Democrat, either in the House or the Senate, who has said they would not vote to raise the debt ceiling under any circumstance? I ask the Senator, is there one? I have not been able to find one.

If the Senator will yield for another question. Again, there is a lot of misunderstanding--and I sympathize with this--among the general populous that somehow raising the debt ceiling means that somehow we can go and borrow more money in the future and go further in debt.

Isn't it true that raising the debt ceiling just simply means that we are going to pay for what so many of us, Republicans and Democrats, have

voted in the past to appropriate money for? I ask my friend, it is like using your credit card to go out and buy something, but now you say, I don't want to pay the bill? I think that kind of puts it in terms that the average American can understand. If you have used your credit card, and you have run up a debt, you have to pay the bills; otherwise, your credit is going to go down, and you are going to lose your credit card, and you are not going to be able to do anything else.

Isn't that sort of what we are confronting? In the past, Democrats and Republicans--we all share the blame, perhaps, for having deficits. We can go into the causes of that. I don't mean to do that here. But the fact is, the United States of America has an obligation to pay its bills. The Republicans say, no, they don't want to pay the bills. Doesn't that sort of strike the average American as saying: Wait a minute. No, we have to honor our debts. We have always honored our debts in this country since the Revolutionary War. Is that not the fact?

I would like to ask one more question and then I would yield.

Isn't it true that we--I would say the Senator from New York has been a leader in this and so many others here. We want to, first of all, pay our bills, but then we want to get our deficit under control and reduce our debt. To that end, on the Democratic side, I would say we have tried to propose a balanced approach, I ask my friend from New York, who has been a leader in this area of both cutting spending and also raising revenue so that we are kind of all in this together.

We are asking everyone. We are not willing just to cut the deficit on the backs of the poor or people who are out of work, the elderly on Medicare. We are saying everybody has to take a little bit. But we are also going to ask some sacrifice from those who have much in our society; that we want to raise some revenue from those who have benefited in the last 10, 15 years so much and have gotten so much wealth in our society. We are asking for them also to share in this.

We have proposed that, have we not, I ask the Senator? And has it not been true that the Republican side has been unwilling to ask the richest people in our country to help us reduce the deficit? They will not agree to any revenues. I ask my friend from New York, is that not the case?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Emily Boydston and Kevin Paulsen of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's proceedings.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, August 3, 2011, at 10 a.m. in SD-106 to mark-up the following: S. 958, the Children's Hospital GME Support Reauthorization Act of 2011; S. 1094, the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act; and, any nominations cleared for action.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the committee on (202) 224-5375.

Mr. President, July 26, 1990, 21 years ago today, was a great day in our Nation's history. When President George Herbert Walker Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, we could see the future before us, full of possibility and opportunity for people with disabilities. It was one of the proudest days of my legislative career.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is one of the landmark civil rights laws of the 20th century--a long-overdue emancipation proclamation for Americans with disabilities. The ADA has played a huge role in making our country more accessible, in raising the expectations of people with disabilities about what they can hope to achieve at work and in life, and in inspiring the world to view disability issues through the lens of equality and opportunity.

In these times of often bitter political partisanship, it is valuable to remember that passage of the original Americans with Disabilities Act was a robustly bipartisan effort. As chief sponsor of the ADA in the Senate, I worked very closely with Senator Bob Dole and others on both sides of the aisle. We received invaluable support from President George Herbert Walker Bush and key members of his administration, including White House counsel Boyden Gray, Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, and Transportation Secretary Sam Skinner. Other Members of Congress also played critical roles in passing the ADA--first and foremost, Senator Ted Kennedy; but also Senator Orrin Hatch, and Representatives Tony Coelho, Steny Hoyer, Major Owens, and Steve Bartlett.

Before the ADA, life was very different for folks with disabilities in Iowa and across the country. Being an American with a disability meant not being able to ride a bus because there was no lift, not being able to attend a concert or ballgame because there was no accessible seating, and not being able to cross the street in a wheelchair because there were no curb cuts. In short, it meant not being able to work or participate in community life. Discrimination was both commonplace and accepted.

Since then, we have seen amazing progress. The ADA literally transformed the American landscape by requiring that architectural and communications barriers be removed and replaced with accessible features such as ramps, lifts, curb cuts, widening doorways, and closed captioning. More importantly, the ADA gave millions of Americans the opportunity to participate in their communities. We have made substantial progress in advancing the four goals of the ADA--equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency.

But despite this progress, we still have more work to do. One of the critical challenges we still need to address is the persistently low employment rates among Americans with disabilities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than a third of working-age people with disabilities--around 4 million individuals--are currently employed.

This is shameful, and we need to do better. In April, at a disability employment summit, I challenged the employer representatives in the room to work to increase the size of the disability labor force by 1 million individuals by 2015. Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, endorsed this goal and encouraged his colleagues to meet or exceed the 1 million number because ``it's a good thing to do, and it's good for business.''

But if we are going to get serious about growing the size of the disability work force, we need to start by recognizing that people with disabilities have been disproportionately impacted by the bad economy. Compared to the general workforce, in the last 2 years, adults with disabilities have left the labor force at a rate six times the rate of adults without disabilities.

I am committed to doing everything within my power to turn these trends around, and to increase employment opportunities for all individuals with disabilities.

If all of us--Members of Congress, business leaders, employers, and people with disabilities--work together, I believe that we can meet the goal of 1 million new workers with disabilities--and ensure that all individuals with disabilities have real opportunities for employment that meet their goals, interests, and high expectations.

I would like to take a brief moment on this ADA anniversary to remember a leader in the disability community who recently passed away--Max Starkloff.

Max, who acquired his disability at age 21, was a well-known advocate for disability rights, both in his hometown of St. Louis, MO, and nationally.

In the 1970s, while still living in a nursing home, Max founded Paraquad, which became one of the first Centers for Independent Living in this country. Max began his lifetime of advocacy for the rights and independence of people with disabilities long before the ADA, and continued it all the way up until his recent passing.

The examples of his advocacy are too numerous to catalogue, but here are a few examples:

In 1972, he convinced St. Louis officials to install curb cuts in sidewalks.

In 1977, Max's advocacy led to the use of lift-equipped buses in the St. Louis metro area.

In 1979, Max helped to integrate accessible design in an apartment complex that he and Paraquad opened in St. Louis, including counters that could be moved up and down to accommodate wheelchairs, wide doorways, and stoves that could be used by individuals with limited mobility.

Max, and his wife Colleen, worked tirelessly for the passage of the ADA in 1990.

In 1997, Max's advocacy over a two year period resulted in the St. Louis Zoo making their facilities accessible for all.

Most recently, Max devoted himself to an issue that is near and dear to my heart--improving employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities.

Although Max Starkloff is no longer with us, his accomplishments and good work live on, and improve the lives of Missourians with disabilities on a daily basis.

So as we celebrate the anniversary of this great civil rights law, we take time to remember the remarkable progress that we have made in the past 21 years.

On July 26, 1990, when he signed ADA into law, President George Herbert Walker Bush spoke with great eloquence. And I will never forget his final words before taking up his pen. He said, ``Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.''

Mr. President, today, that wall is indeed falling. And we must join together, on a bipartisan basis, to continue this progress.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Tuesday, August 2, 2011, at 10 a.m. in SD-430 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Health Reform and Health Insurance Premiums: Empowering States to Serve Consumers.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Nick Bath of the committee staff on (202) 224-7675.