Floor Statements

Madam President, I listened both to Senator Wyden and to the remarks of Senator Blunt. They are both very thoughtful individuals, thoughtful Senators. I enjoy working with both of them.

Madam President, why are Republicans refusing to agree to raise the debt ceiling, something we have done 89 times since the 1930s, including 18 times under President Reagan? I might point out, the Republicans at that time controlled the White House and the Senate and the Democrats controlled the House.

Also, in September of 1987, President Ronald Reagan used his weekly radio address to urge Congress to increase the debt ceiling. He said-- and here it is. I thought it was worth printing out. Here are the exact words of Ronald Reagan spoken in September of 1987:

Unfortunately, Congress consistently brings the Government

to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This

brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and

those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits.

Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in

financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar. The

United States has a special responsibility to itself and the

world to meet its obligations.

I didn't put it on here, but President Reagan went on:

It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability

and credibility--two things that set us apart from the rest

of the world.

Today, so many of our friends on the other side, Republicans, constantly invoke Ronald Reagan as a role model, almost as a kind of a patron saint. I wish they would heed his words and what he said in September of 1987.

I also remind my colleagues when President Reagan realized that his 1981 tax cuts were resulting in large deficits, he turned right around and supported corrective income tax increases in 1982 and 1984. That is right, President Reagan supported income tax increases in 1982 and 1984. In stark contrast to President Reagan's example, today Republicans reject any compromise that requires raising any new revenues from the wealthy.

One of the things we are talking about is eliminating tax expenditures. Those are special interest tax breaks that even Senator Coburn, on the Republican side, described as ``corporate welfare.'' As the distinguished chair of the Budget Committee said in his remarks earlier today, Senator Conrad pointed out that tax expenditures now total more than $1 trillion, more than all of our discretionary appropriations in the Federal budget.

Here is the difference. The discretionary appropriations for the most part go out for programs such as health, education, research, transportation, security, police, the judiciary--it goes out for that. What do tax expenditures go out for? They go out to support the wealthy. Here is why I say that. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans get 26 percent of the benefits from these tax expenditures. That is what Senator Conrad pointed out this morning.

Many of our Republican friends are perfectly willing, indeed eager, to slash Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, education, other programs that undergird the middle class. But they have made it clear they would rather default on the debt than agree to a compromise that requires shared sacrifice from the most privileged people in this country.

The legislation before us, which is called cut, cap, and balance, and which should be more fairly described, as Senator Conrad and others have said, as cut, cap, and kill Medicare, this bill that is before us now would enshrine in the Constitution a requirement that two-thirds supermajorities in both the House and Senate vote to raise revenues. Fifty-one percent could cut spending but it would take two-thirds to raise any revenues.

What does that mean? It means as a practical matter that it would permanently lock in the benefits of the current tax breaks for the wealthy, such as the outrageous 15-percent tax rate for hedge fund billionaires, and by building a firewall to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, this legislation would shift even more of the burden of deficit reduction onto the backs of middle-class Americans. Really, it should be cut, cap, and kill Medicare. That is what it is all about.

Let me take this a step further. In this bill before us that was passed over here from the House, it would cap Federal expenditures at 18 percent of GDP. Where did they get that number? Is that an arbitrary number? Why isn't that 18.5? Why isn't it 19? Why is it 18? I will tell you why. That number has a purpose. The last time Federal spending was at 18 percent of GDP was in 1966, right before Medicare kicked in and started expanding. So, guess what. They want to roll it back to a point in time before we had Medicare. This assault, now, on Medicare comes on the heels of another Republican assault on Medicare. You remember the Republican budget, the so-called Ryan budget. What was its centerpiece? A plan to dismantle Medicare, replace it with a voucher system that would require seniors to spend $6,400 additional out of pocket for Medicare every year. It was basically the dismantling of Medicare, turning it into a voucher system. That was the Republican budget.

So now we have a two-front assault on Medicare by Republicans. One is the Ryan budget, kind of a frontal assault, if you will, to dismantle it, turn it into a voucher system, and now we have the so-called balanced budget amendment that takes an indirect backdoor approach. It would simply defund Medicare. It would put the Federal Government in a fiscal straitjacket and allow it to spend no more than we did in the mid 1960s, before Medicare started. That is why it is at 18 percent.

I would say this legislation before us is also a direct assault on Social Security, the bedrock of our American retirement system. It is vitally important to the middle class of America, to ensure that seniors are able to enjoy their retirement years without falling into poverty or moving in with their kids. Social Security's modest benefit, around $14,000 a year now, has become the biggest source of retirement income for two out of three retired Americans.

I am glad to.

I think my friend from Ohio put his finger on it. Of course it is. It is a backdoor approach. We all want to have surpluses. We don't want to have deficit spending. So it sounds good: We will balance the budget. Most people say that sounds like a good idea, let's do that, without looking behind this cap they put in of this 18 percent. Eighteen percent is a number picked by the Republicans because that would take us back to where we were in 1966, before Medicare kicked in. It would throttle it, a backdoor approach as a way of defunding Medicare and also as

a way of getting at Social Security, moving it to privatization, which the Republicans never have given up on.

They started under Gingrich. My friend is right. I remember them talking about privatizing Social Security. They have never given up on it. They cannot do it frontally but they are trying to do it through the back door.

Another thing we ought to think about, I say to the Senator, is this: What the Republicans are saying--there are a lot of Republicans who do not care if we default. They don't care if we default. In fact, Michelle Bachmann, Congresswoman Bachmann--who is one of their frontrunners for the Presidency--said she would never vote to increase the debt ceiling no matter the circumstances. As President Reagan said in 1987, it would mean that ``those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits'' wouldn't get their Social Security checks, and that is exactly right.

People have to think about this. If we default, that means all the people who have put their money into Social Security in the past, what we are saying is you may have put your money in there and guess what. We are not going to pay you. Is that what we want to do as a country? Social Security is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government--more than anything than Wall Street has ever gotten. Wall Street can go under. The Senator is right, if we had put Social Security in the stock market it would be in the toilet now. But we put it into U.S. Government bonds because it is backed with the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. That is why we have to support Social Security. That is why we can't support this cockamamie scheme they are trying to do here.

I thank my friend Ohio for pointing those things out. It is a backdoor assault on Medicare and on Social Security. People are saying: Well, Social Security--we have to shore up Social Security. It is sound for about the next 20-some years, but looking ahead, yes, we should shore up Social Security. One good way to do it is to raise the cap on Social Security taxes. Well, right now the cap is $106,800 a year. What does that mean? That means if you make up to $106,000 a year, you pay into Social Security on every dollar you earn. If you make over that, you don't. Well, let me put it another way. If you make $50,000 a year, you pay on every dollar you earn into Social Security. If you make $500,000 a year, you only pay on every 20 cents of every dollar you earn into Social Security. Why is that fair? Why is that fair that someone who makes $50,000 a year pays on every dime they earn, every dollar they earn, but someone who makes $500,000 a year only pays 20 cents on the dollar? If you want to shore up Social Security, raise the cap on payroll taxes. Raise the cap. That is something no one is talking about. What are they talking about? Cut benefits. Cut the benefits. Well, we don't have to cut Social Security benefits in any way. We just have to make it fairer in terms of how we raise the payroll taxes.

As I said earlier, the bill before us would require a two-thirds vote before we could even change that. So if we wanted to raise the cap on payroll taxes on Social Security, it would require a two-thirds vote. That means we would never get it done. That means, yes, at some point we would probably have to start reducing Social Security benefits. Well, again, as the Senator from Ohio pointed out, this is a backdoor approach to dismantling Social Security.

Republicans are rejecting any notion of shared sacrifice. They demand we dismantle Medicare, slash Social Security, slash education, cut infrastructure--all those things that undergird the middle class. They shred the safety net for the most vulnerable people in our society, as Senator Wyden pointed out earlier, but they insist on shielding the wealthiest people in our society from even contributing $1 to the mess we are in.

Lastly, why are so many people here--to pick up on what Senator Wyden said earlier--obsessed with deficit reduction to the exclusion of the single largest priority we should have in this country: putting people back to work. That is the most urgent deficit we have--the jobs deficit. Senator Wyden spoke eloquently about that.

My friend from Missouri, Senator Blunt, talked about that too. He talked about private sector employment. Well, something has to happen to get that moving. It is not giving more tax breaks to the wealthy. The old trickle-down theory, we tried that and it never worked. All these big tax cuts we gave to the wealthy happened under George Bush and a Republican Congress. Look at the mess it got us into. We have been losing jobs for the last several years. Our jobs have been going overseas. It put us in a huge budget deficit.

One of the things we need to do now is not to turn a chainsaw on ourselves but to recognize that the Federal Government can be a powerful force for stimulating the private sector. Again, one of the things I think we need to do is to put more money into the infrastructure of this country. We need to rebuild our roads, our highways and bridges, and our sewer and water systems. We have hundreds of billions of dollars needed to remodel and upgrade our schools all over America. We need a new electric grid, a smart grid. We need to be putting more into green energy so we won't be importing so much oil into this country. There is only one place that has the power to focus on that in a large, comprehensive way, and that is the Federal Government. But then people say: We can't do that. We can't afford it. We don't have any money. Well, they are right.

So there are two ways we can get these wheels of our economy going again: We can either borrow the money or we can raise the revenue. I would prefer that we raised the revenue. There is plenty of it out there. The businesses in America are sitting on, I have heard, anywhere from $1 trillion to $2 trillion that they are not investing. Well, if they are not investing it, I know where to invest it. Let's put it out there rebuilding the infrastructure of America.

Now, that is not the government doing the work; it is simply the government providing the input so that the private sector can go to work. It is not government workers out there who would be building the roads, bridges, highways, remodeling our schools, and rebuilding the new electric grid. No, this is the private sector doing it, but we can marshal the forces from the Federal Government, marshal the power to focus the funds in that direction to rebuild America, to make it a more energy efficient, a better educated, a more innovative, technologically competent future for our kids and grandkids. Once we start doing that, then other elements of the private sector will take off because they will see we have made a commitment to the future, the growth of this country--not a dismantling, not a withdrawing, not a shrinking, but, as Senator Wyden said, a growth. Once the private sector sees we have made a national commitment to growth, they will start investing.

How many times do we have to learn that the investment we have made in infrastructure has spun off into all kinds of private sector entrepreneurship and jobs and new businesses or research, the money we have put into research and how that stimulates the private sector?

How many times have you heard this old Republican line--I hear it all time--the government doesn't create wealth, it consumes wealth. I hear that all the time. Well, that is nonsense.

Just about a month ago, I had a hearing before my committee, the HELP Committee, which has jurisdiction over the National Institutes of Health. We

had the National Institutes of Health here, and Francis Collins, who is now the Director of it, brought us up to date on what the NIH is doing. He pointed out something very interesting. Some 20 years ago, we began to invest taxpayer money--your money, taxpayer dollars--into something called mapping and sequencing the human gene. It was called the Human Genome Project. It became the Human Genome Institute at NIH. After 12 years, they finished the process of mapping and sequencing the human genome.

The Battelle Institute--a research institute that is privately owned, not government, based in Ohio--did a study of what happened because of that. We invested $3.8 billion in mapping and sequencing the human gene--$3.8 billion. The Battelle Institute said: In the last 8 to 10 years, that $3.8 billion of taxpayer money invested in research resulted in over $790 billion of private sector investment. Let me say that again: $3.8 billion of taxpayer money resulted in $790 billion of private sector investment. Tell me again that the government can't create wealth. Of course, it can because it can marshal the kinds of resources that this sector or that sector can't do. No private entity could have mapped and sequenced the human genome. Well, they probably could have, but it would have taken 40 or 50 years to do it. It took the massive power of the Federal Government to get it done, and in a short period of time.

So, again, this is what we ought to be thinking about: How do we create jobs? How do we put people back to work? I say it is by making sure we have the revenue to invest. We can invest in our infrastructure. I don't mean just the physical infrastructure, I mean also the human infrastructure. That means education and job training.

I just saw a figure the other day. This year, we are spending--of the taxpayer money--$14 billion training Iraqi and Afghanistan security forces. That is for training, $14 billion this year. Yet here in America, for all of our job-training and retraining programs for the entire country--all job-training programs--we are spending less than $10 billion. Do you think the American people think that is wise? Do you think they don't know this? There is $14 billion going to Iraq and Afghanistan to train their security forces while less than $10 billion is going to retrain our workforce for jobs of the future.

Well, I see others have come to the floor, so I will wrap this up.

Deficit reduction is important--I am not saying it isn't--but it is not the single most important thing right now. The single most important thing is to put people back to work. As Senator Wyden said, that will start to create the demand. It will spur more private investment as the Federal Government begins to invest in the future of this country. That is where we ought to be focusing. Once we get the wheels going again, once we get people back to work and the economy starts to grow, that is when we start to reduce the deficit. To just focus on deficit reduction right now to the exclusion of putting people back to work reminds me of when doctors used to put leeches on people who were ill. It only made them more ill because it drained more blood out of their system. And most times it proved fatal, as it did to our first President, George Washington. Our urgent, No. 1 priority must be to create jobs and put people back to work. We shouldn't just turn a chainsaw on ourselves.

I look at this Republican cut, cap, and kill Medicare proposal we have before us, and what I see is a budget predicated on fatalism-- fatalism and fear of the future. We need a budget that is predicated on hope and aspiration, of putting our people back to work.

So put the ideology aside. Come together in a spirit of compromise for the good of this country to have a balanced package--balanced-- spending cuts that will take place in the mid-and outer ranges of our years and revenue increases now so we can take that money and start putting people back to work rebuilding both the human infrastructure and the physical infrastructure of this country.

I ask unanimous consent that the time from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. on the motion to proceed to H.R. 2560 be equally divided between the majority leader and the Republican leader or their designee and that Senators be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, throughout my career in public service I have focused on ensuring that each and every child with a disability has a right to a good education. To this end, I have fought tirelessly to safeguard the rights of children with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, the landmark legislation that has been improving the educational outcomes of millions of students across the nation since 1975 through the principles of inclusion and equality. When Congress passed IDEA with strong bipartisan support, we understood that our commitment to provide high-quality educational opportunities and serve the needs of students with disabilities in our classrooms entailed excess costs compared to other students, which would have a significant financial impact on States and school districts. As a result, Congress committed to cover up to 40 percent of the excess cost of educating students with disabilities; however, we have failed to deliver on that promise and the law has been greatly underfunded. This is why I am pleased to introduce the IDEA Full Funding Act, with my colleagues Richard Durbin, Frank Lautenberg, Richard Blumenthal, Patty Murray, Sheldon Whitehouse, Patrick Leahy, Michael Bennet, Al Franken, Barbara Mikulski, Jack Reed, Jeanne Shaheen, Tim Johnson, and Mark Begich, which will meet the full Federal commitment at no additional cost to taxpayers. Given the current financial difficulties that many State and local governments are facing, this legislation is more essential than ever for ensuring that students with disabilities get the high-quality education and services they need to fulfill their potential.

Since the enactment of IDEA, students with disabilities across the United States have made tremendous progress. Today, over 6.6 million students receive special education services designed to meet their individual needs. Mr. President, 95 percent of students with disabilities attend a neighborhood school, and almost \2/3\ of those spend at least 80 percent of their day in the regular school environment. Nearly 350,000 infants and toddlers receive early intervention services. Almost 6 out of 10 students with disabilities graduate high school with a regular diploma--twice the percentage of 25 years ago. Moreover, approximately half of students with disabilities enroll in postsecondary education. We must do our best to continue this progress and make good on a 36-year-old promise because we still have a long way to go: students with disabilities who graduate from high school have an employment rate that is less than half the employment rate of the general population.

Today, the Federal Government provides about 16 percent of special education costs or less than half of the committed level of 40 percent. In the current fiscal year, this means that Federal funds are almost $24 billion short, which forces States and school districts to make up the Federal shortfall at a time when they are cash strapped. The IDEA Full Funding Act will fully fund the Federal commitment to IDEA by gradually increasing the Federal Government's share of the excess costs of educating students with disabilities to its committed level over 10 years. Specifically, this legislation will increase the Federal dollars appropriated from $11.5 billion in fiscal year 2011 to $35.3 billion in fiscal year 2021.

By making good on our 36-year-old promise, which has a history of bipartisan support, we will supply schools with the necessary funding to enhance the quality and range of services available to students with disabilities. The funding increase will help to raise salaries for teachers and related services personnel, thereby allowing districts to enhance recruitment and retention possibilities, and will support school districts in increasing graduation rates and postsecondary enrollment rates of students with disabilities.

In these difficult times, it is essential for Congress to provide these revenues without increasing the deficit. The IDEA Full Funding Act is fully paid for by doubling the tax on cigarettes and small cigars and setting equivalent increases to other tobacco products. In addition to the benefit of offsetting the cost of fully funding IDEA, these tax provisions will help an estimated 1 million Americans reduce their tobacco use or quit altogether and prevent an estimated 2.2 million children from taking up smoking in the first place. The stakes are incredibly high: smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined, with thousands more dying from spit tobacco use. Every day at least 1,000 children become new regular, daily smokers in the U.S. and of those, almost a third will ultimately die from it. Furthermore, every year Americans incur the cost of $96 billion in public and private health care expenditures caused by smoking, including an estimated $54.6 billion in Federal Medicare and Medicaid Federal expenditures. Overall, this legislation, which I hope will enjoy bipartisan support, will impact children's lives in important ways, both by improving the educational outcomes of students with disabilities and by improving their health through smoking prevention.

Mr. President, throughout my career in public service I have focused on ensuring that each and every child with a disability has a right to a good education. To this end, I have fought tirelessly to safeguard the rights of children with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, the landmark legislation that has been improving the educational outcomes of millions of students across the nation since 1975 through the principles of inclusion and equality. When Congress passed IDEA with strong bipartisan support, we understood that our commitment to provide high-quality educational opportunities and serve the needs of students with disabilities in our classrooms entailed excess costs compared to other students, which would have a significant financial impact on States and school districts. As a result, Congress committed to cover up to 40 percent of the excess cost of educating students with disabilities; however, we have failed to deliver on that promise and the law has been greatly underfunded. This is why I am pleased to introduce the IDEA Full Funding Act, with my colleagues Richard Durbin, Frank Lautenberg, Richard Blumenthal, Patty Murray, Sheldon Whitehouse, Patrick Leahy, Michael Bennet, Al Franken, Barbara Mikulski, Jack Reed, Jeanne Shaheen, Tim Johnson, and Mark Begich, which will meet the full Federal commitment at no additional cost to taxpayers. Given the current financial difficulties that many State and local governments are facing, this legislation is more essential than ever for ensuring that students with disabilities get the high-quality education and services they need to fulfill their potential.

Since the enactment of IDEA, students with disabilities across the United States have made tremendous progress. Today, over 6.6 million students receive special education services designed to meet their individual needs. Mr. President, 95 percent of students with disabilities attend a neighborhood school, and almost \2/3\ of those spend at least 80 percent of their day in the regular school environment. Nearly 350,000 infants and toddlers receive early intervention services. Almost 6 out of 10 students with disabilities graduate high school with a regular diploma--twice the percentage of 25 years ago. Moreover, approximately half of students with disabilities enroll in postsecondary education. We must do our best to continue this progress and make good on a 36-year-old promise because we still have a long way to go: students with disabilities who graduate from high school have an employment rate that is less than half the employment rate of the general population.

Today, the Federal Government provides about 16 percent of special education costs or less than half of the committed level of 40 percent. In the current fiscal year, this means that Federal funds are almost $24 billion short, which forces States and school districts to make up the Federal shortfall at a time when they are cash strapped. The IDEA Full Funding Act will fully fund the Federal commitment to IDEA by gradually increasing the Federal Government's share of the excess costs of educating students with disabilities to its committed level over 10 years. Specifically, this legislation will increase the Federal dollars appropriated from $11.5 billion in fiscal year 2011 to $35.3 billion in fiscal year 2021.

By making good on our 36-year-old promise, which has a history of bipartisan support, we will supply schools with the necessary funding to enhance the quality and range of services available to students with disabilities. The funding increase will help to raise salaries for teachers and related services personnel, thereby allowing districts to enhance recruitment and retention possibilities, and will support school districts in increasing graduation rates and postsecondary enrollment rates of students with disabilities.

In these difficult times, it is essential for Congress to provide these revenues without increasing the deficit. The IDEA Full Funding Act is fully paid for by doubling the tax on cigarettes and small cigars and setting equivalent increases to other tobacco products. In addition to the benefit of offsetting the cost of fully funding IDEA, these tax provisions will help an estimated 1 million Americans reduce their tobacco use or quit altogether and prevent an estimated 2.2 million children from taking up smoking in the first place. The stakes are incredibly high: smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined, with thousands more dying from spit tobacco use. Every day at least 1,000 children become new regular, daily smokers in the U.S. and of those, almost a third will ultimately die from it. Furthermore, every year Americans incur the cost of $96 billion in public and private health care expenditures caused by smoking, including an estimated $54.6 billion in Federal Medicare and Medicaid Federal expenditures. Overall, this legislation, which I hope will enjoy bipartisan support, will impact children's lives in important ways, both by improving the educational outcomes of students with disabilities and by improving their health through smoking prevention.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, July 28, 2011, at 9:45 a.m. in SD-430 to conduct a hearing entitled ``FDA User Fees: Advancing Public Health.''

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

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Greg Greubel of my staff be granted the privilege of the floor 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, July 27, 2011, at 10 a.m. in SD-430 to mark-up the following: S. 958, the Children's Hospital GME Support Reauthorization

Mr. President, I would like to follow up a little bit on what the Senator from New Hampshire just spoke about; that is, the absurdity, the absolute absurdity of what is going on in Washington today.

Our Nation used to have a two-party system in this country, but it is increasingly apparent that one of our two parties has morphed--has morphed--into some kind of a quasi-religion driven by one ideology: preserving and expanding tax breaks for the wealthy and for big corporations.

To that end, many Republicans in Congress are perfectly willing to push the United States of America into defaulting on its debt obligations with dire economic consequences. This is a very dangerous detour in our Nation's political and economic life. But just as dangerous, just as dangerous as the prospect of a default on our debt obligations is the Republican's determination to defund and dismantle as much of the Federal Government as possible. To that end, they are demanding deep, Draconian cuts to Federal funding and investment at a time when unemployment is already sky high and rising, and when our economy remains fragile.

To justify these deep cuts, Republicans with this new ideology have articulated an absurd economic theory--absolutely absurd. They claim slashing Federal funding and investments by trillions of dollars will somehow magically create jobs.

I don't know of any Main Street economist, or anybody with an ounce of common sense, who agrees with this bizarre theory. To the contrary, economists warn us that this is absolutely the wrong time to be slashing Federal investments. Why? For the obvious reason that deep, short-term cuts to Federal spending will dramatically reduce demand in the economy, thus reducing employment even further.

Already this year, cuts to government spending at the State and local levels have destroyed an estimated 500,000 public sector jobs, and that goes along with an undetermined number of private-sector jobs. Economists understand that terminating the jobs of teachers, police officers, and other essential public employees has a negative impact on the economy just as eliminating private-sector jobs do. Nonetheless, as if they live in kind of a parallel, upside down universe, Republicans insist that slashing Federal funding and investment will create

jobs. Let's test that theory in one area of Federal investment. Let's take transportation funding. Everybody understands that our transportation infrastructure is woefully inadequate. It is in a state of increasing overload and disrepair. Most people understand that ramping up investments in modernizing our highways, bridges, and public transit systems would strengthen our economy and create millions of jobs. These are the veins and arteries of our commerce.

What have the Republicans in the House proposed? Last week, the Republican leader put forward a new transportation authorization bill that would slash current investments in transportation by more than one-third--a one-third cut in transportation. Will this create jobs, as the Republicans claim? Of course not. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee estimates that the House bill would destroy more than 490,000 highway construction jobs and close to 100,000 transit-related jobs--mass transit.

This is pure folly. This is a classic example of what happens when ideological obsessions cause Members of Congress to be blind to practical, commonsense realities.

I have repeatedly come to the floor to advocate for a balanced approach to bringing deficits under control, one that includes some spending cuts and revenue increases. At the same time, economists warn us that we need a deficit reduction plan that defers the lion's share of spending cuts and tax increases for several years, allowing our economy to recover before the negative impacts are felt.

I must also ask: Why are we proposing to slash all this funding for highways, schools, and infrastructure here at home, while we continue to spend untold billions of dollars to build highways, schools, and infrastructure in Afghanistan? A lot of people ask me: Senator Harkin, you say you are willing to cut spending. Where? Let's start here, with Afghanistan and Iraq. We are spending $168 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan this year alone. This year--fiscal year 2011--we are spending more than $13 billion to train the Iraqi and Afghan security forces--$13 billion. OK. What did we spend in America to retrain our workers so they can get new jobs? Less than $10 billion. We are spending more money to train Afghan and Iraqi security forces than we are to retrain our own workers all over America, at a time when 24 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Yet we are spending $168 billion a year on Afghanistan and Iraq. I applaud the President for his actions, but quite frankly, they don't go far enough. The President should have a faster timeframe for our troops to get out of Afghanistan. I have said that publicly many times. If we want to save some money, save that $1 million it costs to keep one soldier in Afghanistan, get them back here. We went to Afghanistan to get the Taliban out, get al-Qaida out, and get Osama bin Laden. We got Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida is no longer in Afghanistan, and the Taliban is gone. Why are we still there? Why are we still spending about $14 billion a month in Afghanistan?

Again, we need a balanced approach. Spending cuts alone won't do the job. I think the Republicans have just proved this. The Republicans have proved that spending cuts alone will not get the job done. Why do I say that? Look at the so-called Ryan budget. It dismantles Medicare, guts Medicaid, and makes severe cuts across the Federal budget. Yet it still adds trillions of dollars to the deficit for years to come-- largely because it refuses to touch tax breaks for the well-to-do or to raise other revenues from corporations.

The Republicans have said they don't want to raise taxes on the so- called job creators. They don't want to raise taxes on job creators. To call trust fund millionaires and Wall Street money manipulators ``job creators'' is laughable. Meanwhile, to call many large corporations in the United States ``job creators'' is increasingly questionable.

Actually, in one respect, you can indeed argue that America's big brandname corporations--GE, Microsoft, and so on--are ``job creators.'' The problem is that they are not creating many jobs here in the United States. They are creating jobs overseas and eliminating them here. The U.S. Commerce Department data shows that during the 2000s, U.S. companies--multinational companies--cut their workforce here at home by 2.9 million, and they increased their workforce overseas by 2.4 million. They are creating jobs, all right--just not here in America. To add insult to injury, there are provisions in the United States Tax Code that promote this kind of behavior--the kinds of tax breaks that Republicans insist on preserving.

They don't want to tax job creators. Yet we have shown that these big multinationals are creating jobs overseas. I wish to--and I am sure the occupant of the chair would also--close some of those loopholes so there is not a tax benefit to shipping jobs overseas. The Republicans say, no, they don't want to do that.

In the month of May, U.S. trade deficit soared to more than $50 billion--the highest level in nearly 3 years--in 1 month. In May, our trade deficit--out of that $50 billion--for one country, China, was a staggering $25 billion. You might say, what does that mean? Those figures represent a transfer of millions of jobs and billions in wages from the United States to China or other countries abroad. We need to seriously examine our trade and tax policies, which continually send our jobs and wages overseas. We need to stop bowing before the sacrosanct altar of ``free trade'' as if it doesn't even warrant our examination. Instead, we need to ask how we can make our trade policy work for the middle class--for instance, by defending America's right to oppose currency manipulation and abusive trade practices.

We ought to talk about fair trade, fair trade, fair trade, not free trade, free trade, free trade. You see where free trade gets us if we don't stand up to other countries that manipulate their currencies, such as China, where we are shipping all our jobs and money.

As I have said, our fragile economy is at the point of maximum danger. This Congress is at a historic decision point with regard to raising the debt ceiling and bringing deficits under control. However, as we have seen played out in the press, in the media, standing in the way of a rational, reasonable compromise is congressional Republicans' ideological obsession with preserving tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires at any and all costs. They are threatening to force us to default on the national debt.

I will close with this. I heard our distinguished minority leader, the Senator from Kentucky, say this was now Obama's economy and the problems we have are because of Obama. He has been President for almost 3 years--about 2\1/2\ years now. Therefore, he says he owns that. You know, this is kind of an interesting world we are living in. We have a debt ceiling, and why has the debt gone up? Because we borrowed money-- a lot of money. The Congressional Budget Office says the debt we have today comes from. Remember, 10 years ago, we had a surplus, a budget surplus, one of the largest in our Nation's history left after President Clinton. Then President Bush comes into office, the Republicans take over the House and Senate, and they ram through a massive tax cut, which takes the surpluses and gives them mostly to the wealthy in our country. Then 9/11 happened and we entered into two wars--totally unpaid for--and we borrow it from China, or wherever, to pay for two wars.

Then we had a Medicare drug prescription benefit--most of which benefits go to the drug companies, by the way--and we didn't pay for that. We borrowed money for that also. So the debt we are grappling with today is because of policies enacted by a Republican President and a Republican Congress. They ran up the debt. Now they don't want to pay for it. This is not President Obama's debt at all. This is what happens when you have almost 8 or 9 years of uninterrupted borrowing and spending by President Bush and the Republican Congress. This is their debt.

Again, I call upon reasonable, responsible Republicans to come forward and give up on this ideological obsession, this new theology that says: no tax reform, no raising of revenues from anyone, even those who can afford it the most.

I remain an optimist. It is not too late for reason to prevail. We have heard loudly and clearly from the extremists and ideologs, who would bring

down our economic house rather than agree to any compromise. Now it is time for decent, patriotic Americans to speak up and say enough. We can and must come together around a balanced plan to bring our deficits under control, and we must uphold the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

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

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, July 20, 2011, at 10 a.m. in SD-430 to mark up the following: S. 958, the Children's Hospital GME Support Reauthorization

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, July 21, 2011, at 2 p.m. to conduct an oversight roundtable hearing entitled ``Improving For-Profit Higher Education: A Roundtable Discussion of Policy Solutions.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Beth Stein on (202) 224-6403.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jordana Signer, Adi Sehic, and Tyler Smith 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 open session on Thursday, July 14, 2011, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Lessons From the Field: Learning From What Works for Employment for Persons with Disabilities.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Andrew Imparato at (202) 228-3453.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Tuesday, July 12, 2011, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Power of Pensions: Building a Strong Middle Class and Strong Economy''.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Michael Kreps of the committee staff on (202) 224-5441.

committee on health, education, labor and pensions

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, July 13, 2011, at 10 a.m. to conduct a mark-up of the following: S. 958, the Children's Hospital GME Support Reauthorization

Madam President, just listening to my good friend from Utah speaking--and he is a good friend of mine--and others who have been speaking for the last half hour, memories are short, very short--I mean very short. Forget about the attention span. Memories are very short. How soon we forget that at the end of the Clinton years, after we had worked with President Clinton to pass measures that brought in more revenues that kept our spending under control, we had 4 years of balanced budgets--4 years--not only of balanced budgets but budget surpluses.

When President Clinton left office, he left George W. Bush the biggest surplus ever in our history. CBO said if we just continued on with the policies we had, we would have paid off the national debt by 2010. But what did the Republicans do? They came riding into town in 2001. They got the White House. They got the Senate. They got the House. What did they do? They took that surplus we had and said: Hey, we have to give this to the wealthy. We have to have tax cuts for the wealthiest in our society. That is what they did. How did they do it? They snuck it through on something called reconciliation--a budget measure which means we cannot filibuster it, and it only takes 50 votes. That is what the Republicans did. They squandered it--squandered it--to give more to the wealthiest in our society. Look what has happened since then.

Then we had two unpaid-for wars. George Bush got us in those wars. Don't pay for them; we will just borrow it from China, borrow it from other countries. Then a new prescription drug benefit, unpaid for. We will just borrow more money.

Now these same Republicans who ran up the deficit, squandered the surplus, are now saying we have to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class. We have to balance the budget on those who already are hurting so much. But, no, we cannot raise revenues on the wealthy. Oh, no. No, no, we cannot do that.

As I said, memories are short. They all want a balanced budget amendment now. Why don't we do what we did under the Clinton years? Let's have the same kind of economic policies we had then? Then we will have balanced budgets. But, no, not my Republican friends. No. They say they want to limit government spending to 18 percent of GDP. I would like to ask: Where does that number come from? Why is it 18 percent? Why isn't it 18.5 percent? Why isn't it 17.75 percent? Why isn't it 19.23 percent? Where does 18 percent come from?

Let me tell you where this comes from. The last time the Federal Government was 18 percent of GDP spending was 1967, before Medicare got underway. So read between the lines what the Republicans are saying: If they could get that down to 18 percent, they can do away with Medicare, which is what they want to do anyway. The Republicans want to do away with Medicare. If we can get the Federal Government's role of spending down to 18 percent, we are back where we were in 1967. Guess what. We can get rid of Medicare and turn it back over to the private insurance companies. That is what the Ryan budget did. That is what the Republican budget did. That is what they all voted for.

So when they tell us about 18 percent of GDP, think Medicare. Think Medicare. Goodbye Medicare. That is what they are after.

Madam President, we have reached a point of maximum danger--maximum danger--in our fragile economic recovery. We are mired with the most protracted period of joblessness since the Great Depression. Businesses are reluctant to invest and hire for the simple reason there is not sufficient demand for goods and services, largely because--why--so many people are unemployed, 20 million. People are mired in debt. Even those who are working are insecure about their employment. So for most Americans in the middle class and lower income, this is still a deep recession.

I have come to the floor repeatedly in recent weeks to warn against the folly--the folly--of Washington's current obsession with making immediate Draconian cuts to the Federal budget, something that by its very nature will drain demand, reduce growth, and destroy jobs.

The Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, warned just last week:

In light of the weakness of the recovery, it would be best

not to have a sudden and sharp fiscal consolidation in the

very near term. It would be a negative for growth.

Here in the Washington bubble, many--especially those on the opposite side of the aisle--have persuaded themselves that the biggest issue is the budget deficit. But outside the beltway, outside Washington, Americans are most concerned with a far more urgent deficit: the jobs deficit.

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

Our Republican friends reject the very possibility that the Federal Government can act to spur economic growth, boost competitiveness, and create good middle-class jobs. That is their ideological position, and they are sticking to it, even in the face of contrary facts. It is based on a profound misreading or perhaps nonreading of American history.

As Americans, we pride ourselves on our robust free enterprise system. But 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 to the plate. We have acted decisively to spur economic growth, foster innovation, and create jobs.

So let's go back. Let's do a little analysis of our history.

The Founding Fathers are very much in vogue these days, so let's go back to that time. Let's go back to Alexander Hamilton, a hero of the Revolutionary War, our first Treasury Secretary. In 1791 Hamilton presented the Congress the landmark report on manufacturers, a set of policies designed to strengthen our new economy.

His plan was adopted by Congress. It included tariffs to raise revenue and to protect our domestic manufacturing base. Hamilton's plan was a historic success. It was echoed several decades later by Congressman Henry Clay's famous ``American System.'' In the burst of nationalism following the War of 1812, Clay advocated for major new Federal investments in infrastructure. Of course, at that time he did not call it infrastructure, he called it internal improvements.

Clay led the Congress in raising new revenues to finance subsidies for roads, canals, bridges, and projects designed to expand commerce and knit the Nation together. One of those internal improvements was the Cumberland Road, our first truly national road. It began in Maryland and stretched over the Alleghenies more than 600 miles to Illinois. It was Henry Clay of Kentucky and other westerners who pushed to extend the road from Wheeling, WV, to Columbus, OH.

But, again, go back and read your history. Clay was bitterly opposed by those who said the Federal Government could not afford to build the roads and canals and had no business doing so. It sounds familiar to what I am hearing on the other side of the aisle today. History shows that the naysayers were wrong on all counts.

The Cumberland Road opened the West to settlers and commerce and development. Of course, the most visionary 19th century advocate of Federal investments to spur economic growth was a Republican, the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln.

Despite the disruption of the Civil War, Lincoln insisted on moving the Nation forward through bold Federal investments and initiatives. In 1862 he signed the Pacific Railway Act, authorizing huge Federal land grants to finance construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, one of the great technological feats of the 19th century. To produce the rails in America rather than shipping them in from England, he enacted a steep tariff on foreign steel in order to jump-start the American steel industry.

Lincoln did much more. He created the Department of Agriculture to do more research, distributed free land to

farmers, and used government agents to promote new farm machinery and agricultural techniques. As a proud graduate of Iowa State University, I know Lincoln also dramatically increased higher education by creating the land-grant college system.

Taken together, these initiatives during Lincoln's Presidency--I remind you, he was doing all of this during the Civil War--had a transformative effect on the U.S. economy. We created new industries, expanded opportunity, and created millions of new jobs. He did this despite the fact that the Federal Government was deeply in debt and running huge deficits. Imagine that. Abraham Lincoln.

These Republicans always go to their Lincoln Day dinners. Why do they not start talking about what Abraham Lincoln did to spur economic growth and create jobs in our country at a time when our Federal Government was in a deficit? It is almost humorous to imagine how the Republicans of today would have reacted to Lincoln's agenda. They would have attacked him, I am sure, as reckless and irresponsible. They would whine that we are broke; we cannot afford to invest in the future. I am sure the tea party contingent in the Republican Party would have demanded that Lincoln be expelled from the Republican Party.

Moving into the 20th century, time and again the Federal Government has acted with boldness and vision to accomplish big things that were simply beyond the capacity of the private sector. 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.

The list is far too long, but I would mention rural electrification, the Civilian Conservation Corps and what they did to plant trees and greenways all over America, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which brought opportunity and power to the deeply impoverished Appalachia, Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, bringing power and water across the Southwest and the Northwest.

Millions of unemployed Americans, including my father--if you come over to my office, I will show you my dad's WPA card, Works Progress Administration. He got a job with dignity, thanks to the Works Progress Administration. They built thousands of infrastructure around our country: roads and dams and schools, bridges, many of which we are still using today eight decades later.

I would point out one project my father worked on: Lake Ahquabi State Park in Iowa, which my father worked on with other WPA people to help build. We are still using it today.

By the end of the Second World War, wartime investments by the Federal Government had created an industrial colossus. FDR and Truman were followed then by a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower. What did he do? Did he pull the plug on all of this? Well, let's look at history.

Eisenhower, a proud Republican, was determined to move America forward. He championed, at a time when the Federal deficits continued into the 1950s from World War II--because the national debt grew so big during World War II, we were still in debt during the 1950s. What did Eisenhower do? Did he say we have to retrench; we cannot do anything? No. He championed one of the greatest public works projects in American history, the construction of the Interstate Highway System.

The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 ensured dedicated Federal funding to build a network today that encompasses over 46,000 miles of highways. A 1996 study of the 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.

Well, you know what. I will bet the tea party contingent of today's Republican Party would probably have tried to run Dwight Eisenhower out of the Republican Party.

In more recent times, the Federal Government has funded and spearheaded scientific discovery and innovation that has had a profound impact on our economy and created millions of high-value jobs.

Now, I know my time is limited. I want to mention a couple. It was the Federal Government--specifically the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, called DARPA--that created the Internet. No, I am sorry, my young friends, it was not Google; and it was not Microsoft, although Bill Gates built a great empire. It was the Federal Government that created the Internet, making possible everything we get from e- mail to social networking. Need I mention tweeting and the World Wide Web? This has revolutionized the way we do business, not only here but around the globe, and has created untold millions of jobs. It was not a private company; it was the Federal Government amassing the money that people pay in taxes to create the Internet.

Federal researchers at this same agency also created the global positioning satellite system, GPS. When you get in your car, you need to know where to go. You follow all of that. You think Garmin invented that? No. But the Garmin company and all of the rest of them--I should not single one out; there are a lot of competitors out there--are making the instruments. They are hiring people. The private sector is doing what it should do. But it was the Federal Government that created the global positioning satellite. It was taxpayers' dollars that put those 24 satellites in orbit and still keep them operating today.

Researchers at NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, have made dozens of technological breakthroughs over the years, everything from microchips to CAT scanner technology. Of course, in a discussion of the Federal Government's role in stimulating the economy, we have to mention the staggering achievements of the National Institutes of Health. More than 80 Nobel Prizes have been awarded for NIH-supported research.

Bear in mind too that unless basic research in biomedical sciences is funded by the Federal Government, most of it simply will not get done. Why? Because it is basic research. It is basic. It may not lead to something. A lot of it leads to dead ends. But the basic research is done. The applied research is built on that. The private sector then comes in, adapts it for drugs and interventions, and we spur the economy and we make people healthier.

The economic impact of NIH has been profound. Take one example, the Human Genome Project, mapping and sequencing the entire human gene. The Federal Government invested $3.8 billion in mapping and sequencing the human gene. Just last month, the Battelle Memorial Institute issued a report on the economic impact of the genomic revolution launched by this project.

Battelle estimates that as of 2010 the return on investment of the project, $3.8 billion; the return on investment total, $796 billion. The project has created an estimated 310,000 jobs and $244 billion in personal income. In 2010 alone, just 1 year, the project generated $67 billion in economic output.

The Federal Government, folks; the Federal Government did that. So in light of these statistics and the historical records I have just cited to the founding of our Republic, it is absurd to claim that the Federal Government cannot play a positive and even a profound role in boosting the economy, in spurring innovation, in creating jobs, and improving the standard of living of our people.

Republicans protest that Federal investments and innovation and research are about the government picking winners and losers. I hear that all the time. The truth is, initiatives such as the Human Genome Project are not about picking winners and losers. That is making all of us winners.

It is about the Federal Government stepping to the plate to undertake big, important national projects that the private sector is simply not equipped to do. At times of crisis such as during the Great Depression, and in the aftermath of the financial meltdown of 2008, the Federal Government has acted boldly to rescue the economy when the private sector was flat on its back and unable to function normally.

The Recovery Act passed by Congress soon after President Obama took office has manifestly succeeded in jump-starting economic activity. Listening to all of my Republican friends, they say the Recovery Act failed. It failed. It failed. Well, according to the Congressional Budget Office, through the

end of 2010 the Recovery Act raised the real inflation-adjusted gross domestic product by as much as 3.5 percent and increased the number of employed Americans by as many as 3.3 million. But today the shot in the arm provided by the Recovery Act is winding down.

Quite frankly, we did not put enough in the Recovery Act to stretch it out for a longer period of time. The economy is still struggling. Our Democratic majority in this body has brought to the floor a series of job-creating bills, but Republicans have filibustered and killed every single one.

So I repeat. Yes, we face a large budget deficit. Yes, we have to address it in the intermediate and long term. In the immediate term we need to confront the jobs deficit. But we also face a deficit of a positive vision--a positive vision. We have failed to meet the challenges of our day with the boldness and the vision that our predecessors summoned in times past.

How much time do I have remaining?

I will just take about 3 more minutes.

Many Republicans are demanding that we permanently hobble the Federal Government, just as our predecessors did not want to build the roads and the highways and the canals in the past.

My friend from Utah had a chart that said ``broke or balanced.'' They claim our Nation is poor and broke. That is not true. That is not true. That negative, defeatist viewpoint is dead wrong. We remain the wealthiest Nation on Earth, with the highest per capita income of any major country on the face of the globe. But we have to act decisively, with the power of the Federal Government to boost the economy, foster innovation, and create good middle-class jobs. That is the most important thing.

Lastly, balanced budget? Let's just do what we did under the Clinton years, in which we had 4 years of balanced budgets and left the biggest surplus in our Nation's history. But the Republicans will not do that because they have a defeatist attitude. We need a more bold vision than what the Republicans bring forward to the American people.

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

Mr. President, because of the heavy fires that are blazing in New Mexico, our colleague Senator Udall cannot be here because he is out there dealing with forest fires. He has an amendment he has filed to S. Res. 116, the bill now before us in the Senate, and on his behalf, I will be calling it up. It is amendment No. 522, and I want to take a couple of minutes to explain the amendment.

Mr. President, basically the amendment is very simple, and I will read it in its entirety:

The second undesignated paragraph of paragraph 2 of rule

XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate is amended to read

as follows:

Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be

brought to a close? And if that question shall be decided in

the affirmative

by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn--except

on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which

case the necessary or affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of

the Senators present and voting--then said measure, motion,

or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished

business, shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion

of all other business until disposed of.

And this is already rule XXII. Here is the part that Senator Udall would amend:

On a nomination to an Executive Branch position requiring

the advise and consent of the Senate, the necessary

affirmative vote shall be a majority of the Senators duly

chosen and sworn.

So the Udall amendment, of which I am a proud cosponsor, would basically say on executive branch nominations that come before the Senate that when debate is brought to a close there would not need to be 60 votes. You could have an affirmative 51 votes and that measure would pass, that nomination would be passed by the Senate. So, therefore, we would not need the supermajority of 60 votes to pass a nominee.

Again, it comes as no surprise to Members of the Senate that Senator Udall and I have worked together to try to reform the rules to reduce to an absolute minimum, if not get rid of entirely, the filibuster. Well, it is obvious we never accomplished that, but it seems to me as we are changing the rules here on changing the policy on how we are going to deal with nominees--and I think this is long overdue--this is the proper time to address this point, that on a nomination to an executive branch, it ought to be 51 votes, not 60 votes. So that is what the amendment does. It basically says on a nomination that it only requires 51 votes to pass the nomination and not 60 votes.

What is the pending business? Is it Coburn amendment 521?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 522.

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

Basically, again, what it repeats on nominations to the executive branch is it would not require 60 votes but only 51 votes of the Senators.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kate Waters, Andrew Brau, and Jayme Wiebold of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's proceedings.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Derek Skinner from Senator Bingaman's office be given the privileges of the floor during the pendency of S. 679, the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act.