[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 136 (Wednesday, October 16, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10553-S10557]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, before the No. 2 Democrat 
retires from the Chamber, I want to congratulate him. He is a tireless 
worker. He is the consummate consensus builder. He is someone who in 
the midst of chaos and fracas calms the waters with the soothing balm 
that gets reasonable people to suddenly understand they can come 
together.
  This agreement on the budget resolution, which contains the 
enforcement provisions of the Budget Act, is another testimony to his 
skill in negotiating, as he does so ably, with the Chairman and the 
ranking Members. So I am delighted. It is fitting this agreement on a 
budget enforcement provision has been agreed to, because of the 
condition of our economy.

  The stock market today has gone down another 220 points. Stocks 
stumbled, slamming the brakes on any kind of rally we might have 
thought was occurring over the last few days. Sales outlook was weak, 
there were disappointing earnings, and it has brought profit jitters 
back into the market.
  Is it any wonder investors, large investors such as pension funds or 
small investors such as the Presiding Officer and myself, with our own 
little hard-earned savings that we invest in the stock market, all 
across this land, indeed, have jitters because of the uncertainty of 
the economy? As a matter of fact, in the last 2 years, stock market 
wealth has been down 35 percent for a $5.7 trillion loss in that 2 
years.
  If anyone doubts this, in January of 2001, all the stock markets had 
a combined asset value of $16.4 trillion. In September of 2002, that 
value went down to $10.7 trillion, a loss of $5.7 trillion. Is it any 
wonder that reduction in stock market value, which is huge--35 percent 
in a year and two-thirds--is a reflection of the feeling of uncertainty 
people have toward the economy, a slumping economy?
  It is one thing that certainly 2 million jobs have been lost since 
January of 2001. In January of 2001, private sector jobs were at 111 
million. In September of 2002, a year and two-thirds later, private 
sector jobs were down to 109.6 million jobs--2 million jobs lost, 
another indicator of the slumping economy.
  It is not as if we did not have a warning. Early last year it became 
clear our economy was slowing down. During our Budget Committee 
hearings on the topic, almost every economic analyst said responsible 
tax cuts could help solve the problem. They said the best way to 
stabilize the economy was to get money into the hands of the people who 
would spend it, those with low-to-moderate incomes. Above all else, we 
were told that whatever we did, we should not pass any tax package that 
would cause long-term fiscal harm.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, we tried to heed those warnings. Last 
year, I supported a tax cut to provide immediate tax relief for all 
families. That tax cut would have made sure every taxpayer, including 
those who pay only payroll taxes--there are a vast number of Americans 
who do not pay income tax because they do not have enough income--that 
monthly payroll tax is deducted from their pay. The tax cut would have 
made sure that every taxpayer would also get a tax cut.
  It would have also reduced the 15-percent income tax rate paid by all 
income-tax payers. It would have reduced that to 10 percent and to a 
permanent reduction. It would have been fair. It would have been 
fiscally responsible, and it would have been economically stimulative. 
But the final version of last year's tax cut was enacted by this 
Chamber. This Senator did not vote for it, and I did not vote for it 
because it did not meet the criteria that the Social Security and 
Medicare trust funds would not be touched now or in the future.
  I remember when I was sworn in as a freshman to the Senate, the talk 
was so uplifting and upbeat about how we had a surplus that was 
projected for 10 years and that we were not going to have to invade the 
Social Security trust fund to pay bills; indeed, that we were going to 
fence it off. We promised that. We were going to fence off the Social 
Security trust fund so that by it remaining untouched, its surpluses 
over the next decade would have paid down most of the national debt, a 
debt that averages out in the range of about $200 billion to $250 
billion a year we pay in interest on the national debt. Just think what 
that savings on interest payments could provide if we had followed 
through on the promises and paid down that national debt, what that 
would have meant to the economy as another indicator that we were 
getting our fiscal house in order.

  The final version of last year's tax cut did not meet that criteria 
of walling off Social Security trust funds.

[[Page S10554]]

Because of the fiscally irresponsible way the bill was drafted, with 
gimmicks such as changing the beginning and ending dates of key tax 
provisions, because of those gimmicks the bill amounted to flawed 
public policy that would, in fact, cost our country much more than the 
$1.35 trillion at which that tax bill was advertised. The true cost of 
that tax bill which advertised at $1.35 trillion, and allowed by the 
budget resolution, over a 10-year period is closer to $2 trillion 
instead of $1.35 trillion. Now we know. The administration-supported 
tax cut plan that we passed last year has a cost that explodes to $250 
billion in deficit in the year 2011 alone.
  Now, after going from record surpluses to real deficits, we are 
seeing just how bad that decision was last year. Now we are 
experiencing the worse market decline since the 1930s, as evidenced by 
the slumping stock market and again the 220-point loss today in the Dow 
Jones Industrial Average.
  The Standard & Poors 500 stock index has lost nearly half of its 
value. In the last 2 years, Americans have seen the markets lose $5.7 
trillion in value. That amounts to $9.5 billion a day in losses in 
value on the stock market.
  Homeowners now are having such a hard time paying bills. Home 
foreclosure rates have reached the highest rate in 30 years. That is 
another indicator. The poverty rate has reached an increased mark for 
the first time in 8 years and 1.3 million more Americans are now 
falling into poverty. Median household incomes have fallen for the 
first time in a decade.

  Another indicator is consumer confidence. Consumer confidence and 
consumer spending have both fallen. Retail sales just took their worst 
drop since November of last year, and consumer sentiment has dropped to 
levels last seen in the fall almost a decade ago, 1993.
  Look at another indicator. The number of Americans without health 
insurance rose by almost 1.5 million, to 41.2 million. In a nation of 
plenty, in a nation where we pride ourselves on the best health care in 
the world, there are 41 million people who do not have health 
insurance. Not only are the low and middle-income class families losing 
income, but because of the escalating price of health care premiums and 
prescription drug costs, they are now also losing their health 
insurance.
  I thank the previous Presiding Officer, my colleague from Minnesota, 
for his personal interest. He is a soul brother in what I am saying, 
and I appreciate it so much. In my immediate past government job before 
having the privilege of coming to the Senate, I was the elected 
insurance commissioner of Florida. I can see the trends of the rising 
health insurance premiums. There are a lot of factors on that. But I 
will tell you, the economy is one big factor. Where it crunches the 
little guy, where it crunches those in the middle-income and lower 
levels of income who do not have the beneficence of having the 
Government provide their health care through the Medicaid Program, 
where it crunches the little guy is in declining incomes in a slumping 
economy at the same time of rising health insurance premiums; it gets 
to the point they cannot afford it. That includes the rising cost of 
prescription drugs.
  Interestingly, we can get 52 votes in this Senate, a majority--plus 
2--to modernize Medicare with a prescription drug benefit--but we can't 
get the 60 votes required to cut off the filibuster.
  Because of the slumping economy, Americans are faced with growing 
uncertainty over job security. With corporate scandals, a slumping 
stock market, a growing national debt and various forms of economic 
turbulence related to September 11, it is no surprise that unemployment 
is rising at a staggering rate. We have recently seen an increase in 
the number of 60 to 70-year-olds in the workforce. They are trying to 
make ends meet.
  In the last 2 years, unemployment has jumped by 1.5 percent. More 
than 2 million people, as I said earlier, have lost jobs in the last 
year and two quarters, and many who have lost their jobs are having 
trouble finding new work.
  In my Orlando office we have a bright college intern. This is a 
college graduate from one of our State universities who cannot get a 
job. While this college graduate is biding his time, he has very 
graciously come to offer his services as an intern in one of our 
Florida offices.
  Many who have lost their jobs, clearly are having trouble finding new 
work. A million and a half people have been unemployed for over 6 
months. Now they are also losing their unemployment insurance.
  Last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the 
previous month, manufacturing lost 68,000 jobs; retail businesses lost 
55,000 jobs. Last month, over 8 million Americans were unemployed; over 
2 million more, as we said, above January of 2001 figures. Two million 
fewer people are working to support their families and contribute to 
the economy. They are gone--two million taxpayers, two million people 
forced to find other work because they lost their jobs.

  In a slumping economy, it is no easy task to find new employment, as 
that college graduate has found. People are now spending over 17 weeks 
unemployed compared to an average of 12 weeks a year and a half ago.
  The unemployment rate is rising--5.6 percent last month compared to 
3.8 percent back in January of 2001, when the three Senators I see on 
the floor were sworn in. It is a little over a year and a half ago. The 
economy is failing, and we are arguing about the merits of extending 
unemployment compensation for American families. That is what some of 
the argument concerns. But instead of focusing on how to get the 
economy going again, this administration is proposing new tax cuts for 
the wealthy and extending those for the wealthy that were passed last 
year.
  New tax cuts in the year 2011 will have no immediate effect on our 
economy. In fact, adding an additional $4 trillion in debt during the 
next decade will only hurt our economy in the short term by pushing up 
interest rates. What we ought to focus on is the slumping economy now 
and how to correct it.
  Right now, most Americans are distracted with thinking about the war 
in Iraq and thinking about a war that is ongoing against terrorism. 
These are life-and-death matters. These are the gravest concerns of the 
Nation and should have our utmost attention, as it has had over the 
last couple of months. But we also must pay attention to our bottom 
line and to the economic security and the fundamental financial 
strength of America.
  To have military strength we need an undergirding of moral, and 
economic strength. With projected huge deficits projected all over the 
rest of this decade, can we really afford to dig an even deeper hole in 
the next decade right at the time when the baby boomers are going to 
start retiring and demanding more in terms of retirement and Social 
Security and Medicare?
  Last year's administration spending and tax cut plan has resulted in 
today's collision course of more deficits, more debt, more economic 
insecurity, higher interest rates, lower economic growth, and lower 
employment. There is no way to sugar-coat that. You may as well say it 
like it is. To anybody who says, ``Oh, why didn't you support the tax 
cuts,'' I say I did. I supported a tax cut up to $1.2 trillion over a 
decade. But what we said at that time was that is a responsible, 
balanced approach. A $2 trillion tax cut, particularly skewed to the 
latter end of the decade, is not a responsible way to rejuvenate our 
economy.
  All of this is occurring right under our noses. Yet it doesn't seem 
as if there are a lot of folks in this Chamber, nor down there on 
Pennsylvania Avenue, who are paying much attention.
  I appreciate this ongoing dialog that we have had, but there seems to 
be a war coming in the Middle East. So we better be paying attention to 
other battles. We must do something to reinvigorate our economy. We 
must pay attention to our Government's bottom line. We must not 
continue to raise the debt for our grandchildren.
  One of the things we can do in a slumping economy is get with the 
appropriate kind of tax cuts, and we can stimulate the economy by 
getting dollars into the pockets of people so they can go out and spend 
it. That could start rejuvenating the economy. We have a Christmas 
season coming up. It is going to be critical for retailers. We can do 
that with a responsible tax cut.

[[Page S10555]]

  We could also do that by extending unemployment benefits. The 
unemployment insurance system was designed to provide aid when it is 
needed most. When the economy is healthy, unemployment insurance 
revenue rises because taxes are being paid. Program spending falls 
because there are fewer unemployed.
  Conversely, in a recession, unemployment insurance revenues fall 
while spending rises, helping to stimulate the economy.
  But the problem now is that American families in this economic 
decline which has existed over many months are exhausting their 
benefits, and they need our support. The unemployment insurance program 
was designed exactly for the situation we are in today. This is the 
rainy day for which unemployment insurance saves. If we would extend 
those benefits from the required number of weeks that are under law 
now, it would amount to an economic stimulus in the most direct way, 
allowing families to continue functioning while they search for jobs in 
this poor economy.
  In the 1980s, when I had the privilege of being at the other end of 
the Capitol in the House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans 
came together to agree to extend unemployment insurance--three times. 
That is what we need to do today for some economic stimulus.
  What we need to do is provide immediate fiscal relief for States. We 
heard the Senator from West Virginia talking about the plight of the 
States. They have this huge additional drain on these Medicaid funds. 
States have diminished revenues. States need some assistance from the 
Federal Government on Medicaid, which is health care for the poor. 
Right now States are facing severe budget shortfalls, and many of them 
are finding themselves forced to cut bedrock services such as 
education, health care, and transportation. So the States need 
assistance with these and other crucial programs.
  What we need to do is to provide a strong bill to protect pensions. 
We have heard these heartrending stories about the people of the Enron 
Corporation and other corporations such as WorldCom. They have been 
saving and playing by the rules. They have been working hard and 
saving. Where have they been saving? They were saving in their 
corporate pension plan. They had a retirement system.
  We had several Floridians come up here because Enron had many 
employees of the Florida Gas Company in the Orlando area with 
headquarters in Winter Park. We had a number of those employees come up 
here and tell how they had their entire life savings, and now--instead 
of having their nest egg of about $750,000--because of the scandals in 
that Enron Corporation, and because those pensioners were not 
protected, they had less than $20,000 of retirement left out of 
$750,000.
  We need a plan that allows workers to hold employers accountable and 
help workers get their money back. If people responsible for protecting 
their investments abuse that trust, as we have seen over and over again 
in the scandals that erupted last fall and that were played out in 
front of the committees of this Senate--we need to make it easier for 
workers to sell their company stock in those pension plans and 
diversify their holdings.
  Most importantly, what we need to do is have a serious debate about 
how best to get our economy moving again. We need to think outside the 
box and look at some fresh ideas such as those presented at last week's 
bipartisan economic forum.
  What we need to do is get this economy moving again. That is what we 
need to do. What we need to do is focus on the needs of constituents 
who elected us to serve here in this Chamber and to make decisions for 
them, and to protect them in these many ways that I have tried to 
enumerate in these remarks. What we need to do is focus our attention 
and our resources on the American working family members.
  It is a time of partisan politics. We are just before an election. I 
guess my only disappointment in Washington in a job that I dearly 
love--I love the work. I love the people, I love these Senators, and 
they know I do. It is with a spring in my step that I come to work 
every day. My only disappointment is that this place gets too 
excessively partisan, and it gets too excessively ideologically rigid 
and extreme.
  So when the time comes, as the Good Book says, ``Come, let us reason 
together,'' there is a poisoned atmosphere and there is a rigidity and 
extremism so that it is hard to reach out and bring people together.
  In a slumping economy, you have to be able to reach out and bring 
people together. You have to be able to have Senators not insist that 
it is their way or the highway, but yet they have to recognize there 
are many people in this vast, broad, beautiful, complicated, and very 
diverse country who need to be represented instead of just that 
particular Senator's point of view. That is why our title is United 
States Senator--to represent the entire country and to represent all 
the people.
  I hope as we wind down in the closing days of this session, as we 
address some of these major economic problems, that we will consider it 
in the spirit of building a consensus to solve these problems.
  Thank you, Madam President, for the privilege of addressing the 
Senate.
  Mr. DAYTON. Madam President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I certainly yield to a good friend, my 
colleague, my wonderful companion as a freshman, the Senator from 
Minnesota.
  Mr. DAYTON. I thank the Senator from Florida.
  I want to be sure I heard the Senator correctly.
  First, I heard the Senator say earlier that the stock market dropped 
by 35 percent from January of 2001 to the present time. Is that 
correct? I was doing some mathematics here. Someone had holdings of 
$50,000 in January of 2001, and those holdings are now worth only 
$32,500; $17,500 of that would be lost.
  Does the Senate recall the tax package which I opposed as being 
skewed unfairly to the rich and giving a few hundred dollars in rebates 
to the average taxpayer? I was thinking to myself: Whatever that amount 
is, to lose $17,500 out of a $50,000 retirement savings in a 401(k) or 
an IRA, it seems to me, is a pretty bad economic deal for most 
Americans.
  Does the Senator concur or is my math that bad?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator is absolutely right. And if you 
just put it in round terms of someone with a nest egg of $100,000 a 
year and two-thirds ago, in January of 2001, that is only worth $65,000 
today. They have lost $35,000 of value in their retirement portfolio, 
mirroring the stock market wealth, the total stock market wealth down 
35 percent between January of 2001 and September of 2002. It is a sad 
commentary.
  Mr. DAYTON. Will the Senator yield for another question?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. DAYTON. I appreciate the Senator going back to that point in time 
when the two of us and the Presiding Officer were sworn in here. I 
recall, for myself, the excitement I felt back then of the 
opportunities we had because the surpluses projected for the next 
decade, at that time, were $5.4 trillion.
  I wonder if the Senator recalls, as I can, the anticipation of all 
the good things we could do on behalf of the people of Minnesota, 
Florida, and the rest of the country.
  In my campaign, I made a promise of prescription drug coverage for 
every senior in Minnesota and sent busloads of seniors at the time up 
to Canada where they could get prescription drugs for half or less than 
half the cost of those same drugs in the United States.
  I recall saying back then the solution was not to bus every senior 
from Minnesota to Canada--and I think that would have been more 
problematic to travel from Florida to Canada--but the solution was to 
provide the kind of coverage here from our Government that the Canadian 
Government provides.
  I wonder if the Senator from Florida recalls other instances of the 
kinds of hopes and dreams we shared back then as a freshmen group of 
Senators as to what we could do for this country, and if you can think, 
as I can, back to the days when we were talking about surpluses for 10 
years rather than deficits.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. We had hopes and dreams. Indeed, we had 
realistic plans, if we had been conservative in our approach, if we had 
been balanced in our approach with that projected surplus.
  First of all, we said: Those economic projections for a surplus are 
way too

[[Page S10556]]

rosy. Let's be conservative in our planning. Let's scale back that 
projected surplus so we can be conservative in what we plan for the 
surplus.
  Then we said: Let's be balanced. Let's have a substantial tax cut 
that would be about a third of the surplus, and let's take another 
third of the surplus and reserve that third, over the next decade, for 
the spending increases that need to occur, such as the Senator talked 
about, which is modernizing Medicare with a prescription drug benefit.
  We knew, for example, defense expenditures were going to go up and, 
therefore, there needed to be some spending increases there, and you 
could go on down a host of other items.
  Clearly, education was one of the major ones. We wanted to take a 
good part of that surplus, projected over 10 years, and invest that in 
education back to the States and local governments that run the 
educational systems.
  Then what we said was, to balance it out, the remaining third of that 
surplus we did not want to do anything with. We wanted that to be the 
surplus from the Social Security trust fund that was not going to be 
touched. That part of the surplus was going to pay down the national 
debt over the next 10 years.

  That balanced approach of a third, a third, and a third was going to 
get our fiscal house in order, was going to revive the confidence of 
the American investor in American companies because the economy was 
going to be stable. We were not going to have all these dire economic 
facts we have recited tonight that would not have occurred if we had 
been balanced in our approach.
  Mr. DAYTON. I am glad the Senator brought up the balanced approach 
and, earlier, the Social Security surpluses. Of course, the Senator 
from Florida has a great many senior citizens in his State, and I have 
a quite a number in mine. I would have even more if not so many of them 
would move to Florida and enjoy your better climate.
  But as I recall, President Clinton, when he departed office, had left 
not only a balanced budget for the first time in this country in almost 
30 years, but he had actually balanced the non-Social Security part of 
the budget. So as the Senator said, the surpluses were accumulating in 
the Social Security trust fund year by year that would pay down, I 
believe it was, over $3 trillion of debt that would put our fiscal 
house in order, that would be ready for the baby boom retirement years.
  What happened to all of that financial responsibility in such a short 
time? Does the Senator recall? Where did all that money go?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Two-thirds of that projected surplus vanished 
primarily because of the overeager, rosy, incorrect economic 
projections of a budget surplus, plus absorbing so much more of the 
existing surplus from a tax cut that exceeded that balanced approach I 
talked about.
  Mr. DAYTON. The Senator brought up earlier today, along with the 
Senator from West Virginia, this terrible dilemma we face in the 
Senate, that we cannot get a conference agreement with the House on 
concurrent receipt for our veterans, for those who have served this 
country, for those who have suffered injuries, disabilities, and the 
like.
  I believe the Senator was referring--maybe he could refresh my 
memory--to the conference committee gathering this afternoon; we both 
serve on the Armed Services Committee. I could not attend, but the 
Senator, as I understood correctly, said the House conferees did not 
even attend the gathering.
  They did pass in the House by over 400 votes support for the Senate 
position. But the White House, if I recall correctly, has now said the 
President will veto the Defense authorization bill because it includes 
concurrent receipt because it costs too much money.
  Back when this $2 trillion tax cut was being discussed, this Senator 
does not recall any real concern being expressed that we could not 
afford it, and I hear now, over and over again, we cannot do 
prescription drug coverage. We cannot even do Medicare reimbursement 
equalization. We cannot do concurrent receipt for our veterans. We 
cannot afford to do anything for benefits for people, such as extending 
unemployment benefits, as the Senator pointed out, because we don't 
have the money. But back when it was tax cuts for the wealthy, we 
seemed to have all the money we needed.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator is correct. It is a sad commentary 
all these things that were promised to veterans--that everybody was so 
eager, elbowing one another aside to try to get to the front of the 
line to support--through such things as concurrent receipt, eager to 
get to the front of the line to support a prescription drug benefit for 
Medicare seniors--have all been cast aside. Yet I cannot believe what I 
am seeing on the television when I go home. I see all these TV 
advertisements about how all these people who have blocked a 
prescription drug benefit to modernize Medicare say they have voted for 
one. Well, they voted for one. They voted for a version that was a 
subsidy from the Federal Government to insurance companies supposedly 
to provide prescription drug benefits. But in every State where a 
similar law has been passed to get insurance companies to provide a 
prescription drug benefit, the insurance companies will not do it 
because they cannot make money on it and, therefore, the senior 
citizens are the ones who suffer because they do not get the 
prescription drug benefit.
  So isn't it interesting they always want to run to the front of the 
line and talk about how they are for all of these things, but when it 
comes to doing it, where are the votes, particularly in a body such as 
the Senate, in which in order to pass anything you have to get 60 of 
100 Senators because of our rules to cut off debate?
  Mr. DAYTON. If I may indulge the Senator for just another minute, the 
Senator from Florida, being a former insurance commissioner and having 
such a large senior population, I wonder if he could explain the point 
he just made about how the insurance companies themselves don't want to 
provide the kind of coverage that some of our colleagues claim would be 
the solution to this problem.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Since our colleague from Nevada has joined us, 
I will use his State as an example. About 4 years ago, the State of 
Nevada passed a prescription drug benefit that was very similar to the 
one that has been sponsored by the White House and that, in fact, has 
passed the House of Representatives. It is a subsidy to insurance 
companies to provide a prescription drug benefit.
  In the case of the bill here, it is a Federal subsidy. In the case of 
Nevada, it was a State subsidy. But the fact is, not one insurance 
company stepped forward in Nevada, after the passage of that law, to 
offer a prescription drug benefit because the insurance companies want 
to make money. They realized they could not make money.
  Sure, we are having a problem with escalating costs of prescription 
drugs, and we should deal with that, too. The question is, Are we going 
to fulfill our promise to provide a legitimate and workable 
prescription drug benefit to senior citizens on Medicare? We have 
offered that, and we have only gotten 52 votes here. We have to get 60 
to cut off debate. We need eight more Senators, and then that thing 
will pass and pass overwhelmingly.
  But you see what is being blocked right now. And then people back 
home claim credit for voting for a version that really is not going to 
be a workable version, as experienced in the laboratories that we see 
out in our States.
  Mr. DAYTON. The people who watch us debate must wonder about the 
mathematics of the Congress. The Senator from Nevada, who is a champion 
of the concurrent receipts legislation, sees it passed by the Senate 
and then by over 400 votes in the House. And then it does seem strange 
that these matters just can't quite make it through the rest of the 
process to become law.
  This Senator holds out hope that the administration, which is going 
to be visiting my home State of Minnesota--we have not seen such an 
interest by an administration in our State, in my own recollection--
will come in and seize the opportunity to support two things that would 
be of great benefit to my State. One would be disaster assistance for 
our farmers who have now suffered the second year in a row, and another 
would be the support for concurrent receipt for our veterans. It would 
seem a fitting way to recognize the kind of suffering some are still 
going through

[[Page S10557]]

and also the kind of contributions that have been made, once again, to 
see that there would be the same enthusiasm for fitting within this 
budget framework some of the benefits we would like to provide for our 
citizens, the same as we provide for the very wealthiest corporate 
executives who seem to be doing very well despite the difficult 
economic times.
  I thank the Senator from Florida for bringing these matters to the 
Senate this evening. It was an excellent discussion. I look forward to 
our continuing it again soon.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank my distinguished colleague. It is 
always a pleasure to hear from him. I appreciate his undergirding of my 
comments this evening.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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