[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 9, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1312-S1315]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Ms. LANDRIEU:
S. 3089. A bill to require a study and report by the Office of
Advocacy of the
[[Page S1313]]
Small Business Administration regarding the effects of proposed changes
in patent law; to the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on an
issue that is of great importance to small businesses and independent
inventors everywhere--patent reform.
I understand that the Senate Judiciary Committee has been hard at
work analyzing what reforms would improve the U.S. patent system. One
of these reforms would involve changing the U.S. from a ``first to
invent'' to a ``first to file'' invention priority system. As Chair of
the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, I want to
ensure that Congress' reform will create a patent regime that will not
unduly burden small businesses and independent inventors, but instead,
enhance their success as innovators in the U.S. economy.
Small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all employers, employing
\1/2\ of the U.S. labor force. These businesses are at the forefront of
U.S. innovation and have produced over 80 percent of net new jobs in
the U.S. economy over the past decade. At a time when our Nation's
economy is under stress, we need the help of small businesses in
creating new jobs and economic opportunities.
Today, we are living in what some call a ``Digital Age'' with an
ever-increasing focus on how to incorporate advanced technology into
our day to day activities. When it comes to advanced technology, small
businesses are also leading the pack in terms of job growth, producing
approximately 40 percent of all high-tech employment nation-wide.
One measurable way of tracking the rate of small business innovation
in the U.S. is by analyzing patent statistics. For example, small
businesses in the technology sector produce 13 times more patents per
employee than large businesses. Additionally, small firm patents
outperform those of larger firms in a number of key areas, and tend to
be cited more frequently as these patents are more original and more
general. These metrics are important indicators of patent value, and
indeed small firm patents are tightly linked to growth in the patenting
firms.
As you can see, the role that small businesses play as innovators in
our economy is critical to our Nation's overall success as an
international high-tech leader. In order to properly track and
understand how changes to the U.S. patent system will impact our small
innovators, I am introducing the Small Business Patent Data Collection
Act of 2010. This legislation will direct the Small Business
Administration's Office of Advocacy to conduct a study in consultation
with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to analyze how changes to the
current system will impact the ability of small businesses to obtain
patents, whether the change would create barriers, and how it will
impact the costs and benefits to small businesses overall.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 3089
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. STUDY AND REPORT OF PATENT LAW CHANGES.
(a) Definitions.--In this section--
(1) the term ``Chief Counsel'' means the Chief Counsel for
Advocacy of the Small Business Administration; and
(2) the term ``small business concern'' has the meaning
given that term under section 3 of the Small Business Act (15
U.S.C. 632).
(b) Study.--
(1) In general.--The Chief Counsel, in consultation with
the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, shall conduct a study of the effects of changing from
a first-to-invent to a first-to-file invention priority
system under patent law under title 35 of the United States
Code.
(2) Areas of study.--The study conducted under paragraph
(1) shall include examination of the effects of changing from
a first-to-invent to a first-to-file invention priority
system, including examining--
(A) how the change would affect the ability of small
business concerns to obtain patents;
(B) whether the change would create or exacerbate any
disadvantage for applicants for patents that are small
business concerns relative to applicants for patents that are
not small business concerns; and
(C) the costs and benefits to small business concerns of
the change.
(c) Report.--Not later than 18 months after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Chief Counsel shall submit to the
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and the
Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on
Small Business and the Committee on the Judiciary of the
House of Representatives a report regarding the results of
the study under subsection (b).
______
By Mr. REID:
S. 3092. A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal
Service located at 5070 Vegas Valley Drive in Las Vegas, Nevada, as the
``Joseph A. Ryan Post Office Building''; read the first time.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the
bill be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 3092
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. JOSEPH A. RYAN POST OFFICE BUILDING.
(a) Designation.--The facility of the United States Postal
Service located at 5070 Vegas Valley Drive in Las Vegas,
Nevada, shall be known and designated as the ``Joseph A. Ryan
Post Office Building''.
(b) References.--Any reference in a law, map, regulation,
document, paper, or other record of the United States to the
facility referred to in subsection (a) shall be deemed to be
a reference to the ``Joseph A. Ryan Post Office Building''.
______
By Mr. INHOFE (for himself, Mr. Barrasso, and Mr. Burr):
S. 3095. A bill to reduce the deficit by establishing discretionary
caps for non-security spending; to the Committee on the Budget.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to
announce the introduction of a bill, S. 3095. It is called the Honest
Expenditure Limitation Act of 2010. It spells HELP. It is the HELP Act
of 2010.
On February 1 of 2010, President Obama released his fiscal year 2011
budget with a funding request of $3.8 trillion. In it he announced a 3-
year freeze on discretionary spending for all nonsecurity-related
agencies at the fiscal year 2010 levels, which amounts to a total
spending level of $460 billion each year for those agencies.
Nonsecurity spending is defined as all agencies except the Department
of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of
Veterans Affairs, the Department of State, and one of the national
security-related agencies in the Department of Energy. The
administration's Office of Management and Budget estimates this
initiative will save $250 billion over the coming decade. Keep in mind,
that is $250 billion from where it started, which I will address in a
minute.
On the surface, this proposal gives the President the appearance of
being fiscally prudent--something the American people have been
demanding of their government, especially in recent months. But when
you look closely at the numbers he has presented, it is clear as day
why he is able to offer this spending freeze without batting an eye.
For one, discretionary spending has increased by 20 percent in 2 years.
Secondly, the massive $787 billion stimulus package provided a
substantial spending cushion for nearly every agency, making a spending
freeze such as the President's inconsequential.
Let's stop and look at that. We are talking about $787 billion in a
stimulus bill, but we are also talking about having increased from
fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2010 by 20 percent. So what he is doing
here is raising it 20 percent and then freezing it. What he ought to
do, if he had to raise it 20 percent, is start bringing it down.
Additionally, this spending freeze proposal does too little to
improve the long-term fiscal aspects of our Nation. We all know we
stand at the edge of disaster. Doug Elmendorf, who is the Director of
the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, recently testified about
our Nation's fiscal outlook before Congress and he didn't deliver very
good news. I will tell my colleagues what he said. He said that last
year our budget deficit was a staggering $1.4 trillion. Remember, just
a minute ago I said if you add up all of the--well, let's say that is
actually more than all of the last 6 years of the Bush administration
deficits. That amounts to less than the $1.4 trillion. So he said last
year our budget deficit was a staggering $1.4 trillion, which
represented
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about 10 percent of the total economy. He expects 2010's deficit only
slightly lower at $1.3 trillion or 9.2 percent of GDP.
Looking further out, the average deficit between now and 2020 is
forecast to be $600 billion per year. This is all coming from
Elmendorf. This is the CBO we are talking about. Additionally, CBO
estimates the amount of debt held by the public will skyrocket to $15
trillion by 2020. If it sounds like a staggering number, that is
because it is. When you consider the amount of interest we will be
paying to China and Japan and others, it is embarrassing: $700 billion
each and every year until 2020 and beyond if we do nothing about our
rising deficit levels. In other words, if we keep on what we are doing
right now with this administration, with the help of the Democratic
legislators in both Houses, it is going to be $700 trillion.
Let's do the math and put that in perspective. If $700 billion of
interest were paid evenly by every household in the United States
today, it would amount to more than $6,000 per household. That is kind
of interesting. I always try to do my math. When I was fighting the
effort by this administration to have a cap-and-trade bill which would
have been somewhere between $300 billion and $400 billion, whether you
are talking about the McCain-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill of 2003 or
the McCain-Lieberman bill of 2005 or the bills of 2008, or later on the
Boxer-Sanders bill, or even going back to Kyoto, it is going to cost
somewhere between $300 billion and $400 billion. I understand when we
talk about billions and trillions of dollars what we are really talking
about. So I do my math all the time and say, How much is this going to
cost my average taxpaying families in my State of Oklahoma? It amounted
to $3,100 a year. This would have been, if they had been successful in
passing a cap-and-trade bill--it is all dead now. They are not going to
do it. I don't care what Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John Kerry
say, it is history now. People are not going to pay that kind of thing
to get nothing for it.
Back when we were talking about the $700 billion interest that would
be paid every year, that is what is going to happen by 2020 with this
administration if we let it continue. That would cost each tax-paying
family in the United States of America $6,000 per household each and
every year after 2020.
Put another way: The entire financial industry bailout--remember the
famous bank bailout? I know Republicans were partially responsible for
that too. That happened. That vote took place in this Senate on October
1 of 2008. It was back during the Bush administration. It was back when
Hank Paulson came in and told everybody that he was going to save our
Nation and so Republicans bought into it and many of my good
conservative Republican friends voted for a $700 billion bailout. I did
not and a few others didn't, but a vast majority did. That is kind of
interesting because that $700 billion is the same figure we are using
right now that it will cost people by the year 2020--just the interest
alone. But the $700 billion that we could spend on interest in 2020
happens each and every year. We don't get anything for it. It is the
cost of living having this much debt in the first place.
At this rate, it will become more and more difficult for the
government to fund priorities we truly think are important, such as
national security and infrastructure spending. For some reason, nobody
around here wants to spend money on infrastructure. I know I get
criticized. I am considered to be a conservative. I have been rated the
No. 1 most conservative Member of the Senate some time ago by the
American Conservative Union and just last week by the National Journal.
So you are looking at a conservative, but I am a big spender on some
things. One is protecting America. That is what we are supposed to be
doing around here. The other is infrastructure. We have a crumbling
infrastructure system. Look what happened with some of the bridges
crumbling down. I guess that was in Minnesota. People died up there.
Our infrastructure is crumbling. It is aging. We need to do something
about it, but I can't find anyone who wants to spend money on
infrastructure. Instead we are spending money on social engineering.
To combat this, several proposals have been recently introduced that
I support. In the House, Congressman Pence and Congressmen Hensarling
introduced a constitutional amendment that would cap the Federal
spending at 20 percent of the economy--20 percent of GDP. It is one way
of doing this. I think it is a good idea. I am all for it.
Additionally, Senator DeMint introduced an amendment requiring a
balanced budget. I am all for that. Some of my colleagues are
supporting a year-long earmark moratorium. That is kind of phony. It
was reported on Monday that Speaker Pelosi has suggested a year-long
earmark moratorium as well. My colleagues need to consider a couple of
issues in talking about earmarks.
One, an earmark moratorium does nothing to combat the increasing
government spending. In other words, if you have a moratorium on
earmarks, it doesn't save a cent. Funding that would have been spent in
earmarks will simply be spent by the Obama administration, by their
bureaucrats. I suppose it should come as no surprise that Speaker
Pelosi supports the Democratic administration fully funding its own
priorities.
Secondly, last year's earmarks accounted for only 1.5 percent of
discretionary spending--1.5 percent. Where is the focus on the other
98.5 percent? Where is the focus on what I call bureaucratic earmarks?
Here is what happens. If you stop earmarks--if you read the
Constitution, article I, section 9 of the Constitution, it says what we
are supposed to be doing here in the House and in the Senate. We are
supposed to be making priorities. We are supposed to be doing the
spending, and our Founding Fathers recognize that we do a better job
knowing what our needs are in the local communities than the central
government does.
If we let the President and the President's budget dictate everything
and then we try to make changes within that, people will say, Oh, that
is an earmark. Well, wait a minute. If you don't do that, then you are
having the unelected bureaucrats in government in the Obama
administration do the earmarking. So the President earmarks too. If you
don't believe it, look at the Appropriations Conference Report, where
the focus is on the vast majority of discretionary spending which is
doled out every year by unelected bureaucrats.
I wish more people would understand this, because I find that a lot
of the people who hammer and demagog the earmark mantra are the ones
who are the biggest spenders and it is a nice way of deviating from
your behavior. I think something needs to be done immediately and
seriously.
So today I am introducing the HELP Act, as I mentioned. It is called
the Honest Expenditure Limitation Program Act of 2010. The bill does
three things. One, it places caps on nonsecurity discretionary spending
which I define exactly as President Obama's budget does. I do this
because I wish to show the similarities between what he said he wants
to do and what I want to do. The second thing is it enforces the caps
by sequestering any spending above the cap through across-the-board
cuts, a process that currently applies to mandatory spending, but not
to discretionary. Three, it disallows Congress from evading the
sequestration cuts through a 67-vote point of order against any attempt
to exempt new spending from this legislation. That is going to make it
pretty tough to get through.
Rather than simply freezing the spending as the President wants to do
at the 2010 levels--let's keep in mind, first, he increased
discretionary spending for a year by 20 percent, and then he wants to
freeze it there.
Instead of doing that for 3 years and then allowing spending to
explode again, which is what his proposal does, my bill would actually
cut discretionary spending for nonsecurity agencies, the same
exemptions he has, back to fiscal year 2008 levels. It is cutting it
back by 20 percent of what he tries to do, about $400 billion a year.
Spending would be frozen for 5 years--not 3 years but 5 years, through
2020. Rather than simply freezing spending levels for only 3 years and
at an artificially high level, as the President's proposal does, my
initiative would hold the Federal Government more accountable for the
next
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10 years by creating real, meaningful spending cuts and then placing
the cap at reduced levels.
The difference in savings between my plan and President Obama's plan
is clearly displayed on this chart.
If we look at the chart, the blue bars represent how nonsecurity-
related discretionary spending levels will rise over the next 10 years
if allowed to increase. This is according to OMB's numbers.
The red line illustrates the impact of Obama's plan and what will
happen if spending is allowed to increase following the 3-year freezing
on the estimates of OMB, the Office of Management and Budget. They are
nonpartisan, by the way, and very accurate. Clearly, the $250 billion
in savings is not substantial when spread over a 10-year period. It
really does not tighten the belt at all.
My proposal is represented in the green bars. These are the spending
levels. Watch as they go down over the period of time from 2010 to
2020. We phase down spending levels from the high point in 2010 to a
more reasonable level between 2011 and 2015 and then stay flat
thereafter.
My plan, when compared to the blue bars of doing nothing, will save
more than $880 billion over the next 10 years. Let me say that again.
By reducing nonsecurity discretionary spending levels, using the same
definition of ``nonsecurity'' as the President is using, to 2008 levels
and then holding them there through 2020, our Nation can save nearly $1
trillion. When I compare my plan directly with President Obama's, my
plan saves $634 billion more than his.
I have made my estimates using the methodologies of the Office of
Management and Budget, and they are probably conservative. First off,
if you look at the history of discretionary spending, annual increases
are far greater than what they assume they are here. Second, we do not
estimate how much we would be saving in interest by not having to
borrow the spending we are cutting. Overall, this proposal will likely
save much more than the nearly $1 trillion we estimate.
If we do nothing to curtail skyrocketing government spending or
merely freeze it at an artificially high, elevated level for a few
years, as the Obama administration is trying to do, we will find
ourselves in a tragic situation. The clock is ticking. Congress is
going to have to act.
Some of my colleagues will probably attack this proposal because the
hardest thing to do around here is cut spending. Without cutting
spending, we only leave one alternative, and that is massively raising
taxes. That is not what the American people want, and it would harm our
economic recovery.
Around these halls, we seem to forget. Most of the Members of the
Senate have forgotten the recess last August when they had all the tea
parties out there and people were yelling and screaming and people
wanted to get involved. People were getting involved in politics who
never had been involved before. They were concerned primarily about two
issues. At that time, it was government-run health care and cap-and-
trade, which would have been the largest tax increase in the history of
this country.
Right now, the Obama administration is saying: I don't care what
anybody says, we are going to stay with it; we are going to be tough;
we are going to have this government-run health care system and bring
back cap-and-trade. They have just completely forgotten what happened.
I have to agree with Senator McConnell. I hope people remember that
all the way through the election because that is going to repeat what I
remember in 1994.
Others may charge this proposal will harm the government's ability to
help citizens in their time of need. But what is important to realize
about this spending reduction is that it will have no impact on
mandatory spending programs such as unemployment benefits, Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Those programs are in need of reform,
but this bill does not do that. This bill only affects the agencies
identified by President Obama as nonsecurity.
My bill, the HELP Act of 2010, would take President Obama's proposed
spending freeze and truly make an impact. Rather than merely freezing
spending at the inflated 20-percent increase of the 2010 levels, this
would bring it back down to 2008. I think this can be done.
I really do believe the American people are going to start getting
involved. They have not forgotten. I was giving a speech in Florida.
This particular group was actually Club for Growth. Their group is
concerned about spending. I told them some of the things we could be
doing, some of the things to watch out for. Watch out for those who say
you can have a moratorium on earmarks and somehow affect--if you
affected all of that, it would be something like 1.5 percent. My bill
affects the other 98.5 percent.
We are going to have to do it right now. If we wait, each month that
goes by--as I said, the budget he increased and his deficit was as much
as the last 6 entire years of the Bush administration.
This is the HELP Act. It is one that will work, and it is one that
has come along at the right time. Now is the time to act.
____________________