Congressional Record, Volume 158 Issue 65 (Wednesday, May 9, 2012)

[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 65 (Wednesday, May 9, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2989-S3035]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

STOP THE STUDENT LOAN INTEREST RATE HIKE ACT OF 2012--MOTION TO PROCEED

Mr. REID. Madam President, I move that the Senate resume
consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 2343, and I ask unanimous
consent that the time until 2 p.m. be equally divided and controlled
between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans
controlling the first 30 minutes and the majority controlling the
second 30 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will report the bill by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Motion to proceed to S. 2343, a bill to amend the Higher
Education Act of 1965 to extend the reduced interest rate for
Federal Direct Stafford Loans, and for other purposes.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Madam President, the clerk just read the matter before the
Senate, which is to prevent the interest rate on loans students receive
to go to school--the money they borrow--from doubling from 3.4 percent
to 6.8 percent. That is the pending matter before the Senate.
Yesterday the Republicans continued to filibuster our plan to prevent
that from happening. We do not want the rates to double. We don't want
them to go up at all. There are 30,000 people in Nevada who are
depending on our doing something to freeze those rates. But what is
worse, in my estimation--and I think that of the American people--is
that Republicans seem proud of blocking this legislation. Not a single
Republican voted to allow the debate to go forward.
This isn't an issue of saying: OK, if I vote for this, this will be
the legislation. They would not even let us go forward to debate it.
They have said they like the bill, except they do not like the way it
is paid for. Fine. Let's get on the bill and offer amendments to pay
for it. But no--every single Republican voted no. Every single
Republican said: We are not going to allow a debate.
The American people certainly shouldn't be surprised because this has
been going on for 3 years, almost 4 years. Everything is a fight. They
are blocking legislation that would allow us to stop the increase of
the rate on student loans. That is wrong. And the person who signed
this legislation into law, making this interest rate such as it is, was
President Bush. So I hope Republicans will come to their senses and
work with us to accomplish this, but I am not holding my breath
because, as I indicated, they seem proud they have stopped another
piece of legislation altogether.
Now, what does this mean, that they are hanging together to stop
legislation, to stop progress? Well, as we work to create jobs and make
college affordable, our colleagues--my Republican friends on the other
side of the aisle--operate under a different set of priorities.
In the House, for example, there are efforts now underway to undo a
hard-fought agreement of last August to cut more than $2 trillion from
the deficit over the next decade. That agreement came after threats by
the tea party-

[[Page S2990]]

driven House--and now 40 percent of the people over here are tea party
advocates--to shut down the government. And they wanted to do that in a
couple of different ways: not allowing us to continue funding for
government programs, and then, for the first time ever, there was a
knockdown, drag-out fight over weeks and weeks as to whether we should
increase the debt ceiling in this country. During President Reagan's
time in running the country, this had been done dozens of times. But,
no, these folks will do nothing without a big fight. As a result of
that, we came to an agreement that was bipartisan. Now, some say the
agreement was forced upon the Republicans, but they voted for it, an
agreement to reduce the deficit, and the deficit we couldn't reduce
before August of last year. We said: OK, fine, if we don't do something
about it this year, then there will be automatic cuts called
sequestration.

Now the House is doing everything they can to walk away from the
agreement we made and the bipartisan vote we took. They are doing
everything they can. They have a Republican budget, the so-called Ryan
budget. And I say ``so-called'' because they are trying to make a
reconciliation bill, but they can't do it because they are not
following the law to do that. So they not only have reneged on this
bicameral, bipartisan agreement to reduce spending, but they have
fundamentally skewed priorities because they hand out even more tax
breaks to multimillionaires and shield corporate defense contractors,
all at the expense of hard-working, middle-class families, the elderly,
and those who can least afford it. That is what they are doing in the
House. They are going to have a so-called rule today and vote on it
shortly thereafter. They would slash investments to strengthen our
economy and just shred our social safety nets.
I want to quote from President Dwight Eisenhower. And let me remind
everybody that he was a Republican. He was a tremendous President, and
each day that goes by, people are looking at him more favorably. Here
is what he said:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those
who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not
clothed.

This isn't some leftwing, socialistic-leaning liberal. That was
Dwight Eisenhower--a five-star general who led the invasion of Normandy
and did many other things, such as starting the National Highway
System. Let me repeat what he said:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those
who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not
clothed.

I didn't make that up. That is what he said. In a balanced world--one
where a strong national defense and a strong social safety net are both
valuable pillars of a successful society--that need not necessarily be
true, is what President Eisenhower said. But the Republican plan would
enshrine into law a set of unbalanced priorities and ensure the kind of
terrible math General Eisenhower envisioned.
Unlike defense contractors and billionaires, ordinary Americans don't
have high-priced lobbyists to protect them. That is our job. That is
our job. There is not a person on this side of the aisle who doesn't
believe it is good that we have wealthy people in America. We have
Senators here, Democrats, who are wealthy--certainly not all Democrats,
but there are some. We don't look down on people who are rich, but we
do have to look out for people who are in need of our help. Most of
these rich people have all kinds of lobbyists here to help them, but
the people in Henderson, Ely, and Winnemucca, NV, don't have people
here to help them. They have us. So Republicans are going after those
who can't fight back--hard-working Americans and struggling families.
Let's review a little bit of history again. The sequester isn't the
first bipartisan agreement to reduce the deficit. When I became the
Democratic leader, I thought--having served on the Committee on Foreign
Affairs in the House of Representatives and being very interested in
America's involvement in foreign affairs, I took a trip to Central and
South America. That was so necessary. And I took Democratic and
Republican Senators with me. I was very careful in picking two Senators
whom I wanted on that trip. One was Judd Gregg, a very fine Senator
from New Hampshire, who has retired, I am sorry to say. I recommended
that Senator Gregg be a part of President Obama's initial Cabinet. He
agreed to take the job, but something came up, and he didn't do it. But
he is a wonderful man. I also wanted Kent Conrad on that trip. And I
don't know which one knows more about the inner workings of the
finances of this country, Gregg or Conrad, but they are both good, and
I wanted them to go together, and they did.
Senators Gregg and Conrad spent hours and hours seated in that
airplane working on doing something about the deficit. They both
believed it needed some really difficult, hard work, and they decided
to do what the base-closing commission did; that is, prepare
legislation and give it to a commission that would send it back to us.
There would be no amendments, no filibuster, just an up-or-down vote.
That was their legislation. They wrote that and brought it to the
floor.
As the leader, I decided I would move to proceed to it, and so I did
move to proceed to it, thinking it should be a slam dunk. But seven
Republicans, who had cosponsored the legislation, voted against it. I
couldn't bring it to the floor. That was where Bowles-Simpson came
from, as a result of the Republicans walking away from their own
efforts to reduce the deficit.
Now, Bowles-Simpson was very difficult. There were 18 members, and
they had to get 14 of the 18 to approve it. That didn't work. They
couldn't get that many people to vote for it.
In the meantime, President Obama was working as hard as he could with
the lead spokesman of the Republicans, the Speaker of the House, John
Boehner. John Boehner said: I didn't get elected to do small things, I
want to do big things. And President Obama, to his detriment with his
base, said: I will do something to change Social Security and Medicare.
And all these things he agreed to do publicly. But the Republicans--
John Boehner--could never go against Grover Norquist. The Republicans
shake in their boots. They will not do anything, even though the
American people by a more than 70 percent majority say people making
more than $1 million a year should contribute to what the problems are
in this country. So that fell apart.
Then we had the Gang of 6 Senators--three Republicans, three
Democrats--who had been on the Bowles-Simpson Commission, who said we
should do something about this. They were in the press, they had press
conferences, and this was going down the road and doing all kinds of
great things. While that was going on, there was a decision made, and a
law was passed to create a supercommittee, to which I appointed Senator
Patty Murray of Washington to run. No one in the Senate, Democrat or
Republican, has more respect than Patty Murray. She worked so hard with
the other 11 Members of Congress to come up with something.
A few days before they were to arrive at a decision--and the Gang of
6 members are out here doing all this stuff all the time--I get a
letter signed by virtually every Republican Senator saying: We are not
going to raise revenue for anything. The supercommittee didn't work
there. The Gang of 6 is gone. So we passed this last August to fund
government for 2 years and to say if we don't arrive at another $1.2
trillion in deficit reduction during this year, it automatically kicks
in at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
So that is where we are, and the Republicans in the House are trying
to change that. So that is what this little history lesson has been all
about.
I don't like to sequester. I wish we didn't have to do it. It was a
hard pill to swallow, but it was the right thing to do. If we are ever
going to reduce the staggering deficit, we are going to have to make
some hard decisions. So that is what this is all about. But that is the
point: It is hard to do; therefore, we have to do it, to sequester--
which, in effect, would take almost $500 billion from domestic programs
and almost $500 billion from defense programs. They were designed to be
tough enough to force two sides to reach a balanced deal. It hasn't
happened yet.
As I said earlier with General Eisenhower's statement, I didn't make
that

[[Page S2991]]

up. That is what he said. My complaint about the Republicans being so
unreasonable about everything is something where I am not a lone wolf
crying in the wilderness. We have two long-time nonpartisan watchers of
Congress, one from the American Enterprise Institute, which is a
conservative think tank, another from Brookings Institute that wrote an
article saying: It is the Republicans. Can't you see what they are
doing? Here is one thing they said:

We have been studying Washington politics in Congress for
more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this
dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both
parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we
have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the
problem lies with the Republican party.

They further said:

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American
politics. It is ideologically extreme; of scornful
compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts,
evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its
political opposition.

What brave men to do that, to write these comments--which are true. I
have been saying that I don't want to fight about everything.
Republicans insist on balancing the budget on the backs of the middle
class, seniors, students, single mothers, and those who could least
afford it. That is what they are doing over there today. It is their
refusal to compromise that leaves us facing the threat of sequester,
and it is difficult but it is balanced.
Going back to the August budget agreement now in order to protect
wealthy special interests is no solution. Neither is refighting the
battles of last year. Democrats agree we must reduce our deficits and
make hard choices, but we believe in a balanced approach that shares
the pain as well as the responsibility.
Is the sequester the best way to achieve that balance? No. But
Republicans refuse to consider a more reasonable approach--one, for
example, that asks every American to pay his fair share while making
difficult choices to reduce spending. Democrats will not agree to a
one-sided solution that lets the superwealthy off the hook while
forcing the middle class and those in greatest need to bear all the
hardship.
Democrats believe we can protect Americans' access to health care,
create jobs while investing in the future, and protect the poor and
elderly. But we can't do it alone. It will take work and compromise,
and so far Republicans have been unwilling to make a serious effort to
achieve that result.
Republicans have rejected our balanced approach. Their one-sided
solution to across-the-board cuts would take away from the many to give
to the few.
Here is what the plan would do--not all of it, but here is what their
plan would do. Remember, they are taking it up over there in the House
today.
It would cut Medicaid benefits, increasing the number of uninsured
children, parents, seniors--and that is in addition to people with
disabilities--by hundreds of thousands, just eliminate them. It would
also put seniors in nursing homes at risk. Some of them would have to
move out of the nursing home, I guess.
It would punish Americans who receive tax credits to purchase health
insurance when their financial circumstances change, causing 350,000
Americans to have no coverage. This would add to the tens of millions
who already exist that way.
It would weaken Wall Street reforms, protecting big banks at the
expense of consumers. Their legislation would once again target middle-
class workers, food inspectors, air traffic controllers, Border Patrol
agents, drug enforcement, and FBI agents. They would have to be laid
off.
It would cut funding for preventive health care programs that fight
chronic illnesses--such as heart disease, cancer, strokes, and
diabetes--that cause 70 percent of the deaths in America. Preventive
care would be reined in.
It would slash block grant funding in the United States to help 23
million children, seniors, and disabled Americans live independently
and out of poverty.
No segment of the population is immune from this painful, absurd
Republican plan--except maybe millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy
corporations. The Republican proposal cuts Meals on Wheels and reduces
food assistance for almost 2 million needy people. One of the
Republican candidates running for President said President Obama is the
Food Stamp President.
There are more poor people. Our economy has been in bad shape. People
are struggling. The millionaires are doing fine. And in addition to
what I have already mentioned, this thing that they are taking up in
the House today cuts off almost 300,000 children from free school
lunches at a time when one in five children lives in poverty.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the Republican plan
fails ``a basic moral test.'' This budget sets very clear priorities.
The problem is what they are taking up in the House sets up the wrong
priorities.
President Franklin Roosevelt said:

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened
the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be
cruel to be tough.

So Republicans would do well to remember our Nation is judged not
only by the strength of its military, but also by the strength of its
values, so says General Eisenhower and President Roosevelt.

Reservation of Leader Time

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
leadership time is reserved.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is
recognized.

Skeptical Americans

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, with President Obama officially on
the campaign trail now, it is hard not to be reminded of the kind of
candidate he was the last time around and to marvel at the difference.
At some point the postpartisan healer who pledged to unite Red and
Blue America became the ``divider in chief,'' a deeply divisive
President who never seems to miss an opportunity to pit one group
against another and who is now determined to win reelection not by
appealing to America's best instincts but all too often to its worst.
Even the New York Times editorial page, this very morning, says the
country is more divided than it was 4 years ago under this President.
Some have argued that the transformation we have witnessed proves that
the President was a liberal ideologue all along, that the task of
governing revealed his true instincts. That may be true. But there is
an even simpler explanation than that, and one that in some ways is
even more disappointing. It is the idea that the President said what he
needed to say to get elected then and that he will say whatever he
needs to say to get reelected now.
It encapsulates why the American people are so very skeptical of
politicians. The President's policies may have disappointed. A health
care bill that was supposed to lower costs is causing them to rise. A
stimulus bill that was supposed to create jobs was better at generating
punch lines. But one of the greatest disappointments of this Presidency
is the difference between the kind of leader this President said he was
and the kind he has turned out to be.
How did that happen? Well, I think the President just put too much
faith in government. Let's face it; there isn't a problem we face that
this President didn't think the government could solve. Despite all the
evidence to the contrary, he still can't seem to shake the idea that
more government is the answer for what ails us.
When the stimulus failed, it wasn't the government's fault; it was
the Republicans. When the health care bill caused health care costs to
rise, the same thing. When trillions are spent and jobs don't come, it
is ATM machines, it is the weather, it is bankers, it is the rich, it
is Fox News--it is anything other than the government.
This is why the sickening waste of taxpayer dollars we have seen so
many times over the last 3 years--whether it was at a solar company
such as Solyndra or at a lavish party that Federal bureaucrats threw
for themselves in Vegas--is viewed not as a symptom of a larger problem
in Washington but as a problem to be managed, something to acknowledge
and then move beyond because they just don't seem to see it. The
President seems to view government the way some parents view their
children: It can do no wrong.

[[Page S2992]]

So if there is a problem to solve, a challenge to tackle, the
solution is always the same: more government, more government. And the
results are always the same: a disappointment to be blamed on
somebody--anybody--else.
I think the President summed it up pretty well during a speech he
gave in New York just yesterday. This is what he said:

The only way we can accelerate job creation that takes
place on a scale that is needed is bold action from Congress.

Really? The only way to accelerate job creation is through Congress?
Not the private sector? Hasn't the experience of the last 3\1/2\ years
taught this President anything at all about the limitations of
government action?
Madam President, 3\1/2\ years and $5 trillion later, there are nearly
a half million fewer jobs in the country than the day the President
took office. That is not what most people would describe as a good
return on investment. Yet that is all we get--the same government-
driven solutions he has been pushing for 3\1/2\ years.
Nearly 13 million Americans who are actively looking for jobs can't
find one. Millions more have given up looking for a job altogether as
the worker participation rate is the lowest it has been in 30 years.
More than half of all college graduates--the best prepared to enter
the workforce--can't find a good job. More than half of college
graduates can't find a job. And this President is proposing the same
old ideas that have failed before. Some government action failed? Then
just do it again on a larger scale. That is the approach this President
has taken. It is his approach still. It is the clearest sign he is
literally out of ideas.
But he is unwilling to try something different. He is unwilling to
confront the fact that a government that might have worked well a half
century ago is outdated and in desperate need of reform. So he is
resorting to the same old political gimmicks and games that he
criticizes others for using.
Earlier this year the President mocked those who, every time gas
prices go up, dust off their three-point plans to lower them,
especially in an election year. That was the President. Yet yesterday
he was proposing a five-point plan of his own to revive the economy, a
to-do list in effect for Congress.
The cynicism is literally breathtaking. Here is a President who, in
the morning, worked hand-in-hand with Senate Democrats to ensure that
legislation to freeze interest rates on student loans wouldn't pass,
and in the afternoon gave a recycled speech in which he pleaded for an
end to the very gridlock he was orchestrating. There is perhaps no
better illustration of how far this President has come from the heady
days of his last campaign.
Look: Americans voted this President into office on a promise of
bipartisan action.
Orchestrating political show votes on student loans and giving
Congress a post-it note checklist of legislative items to pass before
the election is not what the American people expected.
They expected us to work together and they still do.
The President knows as well as I do that the solution to our economic
problems lies not in a Post-It-Note congressional agenda dictated from
a lectern in New York, but through a sound limited-government pro-
growth plan, which includes comprehensive tax reform, a true all-of-
the-above energy policy and the elimination of burdensome regulations
that are hurting business and hindering job creation.
Republicans have been calling for these policies for years and the
President at one time or another has claimed to support them. These are
proposals where Republicans and Democrats can find common ground. In
other words, a plan designed not to control free enterprise from
Washington but to liberate it. We just need the President to show some
courage and leadership.
We will get this economy going not by handing out more special favors
and credits to favored industries and groups, but by simplifying the
code, clearing out the loopholes, and lowering rates for everybody.
In less than 8 months, Americans will be hit with the biggest tax
increase in history--unless we act.
The President knows as well as I do how devastating this would be for
the American people--for everyone.
People who are already struggling will have to do with even less.
Businesses that are already struggling just to keep afloat will see
Washington getting an even bigger take than it already is.
This looming tax hike will be absolutely devastating. Yet here we are
less than 8 months away from it, and the President is busy
orchestrating failure in the Senate and waving around some 5-point plan
cooked up by some high-paid political consultant in Chicago.
Now, I am not in the business of giving the President campaign
advice. But I am in the business of trying to get the best possible
outcome for the American people. And here is an issue--tax reform--
where I know the two parties have a shot at working together to help
this economy, and restore the American Dream for all those who've
started to doubt whether it will even be there in a few years.
So I would respectfully ask the President to ignore his campaign
consultants for once and do what's right for the nation as a whole.
Republicans in Congress are ready to work with you, Mr. President, on
the kind of comprehensive reforms that you yourself have called for in
the past.
Working together might not help your campaign, but it would help the
country. So my message to you is this: We are ready when you are.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MORAN. I ask consent to address the Senate as in morning hour.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Startup Act

Mr. MORAN. Madam President, once again, it is that time of year when
many proud parents will watch their children walk across the graduation
stage to receive their diplomas. Two years ago, I watched my oldest
daughter saunter across her college graduation stage and it was one of
those moments for me in which I realized our country faces tremendous,
enormous challenges, and if we fail to act our children's future will
be at significant risk.
I believe all Members of Congress, in fact every American, has the
responsibility to be a good steward of what has been passed on to us.
At that graduation event, I renewed my commitment to do my part to turn
our country around.
My fear is we are not doing enough, that we as Americans and
especially we as Members of this Congress are not doing enough to offer
our children a bright future. In the last 2 weeks, I have read
headlines that caught my attention. They would catch every American's
attention.
First, the amount of student loan debt has surpassed $1 trillion for
the first time in American history. Americans now have more combined
student loan debt than combined credit card debt.
Second, the AP recently reported that one out of every two college
graduates this year will be unemployed or underemployed. Unfortunately,
it is not just college graduates who are having trouble finding a job
and paying their bills. The Department of Labor reported just last week
that more than 12 million Americans are still looking for work and our
economy only added 115,000 jobs in April, the lowest number of jobs
added in 5 months. This makes 39 straight months of unemployment rate
over 8 percent.
Our first priority in Congress must be to strengthen our economy so
more jobs can be created, more Americans can get back to work, and more
graduates can pursue their dreams. Data tells us that for close to
three decades, companies less than 5 years old created almost all the
new net jobs in America, averaging 3 million jobs each year. While
startups provide the gasoline to fuel America's economic engine, new
businesses are hiring fewer employees than in the past and make up a
smaller share of all companies than in previous years.
Troubling data out last week from the Census Bureau shows that the
startup rate fell to the lowest point on record for new firm births in
2010. While startup companies are so important to job creation, their
numbers are now falling too. Given the disproportionate impact new
businesses have on

[[Page S2993]]

the economy, it makes sense to craft targeted policies that help
entrepreneurs start businesses and that make it easier for these young
businesses to grow.
A former NASA engineer now in the technology field gave me a useful
analogy. He described the process of designing a rocket or an airplane,
in which there are two forces at play that determine whether the rocket
will launch or plane will fly: thrust and drag. So much of what we want
to do around here tends to focus on the thrust, spending money and
creating programs, when what we ought to be doing is focusing on
reducing the drag.
Rather than spend money on government programs, Congress must and
should enact policies that create an environment in which many
entrepreneurs and their young companies have a better shot at success,
and in the process of pursuing success they put people to work--reduce
the drag so the private sector can create jobs.
To create this environment where these startup companies can be
successful, I have introduced the Startup Act with Senator Warner. The
Startup Act reforms the Federal regulatory process to ensure that the
cost of compliance does not outweigh the benefits of regulations. The
Startup Act alters the Tax Code to create incentives that will
facilitate the financing and growth of new businesses. The Startup Act
accelerates the commercialization of university research so more good
ideas move out of the laboratory and into the marketplace, where they
can create jobs for Americans.
Perhaps most important, the Startup Act helps America win the global
battle for talent.
On a recent trip to Silicon Valley, I met with startups,
entrepreneurs, and some of the leading technology companies in the
world--and they were just startup companies a few years ago. While I
heard many encouraging stories of success, their No. 1 concern was
attracting and retaining highly skilled employees. One business I met
said they had plans to hire dozens--I think the number was 68--foreign-
born but U.S.-educated individuals and to hire them here in the United
States, but they were unable to get the visas necessary to have these
workers work in the United States. Rather than lose that talent, this
company hired the employees but placed them at various international
offices in countries with immigration policies that encouraged the
retention and attraction of highly skilled foreign-born workers.
Another company told me that with the talent increasing overseas, it
will soon be easier for them to open offices and plants in other
countries rather than have the work done in the United States.
The last thing we want is for American businesses to have a better
business climate in places outside the United States. It is not just
the loss of those dozens of jobs to some other country; many of those
people in those businesses will become entrepreneurs themselves and
create their own businesses, hiring even more people down the road. So
we lose this talent, this skill on two occasions--first, the direct
jobs today and ultimately the jobs these entrepreneurs will create in
the future.
The future of our economic competitiveness depends upon America
winning the global battle for talent. Foreign-born Americans have a
strong record of creating businesses and employing Americans. Data
shows us that 53 percent of immigrant founders of U.S.-based technology
and engineering companies completed their highest degree at an American
university, and rather than send these talented, highly educated
individuals who have been educated in the United States back home once
they graduate, we should do much more to allow them to remain in the
United States, where their skills, their talents, and their intellect,
as well as their new ideas, can fuel U.S. economic growth.
We are not talking about illegal immigration; we are talking about
legal immigration. It makes no sense to educate these talented,
foreign-born students in America and then send them to their home
countries to compete against Americans for jobs.
The Startup Act will help America win this global battle for talent.
The Startup Act creates entrepreneur visas for foreign entrepreneurs
who register a business and employ Americans in the United States. By
encouraging more entrepreneurs to stay in America, they will not only
start more businesses but they will employ more Americans and
strengthen our economy. The Startup Act also creates a new STEM visa
for foreign students who graduate from an accredited U.S. university
with a master's or Ph.D. in science, technology, engineering or
mathematics. Our own Department of Commerce projects that STEM jobs
will grow by 17 percent in the years ahead. We have to retain more
highly skilled and highly talented and educated individuals, the ones
we educate in America, for us to remain competitive in a global
economy. We are going to make sure our own U.S.-born and educated
citizens have those job opportunities as well. We do not want to risk
the loss of the next Mark Zuckerberg to Brazil or India. Doing so will
fuel America's economic growth and result in the creation of jobs here
in America by retaining these folks.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, Congress should address this
issue. Congress's conventional wisdom says not much will get done. My
guess is 80 percent of my colleagues in Congress would agree with the
proposals contained in this legislation. Particularly, 80 percent I
think would agree with the aspect of the legislation dealing with STEM
visas. But we are told that because we cannot do everything, we cannot
do anything. That excuse is no longer a good one and should not be
accepted. We cannot continue to operate under the sentence that always
says we can't do anything in an election year. Our country desperately
needs us to act now, not later. In fact, in the short time I have been
a Member of the Senate--about 14, 15 months--six other countries have
changed their laws to encourage these types of individuals to work in
their countries, to create jobs, to support entrepreneurship,
innovation, and job creation in those countries. In just the little
over 1 year I have been a Member of the Senate, six other countries
have advanced further than we have while we have waited because we
cannot do anything because it is an election year.
America cannot turn a blind eye to those developments or to use the
upcoming elections as an excuse to do nothing, yet again, on an issue
that is so critical to our future. Congress should work to make it
easier for companies to grow because in a free market, when people have
a good idea and work hard, they not only enhance their own with success
but the lives of so many others through the products and jobs they
create.
If we do not take the steps now to win the global battle for talent,
our country's future economic growth will be limited. That means
college grads and young people will have fewer opportunities, and
higher rates of unemployment may become the norm instead of the
exception. Allowing talented, foreign-born U.S. students and
entrepreneurs to remain in the United States will create jobs for more
Americans.
I will continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate to implement
policies such as those contained in the Startup Act so more
entrepreneurs can turn their ideas into reality, that they will have
the chance for success. We owe the next generation of Americans the
opportunity to pursue their dreams--that those who this month walk
across the graduation stages in high schools and colleges and
universities, technical colleges and community colleges across our
country, will have the opportunity to pursue what we all know as the
American dream.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

National Flood Insurance Program

Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I come to the floor again to urge all of
us to join together on a bipartisan basis and to reauthorize the
national flood insurance program, to do it now, to do it quickly
because time is running out. On May 31 the entire National Flood
Insurance Program will expire. When the clock strikes midnight that
day, it will be gone unless

[[Page S2994]]

we act, and act we must. This is an important program for the country.

In my neck of the woods, in south Louisiana in particular, almost
every real estate closing is dependent on this program because those
properties need flood insurance for there to be a closing, which is
very typical in many other parts of the country. So here we are trying
to get out of a real estate-led recession, trying to bolster the
economy, and we are on the verge of letting the entire National Flood
Insurance Program expire yet again.
What is so frustrating about this is there are not big disagreements
about how to get this done. This is not an overly partisan issue; we
are not bitterly divided. This is merely an issue of getting floor time
in the Senate.
The House acted last year in a bipartisan way, and the Senate
committee on which I serve has acted. I have worked very closely with
my subcommittee chair Jon Tester, and we have acted in a bipartisan
way. We have put together a good 5-year reauthorization bill, but we
need to move this on and off the Senate floor to get this done before
the end of the month.
Again, I urge the distinguished majority leader, Senator Reid, to
give this important matter floor time. We all come here and talk about
needing to improve the economy. We all come to the floor and talk about
jobs. Well, it is absolutely necessary in all of those categories, with
all of those issues in mind, to extend the National Flood Insurance
Program. And let's not just put a bandaid on it again and let it limp
along with a very short-term extension. Let's do the full 5-year
reauthorization, which we can do, which is well in sight.
Groups around the country, particularly those working in the real
estate industry and in this part of the economy, strongly support this
effort.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the
Record several items, including a letter to Senator Reid and Senator
McConnell signed by dozens of associations all along the political
spectrum, urging this action.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

May 7, 2012.
Hon. Harry Reid,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Mitch McConnell,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell: On
behalf of the undersigned associations, we respectfully urge
the Senate to move quickly to reauthorize the National Flood
Insurance Program (NFIP) and avoid a costly lapse in the
program on May 31, 2012.
As you know, more than 5.6 million policyholders in 21,000
communities nationwide depend on the NFIP as their main
source of protection against property losses that result from
flooding. Without flood insurance, many residential and
commercial real estate transactions across the country will
come to a stop, as federally backed mortgage loans cannot
legally be secured without this critical protection. Failing
to reauthorize the NFIP could jeopardize nearly 40,000
mortgage closings per month, according to the National
Association of REALTORS.
In 2011, Hurricanes Irene and Lee caused significant
flooding from North Carolina to Maine. Those storms followed
more than one hundred natural catastrophe events and
significant spring 2011 flooding in several states across the
country. We are about to enter hurricane season again, and
America cannot afford a lapse of the program. Failure to
reauthorize the NFIP would further stress already struggling
real estate markets, potentially cost the government billions
of dollars in uncompensated relief efforts, and put millions
of consumers at risk.
In July 2011, the House of Representatives passed a bi-
partisan measure, H.R. 1309, by a vote of 406-22. On
September 9, 2011, the Senate Banking Committee unanimously
approved its version of the 5-year bill. Both proposals
include a long-term reauthorization and important reforms
that will optimize the current program, make needed
improvements to the floodplain mapping and appeals processes,
and other key reforms that will encourage program
participation and put the NFIP back on the path to sound
financial footing.
We urge the full Senate to act now to reauthorize this
program and avoid the costly consequences that would result
in a lapse from failure to act.
Sincerely,
American Bankers Association; American Bankers Insurance
Association; American Insurance Association; American Land
Title Association; American Resort Development Association;
Chamber Southwest LA; Consumer Bankers Association; Council
of Insurance Agents and Brokers; Credit Union National
Association; The Financial Services Roundtable; Houma-
Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce; Independent Community Bankers
of America; International Council of Shopping Centers;
Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America; Mortgage
Bankers Association; NAIOP, Commercial Real Estate
Development Association; National Association of Federal
Credit Unions; National Association of Home Builders;
National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies; National
Association of REALTORS^'; National Apartment
Association; National Multi-Housing Council; National Ready
Mixed Concrete Association; Property Casualty Insurers
Association of America; Reinsurance Association of America;
Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc. (RIMS).

Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record another letter along the same vein addressed to Senator
Tester, the subcommittee chair, and myself, the ranking member on the
subcommittee, again strongly supporting this effort. Let's do it. Let's
do it now. This is the SmarterSafer coalition, and this letter is dated
May 9.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Americans for Smart Natural

Catastrophe Policy,

May 9, 2012.
Hon. Jon Tester,
Chair, Economic Policy Subcommittee, Senate Banking
Committee, Washington DC.
Hon. David Vitter,
Ranking Member, Economic Policy Subcommittee, Senate Banking
Committee, Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Tester and Vitter: As a diverse coalition of
taxpayer advocates, environmental organizations, insurance
industry interests, housing groups and others, we thank you
for your efforts to reauthorize and reform the National Flood
Insurance Program (NFIP). The hearing you are holding today
is a positive step to getting the full Senate to consider and
pass the Banking Committee-passed bill to reform NFIP, which
as you know is in need of serious reform. The program is
currently almost $18 billion in debt to federal taxpayers and
that amount is likely to increase if reforms to the program
are not implemented. Without significant reform, the NFIP
will not be sustainable and American taxpayers will continue
to be asked to bailout the program time and time again.
The Senate Banking Committee has already unanimously
reported out a bill that makes a number of needed reforms to
put the flood insurance program on sound financial footing
and the House passed NFIP reform with over 400 votes. The
bill will phase out risky, unwarranted subsidies that have
undermined the financial stability of the program; will allow
NFIP to purchase reinsurance to help NFIP pay future claims
while protecting taxpayers from these otherwise inevitable
costs; will require FEMA to ensure maps are updated and
accurate so that people understand and can better prepare for
their risks; and will streamline and strengthen mitigation
programs to help decrease flood risks and strengthen flood-
exposed communities, homes, and businesses.
The Banking Committee has taken a needed step to reforming
the nation's flood insurance program and Smarter Safer joins
a range of stakeholder groups in applauding this legislation.
We urge the full Senate to quickly pass this needed reform to
NFIP so that the House and Senate can begin to resolve the
differences and quickly get a bill to the President's desk.
We look forward to working with you on this issue and thank
you for all of your efforts to pass this critical
legislation.
Sincerely,
SmarterSafer.
Environmental Organizations: American Rivers, Ceres, Clean
Air-Cool Planet, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense
Fund, National Wildlife Federation, Republicans for
Environmental Protection, Sierra Club.
Consumer and Taxpayer Advocates: American Conservative
Union, American Consumer Institute, Competitive Enterprise
Institute, Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Insurer Interests: Allianz of America, Association of
Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers, Chubb, Liberty Mutual Group,
National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies,
Reinsurance Association of America, Swiss Re, USAA.
Housing: National Low Income Housing Coalition, National
Leased Housing Association.

Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to also have
printed in the Record an op-ed in Roll Call written by two
representatives of this broad coalition again explaining the absolute
importance and the critical nature of doing this full, longer term
reauthorization.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From Roll Call, May 8, 2012]

Sampson & Veissi: End Flood Insurance Program Uncertainty

(By David Sampson and Moe Veissi)

When Gerald Ford took the Presidential Oath of Office after
Richard Nixon's resignation, he reminded Congress and the
American people that ``even though this is late in

[[Page S2995]]

an election year, there is no way we can go forward except
together and no way anybody can win except by serving the
people's urgent needs.''
Congress would do well to heed his words as we approach a
watershed election this November.
Despite widespread partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill, at
least one opportunity for bicameral, bipartisan consensus
exists: reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program
(NFIP).
The flood program sits in limbo, set to expire on May 31.
Extending the NFIP must be a top congressional priority. The
NFIP provides vital flood protection for more than 5.6
million home and business owners in 21,000 communities across
the country. Furthermore, the housing market relies on a
strong and stable flood insurance program.
A lack of flood insurance coverage creates uncertainty in
the housing market and leaves homeowners dangerously
vulnerable to devastating floods, which are not just a
coastal issue. Flood disasters have been declared in every
state and over the past century have claimed more lives and
property than any other natural disaster.
In 2010, the NFIP was allowed to lapse for 53 days, halting
tens of thousands of real estate transactions in areas where
homebuyers are required to purchase flood insurance to obtain
a mortgage. Long-term reauthorization of the insurance
program would help provide the housing market with the
certainty it needs for a recovery.
The National Association of Realtors estimates that another
lapse in coverage could stall more than 1,300 home sales per
day. And disruptions in flood insurance availability leave
all taxpayers exposed to widespread, costly relief efforts.
We have witnessed encouraging signs from elected officials
in recent months.
The Senate Banking Committee passed a five-year
reauthorization bill at the end of 2011 and the bill now
awaits floor time.
Last summer, the House passed its five-year reauthorization
on a resounding, bipartisan vote of 406 22. Additionally, the
Obama Administration has heralded the House legislation and
urged Congress to adopt fundamental NFIP reforms.
This is progress, but it will be of little comfort to
homeowners if Congress does not act soon to pass a long-term
reauthorization for the NFIP.
As politics gets more polarized, Americans are looking for
signs that our elected officials can work together to address
real problems. Realtors and insurers stand together in
calling for Congress to put aside partisan differences and
bring much-needed certainty to a program on which so many
Americans rely.

Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I keep coming to the floor urging this
because it is so important and because it is so achievable. Again,
there are not big issues dividing us. This is not a partisan issue. We
just need Senate floor time to get it done. In that vein, I will be
doing two things today and in the near future.
First, I will be passing around to all Members of the Senate a new
letter addressed to Senator Reid to urge that this matter be put on the
floor as soon as possible. In a letter dated February 14, we urged this
on a bipartisan basis, and 41 Senators, of both parties, signed that.
This new letter restates that case, and, of course, now it is more
urgent than ever as the clock ticks to May 31--just 3 weeks and 1 day
away.
I will also be proposing an amendment to the next matter that comes
on the Senate floor to incorporate the Senate bill with perfecting
amendments that have been worked out toward the floor to incorporate
that amendment on the next bill on the Senate floor. My understanding
is that will either be the FDA user fee reauthorization or a small
business tax bill. Neither of those bills is bitterly partisan or
highly divisive. So I will be proposing as an amendment to either of
those bills--whichever comes to the floor next--the full
reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program along the lines
the Senate committee has proposed.
Again, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support
that effort. I urge Senator Reid to use that as a mechanism to get that
done now, this month, before the expiration of the program.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Emissions Trading

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, in 2005 the European Union began their
emissions trading scheme, which attempts to cap emissions of carbon
dioxide from stationary sources within the EU.
Starting in 2012, civil aviation operators departing from or landing
in Europe began to be included in this emissions scheme. Under this
program, any airline, including non-European airlines flying into and
out of Europe, will be required to pay for EU emissions allowances.
This change comes at a time when EU allowance prices continue to
decline to a little over 6 euros, and the commission is considering
proposals to drive up the prices.
Allowances will be collected for the entirety of the flight,
including portions in U.S. and international airspace. For example,
this means a flight leaving from Los Angeles, CA, and flying to London
would be taxed on the entirety of the flight, not just the fractional
part of the flight that is over EU airspace. To put it another way, you
would be taxed as if 100 percent of your flight was in EU airspace even
though approximately only 7 percent of the flight actually was; that
is, a flight originating in California here in the United States and
flying to London.
Very simply, the unilateral imposition of such a scheme on the United
States and other countries is arbitrary, unfair, and a violation of
international law. Plus, it is being done without any guarantees for
environmental improvements and at a huge cost to the aviation industry
and constituents we serve here in this country.
According to the International Air Transport Association, the
economic cost of this program for airlines is expected to be $1.3
billion in 2012. Let me repeat that: $1.3 billion in 2012. It is
expected to reach as high as $3.5 billion by the year 2020. Those are
revenues coming out of the airlines in this country that would be used
to pay for this fee--this tax, if you will--imposed by the EU on U.S.
airspace. By requiring commercial aviation to comply, the EU ETS also
limits airline capital that could be available for other meaningful
purposes, including their ability to invest in more fuel-efficient
engines, alternative sources of fuel, and research and development.
No one in Congress is against the EU implementing ETS within their
boundaries. However, I believe that any system that includes
international and other non-EU airspace must be addressed through the
International Civil Aviation Organization, the ICAO policies, of which
the United States and 190 countries are members. In fact, under current
ICAO standards, the aviation industry is targeted to achieve a 1.5-
percent average annual improvement in carbon and fuel efficiency
through 2020 and carbon-neutral growth from 2020 forward.
That is why the U.S. airline industry and those advocates in the
industry also agree that a single global approach to greenhouse gas
emissions set at the ICAO is preferred to the unilateral EU ETS system.
Even the Obama administration testified before the House Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure in July of 2011 that an EU ETS is
inconsistent with international aviation law. The State Department and
the U.S. Department of Transportation are also pressing this issue with
their counterparts in Europe and are considering all legal and policy
options to prevent further application of EU ETS to U.S. air carriers.
In addition, other nations have voiced opposition. Those nations
include Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea,
Mexico, the Russian Federation, and South Africa. In fact, China's
Ambassador to the EU recently suggested that they will begin canceling
Airbus orders if the EU ETS remains in place. Also, countries such as
Italy, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Spain--all EU member
states--are calling for the postponement of EU ETS out of concerns
raised by the international community. Even European manufacturers and
airlines such as Airbus, Air France, and British Airways have urged
their respective governments to stop the escalating trade conflict
between the EU and the rest of the world.
The EU has no right to play policeman and undermine the ongoing work
at the ICAO. As a result of this action by the EU, on December 7, 2011,
I introduced the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition
Act, S. 1956, which now has seven cosponsors, both Democrats and
Republicans. The bill gives the Secretary of Transportation the
authority to take the necessary steps to ensure that America's aviation
operators are not penalized by

[[Page S2996]]

any system unilaterally imposed by the EU. The bill also requires the
Secretary of Transportation, the Administrator of the FAA, and other
senior U.S. officials to use their authority to conduct international
negotiations and take other actions necessary to ensure that U.S.
operators are held harmless from the action of the European Union. The
House of Representatives passed a similar bill by a voice vote on
October 24, 2011. The U.S. commercial aviation community, including
airlines and manufacturers, are all supportive of my bipartisan bill.
Next month, I am looking forward to the Commerce Committee hearing
that is scheduled to take a closer look at this important issue and at
my legislation.
Doing nothing is not an option. The unilateral imposition of the EU
emissions trading scheme is a violation of international law and is
hurting U.S. airlines, manufacturers, and consumers. Keep in mind that
with near record oil prices, the EU ETS will add to the already high
amount airlines and passengers pay for fuel.
We need to act now. We need to send a clear and unequivocal message
and pass my bipartisan bill that addresses this scheme and protects the
U.S. aviation industry and American sovereignty. I hope we will act on
this legislation and make sure that this issue, once and for all, is
put to rest and that the European Union is not able to assess a tax or
a fee on American airlines operating in American airspace.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, here we are again in the Senate on yet
another day when families and students across this country are
wondering if we are going to do our duty. Are we actually going to move
legislation that will keep the interest rate at 3.4 percent on
subsidized student loans or are we going to let it go to 6.8 percent--
double--on July 1?
We have legislation and we brought it to the floor. Yet yesterday my
Republican colleagues voted to not even proceed to it. I think the
people of America are saying that this shouldn't happen. We should be
able to work these things out. We should move legislation, not obstruct
it.
Everyone now agrees we should keep the interest rate at 3.4 percent.
The Republicans say they want to keep it at 3.4 percent and we say we
do. The Republicans were initially opposed to this, but they have
gotten onboard. That is fine. I have been here on the floor listening
to my colleagues talk about this since Monday. Everyone agrees we have
to keep it at 3.4 percent and not let it go up, so it ought to be a
bipartisan issue. We ought to be able to move this rapidly and move on
to other matters. There are other issues confronting us in the Senate.
Yet here we are on the floor again today discussing the student loan
interest rate.
As I said, we had the vote yesterday to move it forward, but my
Republican colleagues blocked us from doing that. They agree we should
keep the interest rate at 3.4 percent, but not on how to pay for it.
Well, OK, fine; that is a legitimate point of debate and discussion and
votes. So why don't we move the bill forward, bring it to the floor,
and let's have a debate and discussion on how we pay for it. If they
want to offer an amendment, they can offer an amendment and we will
vote on it. It seems to me--at least I think--that one of the
responsibilities, and maybe privileges but responsibilities, of the
majority party in the Senate, whichever party it might be, is to
initiate legislation and bring it to the floor. The privilege and
responsibility of the minority party is to be able to amend it, to try
to make it better as they may see fit. I don't think it should be a
privilege and responsibility of the minority party to block everything,
but we have seen that happen more and more over the last few years.
Republicans won't let us bring a bill to the floor because under the
rules it requires 60 votes rather than 51 votes to bring a bill
forward. So, again, we are stuck because we can't bring the bill
forward.
I hope we have another cloture vote. Let's keep having these cloture
votes and maybe Republicans then will say, OK, let's move it forward
and let's debate it and move on. So I hope that is what we are going to
be doing rather than stopping the process in its tracks.
It is interesting to note that House and Senate Republicans were
silent on this issue until students from around the country became
aware of the impending increase and made their voices heard. Democrats
were already hard at work on the solution. I would remind my colleagues
that earlier this year, in the budget debate in the House, an amendment
was offered by Democrats during the House budget process to extend the
current rate of 3.4 percent. That amendment lost by a straight party
vote. Instead, the Republicans proposed to pay for this by taking money
from the Prevention and Public Health Fund. That is not an appropriate
solution, killing the fund that is preventing cancer and preventing
unnecessary diseases in the United States.
My friends on the other side would have us believe that nothing bad
will happen if we eliminate the Prevention and Public Health Fund. They
call it a slush fund. There is no truth to that at all. The truth is
that the elimination of this fund would have disastrous effects on the
health of our kids and our families. To eliminate the Prevention and
Public Health Fund will cost us billions in the future for taking care
of people who have chronic illnesses and chronic diseases and obesity.
We know that an investment in immunizing our kids--for example, for
every dollar, it saves us $16 in saved health care costs. To eliminate
this fund would lead to a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases in
every State due to the expected loss of more than 1.5 million doses of
lifesaving vaccines and nearly 1,100 skilled public health workers.
Again, eliminating the Prevention and Public Health Fund would mean
eliminating vaccines for our kids, eliminating public health workers
who know how to deliver these vaccines and respond to outbreaks. We
would be losing public health staff at the State and local levels.
Eliminating this fund would end support for increased calls to the
tobacco quitline, meaning smokers encouraged to quit by the fund's
strategic and evidence-based investments thus far would not have the
support to keep that quitline going. If current smoking rates persist,
6 million kids living in the United States today will ultimately die
from smoking. If we eliminate the Prevention and Public Health Fund, we
will be forced to reduce the availability of mental health and
substance abuse services to very vulnerable Americans.
Eliminating the fund, as the Republicans want to do, would reduce
investment in public health laboratory capacity at the State and local
levels, thereby reducing the speed with which we can detect and respond
to outbreaks and, yes, maybe even terrorist events. It would cut the
number of disease detectives that the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention can train and deploy. These disease detectives are our first
line of defense against infectious diseases.
Eliminating this fund would result in layoffs, as I said, of public
health officials in every State and community who are working on
chronic disease prevention, immunization, health-care-associated
infections, and other health problems.
An elimination of the prevention fund--again, I use the word
``elimination.'' The Republican proposal wouldn't just take some money
from the prevention fund, it would kill the prevention fund. It would
take every single penny out of it.
My friends on the Republican side say: Well, President Obama in his
budget took money out of the prevention fund. In fact, Democrats joined
with Republicans earlier this year in taking $5 billion out of the life
of this fund to help pay for extending the unemployment insurance
program for the remainder of this year, as well as extending the
payroll tax cut. They use that example to say, Well, we can kill the
whole thing. I must be very frank.

[[Page S2997]]

I was not in favor of that $5 billion cut, but be that as it may, as I
used the analogy yesterday, it is one thing to take a couple of pints
of blood and another to take all the blood. A person can live if a
couple of pints of blood are taken; they can live and get healthy. That
is what is happening to the prevention fund. The Prevention and Public
Health Fund is alive and well and doing its job even though some money
is taken out of it. What the Republicans want to do is take all the
blood out and kill the whole program.
President Obama has said he will veto this bill if there are any cuts
in the Prevention and Public Health Fund. So there has been a line
drawn. We took some money out of it before, but no more. That is it; no
more money is coming out of this prevention fund because of the good it
is doing in this country.
An elimination of this fund, which the Republicans want to do, would
stop in midstream across our country efforts to address the risk
factors for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer--the leading
causes of death and health care costs. Yesterday in this Chamber I read
from a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that finds
that if we could prevent the obesity rate from increasing past its
current 34-percent rate right now, we could save nearly $550 billion in
the next 20 years.
In 1980, the obesity rate was right at about 15 percent in this
country. Today, as I said, it is 34 percent. If it increases at the
rate they expect, looking at all indicators now, 42 percent of all
Americans will be obese by 2030 and one out of every four of them will
be severely obese. That means a huge increase in adult onset diabetes
and all the accompanying health care risks and costs, including heart
disease and stroke, that accompany obesity.
We know how to address it. We have evidence-based programs that we
know work in keeping the obesity rate down. That is what the prevention
fund does. The Republicans want to kill it. They say no, get rid of it.
Cuts to our chronic disease prevention programs would mean 120
million Americans--1 in every 3 citizens--would lose access to
preventive services. It would mean $103 million no longer available to
States and counties and local jurisdictions to provide these services.
Over 20 million Americans in rural areas in New York and in Iowa and
all across this country would no longer have access to preventive
services and programs.
The American people get it. Our citizens, whom we represent, get it.
They understand. A poll was taken which said that voters overwhelmingly
support more investment in prevention. This is from a 2009 public
opinion poll: 71 percent of Americans polled said yes, do more, invest
more in prevention. Our fellow citizens are crying out to us for help.
They want help. They want to know what to do. How do they change? What
can we do in our communities, our schools, our workplaces, our clinics,
our community health centers? What can we do so that we don't get sick,
so we don't get obese or diabetes, so we don't have heart disease? Most
people don't know what to do. They need some help. They need
information. They need support.
That is what this prevention fund does. We know it works. We know. We
have evidence-based programs out there that work. The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention is doing an outstanding job across this
country in these programs: from community programs, to public health
infrastructure, to clinical preventive services, research, tobacco
prevention programs, detection and prevention of infectious diseases,
and training and preparing the public health workforce--all of this.

That is why prevention is not just something people go into a
doctor's office to get a shot for or get a prescription for and people
get a pill for. Prevention encompasses a lot of different things--
everything from newborn screening, immunizations for children, school-
based programs, and better food and nutrition in our school meals for
kids.
Communities change the way they operate and do things--more walking
paths, more bike paths. The other day there was something said about
Illinois had used some of this for signage and walking paths for kids.
I pointed out, yes, they did. What happened is the number of kids
walking to school increased, and that cut down on the number of buses
they had to use. It saved the school some money, and the kids got
healthier.
I have often used the example that when I first moved to Washington
in 1979, when I was in the House, my wife and I purchased a home in
Virginia. We still live there. One of the reasons we bought it was
because we were about a mile away from a school, a high school. We
thought: That is great. The kids can just walk to school. Little did I
know there were no walking paths to the school. It was a busy street.
There was a sidewalk for a little ways, and then there was not one. The
kids could not walk. So they had to take a bus just to go 1 mile.
So, again, communities putting in sidewalks, safe passages for kids
to do that, that is healthy living. I have seen instances in my own
State where communities have put in walking paths for the elderly, for
senior citizens, so they do not have a lot of steps and things to go up
and down. You would be amazed how many people use that and stay
healthy.
Supporting systems in our workplaces, making our workplaces more
healthy, helping businesses understand what they can do to provide a
healthier workplace for people--examples abound all over this country.
I say to the Acting President pro tempore, I am sure I do not know
all the instances in New York State, but I will bet you communities
there have gotten together and thought about how to make life a little
bit more healthy, how to support a more healthy infrastructure for
their people.
Some communities are coming up with very ingenious ideas. I say more
power to them. That is what the Prevention Fund is for--to help them,
to encourage them, to give them the kind of support they need to
provide that healthy living.
I have said many times, it is interesting that in America it is easy
to be unhealthy and hard to be healthy. One would think it should be
the other way around. It should be easy to be healthy and harder to be
unhealthy. It is just the other way around.
So what we are trying to do with some part of the prevention fund--
not all of it; part of it--is to make it easier to be healthy, to make
that an easier option for people.
So if we both agree--Republicans and Democrats--on the fact that we
need to keep the interest rate on student loans at 3.4 percent, then
the debate is just on the offset. As I have said, Republicans want to
kill the prevention fund. The American people have said loudly: No, we
do not want to do that. We want more investment in prevention. We do
not want to get sick. We do not want to get obese. We want to quit
smoking. We want our kids to be healthy. We want them to have healthier
food, better exercise. Republicans are saying: Well, we are just not
going to do that. I guess we will pay more for it in chronic illnesses
and diseases down the line.
Well, our offset is one that I think is legitimate and sound, closing
a loophole in the Tax Code. That means more money would go into the
Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and it would help us keep the
interest rate at 3.4 percent.
Education has always, and I hope will always, remain a bipartisan
issue here. I urge my Republican colleagues to come to the table with a
serious offset--a serious offset. If they do not like what we have
proposed, please come with something that is serious. Eliminating the
prevention fund is a no-starter. As the President said, he would veto
it. So why push it?
I think this is an opportunity for all of us to come together and
show the American people this body is not broken; we can work with each
other and get things done for the good of our people. Again, I
encourage my Republican colleagues to allow us to move forward on the
bill. Do not keep blocking it. If they want to offer a different
offset, fine. Not this one, not the elimination of the prevention fund
because that is not serious. That is not going anywhere. If they have
some other ideas, bring them forward. As of yet we have seen nothing
from my Republican colleagues other than stopping the bill--stopping
it, stopping it, stopping it.

[[Page S2998]]

So I hope they will come to the table, and I hope we can move this
bill forward.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, first, I commend my friend from Iowa for
being such a phenomenal champion of preventive health care. He has been
fighting for this as long as he has been in the Senate, and he has had
some great victories. He has had some setbacks but mainly victories. It
is because of his energy and effort that we are where we are today in
terms of getting this money for preventive health care, and his
continued effort to fight for it and to preserve this fund is notable.
It is going to succeed. If it does, and when it does, it will be mainly
because of our friend from Iowa.
Our Republican colleagues could have allowed us yesterday to begin
debate on legislation to fix the looming increase in student loan
interest rates. They could have helped us avoid adding to the already
crushing weight of student debt that families in our country face. They
could have joined us in taking a step toward letting parents do what
parents desperately want to do, which is to help their kids to a better
future.
American families are waiting for us to act. On July 1 the interest
rate on student loans is going to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8
percent. It is going to double unless we act. For every year we fail to
act, it will cost the typical college student and their family $1,000.
That is $1,000 that most families do not have to spare. More than 7
million students and their families nationwide would be affected. So
the need to act is urgent.
Instead, in what has come to be a damaging ritual in the Senate,
Republicans have filibustered a motion to proceed to important
legislation. Republicans have voted against even allowing the Senate to
begin to debate a bill. Why not debate it? Why not offer relevant
amendments? Why not address this important issue?

No. By their filibuster, our Republican colleagues have refused to
let the Senate even start this process. Republicans say they too want
to prevent this increase in student loan interest rates. They differ
with us, they say, on how to pay for it. Republicans say the only way
they are going to support this legislation to prevent the rate increase
is with cuts from a fund that helps to prevent infectious and chronic
diseases.
The program Republicans seek to eliminate has provided more than $8
million to my State to help fight major health problems, such as
influenza, diabetes, HIV, heart disease, and cervical cancer. These
funds even helped to provide funding for childhood immunizations
programs. So what the Republicans propose is this: choose between
helping college students and their families and helping to prevent
expensive and debilitating health problems, choose between education
and health care. Choosing to allow more health problems in order to
help students and their families is not a choice at all.
Democrats are offering a different alternative. We recognize the Tax
Code is full of loopholes and special breaks that allow some
individuals and some corporations to avoid paying taxes. In this case,
what is identified is a tax break that allows some professional service
providers such as lawyers to avoid paying their payroll taxes by
organizing their businesses as so-called S corporations and then paying
themselves in the form of dividends instead of salaries. The Government
Accountability Office recently examined this issue and found widespread
problems, costing taxpayers and the Treasury billions of dollars each
year in uncollected revenues.
What our bill would do is require the professional service providers
with incomes above $250,000 a year to pay payroll taxes on the income
they derive from these S corporations. We would use the revenues from
closing that loophole for those with incomes above $250,000 to prevent
the interest rate hike that is going to hit middle-income families. At
the same time we are going to be able to do that, we are also going to
avoid increasing the deficit or slashing important programs.
Our Republican colleagues have accused us--to quote one of them--of
raising taxes on ``the people that are doing some of the very serious
job creation in this country.''
Well, not long ago Republicans were saying something different about
this loophole. For starters, they actually called it a loophole. That
is what former Vice President Cheney called it during his 2004 Vice
Presidential debate.
He called it a ``special loophole.'' He accused his debate opponent
of dodging $600,000 in payroll taxes using this loophole. Likewise, a
Republican candidate for the Senate not long ago called this ``a
deceptive tax scheme to get around the IRS.'' There were no Republican
cries then about raising taxes on job creators.
The fact is this loophole ought to be closed, no matter who is taking
advantage of it, Democrats or Republicans. Closing it, at least for
those with incomes above $250,000, in order to avoid another blow in a
long series of blows to middle-income Americans just makes sense and is
fundamentally fair.
Hundreds of thousands of students in my State of Michigan depend on
student loans to help afford college. They and their families know
college is not going to get any cheaper. They do not need a doubled
interest rate on top of tuition increases. For many an affordable loan
is the difference between staying in school or giving up the dream of a
college education. We should not let this loophole stand in the way of
those dreams.
I urge our Republican colleagues to end their filibuster of this
vital bill. If Republicans think they have a better way, let's debate
their alternative and let's vote. Let's end this filibuster. Let's end
it today.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WEBB. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15
minutes as in morning business.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

War Powers

Mr. WEBB. Madam President, I rise today to address perhaps the most
important constitutional challenge facing the balance of power between
the Presidency and the Congress in modern times, and also to offer a
legislative solution that might finally address this paralysis. It is
an issue that has for far too long remained unresolved. And for the
past 10 years, the failure of this body to address it has diminished
the respect, the stature, and the seriousness with which the American
people have viewed the Congress--to the detriment of our country and to
our national security.
The question is simple: When should the President have the unilateral
authority to decide to use military force, and what is the place of the
Congress in that process? What has happened to reduce the role of the
Congress from the body which once clearly decided whether the Nation
would go to war, to the point that we are viewed as little more than a
rather mindless conduit that collects taxpayer dollars and dispenses
them to the President for whatever military functions he decides to
undertake?
We know what the Constitution says. Most of us also know the
difficulties that have attended this situation in the years that
followed World War II.
We are aware of the debates that resulted in the war powers
resolution of nearly 40 years ago in the wake of the Vietnam war, where
the Congress attempted to define a proper balance between the President
and this legislative body. I have strong memories of the policy
conflicts of that era, first as a marine infantry officer who fought on
the unforgiving battlefields of Vietnam, on which more than 100,000
U.S. marines were killed or wounded, and later as an ardent student of
constitutional law during my time at the Georgetown University Law
Center.
But it was in the decades following Vietnam that our constitutional
process seems to have broken apart. Year by year, skirmish by skirmish,
the role of the Congress in determining where the U.S. military would
operate and when the awesome power of our weapons systems would be
unleashed has diminished. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks,
especially with the advent of special operations forces and remote
bombing capabilities, the Congress seems to have faded into operational
irrelevance.
Congressional consent is rarely discussed. The strongest debates
surround

[[Page S2999]]

the rather irrelevant issue of whether the Congress has even been
consulted. We have now reached the point that the unprecedented--and,
quite frankly, contorted--constitutional logic used by this
administration to intervene in Libya on the basis of what can most
kindly be called a U.N. standard of humanitarian intervention was not
even subject to a full debate or a vote on the Senate floor. Such an
omission, and the precedent it has set, now requires us to accept one
of two uncomfortable alternatives. Either we as a legislative body must
reject this passivity and live up to the standards and expectations
regarding Presidential power that were laid down so carefully by our
Founding Fathers or we must accept a redefinition of the very precepts
upon which this government was founded.
This is not a political issue. We would be facing the exact same
constitutional challenges no matter the party of the President. In
fact, unless we resolve this matter, there is no doubt we someday will.
The conflict in the balance of power between the President and the
Congress has always been an intrinsic part of our constitutional
makeup. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution provides that the
Congress alone has the power to declare war. Article II, section 2 of
the Constitution provides that the President shall serve as Commander
in Chief. In the early days of our Republic, these distinctions were
clear, particularly since we retained no large standing army during
peacetime, and since article I, section 8 also provides that the
Congress has the power to ``raise and support armies,'' a phrase that
expressed the clear intent of the Framers that large ground forces were
not to be kept during peacetime but, instead, were to be raised at the
direction of Congress during the time of war.
Our history confirms this, as our armies demobilized again and again
once wars were completed. Only after World War II did this change, when
our rather reluctant position as the world's greatest guarantor of
international stability required that we maintain a large standing
military force, much of it stationed in Europe and Asia, ready to
respond to crises whose immediacy could not otherwise allow us to go
through the lengthy process of mobilization in order to raise an army
and because of that reality made the time-honored process of asking the
Congress for a formal declaration of war in most cases obsolescent.
But any logical proposition can be carried to a ridiculous extreme.
The fact that some military situations have required our Presidents to
act immediately before then reporting to the Congress does not, in and
of itself, give the President a blanket authority to use military force
whenever and wherever he decides to do so, even where Americans are not
personally at risk and even where the vital interests of our country
have not been debated and clearly defined. This is the ridiculous
extreme we have now reached. The world is filled with tyrants.
Democratic systems are far and few between. I don't know exactly what
objective standard should be used before the U.S. Government would
decide to conduct a so-called humanitarian intervention by using our
military power to address domestic tensions inside another country, and
I don't believe anyone else knows either. But I will say this: No
President should have the unilateral authority to make that decision
either.
I make this point from the perspective of somebody who grew up in the
military and whose family has participated as citizen soldiers in most
of our country's wars, beginning with the American Revolution. I was
proud to serve as a marine in Vietnam, and I am equally proud of my
son's service as a marine infantryman in Iraq. I am also deeply
grateful for having had the opportunity to serve 5 years in the
Pentagon, first as a marine, then later as Assistant Secretary of
Defense and as a Secretary of the Navy. I have also benefited over the
years from having served in many places around the world as a
journalist, including in Beirut during our military engagement there in
1983 and in Afghanistan as an embedded journalist in 2004. As most
people in this body know, I am one of the strongest proponents of the
refocusing of our national involvement in East Asia. I was the original
sponsor of a Senate resolution condemning China's use of force with
respect to sovereignty issues in the South China Sea.
The point is I am not advocating a retreat from anywhere. But this
administration's argument that it has the authority to decide when and
where to use military force without the consent of the Congress, using
the fragile logic of humanitarian intervention to ostensibly redress
domestic tensions inside countries where American interests are not
being directly threatened is gravely dangerous. It is a bridge too far.
It does not fit our history. To give one individual such discretion
ridicules our Constitution. It belittles the role of the Congress. For
anyone in this body to accept this rationale is also for them to accept
that the Congress no longer has any direct role in the development, and
particularly in the execution, of foreign policy.
There are clear and important boundaries that have always existed
when considering a President's authority to order our military into
action without the immediate consent of the Congress. To exceed these
boundaries--as the President has already done with the precedent set in
Libya--is to deliberately destroy the balance of powers that were built
so carefully into the Constitution itself.
These historically acceptable conditions under which a President can
unilaterally order the military into action are clear: If our country
or our military forces are attacked; if an attack, including one by
international terrorists, is imminent and must be preempted; if treaty
commitments specifically compel us to respond to attacks on our allies;
if American citizens are detained or threatened; if our sea lanes are
interrupted, then, and only then, should the President order the use of
military force without first gaining the approval of the Congress.
At least until recent months, the Congress has never accepted that
the President owns the unilateral discretion to initiate combat
activities without direct provocation, without Americans at risk,
without the obligations of treaty commitments, and without the consent
of the Congress. The recent actions by this administration, beginning
with the months-long intervention in Libya, should give us all grounds
for concern and alarm about the potential harm to our constitutional
system itself. We are in no sense compelled--or justified--in taking
action based on a vote of the United Nations or as a result of a
decision made by a collective security arrangement, such as NATO, when
none of its members have been attacked. It is not the prerogative of
the President to decide to commit our military and our prestige into
situations that cannot clearly be determined to flow from vital
national interests.

Who should decide that? I can't personally and conclusively define
the boundaries of what is being called a humanitarian intervention and,
most importantly, neither can anybody else. Where should it apply?
Where should it not? Rwanda? Libya? Syria? Venezuela? Bangladesh? In
the absence of a clear determination by our time-honored constitutional
process, who should decide where our young men and women or our
national treasure should be risked? Some of these endeavors may be
justified, some may not. But the most important point to be made is
that in our system no one person should have the power to inject the
U.S. military and the prestige of our Nation into such circumstances.
Our Constitution was founded upon this hesitation. We inherited our
system from Great Britain, but we adapted and changed it for a reason.
One of our strongest adjustments from the British system was to ensure
that no one person would have the power to commit the Nation to
military schemes that could not be justified by the interests and the
security of the average citizen. President after President, beginning
with George Washington, has emphasized the importance of this
fundamental principle to the stability of our political system and to
the integrity of our country in the international community. The fact
that the leadership of our Congress has failed to raise this historic
standard in the past few years, and most specifically in Libya, is a
warning sign to this body that it must reaffirm one of its most solemn
responsibilities.
I have been working for several months to construct a legislative
solution to this paralysis. This legislation

[[Page S3000]]

would recognize that modern circumstances require an adroit approach to
the manner in which our foreign policy is being implemented. But it
would also put necessary and proper boundaries around a President's
discretion when it comes to so-called humanitarian intervention, where
we and our people are not being directly threatened. My legislation
requires that in any situation where American interests are not
directly threatened, the President must obtain formal approval by the
Congress before introducing American military force. This legislation
will also provide that debate on such a request must begin within days
of the request and that a vote must proceed in a timely manner.
I remind the leadership on both sides of this body that despite
repeated calls from myself and other Senators, when this administration
conducted month after month of combat operations in Libya, with no
American interests directly threatened and no clear treaty provisions
in play, the Congress of the United States, both Democratic and
Republican, could not even bring itself to have a formal debate on
whether the use of military force was appropriate, and this use of
military force that went on for months was never approved. The
administration, which spent well over $1 billion of taxpayer funds,
dropped thousands of bombs on the country and operated our military
offshore for months, claimed that combat was not occurring and rejected
the notion that the War Powers Act applied to the situation. I am not
here to debate the War Powers Act; I am suggesting that other statutory
language that covers these kinds of situations must be enacted. The
legislation I will be introducing will address this loophole in the
interpretation of our Constitution. It will serve as a necessary safety
net to protect the integrity and the intent of the Constitution itself.
It will ensure that the Congress lives up not only to its prerogatives,
which were so carefully laid out by our Founding Fathers, but also to
its responsibilities.
With that, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska is
recognized.
Mr. BEGICH. Madam President, I come down to talk about the issue of
student loans, as someone who has two ends of this equation--one as the
former chairman of the Student Loan Corporation for the State of Alaska
for 7 years. I took that corporation from the brink of bankruptcy, junk
bond rating, you name it--it was in dismal condition. We turned it
around, and 7 years later the corporation ended up paying a hefty
annual dividend to Alaska for higher education and had one of the
lowest interest rates in the country and increased the capacity for
students to borrow money not only for 2- and 4-year degrees and
master's degrees but also for career education, something most people
told me, when I became chair of that corporation, would never be able
to be done. Good luck. We wish you the best. And off they went and most
of them got off the board very quickly. We were able to bring it
together. In the process, in my experience around the issue of
education, in making sure young people had the capacity to borrow money
at reasonable rates, it went down about 2 percent, which is a pretty
incredible rate for a student or parent to borrow money at.
I was also chair of the Postsecondary Education Commission for 7
years, a copartner with the Student Loan Corporation, making sure we
had strong educational institutions to provide career, college, and
other types of education for young people. I come with that experience,
and also I come from experience as a small businessperson, which I will
get to in a minute, with regard to how we are trying to pay for this
interest rate, controlling the interest rates and making sure they
don't rise. The rate for subsidized interest loans will rise from 3.4
percent to 6.8 percent in July. That will increase the average cost for
students by $1,000 over the course of a loan. Students are truly
waiting and families are waiting, as kids are graduating right now
across this country from high school, getting ready to move on to
higher education and making their plans--be they scholarships or grants
or loans or whatever they need to cobble together the amount of money
needed to move on to a higher education and to ensure they can afford
it. And the interest rate is part of that equation. Doubling the
interest rate would be damaging to our young families who are making
sure their kids can get on and have an opportunity to be educated.

As you know, many of us have gone onto our Facebook page and Twitter
accounts and asked constituents from our districts to tell us their
stories--tell us what is happening: If this interest rate doubles, what
will happen to you. One Anchorage resident says her granddaughter
graduated from Charter College. I know this college well. This is a
privately run college which has an incredible placement rate--almost
90-percent placement rate once they graduate with their degree. It is
an intensive program. It is like a job. Students are there 8 to 5 every
day, all day, for several months, and they consolidate the time. She
has been working on her accounting degree, and now, 6 years later--
because she had to work two jobs while going to school, trying to pay
for this and borrowing money--her total debt is $72,000. She is 31
years old. Her family is truly wondering how she will ever get out of
debt if this bill doesn't pass, because if the interest rates adjust,
it is truly money that comes out of her pocket to literally pay off
interest, and the net result is she gets deeper and deeper in debt.
We know the cost of college is more and more expensive every year,
and one way we are going to make sure students can afford this is by
making sure we do not double the interest rate. We had a vote earlier
this week that did not succeed. We tried on this side to move it
forward. It is important for us to make sure every kid has access to
education--whether it is higher education, career education, voc
education or whatever the new title is they like to use to describe
it--because we are in a globally competitive economy, and we need to
make sure our kids are well educated and have access to education,
which means affordability.
Yesterday I was listening to the debate, and this is where my small
business part comes in. I have been in the small business arena since
the age of 14. I have operated and owned a variety of businesses--some
successful, some not so successful. Hopefully, you learn from those
that are not so successful, and I think I have. The Democrats' pay-
for--the majority's pay-for--was to close a tax loophole used by high-
income earners--basically lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants. No
disrespect to their fields, but they basically use the system to avoid
paying the Medicare taxes, for example, that all of us pay. All of us
who sit in this Chamber, the people who work at the restaurants outside
here, the people who drive the buses, and everyone else, pays that tax.
But some use this to organize under an S corporation. It is a technical
term under the IRS Code that allows those profits to go right to the
individual. So they decided instead of paying it as a wage, they would
take it as profit or a dividend, thus avoiding the Medicare taxes all
of us pay. They are getting a free ride.
I heard the phrase used yesterday on the floor, ``a bunch of new
taxes.'' These aren't new taxes. These are taxes that are owed. They
just found a loophole--again, consultants, lobbyists and lawyers--
through the writing of the laws. And they probably wrote them.
Actually, they did, if you look at the history of it. They wrote the
law so they could avoid the Medicare taxes everyone else has to pay. So
when I hear people saying it is the restaurant owner, it is the
retailer, the plumber, I think, that is a bunch of baloney. That is
misinforming the public. It is unbelievable. I know this, because as a
former retailer who had an S corporation, we paid our taxes. We paid
with a wage. We paid it all.
This loophole is clear. All you have to do is look at it. They have
to meet three standards: modified gross income above $250,000 for joint
filers, $200,000 for individuals and shareholders, and an S corporation
that derives 75 percent or more of gross revenues from services of
three or fewer shareholders. Service is defined as lobbying, law,
engineering, architect, accounting, actuarial science--which is a
science--performing arts, athletes, and brokerage services. I am
looking here, and I don't see where it says retailers. It doesn't say
the mom-and-pop folks who work every day and pay their taxes.
So for Members to come to the floor and try to trick the public--
because

[[Page S3001]]

that is what they tried to do by using convoluted words, knowing people
are getting the 10-second sound bites--saying, oh, it is going to raise
new taxes and cause all these small businesses not to hire, that is
baloney. This is about lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants who wrote
the law making sure they didn't have to pay a dime. That is what that
is about. For people to come to the floor and say we are going to raise
the interest rate on hard-working families who are trying to get their
kids through college is unbelievable.
I hope we take this up again. I hope we vote on it and get this thing
resolved, and make sure working families can afford to get their kids
into college and can afford the high cost so they can become productive
parts of this country, perhaps opening their own small business and
paying their taxes, as every other small business does.
I was appalled when I heard some of the Members speaking on this, and
they sounded so logical. But to be frank with you, there are not many
in this body--no disrespect to my colleagues--who have owned and
operated a true small business. I am talking about starting with a few
nickels and dimes because you got turned down by the bank; where the
banker told you your idea was a dumb idea. I can say this from personal
experience. Three years later, I sold that business for three times
what I had invested. I thought it was a good idea, but the banker
didn't. But I had to scratch together two nickels to make that business
successful. I had to work 12 to 15 hours every day to make sure it was
successful. That is a small businessperson. There are not many in this
body.
So when a Member comes to the floor and sounds so professional in
their description of how it is going to affect certain people, it is
incorrect. And one thing I wouldn't mind in this body is to have
factual debates. That is what the public deserves, not this kind of 10-
second media bite, where they can get away with anything and then say
back home, we didn't raise taxes, we didn't do this. What they are
doing is jacking up rates on students. That is what is going to happen
at the end of the day here, by July 1, if we don't take action.

And we have taken action on this side. But the end result will be
that families, hard-working families, middle-class families, will pay
more for their students' education, and students will pay more for
their education because of a simple law that we can correct. All we
have to do is close the loophole that lobbyists, lawyers, and
consultants are taking advantage of and wrote to their advantage to
stick it to the middle class. I think it is time to reverse the trend,
for once, around this place--just once--and give the middle class a
break here. This is a break they deserve and it will help to build our
economy in the future because we will have a highly educated workforce
meeting this global economy.
I know there is another alternative out there. There is a new pay-
for, and here is what that does: It takes away prevention funds for
health--$226 million used to reduce diabetes and heart disease. I don't
know about my colleagues, but if we don't prevent it, then we may have
a higher cost later. Those are preventable diseases. This money is well
invested. They also want to take away the $93 million used for anti-
tobacco education and $190 million used for immunizations.
Our Republican friends do not like the plan that closes the loophole
on lobbyists, lawyers, and consultants, but they do like the one that
takes away prevention programs that help the middle class, that helps
our young families who might be experiencing signs of a preventable
disease--heart disease. And a little prevention might save their lives,
but it will also save on health care costs in the future.
I see this proposal as crazy talk. I don't know how else to describe
it. I am trying to keep it simple. Let's get on with closing the
loopholes people took advantage of by lobbying and wheeling and dealing
in the halls of Congress. Let's fix that and protect our working
families, our middle-class families, and make sure we are doing the
right thing. That is what they sent us here to do, and I think we have
an obligation.
Again, I hope we move forward and make sure we are not going to allow
the rates on these loans to double. I am not for doubling the rates;
3.4 percent is a good rate. We should ensure students can get that rate
as they get prepared for the fall session and are borrowing money to
get on with their higher education.
I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in
calling for a real solution to the impending student debt crisis.
Yesterday we had a chance to do the right thing and stand with millions
of young Americans all across our country, to invest in their future by
preventing these interest rates from doubling on Stafford loans 52 days
from now. Instead, our colleagues across the aisle chose to stand in
the way of a commonsense proposal. As a result, 7 million students are
facing higher interest rates that will cost them each an extra $1,000 a
year in interest, further pushing access to quality higher education
out of reach for too many and saddling others with additional
unmanageable debt when they get out of college and join the workforce.
But don't take it from me about how tough this is going to be, take
it from the students and the families themselves. Just as the Presiding
Officer has heard from thousands of families all across Alaska, we have
been hearing the same online and through e-mail about what this would
actually do to their families.
I heard from one New York parent who has a child in college and
another heading there this fall. His older child spent a year in
AmeriCorps, and his younger is there serving now. He said:

These kids are serving America. Both of my kids will leave
college with around $25,000 in debt, if we can afford to keep
it down that much.

We should all be able to agree that adding another $1,000 or more per
year to the debt of kids who are only looking to serve this country,
get a good education, and help rebuild this economy is wrong.
I heard from a woman in the Bronx. She has a job as a social worker,
and she is on track to pay off her student loans in the next 10 or 11
years--just in time for her twin daughters to start college. She said:

Doubling my student loan interest will keep me in debt at a
time when I am going to need every single penny to get my
kids through college with as little debt of their own as
possible. The more interest I pay, the more they'll have to
borrow for their own educations, and the cycle will continue
indefinitely.

I heard from a woman in Saratoga with a bachelor's degree in hotel,
resort and tourism management. Despite making good money, she says that
paying $800 a month in student loans on top of her everyday bills makes
getting by nearly impossible. She said:

My choice is to instead decide what bill I'm going to pay
this month, making me fall behind on other payments,
destroying my credit in the future. If my interest rate was
any higher, I honestly do not know how I would survive at
all. Pretty much all the money I am making is going straight
into student loans. We need all the help we can get.

These are just a few of the stories I heard yesterday. And the
families expect better from us.
When we price young people out of a college education, we all are
going to pay the price. When we limit their opportunity, we rob
ourselves of those future engineers, biologists, and small business
owners. America's ability to lead the global economy relies on our
ability to outeducate the global competition.
Let's open doors to higher education to anyone who is willing to work
for it, and let's keep it affordable. Let's reward hard work and
responsibility instead of risk taking. There is no excuse for inaction,
so let's have a real debate, in good faith, to solve this problem we
all know is within our reach. Students and families all across America
can't afford any more delay.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page S3002]]

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Charter Schools

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, this week is the 13th annual National
Charter Schools Week. On Tuesday, Senator Landrieu of Louisiana and I
joined with 10 other Senators in submitting a resolution praising
teachers, administrators, parents, and students who are part of the
charter school movement across our country.
Let me begin by explaining exactly what a charter school is because
sometimes we stand here in the Senate and start talking without
explaining the subject. A charter school is the Memphis Academy of
Science and Engineering. I visited there 4 years ago during spring
break. Most of the students in Memphis were somewhere else, but not the
students at the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering. These were
sophomores studying advanced placement biology. These were children who
had been in other schools the year before that were deemed to be low-
performing schools. In other words, these were among the students in
Memphis considered least likely to succeed. But they were fortunate.
They were allowed to go to this charter school. Their parents had
chosen this charter school.
Here is what was different about the school. The union rules, the
State rules, and the Federal rules had been relaxed so that the
teachers had the freedom to do what they thought those children needed
in that school. In this case, many of these children didn't have as
much at home as other children did, so the teachers decided that the
school ought to be open 12 hours a day, that it ought to be open on
Saturday morning, and that it ought to be open more weeks a year than
other schools. And the students were there on spring break studying
advanced placement biology, which is not what many sophomores do in
many schools in this country. And these children were succeeding.
The charter school was able to pay some teachers more than others. It
was able to have some classes that were smaller than others. It meant
that some scheduled classes were longer than others and some children
got special attention that needed it.
You may say: Well, that makes so much common sense. Why aren't
teachers able to do that in every public school in America? That is a
very good question because, in a way, every one of our 100,000 public
schools in America should be a charter school in the sense that the
real definition of a charter school is one that gives teachers the
freedom to use their own good sense and judgment with the children whom
parents choose to send to that school.
I have a personal interest in charter schools. Twenty years ago, I
was the U.S. Secretary of Education. I was in my final year. The last
thing I did in 1992 as Secretary was to write a letter to all the
school superintendents in America urging them to try what a small
number of Minnesota public schools were doing in what they were then
calling startup schools. These were the first charter schools in
America. Their origin was primarily from those who were part of the
Democratic Farmer Labor Party in Minnesota. But at the same time, on
the conservative side of the ideological spectrum, there were many who
were calling for getting rid of teacher union rules and State rules and
regulations that were making it harder for teachers to teach. So there
was a happy convergence of support for this idea of startup schools.
I remember that Albert Shanker, the late head of the American
Federation of Teachers, supported the idea from the beginning. But many
of those in the teachers unions opposed him. Many of those in the
education establishment didn't like it. They were afraid of what might
happen.
Well, here is what has happened over the last 20 years. Instead of a
handful of schools in Minnesota, we now have about 5,600 charter
schools in America today. About 5 percent of all of our public schools
are charter schools. The way they work is very simple. They are public
schools, and the money the State and local government would ordinarily
spend on their district school follows each child to the charter
school. So it is just a public school organized in a different way.
The first one, as I said, was in 1992--City Academy High School in
St. Paul, MN. In 1997, President Clinton called for creating 3,000
charter schools by 2002. This was after the first President Bush had
called for creating ``break the mold'' schools in every school district
in America--another name for what we call charter schools today. And
then in 2002 the second President Bush called for $200 million to
support charter schools. Today, 41 States have charter schools, and the
schools serve more than 2 million students--about 4 percent of the 50
million students in our public schools today.
I am proud to say that our own State of Tennessee has had a strong
charter school movement since 2002, and only recently has the State
charter law been amended to remove the cap on the number of schools in
the State and limitations on student eligibility. We currently have 40
charter schools operating in Tennessee--25 in Memphis and 11 in
Nashville--with nearly 10,000 students attending these schools. Our
First to the Top plan--Tennessee won the President's Race to the Top
plan for education--included $14 million to expand high-performing
charter schools. The Achievement School District, which Governor Bill
Haslam created, has approved three charter operators to turn around
priority schools that are failing, and we can expect more to be
approved next year.
So the question often is asked, well, are charter schools really
helping students? And in some ways the jury is still out. Charter
schools are relatively new, and there are many factors that go into the
success of a student in a school, the No. 1 factor being what happens
at home. But there are good and encouraging indications.
A recent study by Stanford University found that two-thirds of the
charter schools in Tennessee have been improving student performance in
reading or math at a faster rate than competing traditional district
public schools. Sixty-seven percent of charter schools in Tennessee
have been improving the overall growth of their students for the last 3
years.
But that means that 30 percent of the charter schools weren't
performing as well or were performing worse. So the fact is, not every
charter school is going to be successful. Not every startup business is
successful. But we have a model in our country that reminds us of what
can happen when we have autonomous institutions where administrators
and teachers have the privilege of using their own judgment and common
sense to make things happen, and we call that higher education.
In the United States of America, we have around 6,000 institutions of
higher education. There are all kinds--Yeshiva University, Nashville
Auto Diesel College, Vanderbilt University, the University of
Tennessee, Notre Dame, or Stanford. There are many different kinds--
for-profit, nonprofit, public, nonpublic. But they are all largely
autonomous and the students choose the schools they attend. And what
has happened? Everyone in the world agrees that we have not only the
best colleges in America, but we have almost all of the very best
colleges.
So our goal should be to gradually increase the number of charter
schools. At the same time, it is important that there should be some
accountability. I know that in Tennessee they have a tough review
board, and if a charter school is not working, it is closed down. That
should be the case in many other places. You might ask: Why would you
go through that struggle? Well, we should be doing that with some of
the non-charter public schools as well, and we are beginning to that
with so-called turnaround schools.
Charter schools should be held to the same standards as other public
schools. And charter schools shouldn't be allowed to pick and choose;
they should be required to enroll all eligible students. If more
students want to come than they have room for, there could be some fair
method for choosing the students, such as a lottery. That makes a very
good case. If charter schools are so popular that more families want
their children to go to them, then we need even more charter schools.
I am happy to come to the floor today to praise the teachers and the

[[Page S3003]]

innovators, Presidents of both parties, including President Obama and
his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, who have strongly supported
charter schools, just as President Bush and President Clinton and the
first President Bush did.
This is a movement that has broad bipartisan support. It has grown
from a handful of schools in Minnesota 20 years ago to 5 percent of all
of our public schools in the country today. What we have found is that
when you give teachers more freedom to use good judgment and when you
give parents more choices of schools, good things happen. The charter
school movement is proving that. This is a week to salute their hard
work and to hope that over the next year, 5 years, 10 years, more and
more public schools become charter schools, where teachers are free to
exercise their judgment and parents are free to choose the schools
their children attend.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Madam President, in less than 2 months--53 days--the
interest rate on subsidized student loans will double to 6.8 percent
unless Congress acts. If the rate on subsidized Stafford loans is
allowed to rise, as many as 7.4 million students across the Nation,
including approximately 43,000 students in Rhode Island, will pay about
$1,000 more for each year that they borrow, and that is on top of
already significant debt.
Some have argued, even while claiming to support keeping interest
rates low, that the increase would not be a significant financial
burden. Students and families beg to disagree. This would be a
significant impediment to completing their education. For younger
students starting their education, for those seeking educational
opportunities for job transition in midlife, those opportunities would
be frustrated also. Right now students and their families are sitting
around the kitchen table making tough decisions about next year and
whether they can afford to go to school if interest rates double.
One Rhode Island mother wrote me:

Please do not raise the interest rates on student loans. My
son will be in his last year . . . I cannot afford to pay any
more and fear that he will not be able to graduate and still
have all the loans to pay back.

So in addition to frustrating educational advancement, it could leave
many students across the country with lots of debt and no degree.
Hundreds of thousands of young people, parents, educators, and
members of the faith community and other community leaders have come to
us with one simple request: Don't double the rate.
Some on the other side have argued that low-cost Federal loans have
contributed to rising college costs and increased student debt. This
does not make sense. The maximum amount undergraduate students can
borrow in subsidized loans has remained unchanged at $23,000 for the
last 20 years. There are many causes that are accelerating tuition, but
the amount of available, accessible subsidized Federal loans for
students has remained unchanged for 20 years. But increasing the cost
of these loans by doubling the interest rate will certainly make
college more expensive for families and for students.
We need to address college costs, but having the Federal Government
double the interest it charges for students, particularly the low- and
moderate-income students, is not the solution. In fact, it complicates
the problem dramatically.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle say they want to stop
this from happening. Governor Romney, the presumptive Presidential
nominee, says he wants to stop this from happening. Yet they are
blocking us from even moving forward procedurally so we can debate
these things, so they could offer their proposals to pay for what we
agree needs to be done, to stop the interest rate from doubling. They
are blocking debate because they refuse as much on an ideological as on
a practical basis to change the Tax Code and to close a loophole that
is egregious and should be closed in order to allow us to help middle-
income families. I think they have taken this pledge with respect to no
new taxes to a degree that defeats a practical, pragmatic solution to a
problem that they know has to be solved. It has to be solved before
July 1.
This decision is fairly clear. It is a choice between allowing young
people to get a college degree or fealty, to a pledge to never, ever
raise anything that Grover Norquist says is remotely connected to a
tax. It is that simple. Unfortunately, that simplicity is undercutting
the hopes and dreams of thousands of American students, and that is
what it is coming down to.
One of the other ironies in this debate is what we propose to do.
Closing the subchapter S loophole for high-wage earners in professional
endeavors is also something that has long been criticized by
conservatives. In the 2004 Presidential campaign, the late conservative
columnist Robert Novak described the subchapter S loophole as ``one of
the last loopholes left in the Internal Revenue Service Code, and it is
a big one.'' I don't think anyone would accuse the late Robert Novak as
being anything but staunchly conservative in all his views.
The Wall Street Journal, calling out former Senator John Edwards for
his use of this loophole in 2004, called it ``a clever tax dodge.''
Again we have a clever tax dodge pitted against helping students go
to college. I think helping students go to college should win.
In fact, the Wall Street Journal editorial points out how in practice
this loophole is used. In their words:

While making his fortune as a trial lawyer [referring to
Senator Edwards] in 1995, he formed what is known as a
`subchapter S,' corporation with himself as the sole
shareholder. Instead of taking his $26.9 million as earnings
directly in the following four years, he paid himself a
salary of $360,000 a year and took the rest as corporate
dividends.

Obviously at a much lower tax rate but also avoiding payroll taxes.
That is what we are trying to close here. I think it ought to be
closed in fairness anyway, but the added benefit is that we are able,
by closing this loophole, to prevent the doubling of the interest rate
on student loans.
This is a loophole that should be closed. Again, this money will
require people to pay directly to the Social Security trust fund and
Medicare trust fund these funds which otherwise were avoided through
subchapter S, so it doesn't weaken Social Security but it allows us,
through the scoring mechanism, to prevent doubling of the interest rate
on subsidized loans. It is a win-win proposition.
What they propose is going after the preventive care fund that was
part of health reform. It seems to me it is sort of an unfortunate
pitting of one program that benefits middle-income families versus
another program that potentially benefits all, but particularly middle-
class families. Frankly, I think there is another concept here which we
all agree about in theory--if we do not enhance prevention
opportunities, the cost of health care will be going up and up. What is
unsustainable now will become more unsustainable. It is not an
appropriate way to deal with this issue.
At a minimum, I hope we can at least get to a serious debate about
this. If that is the proposal that Republicans have, let's get it on
the table, let's take a vote. Let's take a vote whether you want to
close loopholes for very specialized, very wealthy lobbyists and
lawyers and professionals, or do you want to impact potential savings
on health care through prevention.
I think and hope we can come to a bipartisan agreement. The clock is
ticking. The time to act is now. Students and families are counting on
us to do the right thing and fix this problem.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I enjoyed listening to the Senator
from Rhode Island, as I always do. His passion for education is always
on his sleeve and always front and center and I admire him for that.
There are a couple of things I wish to make clear. If you are a
student and you already have a student loan, what we are talking about
has nothing to do with your loan. In other words, your rate on that
loan is not going up. What we are talking about only affects new loans.
So before you think about not going to college next year because of all
this talk about student loan rates going up, that is not a problem. We
are only talking about new loans.
Second, for 60 percent of the students who get new loans, we are not
talking

[[Page S3004]]

about you either. So you don't have to worry about student loan rates
going up.
Third, for those of you about whom we are talking, the 40 percent who
have these subsidized undergraduate student loans, what we are talking
about saving you is $7 a month in interest payments over the next 10
years. Now $7 a month can add up, which is why Governor Romney as well
as President Obama, Republicans as well as Democrats, wants to keep the
interest rate at the rate it is now for new loans, 3.4 percent, for
another year. But it is $7 a month in savings. It is important to know
that.
It is also important to know that there is an easy way to get this
done. The House of Representatives has already passed a bill that would
keep the interest rate at 3.4 percent for these 40 percent of new loans
for one more year. All the majority leader has to do is bring up the
House-passed bill and enact it here in the Senate. In other words, we
agree on extending the interest rate. We only have a difference of
opinion about how to pay for it.
I have offered an alternative supported by many Republicans, which is
the same as the House bill, which simply says we want to keep the
interest rate where it is for another year, 3.4 percent, and we want to
do the logical thing to pay for it. We want to give back to students
the money that the government is taking from them to help pay for the
new health care law.
You may think: what in the world does the health care bill have to do
with student loans? That is what many of us thought when the health
care law was being debated. Because, what our friends on the other side
of the aisle did during the health care law debate was take over the
whole student loan program and almost turn the U.S. Secretary of
Education into the U.S. banking commissioner. He has the job of making
more than $100 billion in new student loans every year. Their idea was
the government can make these loans better than the banks. Our friends
on the other side of the aisle said to the students: The banks are
overcharging you. We are going to take it over and we will be doing you
a favor.
What did the Democrats do? They took it over, but they didn't do the
students a favor. According to the Congressional Budget Office, there
was $61 billion of savings from taking over the loan program, much of
which was money that the students should not have been paying. When the
federal government took it over, what did the Democrats do? They spent
it on other programs, all except for $10 billion, including $8.7
billion helping to pay for the new health care law.
The way the Congressional Budget Office looks at it, $61 billion in
savings resulted from--and these are my words--the government borrowing
money at 2.8 percent interest and loaning it to students at 6.8 percent
interest. We now want to take that profit from overcharging students
and give it back to students. That is the way to pay for extending the
3.4 percent interest rate that we are talking about for another year.
We are in agreement on this. Republicans as well as Democrats,
Governor Romney as well as President Obama, say keep the 3.4 percent
rate at 3.4 percent for another year. Students should know that it does
not affect anybody who has a loan today and that it will save you $7 a
month for a new subsidized loan. We want to do that. But the way we
want to pay for it is by giving back the money that the other side of
the aisle took from you to help pay for the health care bill. That is
the right way to do it, instead of the typical reaction we often hear
from the other side, which is we have something we want to do so we
will simply raise taxes on people and businesses creating jobs in the
middle of a recession.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. I have the utmost respect for the Senator from Tennessee.
No one is as knowledgeable in education programs as he, the former
Secretary of Education, and someone who has a deep commitment to
education, not only with respect to his remarks on charter schools but
on education in all ways. But he refers to what the House has done. The
House, in the Ryan budget, maintains this increase, this doubling of
the interest rate. They foresaw, anticipated, and supported the
increase to 6.8 percent. Only recently have they apparently had a
change of heart and decided that is not appropriate.
The other aspect I think is interesting to note about the House is
they have proposed significant reductions in tax rates and they have
said they would pay for them by closing loopholes. This is one of the
most egregious loopholes that you can find and yet, of course, they
will not use this to pay for something which makes a great deal of
sense--which they now agree there should be no doubling of the student
interest rate.
The Senator is absolutely right, this doubling will not apply to
loans that are outstanding. It applies to loans going forward. But if
we establish the principle which was embedded in the Ryan House budget,
which I think was supported by most, if not all, of my colleagues on
the other side, that this rate is going to be doubled to 6.8 percent
going forward, that is going to have a significant impact on students
who have years to go in college and on people who are contemplating
going to college. So the $6 or $7 it may be per month becomes
significant overall.
Again, we can get into a discussion about where does this money come
from ultimately in terms of was it part of funds for health care, et
cetera. But we are facing the choice today of helping students and
closing an egregious loophole--one that benefits the wealthiest
Americans; it has been criticized by the Wall Street Journal,
criticized by Robert Novak, the late columnist--or practically going in
and targeting prevention programs. I think we conceptually agree if we
don't get a handle on prevention of diabetes, of cancer, of diseases
that are costing us billions of dollars, then our task to deal with
health care will be immensely more difficult. It is very clear.
What is also very clear is, I think, procedurally the answer is quite
straightforward. Let's get on to the bill. Let us go ahead and put
these two different proposals on the floor and take a vote. I hope the
proposal to close the loophole would pass. But if it did not, at least
we would be in a position of preventing the doubling of interest rates
on student loans.
With great respect to the Senator from Tennessee, I hope we can move
forward, have a vote on the different proposals to pay for it, and then
move forward and let people know that their rates will not be doubled.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I strongly support this legislation, S.
2343, the Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act. I appreciate
the leadership particularly of Senator Reed of Rhode Island, who has
been so eloquent on this subject. I also would note that Senator
Alexander and I have worked together on a host of issues. I think he
brings great expertise to this discussion as well.
The bottom line for me is that millions of young people are hurting
right now in America. They are up to their eyeballs in debt and they
cannot find good-paying jobs.
For example, we have seen in our home State, according to the Oregon
Employment Department, that the overall unemployment rate last year was
9.4 percent but was 19 percent for workers age 16 to 24. I also note we
have seen that the labor participation for young people has declined as
well.
We have an enormous array of challenges in front of us. The reason
that this legislation, the Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike
Act, is so important is that it allows us to achieve two important
objectives. First, it puts us in a position to hold the line on student
debt. If you are a sophomore in college, for example, and you have
already incurred some debt and you want to finish school, then you want
to get a degree in a field where you will get a job that pays a good
wage. Without this legislation you are going to incur still more
debt. So this legislation ought to be supported because it holds the
line on debt, and by doing so it helps us achieve a very important
objective: to increase the opportunity for young people to access
higher education across the country. And historically whether it has
been through Pell grants or Stafford loans and the like, we've always
said to young people, try

[[Page S3005]]

to get to college. Families sitting around kitchen tables and in their
living rooms have said this for years. Work hard in high school and try
to get into college. And I have supported, here in the Senate, policies
that increase access to a good education. By holding the line on debt,
we can take steps to achieve an important part of higher education
policy, and that is expanding access to higher education.

The second benefit of this legislation, in my view, is that by
holding the line on debt we increase the opportunity for young people
to get more value out of their education. The reason I bring this up is
because my sense is that future policy in the higher education field is
going to be about marrying these two objectives. Let's support this
important legislation, S. 2343, to expand access, and use it as a
foundation to move on to the next step of education policy, which is to
get more value out of the education a young person pursues.
The reason I feel that way is that all over my State I am going to
high schools and community colleges and talking with students who are
thinking about both of those principles, access and value.
For example, at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton I met a
young man who is taking 20 credits at school, working at Arby's full
time as a manager, and he is already concerned about the debt he is
racking up. He said to me: As I get my education, how will I know that
I have laid the groundwork for being able to get a good-paying job? I
told him, just as I am suggesting to the Senate today, that I am going
to support efforts to expand student aid and make sure we hold down
debt for young people. I described what we are dealing with on the
floor of the Senate.
I also told him I have introduced a piece of legislation with my
colleague on the other side of the aisle, Marco Rubio, called the
Student Right To Know Before You Go Act. This bill will make it
possible for students all across the country to get information about
the expected average annual earnings after graduation, the rates of
remedial enrollment for a particular field at a particular college, the
average costs both before and after financial aid, and the prospects of
a student earning a good wage after achieving a particular degree at a
particular school. With this legislation we lay the foundation for what
I think will be the education policy of the future.
We will ensure that students have access and ensure that they get
more value out of their education and get more value out of the loans
and other debt that they have to pay back. And the two go hand in hand.
I ran into students who were juniors, for example, at colleges in my
State and already owe $60,000. Without this legislation, those juniors
are probably going to reup for a loan, and they are going to have to
pay more, and that has the effect of reducing access to higher
education. Paying more, it seems, is also going to reduce the
opportunity for students to buy a bit more value out of their education
as we try to get them better information with respect to the value of
specific degree programs at specific schools. This type of information
is now impossible to find. Suffice it to say, these two judgments, both
with respect to the debt and the value of what they have pursued in
terms of their college degree, are going to color their decisions for
the rest of their lives.
One of the students I met in Oregon recently as I talked about this
issue was interested in getting a medical degree. And as we have talked
about health care issues--which the President of the Senate and I have
both been very interested in over the years--one of the questions he
asked me was how was he going to be able to get a medical degree
initially and what would happen to him when he got out of medical
school with all of this debt hanging over his head. I didn't want to
chill his enthusiasm, but we know that if a young person comes out of
medical school with an enormous amount of debt, there is a pretty good
chance at some point they are going to have to pass some of that debt
on to their patients, which means we are going to see medical costs for
a lot of people in our country escalate still higher.
So the fact that we have these debts and the fact that it is hard for
young people to purchase value in their education is going to have
remarkable ripples all through our country for years and years ahead.
I am going to close simply by way of saying this: We have seen young
people contribute to our economy. The President of the Senate shares an
interest with this Senator in technology. Technology has been a big
source of jobs in States such as Minnesota and Oregon. This has been a
real economic engine for our country. Think about who brought us
Facebook and Google and Twitter and YouTube. A disproportionate amount
of the creative talent has been young people.
So we must first take steps to hold the line on debt--and that is to
pass Senator Harkin's and Senator Reid's bill--so we don't say to
college sophomores and juniors, we don't care if they rack up any more
debt when we know how much heartache it is going to bring to them. Then
we can move on to the next step, which is empowering students and
families to be able to get the maximum amount of value from their
education. If we don't take these steps I think we will have let the
country down in this area at a crucial time.
We understand that higher education is one of the principal paths, if
not the best path, to success for many students. It is not for every
student, but certainly for millions. And education has enabled many
young people to contribute to technology which has been, as I
described, a real spark for our economy.
So I see other colleagues waiting to speak, and I only urge
colleagues to pass this legislation, S. 2343, to ensure that we don't
heap more debt onto the backs of students in college now and who might
be reupping on those loans and wondering if they can afford it. Then as
we expand access, let's look at taking additional steps to ensure that
our young people get more value for their college education.
Senator Rubio and I have teamed up on a bill that I think addresses
that question, the Student Right To Know Before You Go Act. Going to
that next step and adding more value to a young person's education when
they are armed with the facts requires that we lay the foundation of
access to a good education, which I think should be required when so
many young people are hurting.
I went through the statistics, and it requires that we pass S. 2343.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mrs. HAGAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to also speak
about preventing student loan interest rates from doubling from 3.4
percent to 6.8 percent. I am disappointed that partisan gamesmanship is
threatening the financial futures of students in North Carolina and
around the country.
In North Carolina we are very proud of our 16 excellent public
universities and 58 outstanding community colleges. In addition, dozens
of the best private colleges and universities in the Nation also call
North Carolina home. Our excellence in higher education sets North
Carolina apart.
Business owners I talked to routinely told me that our highly
educated and highly skilled workforce is what attracted their companies
to North Carolina. There is no doubt that the strength of our economy
going forward depends on the continued strength of our educational
system. However, the cost of college continues to rise in North
Carolina and across the country. If Congress does not act before July
1, more than 160,000 North Carolina students will be saddled with an
additional $1,000 in student loan debt.
According to the project on student debt, more than half of North
Carolina's 300,000 students at 4-year colleges and universities
borrowed money to pay for their education. On average these students
graduated with more than $21,000 in debt. That debt has real
consequences for our graduates and for North Carolina's economy. With
this debt to pay off, young entrepreneurs are less likely to take a
chance starting a small business. They are less likely to buy a new
car, and they are less likely to buy a home. This only hurts our
economy. Keeping interest rates low will go a long way to ensuring that
young people can afford their student loan payments when they graduate.
I recently heard from a freshman at UNC Charlotte about how concerned

[[Page S3006]]

she already was about the debt she was piling up when she graduates in
4 years. She cannot imagine what would happen if interest rates double.
Perhaps she would have to drop out altogether.
A student at Western Carolina University recently wrote to me, while
studying for finals, asking that we please prevent a doubling of his
student loan interest rates. So in the midst of preparing for final
exams, this young man was worrying about the final bill that he will
receive after graduating. He said doubling the Stafford loan interest
rate would severely hurt his ability to continue his education. He
wants to study cell biology.
In a global 21st-century economy, the sciences are exactly the types
of fields that we need our students to excel in so we can compete with
China and other foreign countries. We should be helping these young
people succeed, not throwing up barriers that get in the way.
I am also hearing from parents. A mom with three children e-mailed me
recently. Her oldest child will be starting college in 2 years. She is
already worried about the debt that her children will incur, and she
certainly is requesting that we not double the interest rate on this
debt.
Our students deserve a fighting chance when they graduate. We
shouldn't put them thousands of dollars behind before they even reach
the starting line. I will do my part to ensure students in North
Carolina have the chance to thrive after graduating.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation that
will prevent student interest rate loans from doubling.
I yield the floor and notice the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I understand we are debating the motion
to proceed to S. 2343, the Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act
of 2012; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to urge my
colleagues to vote to proceed to this important legislation. I was
disappointed to see many of my Republican colleagues voted against
allowing debate and amendment on this legislation. I have heard
Senators from both sides of the aisle acknowledge the need to prevent
the July 1 rate increase on the Stafford loans, the subsidized loans.
So it is difficult to understand their unwillingness to even consider
the bill and have a thoughtful debate and an opportunity for amendment
which will allow us to keep these interest rates low for college
students in all of our States.
Members may disagree about the best way to pay for keeping the rates
at 3.4 percent, but we need to go ahead and proceed to the legislation
and pass legislation to accomplish this. If Senators have different
proposals, they can offer them. But by blocking debate, we, obviously,
cannot get to a solution of this problem.
The Democrats have proposed to pay for the legislation by closing a
tax loophole that people use to avoid paying Social Security and
Medicare taxes. That is the so-called S corporation payroll tax
loophole. This proposal would close the loophole for S corporations for
which 75 percent of the corporation's income is attributable to the
services of three or fewer shareholders.
This loophole allows, for example, an individual lawyer or a lobbyist
to set up an S corporation to make millions of dollars in fees and to
not pay payroll taxes on nearly all that income. All he has to do is
give himself a cash dividend from the corporation instead of paying
himself wages. This is not a fair arrangement.
To be clear, not all small businesses are gaming the system in this
way and are not permitted to game the system in this way. This loophole
is not available to businesses that are organized as sole
proprietorships or as partnerships. Those small businesses are paying
their fair share of taxes.
By contrast to this way of paying for the continuation of the low
interest on student loans, my Republican colleagues have opted for a
very different approach. They offset the cost by using the Prevention
and Public Health Fund. In my view, this is a misguided approach. The
prevention fund is not a slush fund, as it has been called by many.
Instead, it is a fund used to help reduce chronic disease such as
diabetes and heart disease and to fund immunization programs for
children. This is a critical fund that is used to lower long-term
health costs and improve health outcomes. In my view, eliminating this
fund would simply increase health risks and, ultimately, increase
health care costs in this country.
It is very clear Democrats and Republicans have a fundamental
difference in our approach to how we should maintain student loan
interest rates. However, as I said before, it is important we get to
the bill, we proceed to vote for cloture on this bill, so we can
discuss a path forward and consider amendments, if individual Senators
wish to propose amendments.
Preparing students for an education is essential for this country's
global competitiveness. It is imperative we provide students the tools
they need to succeed in this very fast changing economy. This includes
access to a high-quality education, which will enable us to train the
next generation of Americans for jobs in high-technology fields.
This past Tuesday I spoke at a luncheon that was put on by a
foundation that supports one of our community colleges in New Mexico.
It is clear we have many students who are working very hard to make
ends meet and to stay in school so they can obtain the skills they need
to earn a good wage, to pursue a constructive career. There are many
areas of our economy where these types of trained workers are needed.
One area which is obvious in my State and nationwide is in health
care. We need to train more nurses. One statistic used in this talk
last Tuesday was that over the next 8 years, between now and 2020, we
are going to have to add 700,000 more nurses to the health care field
to meet the needs of the baby boom generation. In addition to those
700,000, we are going to have to hire an additional 500,000 just to
replace those who retire from the nursing profession. So we have 1.2
million nurses who are going to have to be hired in this country over
the next 8 years. We need to train those people.
There are many young people in this country who would like to have
that training. They need student loans in order to be able to cover the
costs of that training. That is why this is such an important debate.
Student loan debt has, for the first time in our history, surpassed
credit card debt. Today this debt exceeds $1 trillion. The average
college graduate leaves school with more than $25,000 in loans.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, college costs at State
schools are rising and have been rising at an alarming rate. These
increased costs far outpace the increased costs of medical care. We are
often giving speeches on this Senate floor about the high increase, the
excessive increase in medical care costs. In fact, the cost of college
for many students is rising even faster. The same thing can be said
about gasoline. I see my colleagues rush to the floor whenever the
price of gasoline begins moving up--and with good reason. It is a major
burden on U.S. families and Americans everywhere. But the growth in
these costs pale in comparison to the growth we are seeing in the cost
of education.
The cost of tuition and fees has nearly sextupled since 1985. This is
particularly troublesome for students from low-income families.
If we allow interest rates to double, there are 7.4 million students
nationwide who will see an increase in the cost of their student loans
beginning on the 1st of July. This has a direct impact on students and
on families because subsidized Stafford loans are need based, and they
are typically designed and focused on helping low- and moderate-income
students.

In my State of New Mexico, about 40,000--the specific number I have
been given is 39,875 but about 40,000 students will see an increase in
interest rates if we do not take action before the 1st of July.

[[Page S3007]]

There are nearly 10,000 undergraduates at New Mexico State University
who will feel the effects of doubling rates and there are thousands of
students at the University of New Mexico who will also see these
increases.
This is true of our smaller schools in New Mexico as well. The school
I was speaking at last week was Eastern New Mexico University in
Roswell. There are 222 students there who took out Stafford student
loans during this current academic year.
The Department of Education estimates that the average student would
pay as much as an additional $1,000 per year for their student loans
unless we can keep this interest rate where it is. Not only would
incoming students be affected, current students would also feel the
increase as they originate a new loan for the new academic year. The
additional burden on our students would be substantial.
Students and families understand the additional increase in costs. In
the last few weeks, I have been hearing from constituents all over my
State asking us to prevent this rate increase.
One student from Gallup, NM, wrote to me saying:

Give a break to the future of this country and to the
millions of students and families who need the relief from
the debt of college.

Another family from Albuquerque wrote to me saying:

I write to urge you to vote so that student loan interest
rates DO NOT go up. In this recession, more than ever, people
of all ages are depending on education as a means of gaining
employment, and depending at least in part on student loans.

So our constituents are asking us to take action. By doing so we can
continue to provide students with stability as they enter and complete
their education.
A high-quality educational system unleashes the potential of our
students. We need world-class problem solvers and thinkers if we are
going to remain competitive. By investing in American students, we can
grow our economy and build the middle class.
Let's move ahead with consideration of this bill. If a majority of
Senators wish to change the way the bill is paid for, then we can
consider that amendment. But we should not refuse to allow the bill to
come to the Senate floor for debate and amendment.

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. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

A Second Opinion

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today, as I have
week after week since the health care law has been passed, with a
doctor's second opinion about the law that I have great concerns with.
I do that as a doctor who practiced medicine for 25 years, took care of
families in Wyoming, was involved with programs aimed at prevention of
disease, early detention of disease, and early treatment of disease. I
come to the floor to talk specifically about a portion of the health
care law that has been discussed quite a bit in the last week or two on
the Senate floor.
Congress has talked a lot about the so-called Prevention and Public
Health Fund included in the President's health care law. When I looked
at this health care law initially--and I continue to do so--I asked the
question, is this health care law the best way to give patients the
care they need, from a doctor they want, at a cost they can afford? I
believe it has failed in so many ways to do that, which is why I
continue to work to try to repeal and replace this health care law.
When we get to the specifics of this Prevention and Public Health
Fund, the President and Democrats have claimed that the purpose of the
fund was to promote wellness, prevent disease, and protect against
public health emergencies. All of us want to promote wellness, prevent
disease, and protect against public health emergencies. I know how
important those things are as a doctor. I know how important it is to
the point that for over two decades in Wyoming, I was medical director
of a program called Wyoming Health Fairs, where we provided low-cost
health care screenings to people all across the Cowboy State. It is a
very important program. People have continued to write letters to me
over the decades about the fact that going to a health fair and
learning about how to prevent diseases, about early detection of
problems, and how they feel either they or members of their families
have had their lives saved as a result of the services provided all
throughout those communities aimed at prevention and early detention of
problems--tests such as blood pressure, PSA tests, people learning
about how to examine themselves, how to get a mammogram--a lost-cost or
free mammogram--all of these things that are aimed at prevention. These
gave people the tools they needed to make decisions about their health
and their health care--not just for the patient but also to help their
medical providers.
Instead of helping Americans prevent health problems, the President's
new law actually uses this so-called prevention fund as a Washington
slush fund. In fact, the new health law provided about $15 billion for
this fund from 2010 to 2019, and then beyond that about $2 billion
every year in annual appropriation of funds to go toward this same
slush fund--$2 billion a year forever.
Who will control the fund? The Secretary of Health and Human
Services. Even though this law has only been in place for 2 years, we
have already witnessed how the Obama administration officials have
allowed this money to be wasted. Among other things, we hear of a
health clinic using the funding to spay and neuter pets. That is right,
to spay and neuter pets.
The Minnesota Department of Health used $3.6 million to create at
least four regional food policy councils. And taxpayers will be happy
to learn--or will not be so happy to learn, of course--that their hard-
earned money helped a county in California secure a ban on new fast
food restaurants.
I have nothing against food policy councils or spaying and neutering
pets, but when the U.S. Government is borrowing approximately 40 cents
out of every dollar that we spend, and when we have a national debt in
the area of $15 trillion, Washington should not waste Americans' hard-
earned taxpayer dollars. But we continue to do it, and this fund is a
key example.
According to the nonpartisan CBO, eliminating the prevention fund
would save about $13.6 billion over the next 10 years. The fact is
Congress already funds many prevention programs--prevention programs
with a proven track record of success. Examples include cancer
prevention, tobacco prevention, and a host of other programs.
Republicans have supported, and will continue to support, these
critical prevention programs--cancer prevention, tobacco prevention,
and working on heart disease. However, the record is clear that the so-
called prevention fund in the health care law is wasteful and
duplicative. It doesn't help people stay well or become well.
Senator Alexander from Tennessee introduced legislation that would
eliminate this slush fund and use the savings to maintain student loan
interest rates at 3.4 percent.
Under current law, students who receive subsidized Stafford student
loans will see rates increase shortly to 6.8 percent, unless, of
course, Congress acts. I am ready to act. Whether you are Republican or
Democrat, liberal or conservative, people generally agree that
preventing this rate increase is an important priority. The difference
is how do we pay for it.
The majority leader wants to raise taxes on small business owners. He
says that is the better way forward. But there is a better way forward
than raising taxes on the people who create jobs, at a time when we
have over 8-percent unemployment and last month's job numbers are
abysmal. Only 125,000 new jobs were created, but 3 times that amount of
people quit looking for jobs completely. For every one new job, three
people quit looking for jobs at all. To raise taxes on the people who
are creating jobs in this country is the wrong way to go.
Senator Alexander's proposal stops the rate increase by eliminating
this prevention slush fund. His bill uses the rest of the funding for
deficit reduction. I have cosponsored that legislation.
I think it is also important to know that the President has already
agreed

[[Page S3008]]

to use his slush fund to offset other spending. In September of 2011,
the President proposed reducing the slush fund by $3.5 billion. In
February, part of the payroll tax cut signed by the President contained
a $4.5 billion cut from his slush fund. Finally, in March, the
President's 2013 budget proposed cutting the fund by another $5
billion.

It is ironic that the President of the United States and Washington
Democrats now oppose using money from their so-called prevention slush
fund. If the White House and Democrats in Congress want to ensure that
student loan rates stay low, they will cut this wasteful program and
use the money to help the next generation of Americans.
We do know that young people coming out of college today are, on
average, having a debt of about $25,000; and whether the interest rate
is zero or 3.4 percent or 6.8 percent, they are still coming out with a
huge debt, at a time when we know 53 percent of the people coming out
of school can't find a job or cannot find a job consistent with their
level of education. We also read that 40 percent are going back home to
live; some are returning home instead of going out into the workplace.
It is time to focus on the economy, on getting people back to work,
and it is time to agree that we need to keep the interest rates low;
that we ought to pay for it with money that is there, which can easily
be used. We should not raise taxes on job creators at a time when the
country is in this sort of economic condition.
I continue to come to the floor week after week to talk about
findings in the health care law. Some things are unintended
consequences, and some things are money tucked away for other purposes.
It is hard for Americans to ever forget Nancy Pelosi saying that first
you have to pass the health care law before you get to find out what is
in it. The more the American people find out what is in it, the less
they like it--to the point that 67 percent of Americans feel that the
health care law should be totally or at least partially found
unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court looks to make their ruling in
the next months ahead.
This is a health care law that, in my opinion, is bad for patients,
bad for providers--the nurses and doctors who take care of the
patients--and it is terrible for the American taxpayers. This is a time
when we need to repeal and replace this health care law. Now there is a
way to use one of the provisions within it to fund and make sure that
we do not raise interest rates for the students in this country, so
they can get the education they need and, hopefully, find a job and not
punish those who have tried to provide jobs to these graduates.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). The Senator from
Massachusetts is recognized.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are on a motion to proceed to S. 2343.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be permitted to
proceed as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Health Care

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, later I want to speak for a few minutes
about our colleague Senator Lugar.
First, I want to comment about what the Senator from Wyoming was
saying on the health bill.
Very quickly, I could not disagree more with the Senator from Wyoming
in his comments with respect to the health care bill. This morning we
had a meeting with Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who was outlining to us
all of the gains we are making with respect to health care in America
as a result of the legislation.
What is interesting is that our colleagues who keep coming to the
floor and saying repeal the health care bill never offer alternatives
to Americans. I hope Americans who are buying into this notion that
somehow the health care bill doesn't serve them because they are angry
about one thing or another will look at what the health care bill does
because, in point of fact, if you were to repeal the health care bill,
and they have no alternative to replace it, here are some of the things
that happen: One, you immediately add $2 trillion to the deficit of our
Nation. Bang, done deal. That goes right away on that. The health care
bill is judged by the CBO to reduce the deficit. It has specific
savings in it. If you get rid of it, those savings go away and, bang,
the deficit goes up.
No. 2, 47 million to 50-some million Americans who have no health
care or didn't have it before the bill will return to the status of
having no health care.
Now, does everybody in America think it is better to have 50-some
million Americans walking around without health care who, when they
walk into a hospital--perhaps they get hit by a car or have an accident
and go to a hospital--receive care that everybody is paying for but
they are paying for it in the most inefficient way possible? The burden
is being paid for by people who have the health care. It goes into
their premiums. It isn't shared by people buying their insurance and
sharing the risk of getting sick. So all of a sudden, if you get rid of
the health care bill, we return America to the days when millions of
Americans had no care. And guess what happens when they have no care.
They jam the emergency rooms because that is the only place to get the
care. The emergency room becomes the place of primary care. But my
colleagues do not answer that question. They never deal with reality.
They deal with politics and ideology and they throw a lot of baloney at
people.
The fact is, if we were to get rid of the health care bill, all those
people who used to get sick and would get a letter from their insurance
company saying: Gee, sorry to hear you have terminal cancer, but you
are not covered--and that is what happened all the time in America--
that would start happening again. People were thrown off their policies
that they had been paying for for years, and all of a sudden they had
no coverage. But they do not address that.
There is another issue: preexisting conditions. Again and again and
again, people would be denied the ability to buy health care coverage
because they had a preexisting condition of some kind. So if 10 years
ago someone had a cancer, even if they were cured of their cancer, the
insurance company could either refuse them or charge them a higher set
of premiums. People were denied coverage--they just didn't get it.
Women who were pregnant and were applying for insurance heard: Oh,
sorry, that is a preexisting condition. You are pregnant. We are not
going to cover that.
So in America we drove people into poverty for a long period of time.
They had to sell their homes or sell down everything they had to become
impoverished in order to get to a point where they could get some help.
What about kids in school today? Under the health care bill, up until
the age of 26, a child can now be covered by their parents' program. It
is not free, it has to be paid for, but they can be covered by it. That
would be eliminated.
So all of a sudden we would have a whole bunch of people who would be
automatically eliminated and going out fighting to get insurance in the
marketplace.
Let me tell you what else happens. There are a whole bunch of reforms
to the health care system that our friends never talk about. Today
Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, laid out
for us the enormous gains we are making in Medicare fraud. We are
beginning to make huge savings for people. The average senior is now
saving over $4,000 on their health care bills because of what has been
put in place by the health care bill. There are a whole series of
things. I don't have them all here at my disposal now because I wasn't
planning to talk about this when I came to the floor, but there are a
series of reforms about how we pay hospitals, bundling the payments to
a hospital, requiring greater accountability from hospitals. I mean,
don't we want greater accountability from hospitals? That will vanish.
That will be gone if we do away with the health care bill.
We also have greater coordination of care for patients from the
beginning of their private care through their admissions and into their
discharges. What happens today is there is no coordination of that
care, and so a lot of people are discharged, and the readmission rate
is staggering because there isn't the coordination between their
postoperative, postsurgery care and their

[[Page S3009]]

primary physicians and the hospitals. Now there are a number of
different pilot projects in place to help coordinate that.
Similarly, we are coordinating the care of what are called dual
eligibles--the people who are eligible for Medicare but also eligible
for Medicaid. That care has not been well coordinated, so we have huge
duplication, enormous costs we don't need, and the result is a waste of
money. All of that is being eliminated and/or reduced to a significant
level.
There are so many other examples. Let me cite another one. The
Senator talked about wanting to take money out of preventive medicine.
Preventive medicine? We are told by the doctors, who are the experts
and who deal with diabetes, that if we had early screening, which comes
by having health care coverage, we could eliminate an enormous amount--
maybe as much as $100 billion--of surgery costs and dialysis costs as a
result of people not discovering they have this ailment until it is too
late for treatment by the more accessible and easier means. There are
some oral medications and other things people can take to deal with
this disease, but they have to get there at the early stage. If they
get there too late, they wind up having to do amputations of limbs or
the patient winds up on dialysis, all of which is far more expensive.
There are also pilot projects in the health care bill for helping
people receive care at home and not be forced into a higher priced care
environment, such as a nursing home or a longer term care kind of
environment. This allows them to receive care at home and be in the
dignity of their own home and independent and, obviously, with much
less cost. All of those things would be wiped out by this notion that
we are just going to get rid of this bill.
What this whole notion is built on is the early negative branding--
very effective negative branding--that took place and was wrapped
around the so-called death panels and the other things, none of which
are in this legislation. It is not in it. So this is political. That is
why they call it ObamaCare, not health care. They call it ObamaCare to
make it a pejorative and to do their best to try to wrap it up in the
negativity of politics in our country today. And it is a tragedy
because it doesn't do justice to the kind of thinking that ought to go
into and did go into this bill in terms of how we do things that really
create competition in the marketplace and allow people to get better
health care.
What is astonishing is that we spend something like, I think, $15,000
per patient in America. I think that is the average cost. There are
countries spending half of that and a lot of countries spending around
$11,000 a patient that, I am sad to say, are getting better health
outcomes than we get in the United States of America. The United States
of America is not No. 1 in health outcomes for the money we are
spending in the system, and there are a whole lot of reasons for that,
but that is part of why this reform is so critical to our country.

I could say a lot more about this, but I am not going to say it now.
Every time we hear from people who are just talking now about how we
have to get rid of the health care bill, we have to stand and make it
clear to people why this bill is good. A lot of Americans have not
heard enough about how this legislation works for them, works for the
country, and will improve our system. Is it the cure-all--no pun
intended--of the health care system? No. I don't pretend it is. We will
have to do more. We will have to tweak it. But it is a beginning step,
with critical components that take 4 and 5 and 6 years to put into
place so that we can get the full measure of their impact.
I will say this. We have it in Massachusetts. We have it now, and
businesses are not complaining. In fact, we have one of the best
economies of any State in the country. I think our unemployment rate is
now down around 4.9, 5 percent, somewhere in that vicinity. So we have
this program. We have had it for a few years now, and 98.6 percent of
the people in our State are covered. It has been mandatory since the
beginning, and it is working. It is beginning to bring down costs in
the individual marketplace. The premiums have gone down by something
like 45, 50 percent.
So I think we have to look at facts, as we do on a whole lot of
issues here facing this country today, rather than continuing this
silly talking past each other, completely contrived, political,
ideological debate that is calculated to win power and not calculated
necessarily to serve the best interests of our Nation. I hope we are
going to engage on this over these next months, and I look forward to
defending this health care bill because I think the bill is good for
America. I think this bill, while it obviously needs some refinement,
some changes, and some tweaking here and there, has accomplished an
enormous amount already and is on track to accomplish an enormous
amount going forward.
I think the administration has a much better story to tell about it
than has been told, and I am glad the President has said he looks
forward to going out and talking to the country about it because I
believe that as the country learns more about it, in fact, they will
say: Wow, that makes sense; that seems like a pretty sensible thing to
do.
For our opponents who want to just get rid of the legislation, they
have an absolute obligation to put the full deal on the table about
what they are going to do in return, and not just Medicare, with the
Ryan proposal--which makes it more expensive for seniors and undoes
Medicare as we know it, not just that part of it--but the whole of it.
How are they going to cover the uninsured? What will they do to take
care of all those medical institutions that are struggling to teach
doctors for the future? How are they going to hold those folks in a way
that continues medical education in our country and so forth? They owe
it to the Nation to answer those questions.
Mr. President, that concludes the portion of my remarks I wanted to
make in response to the Senator from Wyoming.

Tribute to Senator Richard Lugar

Mr. President, I wish to take a few moments to share a few thoughts,
not about the results of the election last night in Indiana per se, but
I do wish to talk about the consequences for the Senate of the loss of
Senator Lugar as of next year and particularly for the Foreign
Relations Committee.
It is no secret that Dick Lugar's loss last night is going to be
particularly felt by all of us who have had the privilege of working
with him on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whether he was the
chairman of the committee--and I served under him when he was
chairman--or whether as a member of the committee and the ranking
member, as he is now and as I am now privileged to serve with him.
Whether we agreed with him or not, whether he had the gavel or he
didn't have the gavel, Dick Lugar had an approach to the Senate and to
governing that was always the same: He was serious, he was thoughtful,
and he refused to allow this march to an orthodoxy about ideology and
partisan politics to get in the way of what he thought was the
responsibility of a Senator and, indeed, the need of the country to
have people come together and find the common ground. He dug deeply
into some of foreign policy's most vexing issues, and his expertise on
complicated issues that were honed over 36 years really can't be
replicated. That is something we are going to lose--the institutional
experience, the judgment, and the wisdom of the approach on some of
those issues, such as the constitutional questions he would call into
account when no one else would, the question of not being stampeded by
popular opinion with respect to the use of force in one instance or
another. All of those are essential to making this institution live up
to its full capacity.
Already since last night's news, we have been hearing again and again
on some of the news shows and elsewhere about the work of the Senator
from Indiana on nuclear nonproliferation. It is no secret his Nunn-
Lugar efforts have become almost shorthand for bipartisanship in
foreign policy, and they should be recognized. But I want to emphasize
here and now that is not all Senator Lugar contributed to this field of
foreign policy. He is a leading expert on some of the urgent issues
that are off the beaten path, from food security and the eradication of
hunger worldwide, to his work with Joe Biden and then with me, I am
privileged to say, to change our relationship with

[[Page S3010]]

Pakistan, helping prevent their economy from unraveling and encouraging
them to cooperate with interests vital to America--indeed, to the
stability of that region--and to establishing what he called a
``deeper, broader, long-term strategic engagement'' with Pakistan.
I am privileged to say, for me, the personal journey with Dick Lugar
began before that, and I think it epitomizes who he is and why he will
be missed. It has nothing to do with ideology.
Back in 1980, shortly after I came here--I was elected in 1984, and I
started on the Foreign Relations Committee in 1985. Right away, we
began to work together on the issue of the Philippines, free and fair
elections in the Philippines. I had traveled over there a number of
times as a freshman Senator. I had met with Ferdinand Marcos. I was
concerned about the torture taking place and the political prisoners
and other violations of rights. Yet we were sort of aiding them
notwithstanding our values and our standards.
Well, Dick Lugar joined with me in that effort. He didn't have any
reason to join with a freshly minted Senator, wet behind the ears, but
he did. Together we sort of became a team that started to focus on the
Philippines to figure out how we could hold Marcos accountable. He was
serious and he was fair-minded, and I saw firsthand during our trip to
the Philippines which we made at the time of the election--after we had
done a whole lot of groundwork to set up an accountability system for
that election--that he had a very personal and special understanding of
what the United States meant to the rest of the world with respect to
our values. That cause animated this man whom we all know is dignified
and reserved and humble but who proudly came back and recounted with
some animation to President Reagan the difference that the United
States of America makes when it gives voice to people's aspirations for
freedom--and, in this case particularly, the people of the Philippines.
The fact is it was that discussion with Ronald Reagan and the results
that came out of the accountability in that election that forced
Ferdinand Marcos to leave and we saw Cory Aquino come to power and the
Philippines move back into genuine democracy.
I saw the same commitment with Senator Lugar a number of times over
the years, but never more so than 2 years ago when we worked together
on the New START treaty. His wisdom and his patience was invaluable in
laying out the case, particularly in building support across the aisle
so we could find the path to 71 votes.
I said then, and I say it again today, given the bitter, divisive,
partisan, continual political squabbling that seems to dominate life in
the city today, 71 votes is probably the equivalent of the 98 votes we
used to get on those kinds of efforts. So I am grateful to him for his
willingness to work to do that. He worked to give Members more time to
work through problems, to find a way to solve individual objections. It
reminded me of the way you actually work in what is now sometimes,
unfortunately, sarcastically referred to as the world's greatest
deliberative body. He deliberated and he helped us deliberate.
I thought it was one of the finer and prouder moments of the Senate
in recent years.
I am confident Dick Lugar's record in our committee is going to be
one of those which is remembered for a long time. Sadly, last night it
was remembered in the context of Senator Fulbright, who also came to
lose a primary in the end and paid a high price for his concern about
global affairs and his involvement with those issues. But I think he is
also remembered significantly for the enormous legacy he built about
American foreign policy and how to make our country stronger.
Dick Lugar does that, and I think he has made it clear--there is no
doubt in the mind of anybody on our side of the aisle--that Dick Lugar
is a conservative and his votes through the years have shown that. He
is a proud Republican.
But I think probably because he served as a mayor before he came
here, he applied what we call the LaGuardia rule to foreign policy--
which is the rule that Theodore LaGuardia applied to doing things in
New York. It didn't matter whether you were a Republican or Democrat as
long as the streets got cleaned and the potholes got filled, and they
didn't have any labels on them. That is pretty much the way foreign
policies ought to be.
It used to be under Arthur Vandenberg that we said that politics ends
at the water's edge, and we do what is in the best interests of our
country. Only in the last years in the Senate have I seen a complete
diversion from that where, unfortunately--as has been true on both
sides--politics has entered into choices people have made with respect
to major issues of conflict, potential war and peace, and interests of
the security of our country.
So about 4 years ago this time, Dick Lugar received the Paul Douglas
Award just off the Senate floor over in the Mansfield Room, and he
summed up his approach to the Senate. I think after last night it is
important for all of our colleagues to be mindful of his words and to
think about them as we go forward in these next 6, 7, 8 months.
Dick argued that bipartisanship isn't an end to itself, and it is
sometimes mistaken for centrism and compromise when, in fact, it is the
way he called being a constructive public servant. It is the way a
constructive public servant approaches his or her job--with self-
reflection, discipline, and faith in the goodwill of others.
He said:

Particularly destructive is the misperception in some
quarters that governing with one vote more than 50 percent is
just as good or better than government with 60 or 70 percent
support. The problem with this thinking is that whatever is
won today through division is usually lost tomorrow. The
relationships that are destroyed and the ill will that is
created make subsequent achievements that much more
difficult. A 51 percent mentality deepens cynicisms, sharpens
political vendettas, and depletes the national reserve of
good will that is critical to our survival in hard times.

That is actually about as fundamentally, philosophically, as
conservative as one could ask for. I think every one of us who have
seen the difficulty of the last few years of our politics, who have
been frustrated by the sheer inability of the institution to work,
would agree there is nothing liberal or conservative or moderate about
what Dick said. It is just common sense about how human nature works,
about how people work. It seems to me we would do well to get back in
touch.
I often hear people talk about how we need to change the rules here
in order to get something done. Actually, we don't. These are the same
rules we operated with when Everett Dirksen was here, when Bob Dole was
leader, George Mitchell was leader. But we got things done.
In the 1990s, we balanced the budget of our Nation four times in a
row without a constitutional amendment. It didn't take a piece of paper
to tell us to do it or new words written in the Constitution. It took
the common sense and courage of people on the floor of the Senate to do
what was right. We don't have to change the rules. We have to change
the thinking--or change the people who don't want to do it.

But every great moment in this great institution, when people look
back at the history with pride and point to the Missouri Compromise or
point to Henry Clay or Daniel Webster or all these great Senators--or
Ted Kennedy more recently and others on the other side of the aisle--
when they do that, they are talking about people who operated by the
same rules but found the common ground because they had the
intelligence and willpower to put the country and its interests ahead
of everything else.
So that is what Dick Lugar's loss last night means to us. I don't
know who will replace him. We certainly know the cross-currents of some
of the campaign, and we certainly know what Senator Lugar himself chose
to say last night about his opponent's quest for more partisanship, not
less.
So the alarm bells have been sounded. My prayer is that this election
year is going to help purge this country of this incredible waste of
opportunity that we are living through.
This Congress isn't over. For those of us who were here and remember
1996, it bears repeating that even in Presidential years the Congress
can actually defy conventional wisdom and get some things done. That is
why I know that Dick Lugar is going to finish out his

[[Page S3011]]

sixth term in the Senate with the same determination and effectiveness
that has marked every year of his service. He is going to have a lot
more contributions to this institution that he reveres and that
respects him so enormously.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first I thank my colleague and friend,
Senator Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for
coming to the Senate floor and speaking about our mutual friend and
colleague, Senator Dick Lugar, who serves as the ranking Republican on
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
I am a newcomer to that committee, but I am not a newcomer to my
knowledge of Dick Lugar--who preceded my arrival in the Senate 16 years
ago when he was well known throughout the Midwest for his extraordinary
service as mayor of Indianapolis, where he did something that was
miraculous--he combined and made more efficient local units of
government, and I think the rebirth of Indianapolis is attributed to
those early steps by Dick Lugar.
My wife Loretta and I came to know Dick and Char personally through
the Aspen Institute, which is an effort that I think we need to
encourage where members of both political parties, House and Senate,
come together to discuss foreign policy issues--no lobbyists, no
special interests. Dick Lugar was there and always a major contributor
when it came to issues of importance.
Before I arrived in the Senate--while Senator Kerry was still here--
he teamed up with Senator Sam Nunn to deal with an issue which related
literally to the peace and security of the world.
What would happen, as the Soviet Union crumbled, to all of those
nuclear weapons? Would they fall into the wrong hands? Would they fall
into disrepair? And what could we do about it? Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar
stepped up and said: We are going to work together on a bipartisan
basis to deal with them.
Time and time again throughout his career Dick Lugar has focused on
issues of strategic importance to the United States and our security. I
can't agree with Senator Kerry more. He looked for a bipartisan
approach to so many things. We always knew he was a Hoosier
conservative. You weren't going to push over anything when it came to
Dick Lugar. He was strong in his values, but he always listened and he
was always a gentleman.
What a disappointment last night. I know Senator Kerry feels, as I
do, that once you have been in this Chamber for a few years, you kind
of reflect on those lions of the Senate who have come and gone, some
because of the decision of the electorate and some because of passage
of time and then fateful decisions that ended up with their departure.
We think back on some of these great people.
John Chafee. John Chafee and Dick Lugar were soulmates in terms of
their view on the Republican side of the aisle about how to work across
the aisle to get things done.
A mutual friend--and I know Senator Kerry's close personal friend--
Senator Kennedy. Senator Kennedy's success has always reached across
the aisle. I noticed that. Sometimes to the frustration of those on the
Democratic side who said: We have enough votes, Ted. We don't have to
do this. He would reach across.
Of Bob Byrd, who used to sit right next to where Senator Kerry is
sitting now, we think: What will the Senate be like without these great
lions? Well, the Senate will go on. But the question is, Will we have
learned from their example? Will we take their lives and their careers
to build on to make this a better place or, as some have said, are we
going to succumb to the temptation of just making this place more
partisan, more hidebound, more dedicated to obstruction than moving
forward?
I know that Dick Lugar in the remaining months is going to be an
extraordinary servant to the people of Indiana and the Nation as he has
been throughout his career, and I look forward to seeing him back on
the Senate floor working, as he will, for the remainder of his term.
But it is a loss. It is a loss to the Senate that he is leaving, and it
is a sad day on both sides of the aisle when Dick Lugar won't be part
of the Senate in person.

Tribute to Senator Mark Kirk

I would like to speak about another Republican Senator while I have
the floor: my colleague, Mark Kirk. Some of you have seen the video.
Mark had a stroke in January. He wrote about it in this morning's
Chicago Tribune. He is 52 years of age, the picture of health, a Navy
Reserve officer and a U.S. Senator from Illinois, actively engaged in
our State, going back and forth, county to county, city to city. We
work together on so many things. Then on that fateful day he was
stricken, and with this stroke he suffered some very serious damage.
I was a little bit disturbed when his physician/surgeon came out and
said, ``Well, here is what we can expect.'' And I am not going to go
through the graphic details, but they were all sobering to think that
he would be limited in any way by the stroke. I was upset because I
thought: He doesn't know Mark Kirk. That isn't going to happen. Mark is
going to fight back. He is going to be back, and he is going to defy
the odds in terms of stroke victims.
Yesterday he released a video. It is inspiring. I hope everyone gets
a chance to see it--I am sure it is readily available--showing him
going through rehab, showing the efforts he is making to come back to
the Senate. Mark called me earlier this week. We talked on the phone a
couple of times since the stroke. He has been actively engaged mentally
in everything we have done since the stroke occurred. But every day he
tells me that he spends time on a treadmill, miles and miles walking on
a treadmill so he will be able to come back. I told him we are on a
different treadmill here and I am sure he wants to get back on it with
us in the Senate.
He will be back. He said something I think we all ought to remember.
He said he asked the staff to count the steps from where he would park
outside the Senate Chamber up to the Senate Chamber. They counted the
steps and they told him 45 steps and he would be back in the Senate. He
said the day is going to come, and I am sure it will be soon, when he
will walk those steps, and there will be many, myself included, from
both sides of the aisle, cheering his return to the Senate. For Mark,
his family, his doctors, his medical staff, and all: Thank you for this
battle. Thank you for your efforts on behalf of our State. We look
forward to your early return.
Mark and I have a joint town meeting, Republican and Democratic,
every Thursday morning. The people sit there politely as we discuss
issues and love it when we disagree because we do it without getting
angry with one another. He will be back soon, not only at those
meetings but also covering the State of Illinois as an effective,
engaged Senator.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time from 2 p.m.
until 5 p.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders
or their designees, and that all quorum calls in that period also be
equally divided.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Maryland is recognized.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I take this time to urge my colleagues to
allow us to move forward in the consideration of the Stop the Student
Loan Interest Rate Hike Act so we can allow the interest rate on
student loans to remain at its current level rather than doubling,
which will happen on July 1, unless we take action. I come to the floor
to express the views of many Marylanders with whom I have talked about
the cost of higher education. We cannot allow the interest costs to go
up. It will affect 7 million students and their families.
We already have too much college debt that families have to incur as
a result of the cost of a college education. We are not competitive
with the rest of the world. We look at countries with whom we compete
and we look at the cost of higher education in their country compared
with what our students have to endure, and we start off behind because
of the enormous cost to a family to afford a college education for
their children.
We know how important it is. You need to have a college degree in
order

[[Page S3012]]

to be competitive in many fields today. That number of fields is
increasing every day. Let me tell you, we have crossed the $1 trillion
mark in debt held by families in order to afford a college education.
Two-thirds of that debt is held by people who are under 30 years of
age. Here they are, trying to start out in life, trying to have a
family, trying to buy a home, and they have this large amount of debt.
College debt now exceeds credit card debt in America. It is not
unusual for a person graduating from a college to have $20,000,
$30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $100,000 in debt, and even higher. If we do
not act by July 1, the interest costs will add thousands of dollars to
that already burdensome amount.
The cost of a college education in America is too expensive. If we
want to be competitive, we have to get the cost of a college education
down. The President in his State of the Union Address talked about ways
in which we can encourage colleges and universities to be more
affordable for the American public. But one thing we can do is to make
sure that the cost of borrowing is not increased. That is why it is
particularly important that we pass this legislation.
It is affecting family decisions as to what schools children will
attend because of the high cost. We are just turning our economy
around, starting to make our recovery, and now families are struggling
to figure out how they are going to be able to afford a college
education. We need to reduce the costs, not increase the costs, to
families. We need a trained workforce. We need to be competitive
internationally.
Let me tell you what else it is affecting. We have some very talented
people who are graduating from college and they want to go into the
field where they are gifted, where they can make a real contribution to
our communities, to our society, to make a difference, to answer that
call of community service. That is what they want to do. But when they
are saddled with this much debt and if it becomes more expensive to pay
off that debt, they have to make a pragmatic decision about their
career path rather than following where they can make the greatest
contribution to society. That is how these large debts and the cost of
paying off that debt are affecting our country.
You might have a great researcher who can find the answer to one of
our diseases, how we can keep a healthier society, a person who may
want to go into research, but they know what the return of research
will be when trying to pay off their college loans. If we do not act by
July 1, that will be even larger. That is what we are confronted with.
That is why it is so urgent, that is why we need to be considering this
legislation rather than be stuck in this filibuster.
I urge my colleague to move forward. Let's do what the Senate should
do--consider amendments and get this process going. It is absolutely
critical to our entire country.
Let me talk a little bit about my experiences with Marylanders. I
have traveled the State of Maryland. I have talked to a lot of our
college students. I will generally talk about a lot of different
subjects and then ask what is on their mind. They will talk about the
cost of college education. They will talk about the fact that we need
more grants. They talk about the fact that we need more affordable
loans. They certainly will tell me if you are going to increase the
interest costs on their loans, it is going to have a major impact on
their ability to stay in college, on their ability to follow the career
choices that they want to in life.
Let me share with my colleagues the stories of two Marylanders who
have contacted my office, who have contacted me in the last few days to
tell me that this bill we are hopefully going to be able to consider
will have a direct impact on their decisions.
Katherine Eames is a 22-year-old single mother, with a 4-year-old son
Jayden. Katherine has decided to go back to college to pursue her
nursing degree and currently attends Hagerstown Community College in
Hagerstown, MD. She is attempting to make a better future for herself
and for her son. She is attempting--she is going to be a full-time
student. Katherine also works part time at a minimum wage job, all
while juggling her responsibilities as a single mother. Student loans
are necessary. She needs to take out student loans. That is the only
way she is able to afford her college. She has student loans in order
to be able to stay afloat and realize her dream of making a better
future for herself and her son. If student loan interest rates were to
double, Katherine would be in a financial turmoil and her future
aspirations in jeopardy. Let me quote from Katherine. This is what she
says. I think it is so telling.

I want to be able to close my eyes and see a bright future
for my family and my son. However, if these interest rates
increase, all I see from this point forward is a hole I don't
think I'll ever be able to climb out of.

I know some of my colleagues say we are talking about another 3-
percent interest charge, people will be able to afford it. But let me
tell you about the real world, the world of Katherine Eames. That is
the real world. That is people making career decisions now as to
whether they are going to follow their dream; whether she will become a
nurse, be able to help her community, help her family, help herself. If
we do not make college affordable or if we add additional costs to it,
we are going to add more people to this process. As a society,
America's competitiveness will suffer as a result. We need to do
better. We need to pass this legislation to help the Katherine Eameses
who are out there.
Let me talk about another Marylander, Ariana Fisher. She wanted to be
a doctor since she was 5 years of age. Through hard work and
determination, she has been accepted to Georgetown University's medical
school. Attending will require her to take out a significant amount in
student loans. That is the fact for most American families, their
children will have to take out loans if they are going to be able to
reach their dreams. She knows how much these are going to cost, but she
says compounding this with increased interest rates hinders her ability
to pursue her dream. She has the will and the passion to become an
excellent physician and her aspirations should not rest on what we do
here in making it more economically difficult for her to be able to
afford that education. That will not only benefit her but will benefit
our community.
We are talking about our children. We are talking about whether our
children are going to be able to pursue the American dream, whether
they are going to have the education they need to help themselves and
help our country. We are talking about America's future. This is about
whether this Nation is going to be able to continue to lead the world
in economic growth. We need to take up the Stop The Student Loan Rate
Hike Act.
Let me explain. It is subject to a filibuster. Yes, it is a
filibuster. We tried to say let's at least get on the bill, which
required 60 votes in order to be able to break this filibuster. We came
up short. I hope the majority leader will schedule another vote shortly
and I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will remember what
this means for the future of this country.
The stories I related with regard to Katherine Eames or Ariana Fisher
are not unique. I am certain you would find similar examples in New
Mexico or any other State in this country. You are going to find
similar examples of people who desperately need us to act so college
costs do not increase. Then let's work together to bring down the costs
of college education. College and postsecondary education are a vital
gateway to helping American students around the country to achieve the
American dream.
We need to stand for our Nation's future. We cannot allow higher
education to become unaffordable for millions of Americans who have the
desire and ability to learn and succeed. Let's end the filibuster.
Let's work together as Democrats and Republicans. Let's keep America's
future in mind, let's keep the American dream in mind, let's allow
Americans to reach that dream by making college education affordable.
Let's pass the legislation that is currently pending that would stop
the increase in the interest rates on college loans.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.

[[Page S3013]]

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, we arrive here at a moment when we
once again have a chance to view the differences in thought and
perspective which are exhibited at this moment in this institution.
Today, we are talking about college education. We are talking about
programs for young people to get an education and go to college.
For generations, affordable college education has been an essential
tool for providing opportunity and building a strong society.
I know from personal experience that government plays a critical role
in making higher education possible. I served in World War II, and when
I joined the Army there was no prospect for me to go to college. I was
18 when I enlisted. When I finished my Army service--having been in
Europe during the war--things looked bleak, but there was an
opportunity that loomed in front of me, and that was an ability to
attend college.
My family was faced with poverty and there wasn't much money in the
family, but there was something called the GI bill. The GI bill gave me
a chance to achieve a dream.
I joined with a couple friends to form a company. The company was
called ADP. The company that produces the labor statistics every month
that this country and the whole world sees. When I was able to start
this company with two other fellows, none of us had any money. The two
of them were brothers, and we didn't have any resources at all. We had
to start from nothing. In the days that we had a chance to get going,
the future was brightened a little bit by the fact that an education
was possible to have. That company we started with nothing today
employs more than 50,000 people around the world.
The country invested in my generation by helping us pay for college,
and that investment helped create decades of prosperity. As a matter of
fact, that generation--post-World War II--was called the greatest
generation ever seen in American history. Out of 16 million people who
served in the Army, 8 million people got a college education through
the GI bill, and thus this generation that came out started us on a
track for prosperity this country had never seen. The investment the GI
bill made in people says that when we have a chance to educate people
and get them to go to college or to attend a university, that is the
way we create the next great generation.
Attending college has never before been this expensive. The cost of
tuition at public universities is 37 percent more expensive now than
just 10 years ago. Think about that. If the average cost for a college
10 years ago was $40,000, it now costs well over $50,000. As a result,
more and more students are taking on massive loans that will plague
them for years. I use the word ``plague'' because it is very difficult
to get started in life, in business or start a family and be facing
heavy debt at the same time.
Sixty-six percent of New Jersey students graduate with loan
indebtedness. The average loan burden for New Jersey graduates is more
than $23,000. No wonder we hear that technology companies are hungry to
hire but can't always find people with the education and skills they
need. The pricetag alone puts college out of reach for too many people
And the clock is ticking on even higher college costs. Unless
Congress acts, interest rates on many student loans are going to double
on July 1--less than 2 months from today. For many students, doubling
rates will cost them $1,000 more for each year of college.
But instead of standing with students, our friends on the Republican
side are playing politics. They made it clear that keeping student loan
rates low is not a priority. They don't see it as something being
worthwhile. Two Republican Senators have introduced budget proposals
that would allow student loan interest rates to double.
Yesterday, we saw 44 Senate Republicans vote to prevent the Senate
from even considering our bill to keep student loan rates low. How
heartless. How thoughtless it is to punish our country this way.
College is already too expensive. Why would we put up obstacles to
getting an education?
Republicans should listen to people who are suffering from the high
cost of college. There have been 1,400 people who have written to me
through mail or Facebook to say: Don't let them do it. Don't let them
double my rates.
A single mother from New Jersey who is helping her daughter pay for
college wrote to say that any increase would create enormous hardship
and an inability to continue to provide for the family. Another New
Jerseyan says America will not be able to compete with the rest of the
world if college is accessible only to those who have the ability to
pay for it up front, and I agree. We will not be able to compete if we
don't have the educated people necessary to fill the jobs that are
available.
Our Republican friends say they want to prevent the doubling of
interest rates. So why don't they step up to the plate? I don't
understand that. They say one thing on one hand: Oh, yes; we don't want
to increase the rates. On the other hand, they say we are not going to
help keep them at the lower rate they are now. They say in order to pay
for keeping rates low for students, we have to cut vital funding for
programs that keep people healthy. Their bill would slash funding for
prevention and public health funds, programs dedicated to stop
devastating diseases before they occur. Chronic diseases, such as
cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, take more than 1 million lives
every year and account for 75 percent of our Nation's health spending.
That is why the Prevention and Public Health Fund has invested $226
million to reduce chronic illnesses.

The President's budget also calls for using this program to protect
women's health by providing breast and cervical cancer screenings to
low-income women, but it won't happen if Republicans get their way.
The Republican bill would also cripple programs that keep kids from
smoking and help smokers to quit. We have all seen the ads--real people
telling real stories about how tobacco has affected their lives. This
chart tells the story: ``Don't be shy about telling people not to smoke
around your kids.'' We see a picture here of a mother and a child.
Republicans don't care about educating people on the dangers of
smoking? Who are they protecting here? Certainly not our children and
certainly not our students.
It is unconscionable. Republicans profess they want to keep loan
rates low but only if we sacrifice programs that protect children from
smoking addiction and help women avoid breast cancer and other deadly
diseases.
The Democrats have a better solution. The bill Majority Leader Reid
has introduced pays for keeping student loan rates low by eliminating a
tax convenience that millionaires and billionaires use to avoid payroll
taxes. Rather than choose to close this loophole, the Republicans
choose to take this opportunity to talk our bill to death. They would
rather see interest rates double for students than force the wealthy to
pay their fair share of the country's obligation.
Student loans open the door to opportunities. Interest rates have to
be kept low to protect graduates from a mountain of debt.
I call on my professional experience again, if I might. I finished
college. My father passed away while he was in the Army. He was only 43
years old. He left my mother a 37-year-old widow to care for herself
and my sister. As luck had it, I got an education at Columbia
University, at the business school there. I started a company I
mentioned before called ADP. It provides services across the world for
those companies that need help in doing their payroll, accounting, and
other recordkeeping that companies must do. It only happened because we
were able to get our education through the GI bill. There was zero cost
to those of us who served in World War II and even some money to pay
for books and for other necessities.
So I call on my Republican colleagues to stop the obstructionism,
stop the politicking, and stop throwing obstacles in the way of young
people who want to get an education and make a contribution to this
society as well as to themselves and elevate America's ability to deal
with the competition we see in the world. It is time to do that.

[[Page S3014]]

I am not suggesting that our Republican colleagues don't want
progress. They do. But when we try to move a bill that says: Keep
interest rates low on college loans, keep the rate low so that when
people get out of college they are not so burdened by debt that they
can't get started in life, I say keep them low so that America competes
as it should--right at the top of the ladder with educated people,
people who want to succeed but don't have the tools necessarily until
they finish their college education. Why put obstacles in the way? It
is incomprehensible because there are a lot of good people on the other
side. But why do they persist in obstructing the opportunity to even
discuss it? They want to filibuster it to death. Filibuster, for those
who don't know the term, means talk, talk, talk, talk, talk--do
anything but make progress.
So I hope we will say to those who have been successful: Do your fair
share. Let your contribution to the well-being of our country educate
those who can learn and not make it so expensive, so out of reach that
few will be able to take advantage of it.
I ask to please move this bill along. Let's let the American people
at least know what we think about this legislation to keep interest
rates low.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, first, I ask unanimous consent that
immediately following my remarks, Senator Udall of New Mexico be
recognized to speak.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I have been listening to these speeches for
the last couple of days--3 days, actually. If one listens to the other
side of the aisle, one would think Republicans are against college
education. I don't think there is a person in America who believes
that. One would also believe we want to raise the interest rates from
3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. There shouldn't be anybody in America who
believes that either. We really think that for 1 year the rates on
subsidized Stafford loans ought to stay at the 3.4 percent, and maybe
beyond that.
The real issue isn't the interest rate, and we can tell that from the
speeches that have been given. The real issue is the cost of college.
Are we doing anything about the cost of college? No. Does Congress have
anything to do besides debate this particular issue? Evidently not. We
are being called a do-nothing Congress, but evidently we don't have
anything else to do. It could be possible to go to something else, but
instead we have had one vote on this, and we still weren't given an
option for this side of the aisle to have a vote on our idea. So now we
are going to get to vote on that same issue from Tuesday once again--
maybe sometime this week or maybe not until next week. Instead, we are
going to stay right on this issue so that if we stay at exactly this
point in this issue, it will fail again and then that side can say: Oh,
those Republicans just want to raise interest rates. Not true.
I hope the American people have noticed that any bill that goes
directly from the President to Harry Reid to the floor doesn't pass. A
bill that goes to committee, regardless of where the source is, has a
chance of a bipartisan solution.
I am the ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee, and we have a user fee bill that passed nearly unanimously
out of committee. We have the support of the stakeholders. We have the
support of the companies. We have the support of Senate Republicans and
Democrats. We have even talked to the House people about it. It is a
bill that ought to make it through here pretty quickly, and I suspect
it will. When it does, I bet we don't hear any comment about it because
that would make us look like a do-something Congress, which is what we
ought to be.

My colleagues can't tell me this is the only issue that needs
attention. Yet we are going to spend a whole week on this issue when
both sides agree it ought to be at 3.4 percent. What we are disagreeing
on is how we will pay for it. I have to tell my colleagues that the
real answer isn't either side's answer, but it could be worked out if
it went to committee.
I was told this was going to be a bipartisan, jointly discussed issue
just before we left for the recess. Then this bill was put forward, and
no further conversation was allowed on it. Our committee was left out
of it. And we bring it to the floor, and they said we will have a fair
and open debate. Yes, look at this--there are two of us on the floor,
and he is waiting to speak and he is not listening to what I am saying,
and there isn't anybody else listening to what I am saying. Well, they
might be back watching the television and picking it up there, and I
certainly hope they are.
Where we get the real discussion is in the committees. Small groups
of people who are intensely interested in the issues come to those
committees and we work it out. Senator Harkin and I will get amendments
a couple of days before the bill is to be marked up in committee to
find out what everybody's ideas are for how it ought to be changed, and
we sit down and we look through those and we say: Well, look at this
pile here. They are all pretty much the same amendment, but there are
people from both sides of the aisle who are interested in it, so why
don't we just get those four people or those two people or those five
people together and see if they can't work something out. It is really
surprising because they usually can come up with a few changed words
that solve the problem in which they are interested. That is the way we
get things done. That is not the way we are operating on the floor.
I am on the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee is supposed to
be handling taxes. Let's see. How many markups have we had this year? I
don't think we have had a single markup. We have not looked at a
specific bill and tried to come up with a solution in committee.
Nothing has been assigned to that committee to finish.
Do we think we have any tax problems in this country? I think so. We
keep talking about tax reform, but we are not doing anything on tax
reform. Instead, we are talking about the interest rate on college
student loans. It is extremely important to the 40 percent of the
students who have a subsidized loan who are going to be protected by
this. It is extremely important to them. We keep talking about college
and the cost of college, but are we doing anything about the cost of
college? No, we are not. That should be disappointing to America. We
ought to be covering the big issues.
Our committee did a bunch of hearings, and I asked for those hearings
to be on the cost of all college education. Instead, what we did was
beat up on private for-profit colleges. We did hearing after hearing
after hearing, and some of those were a little suspect because I know
at least one of the witnesses called in to testify fell short in the
market and was able to run down the colleges and thus make a lot of
money off of his testimony. That is not how it is supposed to work. We
could have looked at all college costs and found some ways to drive
down the price of college, but we didn't do that. So now we are
standing here and saying: Those darned Republicans aren't interested in
the cost of college. How wrong can you be?
We started this debate on Monday, we voted on it on Tuesday, and then
we decided we would reconsider the vote. That means the pollsters said
that this is a pretty good issue for that side of the aisle, and if
they can drag it out longer, they can do better. That is not what
Congress is about. Congress is about solving problems.
There are two sides to this, and in the debate earlier, I said that
if we would just allow a side-by-side so that you get a vote and we get
a vote, we could get something done and move on. The Senator from Iowa,
Mr. Harkin, said: I would let us do a side-by-side.

The next thing I know, the media is saying: You were offered a side-
by-side but you did not take it. Not true. We were offered an
opportunity maybe to put a substitute amendment in at a future time--
maybe. That is not the same. That is not the same as getting the same
kind of a vote on the same kind of an issue. And that is always what
has been done. We have always allowed side-by-sides. But not on this
one. We would rather have the debate going on and try and convince
America that both sides of the aisle are doing the wrong thing.
Not only are we giving the impression that we are a do-nothing
Congress,

[[Page S3015]]

we are giving them the impression there is nothing for us to do. Let's
see. We did not do a budget and we have not done any appropriations
bills yet, and there are 12 appropriations bills that have to pass this
body, and it takes at least a week for each appropriations bill. We
have the authorization bill for defense which we debate each and every
year, and about 100 other issues that need to come up here. But
instead, we are not voting this week, except the earlier vote on this
particular bill and another reconsideration vote. If you keep doing the
same thing, you ought to expect the same kind of results.
One of the reasons we are voting against the bill that is on the
floor is it has not been to committee so it has a lot of flaws in it.
This is a poorly drafted bill. Here is kind of how it works: We have
said that dentists and doctors and other professionals who are in small
corporations--we are picking on small business here--are cheating on
their taxes. They are not paying a payroll tax on their dividends.
There is a law against that, and the IRS can enforce that law, and
does enforce that law. The examples that have been given are times that
they actually caught people doing that and enforced it and won. But to
do an audit on this, it would probably take a maximum of 30 minutes of
computer time to find every small business corporation that might be
cheating on their payroll taxes. But instead of doing that, we are
going to use it as a pay-for, and we are saying it is only doctors and
dentists and lawyers and accountants and other professionals who are
doing this.
Well, there are a whole bunch of people who have small business
corporations. Small business corporations are an important way to
finance small businesses, and it is a little less complicated than the
big corporations. But we usually do not pick on them specifically, and
we usually do not separate them into separate groups. This one is just
the professionals. It does not cover the rest of them.
I asked the question earlier. I said: Does that mean you are saving
the others for a pay-for for something else? If there is a problem, we
ought to solve the problem. But the problem can easily be solved by the
IRS by doing the proper job of auditing, if that is the case. But these
small business corporations are declaring that a lot of their profit is
a dividend.
Here is an interesting part: We are not talking about the income tax
they pay on that. They are having to pay the income tax. Unlike a big
corporation, they are paying the income tax on their personal tax form
the minute it is earned, not when it gets actually distributed.
Most of the small businesspeople have to pay the tax on it but leave
it in the business so they can grow their business. I have been there.
I have had a small business corporation. I know, while you would like
to take the money out, if you want your business to succeed, you have
to keep reinvesting and reinventing. That means you do not get to take
the money out.
If we were being fair, we would say anybody who makes over $250,000
in dividends a year would include that as payroll tax. In other words,
this is another Warren Buffett thing. How many millions do you think he
makes in a year that come into him as dividends? If those did not count
as dividends, he would have to pay a Medicare percentage tax on every
dime of that. That is what we are talking about here with the
professionals whom we are going to discriminate against in a bit. We
are saying that anything that counts as a dividend for them, they are
going to have to pay the Medicare tax on. Why just pick on the
professionals? Why not pick on all small businesses?
Of course, small business is the job creator for the country, so we
should not be picking on any of them. We should be making sure they are
paying the taxes they owe, but that is not what we are doing. And we
are saying Warren Buffett is a special case out there, even though we
like to talk about a Warren Buffett tax every once in a while, but we
are not going to in this case.
What we are talking about is the tax that would be for Social
Security and Medicare. If they are not paying that, they ought to be
paying it. But we are saying that is a good pay-for.
How many times do you think we can take the money that is supposed to
go to Social Security and Medicare and spend it on something else and
hope Social Security and Medicare continue to exist? That is what we
are doing here. We are saying we are going to take the money from the
doctors and the dentists and other professionals and we are going to
make them pay a Social Security and Medicare tax, but we are not going
to put that into Medicare, we are not going to put that into Social
Security. Instead, we are going to give it to college students so they
have a reduction in their loan.
It is kind of interesting. The Department of Education borrows their
money at 2.8 percent, maximum, and they are loaning it out to college
students at 3.4 percent for subsidized student loans and 6.8 percent
for unsubsidized student loans. The law says that on July 1 it is
supposed to go to 6.8 percent for both subsidized and unsubsidized
student loans. Where do you think that profit goes? Well, we already
spend that on other projects. That is why it needs to go to 6.8
percent, so we can pay for what we promised we would pay for. But if we
freeze the interest rate on subsidized loans at 3.4 percent for one-
year, we still have to pay for the other things. So what we are going
to do is, we are going to take money that ought to go to Medicare, and
we are going to give it to college students. So it is a dilemma.
We want to make sure the rate stays at 3.4 percent. But this body,
debating back and forth, without getting any votes, is not going to
resolve it. Even if we got to do an amendment or two--that is a big
deal around here: to get to do an amendment or two on the floor--we
still would not be able to resolve it because we would not have gotten
the people from here and the people from there together in a small
group to work out a solution. That is what the leader ought to be
doing. That is why you send things to committee. But we are not doing
that.

The other side has assured me that even though we are not putting
this money into the Medicare trust fund, that the Medicare trust fund
will still have all of its money. Let me tell you how that works. As an
accountant in the Senate--and there are only two of us now. For 15
years, I was the only one. But there are two of us now. Here is how it
works: When the money comes in, a bond is put in the Medicare drawer
that says the Federal Government owes Medicare that amount of money.
But we go ahead and spend the money.
They say: Well, this trust fund is still intact. No. It only has debt
in it. It does not have money in it. I discovered that trying to get
some money out of a trust fund once. They said: Well, you cannot get it
out unless you put money in. What kind of bank account is that? What
kind of a trust fund is that? That is what Social Security and Medicare
are. They are a bunch of bonds in a drawer that the Federal Government
says we are good for. The way we are spending, we may not be able to be
good for that. People ought to be concerned about that.
So that is where we are. We are talking about taking the Medicare
money and the Social Security money, putting bonds in a drawer, using
the money, and saying all is well in the world and everything is paid
for.
Our side has said, there is a health care slush fund and there are
not any criteria set up on it. There are some broad categories it can
be spent on, but there are no real criteria on it, and it has more than
enough money to pay for this. The only person who gets to decide how
that money is given out is the Secretary of Health and Human Services,
and she has a lot of flexibility on that. There is a lot of money
coming in--maybe at least $2 billion every year allocated to that, and
there is already money in that fund, as it started with more. I think
the estimate was actually $80 billion over the life of the health care
bill. The President himself has helped himself to that when we did the
payroll tax holiday extension. That is where the money came from for
that.
So our side has said: Why don't we use that again? That is supposedly
real money. But one thing that both sides are doing--they are saying:
OK, we are going to freeze the interest rate for 1 year, but we are
counting revenue that is supposed to come in for 10 years.
How many people in America can say: I am going to have this salary,
and I might have it for 10 years, but I need

[[Page S3016]]

to spend it all this year. If I spend it all this year, how do I live
the other 9 years of the time? That is what we are faced with every
time we do a 10-year receipt of money in exchange for a 1-year spending
project. And we are doing that more and more and more.
But, again, under our accounting system, that does not go down as the
same kind of liability and debt situation that increases the debt
ceiling or increases the debt for the country. So it is a very clever
tactic to use, but it is not honest with the American people.
Yes, I am upset we are spending all this time on this reconsideration
of a vote that we had. When you do not make any changes, you can expect
the vote to come out exactly the same. But it allows us days to
harangue each other, and that is the wrong way to do it.
I have asked the leader to pull this bill down, send it to committee,
give them a limited amount of time to work on it, and see if they can
come up with a solution that both sides would like and one that does
not have a lot of loopholes in it.
Loopholes? Well, when we are talking about these small business
corporations for doctors and dentists, et cetera, we said: If they make
more than $250,000 a year and if the small business corporation has
three stockholders or less. I do not think they are cheating to the
degree that they say this money would come in. But if they are, I can
see the wheels turning out there and people saying: Let's see, I have
three people in my corporation. Oh, my son is not in the corporation
yet, so we will make that a fourth one. When we get the fourth person
in the corporation, we are exempted from this.
How much money do you think is going to come in through that
proposal? That is what can be worked out if it goes to committee. So, I
again ask the leader to send it to a committee, give them a limited
amount of time to work on it, and see if they can come up with a
solution that both sides will like because both sides said the interest
rate ought to be 3.4 percent for the next year.
Then we ought to take a look at the cost of all college education. As
all the people have said, college is important. Education after high
school is important. We had one hearing on that in the HELP Committee
too. When we were scheduled to have that hearing--I make a weekly trip
out to Wyoming and travel around the State so I get to talk to a lot of
people--I happened to be talking to some sixth graders, and I said: We
are going to have this hearing, and the title of it is: Is education
after high school important? Do you know what. Those kids all said yes.
We did not have to bring in some people from Harvard and Stanford to
convince us of that. We could have been talking about the cost of
college, which would get more people going to college, and not just
college but some of the tech schools too because we are going to need a
lot of different professions in future years.
Let's get this thing to committee and get it resolved and get on with
some of the issues we need to be working on--some of the ones that are
big money that affect all of America, not just 40 percent of the
students at about a cost of $7 a month.
So with that plea, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. I thank you for the recognition, Mr.
President.
Let me say, I have been sitting here listening to my colleague, the
Senator from Wyoming, and I think he makes some good points. I think we
do need a more open process. I think we need to try as much as possible
to work with each other in the committee process. I do not think there
is any doubt about that. I think we need to allow germane amendments
and have a good, robust debate on the bills that are on the floor.
But what I want to talk about today is the fact that we are in a
filibuster. Fifty-two of us wanted to move forward on this bill and 45
of us did not. That is why we are locked in this situation.
I rise with regret today, and there is much to regret about
yesterday's vote on the student loan bill. First, I regret the false
choice between helping students or funding preventive health care. Most
Americans support student loans. Most Americans see the value of
preventive health care. Yet my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle would ask that we sacrifice one for the other.
An affordable education should not be held hostage to cuts in
preventive health care. That is not a choice; it is an ultimatum.
Have we come to this? We teach our children to set goals, to set
priorities. It should surprise no one that they seriously question our
goals, our priorities. It is like a bus heading toward a cliff. We can
turn it around, and we ought to be able to do so without throwing
students underneath it.
The other side says they care about our Nation's students too.
Perhaps, but there is caring, and then there is devotion. Once again,
their devotion is for the wealthiest among us and not for the 7 million
students who are worried about how they will pay for their education.
Back to choices. As any bright college student can tell us, it always
comes down to choices. How do we protect the Stafford Student Loan
Program? By further cuts to preventive health care? By weakening
research to prevent disease? By cutting our response to public health
emergencies? No, of course not. We do it by closing a tax loophole, by
requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share of payroll taxes.
I submit that this is not, and should not be, a tough choice, but
apparently it is. In fact, it is so tough that the other side doesn't
want to talk about it any further. The result? Yet another filibuster.
That brings me to my other regret. Once again, this Senate is broken,
in limbo, stuck. Once again, the American people look on in dismay.
The Senate was once called the greatest deliberative body in the
world. Now it reminds me of that song, ``The Sound of Silence,'' ``and
no one dared disturb the sound of silence.''
That is what we hear more and more--silence. No debate, no
discussion. Yesterday's vote was the 21st filibuster by Republicans of
a Democratic bill this Congress--the 21st--and the year is young.
This ugly parade of filibusters--and for what? Let's see. To block
the President's job bill, to stop the repeal of tax breaks for big oil
companies, to not help local governments pay for teachers and first
responders, to prevent a minimum tax on households earning more than $1
million a year, and now it is student loans--another filibuster, more
sounds of silence.
I have previously joined my colleagues and friends, Senator Merkley
of Oregon and Senator Harkin of Iowa, to push for fundamental reforms
in how the Senate operates. The reason then and even more abundantly
clear now is that the Senate was broken.
This is tragic. At a time when our country needs us to act, we do
almost nothing. It is no wonder that Congress's approval ratings are at
an all-time low. Instead of working to solve the major problems our
country faces, we retreat to the shadows.
In order to have real change in the process, the Senate has to change
the way we go about business. I have advocated, and will continue to do
so, that the Senate, at the beginning of each Congress, should adopt
its own rules by a simple majority vote. The Constitution clearly gives
us this authority, and it is time to exercise it. Yet at the beginning
of each Congress, the Senate, unlike the House of Representatives,
doesn't vote to adopt its rules. The Senate simply accepts the rules of
the previous Congress--rules that lead to the unfettered abuse of
filibusters, rules that have made the Senate a graveyard of good ideas.
When we fail to reform our rules, their abuse becomes an entrenched
part of the Senate's culture. That is where we are today--after years
of filibuster abuse, we have turned the Senate into a supermajoritarian
body. To do anything in today's Senate requires 60 votes.
Yesterday's vote on the student loan bill was a prime example. We
can't even get onto the bill. Fifty-two Senators voted to move forward,
but 45 Senators chose to filibuster. Once again, minority obstruction
prevents majority rule. That is not democratic, and it is not how our
Founders intended the Senate to operate.
This has to change. A new Congress will begin next January. Right
now, we

[[Page S3017]]

don't know which party will control the House, the Senate, or the White
House, but it should not matter. The Senate must reform itself
regardless of which party has control, not for the good of the
Democrats or the Republicans but for the good of the country.
The Senate will have many new Members next January, and I think most
of them will want to become part of a functioning legislative body, one
where they can bring their best ideas and have them debated, a body
where all views are heard and considered but majority rule is once
again the norm. That institution cannot exist under the existing rules,
and we continue to prove that on a daily basis.
The reforms Senators Harkin, Merkley, and I proposed at the beginning
of this Congress had strong support, but it did not pass. So here we
are, 21 filibusters later, and the line of Americans who wait for a
Congress that works, that actually gets things done, and that comes
together to find solutions--that line just got longer by about 7
million students.
Several of my constituents have watched and have seen this filibuster
proceed, and they have written me on my Facebook page. I thought I
would share a couple of those comments because they really go to the
heart of what is happening on student loans.
Tracy Edwards writes me, saying that student loans are vital. She
says:

My daughter graduates this Saturday from UNM. Without
student loans, this day would not have come.

Her daughter would not have graduated.

In 6 months, we will start repayment of those loans. I am
not asking anyone else to pay my daughter's loan, but why
should we be punished with an increase for trying to ensure
our children get a solid education? If a bankruptcy is filed,
you could lose your home, your car, and your credit, but
student loans are mandated for repayment, no matter what. Is
it too much to ask for a fair interest rate? I think the 1
percent will not be happy until it is a world of the haves
and have nots.

Thank you, Tracy.
Donna Kubiak writes this:

I agree . . . my daughter is a single mom of 3 kids and
working on her degree to teach elementary school . . .
without financial aid, she will have to work for a minimum
wage job and get welfare indefinitely.

Thank you, Donna, for that comment.
Mr. President, as we know, this issue is absolutely crucial to 7
million American students who don't want to see those interest rates
skyrocket a couple months from now. I believe the estimate is about
$1,000 per student. They can't afford that, and we need to get this
bill on the Senate floor. We need to cut out the filibusters and settle
down and do the amendment process, the debate, and produce a bill.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about where we are
right now procedurally in the Senate on the issue of student loan debt
and the interest rates that we charge those who take out Stafford
loans, but also the larger question of student loan debt and how we
make the highway, the pathway, to higher education for America's
students clearer, fairer, and more predictable.
Yates once said that education is not the filling of an empty bucket
but the lighting of a fire. Educating our young people is one of the
most important things we do as a society. In lighting the fire of
curiosity, imagination, enthusiasm, entrepreneurship, and creativity,
particularly higher education is one of the things that distinguishes
the United States from many other countries around the world. We have
long had an enormous advantage in having one of the world's greatest
educational systems.
As the occupant of the chair knows, in Vermont and in Delaware today
there are so many working families who deeply question whether the
pathway toward higher education for their children will be as
predictable, fair, and straight as it has been for past generations.
When I meet with business owners, innovators, job creators, they
deliver the same message: They have jobs. They are ready to hire people
who have the education and the skills they need to compete and
participate in the modern economy.
Today, with more than 12.5 million Americans out of work, including
more than 30,000 Delawareans who are out of work, the question is, How
do we make higher education, skills training, vocational schools, and
community college more affordable and accessible? One thing we can do,
and have to do, is address the staggering debt that lingers with
graduates sometimes decades after completing school.
We are faced with two problems. One is a short-term problem and one
is longer term. The short-term problem is that without immediate
congressional action, student loan interest rates for millions of
Americans will double on July 1.
If we allow rates on federally subsidized Stafford loans to increase
from 3.4 to 6.8 percent, we will saddle student borrowers with an
additional $6.3 billion in interest payments. In Delaware, this could
impact more than 18,000 student borrowers, burdening families who are
still struggling to recover from the recession with unexpected
additional bills. Lots of people have contacted my office--called or
written or sent me postings on Facebook, and they have tweeted to
contact my office and many others here about their concerns.
Alexandra, a recent graduate from Wilmington, DE, reached out to me
and wrote:

I can confidently say that going to a four-year college has
prepared me more than I thought it ever could for success in
my job search. Because of this education, however, I am
facing about $20,000 of debt with a low-paying job.

Alexandra is deeply concerned about the significant debt she faces,
and she urged me to work hard to freeze the interest rate on her
student loan rather than letting it double.
I agree with Alexandra and fully support efforts on this floor to fix
this short-term problem by freezing interest rates on Stafford loans.
I am disappointed that yesterday's vote--the failure to invoke
cloture--to get past a filibuster by the other party has prevented the
Senate from moving forward and discussing a possible realistic
solution.
It is important for the Congress to confront this rise in interest
rates, and I hope we can come to a bipartisan consensus. But let's be
clear. Even doing that will not solve the larger long-term problem.
Addressing this rise in interest rates would not change how much
students borrow, numbers that are only steadily growing.
Just this week our Nation's cumulative student loan debt total
crossed the $1 trillion threshold. That is an enormous burden on young
people just getting started in life and in their careers. If we are to
really address this challenge, we have to help students make smart
decisions about financing their education.
We can empower students to make more informed choices by fully
understanding the relationship between their debt, their choice of
major or studies, and their future career path by providing more and
earlier and better information about this.
Financial literacy, and a clear understanding of how or whether
borrowing will help raise their earning potential later is a key part
of the real solution to our country's ongoing and exploding student
loan debt.
We can also seek creative solutions that look beyond the obvious and
really work to make higher education more affordable for more students.
That is why I am so glad to work with my friend, Congressman Chaka
Fattah of Philadelphia, PA, on new legislation to encourage private
investment in college scholarships. Congressman Fattah showed
tremendous leadership in crafting this bill. We introduce a new tax
credit that will help more kids afford a college education, entitled
Communities Committed to College Tax Credit Act of 2012.
The bill provides tax incentives to encourage private donors to
support and sustain educational trusts that make higher education
possible for all the young people of a chosen community. These private
donors, encouraged by a 50-percent tax credit, will help fund need-
based college scholarships,

[[Page S3018]]

fueling a new generation of achievement by making higher education more
affordable and reducing the need for student loans. But equally
important, in places such as Syracuse where these programs are already
in place, it changes expectations. When young people, in the very
beginning of schooling--from the first, second, and third grade--know
there is some possibility, some savings account, some community program
that will fund their higher education, the likelihood they will finish
high school and go on to college increases by four to seven times.
I support Congressman Fattah's innovative effort to support community
trusts that support higher education. That is one idea for looking
beyond the box and working to make higher education more accessible.
Here is another. The American Dream Accounts Act is a bipartisan,
bicameral bill to encourage real partnerships between schools,
colleges, nonprofits, and businesses to develop secure, Web-based,
individual, portable student accounts that contain information about
each student's academic preparedness and skills. It also directly
tackles the issue of student loan debt by working with students on
financial literacy from a very young age. Instead of having each of
these different resources available, as they are now, separately
siloed, it connects them across existing education programs at the
State and Federal level.
I am grateful to Senator Bingaman of New Mexico and Senator Rubio of
Florida for joining me as original cosponsors here in the Senate. This
bill is a potentially powerful step toward helping more students of all
income levels and backgrounds access, afford, and complete a college
education. It is rooted in my own experience with the I Have a Dream
Foundation, which has helped more than 15,000 young people all over the
country to achieve the dream of higher education.
If we want American companies, American workers, and American
families to compete and win in the global economy, we have to help our
students afford higher education. It really is that simple. I look
forward to working with my colleagues to find solutions that promote
affordable, accessible higher education because early action and early
engagement can help change the future and the outcomes for our kids and
make it possible for them to achieve the American dream.
It is my hope that we can overcome this needless filibuster,
yesterday's setback, and that all of us can come together and achieve
what we say we want to do together--a responsible path forward that
avoids needless additional burdens on working families trying to
finance their children's education--and that we can look seriously at
these two proposals I have touched on briefly today that will help our
students of the future understand and afford higher education to make
their American dream possible.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Delaware for
speaking to some critical issues. It is a shame we are not in a
position where we can offer the Senator's amendments, but, as he knows
and as he spoke to in his speech, the decision yesterday by the
Republicans to go into a filibuster--which is what we are having on the
floor and which is why there are so few people and nothing really
happening aside from some really outstanding speeches--is a decision
they have made time and again.
This was rarely used in the history of the Senate--the filibuster.
Oh, ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington''--some people will remember that
movie, and in the 1960s during the civil rights debate, they may
remember that too. Sometimes it was used during the Vietnam war, maybe.
But it has rarely been used. Now it has become so routine, so
commonplace, that day after weary day people who subscribe to C SPAN on
their cable channels are calling in to the cable providers and asking
for their money back because nothing is happening on the floor of the
Senate. And whose fault is that? It is our fault. It is our fault. When
an issue such as this--the one that brought on this filibuster--is
explained to the American people, they shake their heads and ask: What
are you doing in Washington?
Well, here is what this is all about. On July 1, the interest rate on
student loans through the Federal Government doubles. It goes from 3.4
percent to 6.8 percent unless we do something. So we have a bill we
brought to the floor yesterday. We said: Let's bring this bill in,
debate it, vote on it, and let's change the law so that we can protect
these students and families. Let's freeze that increase and keep it at
the original 3.4 percent. Now, what is that worth? For someone
borrowing $20,000 over the course of their college education, it is
worth $4,000. If that is your son or daughter and you happened to
cosign with them, $4,000 is nothing to sneeze at.
The Pew Foundation did a survey of working families across America, I
say to the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Vermont, and they asked
a very basic question of the working-family population. The question
was how many of them could come up with $2,000 in 30 days--2,000 bucks.
Maybe there was an emergency in their home--a water pipe just broke or
the furnace broke down. My daughter just went to the hospital. But how
many could come up with $2,000 was the question, and only half
responded that they could. Half of the working families in America have
access to $2,000. So what does $4,000 or more in interest being paid
mean? For a Senator, not much. For an average working person, a lot.
Now, what happened yesterday? We called this bill and said: Let's
move it, let's start debating it, and let's get it done before July 1.
We all agree we should. President Obama and even Governor Romney said
we should get this done. But not a single Republican Senator would vote
with us--not one. Not one Senator would join us to bring the bill to
the floor. That is why we sit here literally wasting our time and the
time of taxpayers over an issue we should not even have to debate.
I don't know about the Presiding Officer, but I had to borrow some
money to go to school, and I borrowed it from the Federal Government.
It was called the National Defense Education Act. They created it back
in the late 1950s, early 1960s, because we were scared to death of the
Russians and sputnik. We thought, they can take over the world. They
have the bomb, and now they are the first in space with that little
basketball-sized satellite. So we thought it was time for America to
get up and get moving, and we created, for the first time in our
history, student loans available to nonveterans. We gave help to
veterans in the GI bill after World War II, but these were for
nonveterans. I got one. I signed up for it.

When I graduated from law school in the late 1960s, they added up all
the money I had borrowed--college and law school--from the Federal
Government.
I remember the day I brought the letter home to my wife, baby in arms
and another one on the way, and said: My student loans have all been
added up.
She said: How much?
I said: It is $8,500.
She said: We will never be able to pay that back.
And I said: I know, but we have to try. We have a year before the
first payment is due.
My first job out of law school paid $15,000 a year, to put things in
perspective.
Now look what students are faced with today. They are lucky to get
out with an average indebtedness of $24,000--very lucky. For a lot of
students, that isn't even possible. They get more deeply in debt as
they go through school. They say: Well, you told me to finish my
education so I would have a better life and realize my dream. I can't
quit now. I have to borrow some more money and finish next year and the
following year or I have wasted it all. If I am a college dropout, what
do I have to show for it--no diploma, just the debt.
So we asked families across Illinois to get in touch with us and tell
us about student debt as they see it in their lives. We know nationally
that student debt in October of 2010, for the first time in history,
surpassed credit card debt. People owe more money on student loans than
on their credit cards, and it is growing--dramatically growing. When
you meet these families, it is sometimes a sobering moment.
I was at a college in Chicago last week and met a student, a lovely
young lady majoring in art, which my daughter majored in, so I have no
problems with that because she is a great

[[Page S3019]]

artist and doing well, thank goodness. This young lady said: I am about
to get my bachelor's degree with a major in art, and my student
indebtedness at this moment is $80,000. But I am going on for a
master's. I think it will be about another $60,000 of debt.
I think she was 25 years old. Think about that. Think about what she
has just done to herself. First, she did what she was told to do--to
get a college degree. Then she got so deeply into debt that she is
going to come to realize--sadly come to realize--it is going to
influence so many decisions in her life. Will she ever be able to buy a
car, get married, buy a home, have children? Each one of those
decisions along the way is going to be based on her student loan
indebtedness.
So is it right for us to keep the interest rate low on student loans?
Of course. Why do we want to make it any worse for her or anyone else
who borrows money after July 1? We should be doing this, and we
shouldn't be squabbling over it. We were sent here to solve these
problems, not to go into filibusters--one more Republican filibuster. I
don't want to get partisan about it, but they didn't provide a single
vote--not one--to help us move to this issue.
So on our Web site we asked families to tell us their stories. I just
spoke about a young student, but many of these students have parents
and grandparents who sign up to help them. They say: Yes, we will
cosign the note because we want our granddaughter or our daughter to
finish school; let me help.
About 6 weeks ago, the New York Times reported a story in which a
woman had her Social Security check garnished for student loans. It
wasn't a loan she took out, it was a loan she guaranteed for her
granddaughter. Her granddaughter defaulted, and they went after
grandma. She now receives a smaller Social Security check because of
the student loan and her goodness in helping her granddaughter. That is
the reality of this debt. It trickles through entire families--families
with guaranteed loans that, when they go into default, mom and dad keep
working well past what they thought was their retirement age.
I have to say, the more I watch this, the more I am concerned about
this student debt bomb that could go off, if it hasn't already. I worry
about what it will do to these families and to the reputation of a
college degree. There are people who are skeptical today about
mortgages. They wonder, why would I take out a mortgage on a home if
the value of the home is going to plummet? That skepticism doesn't help
us build hope in communities and neighborhoods. What if we reach that
level of skepticism when it comes to higher education? So this is part
of the conversation.

Let me tell my colleagues about some of the stories I have heard.
Dewaine Nelson from Rockford contacted our office. Dewaine's daughter
went to a private college costing about $30,000 a year. She has been a
file clerk for 11 years since graduating. He wanted to help her, but he
lost his job in 2001. He says:

Once you fall on hard times you can never get a good job in
the finance or insurance industry. Your credit is no good.
Bad credit means no good job.

Then he decided to go back to school to pursue his MBA in marketing.
Still, with no decent pay, he couldn't repay his student loan. So he
went back to school so he could defer the student loan again. He still
doesn't have a job that pays enough for him to pay off his loan balance
and help his daughter pay her balance.
So here we have mom and dad still with student debt and struggling to
find a decent job.
Sharon Sikes from Chicago wrote about her son. She lost her job
shortly before her son started college. Each semester his tuition kept
going up. This is something we hear about very often. Her son's degree
is in journalism and mass communication--not a field where you can find
a lot of jobs these days. His loan payments are about to kick in, and
he works as a cook in an Irish pub. He makes enough for his basic
expenses--food and keeping his bicycle running so he can go back and
forth to work. She said she honestly doesn't know what he is going to
do when the student loan payments kick in. His debt from the State
university tuition has left the family with more than $60,000 in loans,
and he is cooking in an Irish pub.
Sharon says she is in her sixties and nobody is lining up to give her
a job. She had hoped to be able to help her son pay his loans off
sooner. She says:

He deserves a chance to follow his passion without being
saddled with years of debt.

Jill Shakely from Rockford started out at Rock Valley Community
College, which I think is a smart decision--to go to a community
college if you are not sure or at least you want an affordable first
year or two of college. She started out at Rock Valley, and when she
graduated in 2002, she decided she wanted to continue her education and
pursue a 4-year degree. She didn't have any support from her family.
They couldn't help her pay for it. So she took out students loans. The
tuition was $26,000 a year, and it added up quickly. She doesn't own a
home and makes a salary some would say is pretty small. She spends a
large percentage of her salary on her loans. She would like to go back
to school but can't take on any more debt. She is worried about how it
will affect her future. She said that keeping interest rates low will
help students like her.
Who wants to argue against this situation? Who believes we ought to
raise the cost of student loans? Who thinks that is in the best
interest of this country in terms of encouraging young people to go to
school and getting them out of school without a mountain of debt which
crushes them?
That is what this debate is all about. The fact that we couldn't get
one single vote from the other side of the aisle--not one--to move to
this bill to even debate it is a sad commentary.
This Senate Chamber is supposed to be about deliberation, amendment,
and debate. At the end of the day we put our fate in the hands of those
gathered here and have a vote, up or down, win or lose. I know the
Presiding Officer has had some that have won and some that have lost
and so have I. But that is what it is supposed to be all about.
Instead, my voice echoes through an empty Chamber. The people who
forced the filibuster and stopped us from taking up the student loans
are gone. Not a one of them is here.
Last night, I was one of the last speakers, and I looked over there
to an empty side of the aisle and I said: Of all the people who
objected to our going to the bill, not a single one of them is here.
They are all out to dinner. That isn't right.
I know the Presiding Officer has been pushing for changes in the
Senate rules. It would strike me that if someone wants to stop the
consideration of a bill before the Senate, they ought to park their
posterior in one of these chairs and be prepared to take on all comers
to explain why. If they don't have the time or inclination to do it,
then for goodness' sake don't start a filibuster. One of the rule
changes we have talked about says that if it is that important to stop
the business of the Senate--as we are doing now--they ought to at least
have to stay on the floor of the Senate to defend their position. Is
that too much to ask, that they don't go out to dinner and check in the
next day to make certain that lunch is going to be served on time?
I think this issue gets to the heart of what our economy is facing,
what families are facing, and what the Senate refuses to face. This
Republican filibuster has stopped us from taking up a measure that
would reduce the interest rate on student loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4
percent. In my State of Illinois, 365,000 students will be affected if
that interest rate goes up. It isn't fair to them. It isn't fair at
all. It isn't fair to be stuck in the middle of a filibuster when we
ought to be rolling up our sleeves and tackling this issue.
The House passed a bill on student loans. Just to give an idea of how
there is a different approach to things, the House Republicans--with
very little, if any, Democratic support--said: OK. We will lower the
interest rate on student loans, and here is how we will pay for it. We
will take money out of a preventive health care program. In other
words, we will reduce childhood immunizations, and the money we save by
not vaccinating children, we will use that to bring student loan
interest rates down.
How about that for a Faustian choice? How about that for a deal with
the devil? We will run the risk that children will get childhood
diseases,

[[Page S3020]]

and we will take the savings from that and help the kids who are in
college. Is that what it has come to now, your money or your life? That
is the choice we have? That is all? I don't think so.
Why is it that the Tax Code in this country has become a sacred
document? One would think that some people, instead of putting their
hand on the Bible and swearing to uphold the Constitution, put their
hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Tax Code as it stands,
without a word being changed. I didn't. That Tax Code is a law written
by men and women, some of great intellect and some bowing to special
interests. Our job every year is to look at it and see if it makes
sense.
The way we pay for the student loan interest rate to stay affordable
is closing a loophole in the Tax Code used by accountants and lawyers
to avoid paying taxes. They have made out pretty well under that
provision for a while. But why should they have that for life? Are they
now entitled to that? Is that an entitlement they get for life? I don't
think so. I think it is a loophole we can close, save the money, and
reduce student loans--not at the expense of children being immunized
against whooping cough and measles. That is what it comes down to.
House Republicans seem to think that is a pretty good tradeoff. I
don't. Let's at least debate it on the floor of the Senate instead of
getting locked into a worthless filibuster again and again and again.
That is where we are.
Many of us have gone to our official Web sites and invited people
living in our States to send us their stories about student loans. I
have read three of them here. I can tell you many more from those I
witnessed just this last week going through my State, going from
Chicago to Peoria to Decatur and all points in between. The stories
just come crushing in one after the other, and they are reminders that
what we do on the floor of the Senate makes a real difference in the
lives of families across America.
I have said it before: I wouldn't be standing here today without
student loans. The government loaned me the money, and somehow or
another I paid it back. I didn't think I could, but I did, hoping the
next generation could use that money to get their own student loans. It
is part of the kind of trust we have, one generation helping another.
So are we going to let these students down? Are we going to let this
filibuster be the end of the conversation?
I have listened to the Republican leader come to the floor day after
day and say: Oh, this is just a political stunt. Where is the stunt?
What it comes down to is we want to bring the bill to the floor and
open it to an amendment process.
To my friends on the Republican side, give us your best ideas. Put
them in amendment form. Bring them to the floor. Let's debate them.
Let's vote. We will do the same. Who knows, we may find some common
bipartisan agreement and get this problem solved. We will not get it
solved stuck in another filibuster, which is where we are right now,
wasting the time of the Senate and the time of the taxpayers and
endangering a lot of families across America who desperately need our
help.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, yesterday I spoke on the floor about the
Democratic bill to reduce interest rates on student loans, and I was
lamenting the fact that our Republican colleagues would not even permit
us to turn to the bill. They were filibustering a motion to proceed to
the bill which meant we could no longer work on it. That is why this
floor today is so empty. We should have been here working on a student
loan bill which is so critical to so many college students and their
families across the country. The interest rates on these student loans,
which are the Stafford loans, the Federal subsidized loans, is going to
go from 3 percent to 6 percent. We want to get it back down. This is
important to 7.5 million students and their families.
When I concluded my remarks, Senator Brown from Massachusetts took to
the floor. He expressed shock that I was concerned about Republican
filibusters and started to talk about how cooperative the Republicans
have been, pointing to a few issues where we have worked together.
Look, I am here to say that working together in a bipartisan manner on
a few issues is fine, but we need to work together in a bipartisan
manner on almost all the issues we work on because the American people
are counting on us. Because there are a handful of issues on which the
Republicans cooperated, let's not come down to the floor and say
everything is perfect and Republicans are not blocking us, when, in
fact, they are blocking us.
The Democrats essentially retook the Senate in 2007. Since then,
these Republican filibusters have been off the charts. Don't take my
word for it, listen to congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman
Ornstein. They recently wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
It was based on a study. I ask unanimous consent to have that printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From The Washington Post, Apr. 27]

Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem

(By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein)

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently
captured on video asserting that there are ``78 to 81''
Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party.
Of course, it's not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from
either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What
made West's comment--right out of the McCarthyite playbook of
the 1950s--so striking was the almost complete lack of
condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other
major party figures, including the remaining presidential
candidates.
It's not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is
that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for
granted.
We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for
more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this
dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both
parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we
have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the
problem lies with the Republican Party.
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American
politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of
compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts,
evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its
political opposition.
When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes
it nearly impossible for the political system to deal
constructively with the country's challenges.
``Both sides do it'' or ``There is plenty of blame to go
around'' are the traditional refuges for an American news
media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political
scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing
partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in
their search for common ground, propose solutions that move
both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable
when one side is so far out of reach.
It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican
Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary
moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the
Senate--think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth,
Chuck Hagel--are virtually extinct.
The post-McGovern Democratic Party, by contrast, while
losing the bulk of its conservative Dixiecrat contingent in
the decades after the civil rights revolution, has retained a
more diverse base. Since the Clinton presidency, it has hewed
to the center-left on issues from welfare reform to fiscal
policy. While the Democrats may have moved from their 40-yard
line to their 25, the Republicans have gone from their 40 to
somewhere behind their goal post.
What happened? Of course, there were larger forces at work
beyond the realignment of the South. They included the
mobilization of social conservatives after the 1973 Roe v.
Wade decision, the anti-tax movement launched in 1978 by
California's Proposition 13, the rise of conservative talk
radio after a congressional pay raise in 1989, and the
emergence of Fox News and right-wing blogs. But the real move
to the bedrock right starts with two names: Newt Gingrich and
Grover Norquist.
From the day he entered Congress in 1979, Gingrich had a
strategy to create a Republican majority in the House:
convincing voters that the institution was so corrupt that
anyone would be better than the incumbents, especially those
in the Democratic majority. It took him 16 years, but by
bringing ethics

[[Page S3021]]

charges against Democratic leaders; provoking them into
overreactions that enraged Republicans and united them to
vote against Democratic initiatives; exploiting scandals to
create even more public disgust with politicians; and then
recruiting GOP candidates around the country to run against
Washington, Democrats and Congress, Gingrich accomplished his
goal.
Ironically, after becoming speaker, Gingrich wanted to
enhance Congress's reputation and was content to compromise
with President Bill Clinton when it served his interests. But
the forces Gingrich unleashed destroyed whatever comity
existed across party lines, activated an extreme and
virulently anti-Washington base--most recently represented by
tea party activists--and helped drive moderate Republicans
out of Congress. (Some of his progeny, elected in the early
1990s, moved to the Senate and polarized its culture in the
same way.)
Norquist, meanwhile, founded Americans for Tax Reform in
1985 and rolled out his Taxpayer Protection Pledge the
following year. The pledge, which binds its signers to never
support a tax increase (that includes closing tax loopholes),
had been signed as of last year by 238 of the 242 House
Republicans and 41 of the 47 GOP senators, according to ATR.
The Norquist tax pledge has led to other pledges, on issues
such as climate change, that create additional litmus tests
that box in moderates and make cross-party coalitions nearly
impossible. For Republicans concerned about a primary
challenge from the right, the failure to sign such pledges is
simply too risky.
Today, thanks to the GOP, compromise has gone out the
window in Washington. In the first two years of the Obama
administration, nearly every presidential initiative met with
vehement, rancorous and unanimous Republican opposition in
the House and the Senate, followed by efforts to delegitimize
the results and repeal the policies. The filibuster, once
relegated to a handful of major national issues in a given
Congress, became a routine weapon of obstruction, applied
even to widely supported bills or presidential nominations.
And Republicans in the Senate have abused the confirmation
process to block any and every nominee to posts such as the
head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, solely to
keep laws that were legitimately enacted from being
implemented.
In the third and now fourth years of the Obama presidency,
divided government has produced something closer to complete
gridlock than we have ever seen in our time in Washington,
with partisan divides even leading last year to America's
first credit downgrade.
On financial stabilization and economic recovery, on
deficits and debt, on climate change and health-care reform,
Republicans have been the force behind the widening
ideological gaps and the strategic use of partisanship. In
the presidential campaign and in Congress, GOP leaders have
embraced fanciful policies on taxes and spending, kowtowing
to their party's most strident voices.
Republicans often dismiss nonpartisan analyses of the
nature of problems and the impact of policies when those
assessments don't fit their ideology. In the face of the
deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, the
party's leaders and their outside acolytes insisted on
obeisance to a supply-side view of economic growth--thus
fulfilling Norquist's pledge--while ignoring contrary
considerations.
The results can border on the absurd: In early 2009,
several of the eight Republican co-sponsors of a bipartisan
health-care reform plan dropped their support; by early 2010,
the others had turned on their own proposal so that there
would be zero GOP backing for any bill that came within a
mile of Obama's reform initiative. As one co-sponsor, Sen.
Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), told The Washington Post's Ezra
Klein: ``I liked it because it was bipartisan. I wouldn't
have voted for it.''
And seven Republican co-sponsors of a Senate resolution to
create a debt-reduction panel voted in January 2010 against
their own resolution, solely to keep it from getting to the
60-vote threshold Republicans demanded and thus denying the
president a seeming victory.
This attitude filters down far deeper than the party
leadership. Rank-and-file GOP voters endorse the strategy
that the party's elites have adopted, eschewing compromise to
solve problems and insisting on principle, even if it leads
to gridlock. Democratic voters, by contrast, along with self-
identified independents, are more likely to favor deal-making
over deadlock.
Democrats are hardly blameless, and they have their own
extreme wing and their own predilection for hardball
politics. But these tendencies do not routinely veer outside
the normal bounds of robust politics. If anything, under the
presidencies of Clinton and Obama, the Democrats have become
more of a status-quo party. They are centrist protectors of
government, reluctantly willing to revamp programs and trim
retirement and health benefits to maintain its central
commitments in the face of fiscal pressures.
No doubt, Democrats were not exactly warm and fuzzy toward
George W. Bush during his presidency. But recall that they
worked hand in glove with the Republican president on the No
Child Left Behind Act, provided crucial votes in the Senate
for his tax cuts, joined with Republicans for all the steps
taken after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and supplied the key
votes for the Bush administration's financial bailout at the
height of the economic crisis in 2008. The difference is
striking.
The GOP's evolution has become too much for some longtime
Republicans. Former senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska called
his party ``irresponsible'' in an interview with the
Financial Times in August, at the height of the debt-ceiling
battle. ``I think the Republican Party is captive to
political movements that are very ideological, that are very
narrow,'' he said. ``I've never seen so much intolerance as I
see today in American politics.''
And Mike Lofgren, a veteran Republican congressional
staffer, wrote an anguished diatribe last year about why he
was ending his career on the Hill after nearly three decades.
``The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a
traditional political party in a representative democracy and
becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the
intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century
Europe,'' he wrote on the Truthout Web site.
Shortly before Rep. West went off the rails with his
accusations of communism in the Democratic Party, political
scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, who have long
tracked historical trends in political polarization, said
their studies of congressional votes found that Republicans
are now more conservative than they have been in more than a
century. Their data show a dramatic uptick in polarization,
mostly caused by the sharp rightward move of the GOP.
If our democracy is to regain its health and vitality, the
culture and ideological center of the Republican Party must
change. In the short run, without a massive (and unlikely)
across-the-board rejection of the GOP at the polls, that will
not happen. If anything, Washington's ideological divide will
probably grow after the 2012 elections.
In the House, some of the remaining centrist and
conservative ``Blue Dog'' Democrats have been targeted for
extinction by redistricting, while even ardent tea party
Republicans, such as freshman Rep. Alan Nunnelee (Miss.),
have faced primary challenges from the right for being too
accommodationist. And Mitt Romney's rhetoric and positions
offer no indication that he would govern differently if his
party captures the White House and both chambers of Congress.
We understand the values of mainstream journalists,
including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a
balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts
reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely
to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way
that reality is portrayed to the public.
Our advice to the press: Don't seek professional safety
through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing
views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking
hostages, at what risks and to what ends?
Also, stop lending legitimacy to Senate filibusters by
treating a 60-vote hurdle as routine. The framers certainly
didn't intend it to be. Report individual senators' abusive
use of holds and identify every time the minority party uses
a filibuster to kill a bill or nomination with majority
support.
Look ahead to the likely consequences of voters' choices in
the November elections. How would the candidates govern? What
could they accomplish? What differences can people expect
from a unified Republican or Democratic government, or one
divided between the parties?
In the end, while the press can make certain political
choices understandable, it is up to voters to decide. If they
can punish ideological extremism at the polls and look
skeptically upon candidates who profess to reject all
dialogue and bargaining with opponents, then an insurgent
outlier party will have some impetus to return to the center.
Otherwise, our politics will get worse before it gets better.

Mrs. BOXER. Here is the title of their piece, ``Let's Just Say It,
The Republicans Are The Problem.''
They explain that in the past they looked at Congress and thought
both parties were to blame. But on reflection, as they studied the
facts--not the rhetoric but the facts--it was Republicans who are
causing all the problems. Here is what they write:

The filibuster, once relegated to a handful of major
national issues in a given Congress, became a routine weapon
of obstruction applied even to widely supported bills or
Presidential nominations.

All we have to do is watch the Senate or certainly when one is in the
Senate we realize these scholars, Mann and Ornstein, are absolutely
right. In this Congress, the 112th Congress, we have already seen 48
Republican filibusters; 48 times the Republicans stopped us from doing
our work. But don't get the impression this was new behavior because it
did not just start in the 112th Congress, it started way before. In the
111th Congress, which covered 2009 and 2010, Republicans conducted 91
filibusters. In the 110th Congress, 2007 and 2008, they conducted 112
filibusters. So far this year we have had 48 Republican filibusters. In
the Congress before that we had 91, and the one before that we had 112.

[[Page S3022]]

What does this mean? It means that in all those times we were unable
to do the work of the American people because one party stopped it.
There have been more filibusters by the Republicans in the 6 years
since Democrats took over the Senate than there were in the prior 10
years. I want to remember one of those times because I was sitting down
there in the manager's chair, coming out of my committee, Environment
and Public Works, with a near unanimous vote on a little program called
the Economic Development Administration. This EDA has been in place
for--I want to say 50 years. It has been in place for 50 years--5 0;
not 15--50 years through Presidents Republican and Democratic. It is a
beautiful program because what it does is it takes some modest Federal
funds and leverages States' money, local money and private money and it
comes into areas that are having difficulty with job creation and
invests that money there. As a magnet it creates all of these
contributions, and we have seen hundreds of thousands of jobs created
as a result.

So I come to the floor to get this little bill reauthorized. After
coming out of my committee with a strong bipartisan vote, it is
filibustered. I stood down there for 5 days, and I could not believe
it. They are filibustering a bill that would create and save hundreds
of thousands of jobs.
We also saw these Republican filibusters when we tried to say
millionaires should pay their fair share, which would have reduced the
deficit by billions. Oh, no, they could not stand to have us debate
that so they filibustered. They filibustered a bill to eliminate tax
subsidies to big oil and gas companies that are making record profits
and getting subsidies that they have gotten for 30 to 40 years. No, we
were not allowed to go to that.
And then, of course, the most recent filibuster by Senate Republicans
is on this critically important legislation to cut interest rates on
student loans. They are going to double on July 1. Oh, no. They
wouldn't even let us go to the bill. I say that despite the
protestations of Senator Brown of Massachusetts, this has got to stop.
He cited three or four times that we worked together. I say good for
that; I am happy for that. That does not in any way change the fact
that we face filibuster after filibuster, 48 times in this Congress so
far now.
I hope every college student in this country who has an opportunity
is watching this Chamber. This Chamber should have been bustling today
with people talking and working together, offering amendments so we
could cut these interest rates on student loans. College students and
high school students who want to go to college, and their parents,
grandparents, aunts, and uncles ought to understand that this floor is
not filled today passing this legislation because of a Republican
filibuster.
What we do here matters. We could save students thousands of dollars
on the life of their loans. These are student loans for the middle
class. More than 75 percent of the borrowers in the program come from
families with incomes below $60,000 a year. This is not some fun and
games, but my Republican friends and their presumptive Presidential
nominee want to cut taxes for people who earn millions of dollars. They
want to give back an average tax cut of $250,000 a year, and they don't
have it in their hearts to lower student loans for families who earn
less than $60,000 a year. They call for permanent tax cuts for the
people who don't need them and again they block the way for us to help
the middle-class students to get a break.
Yes, I hope college students are paying close attention to this
debate. I know some of them from the great State of California whom I
represent are paying attention. I have heard from some of them, and I
will have some of their comments for the Record.
Delmita Turner of Rancho Cordova, CA writes:

I am the single mother of three children ages 7, 14, and
20. My daughter Khendel is in college and we have had to get
student loans to pay for her tuition. I am also in college
and have student loans as well. An increase would put a
tremendous strain on an already stretched budget.
After our family suffered nearly every type of loss one
could, including death, foreclosure, divorce, and
unemployment all within a year, I decided to go back to
school with the hopes of making life better for my family. I
began working a year ago last December after being unemployed
for 2 years.

Now I ask: How American is that? We always strive to be better. Here
is a woman who went through death, foreclosure, divorce, and
unemployment within 1 year. She decided to make life better for her
family. She began working a year ago last December after being
unemployed for 2 years.
She continues: ``So please consider how this will impact so many of
us.''
I am asking my Republican friends--as we have another vote on this I
think tomorrow morning--to think of Delmita Turner of California and
what this means to her.
Then there is Joseph Briones of San Fernando, CA. He writes:

I am a senior in high school who will be attending college
this fall. My dad is unemployed and a cancer survivor and my
mom is working part-time. These conditions put a large stress
on my myself as well as on my parents to attend my top choice
of college, Westmount College.
We did not receive financial aid from the state and we have
an immense amount remaining to pay for my upcoming
educational years. We are going to be taking out student
loans to pay for college. Please do not allow the passage of
the bill that will increase the interest on student loans. We
rely on these loans and it is difficult to pay them back for
some students as it is. Please do not make it a larger burden
for students to go to college.

So tomorrow when we take up this bill again, I hope my Republican
friends will stand down and think of Joseph Briones of San Fernando,
CA, who is making a very pointed plea that he relies on these loans,
and it is going to be very difficult if the interest rates are doubled.
Then there is Rachel Zavarella of San Jose, CA. She says:

Increasing Stafford loan interest rates only kicks students
and borrowers when we are down . . . Increasing student loan
interest is another dirty trick to redistribute wealth to the
top, and it's disgusting and unacceptable. I want you to vote
for students and borrowers by voting yes on the bill.

Mr. President, that is just three stories from my State. I know in
your beautiful State of Oregon, which has so many wonderful
universities, you could have dozens of stories like this. Clearly this
is not a time to increase loan rates for students. This should not be a
partisan matter. Why would every single Republican vote no? I guess it
is their ideology. Tax breaks for the rich, rich, rich, rich, and
nothing for the middle class.
If anyone wants to know the difference between the two parties, this
is the moment. It used to be a little harder to describe the
differences between the parties. When I was young, both parties stood
here and fought for the middle class, for students, for the
environment, and for women. It isn't that way anymore. It just is not.
If we say we are here for the next generation, which all of us say
all the time one way or the other, then you don't allow student loan
interest rates to double. You don't allow it. We know how to fix it. We
found a very simple way to pay for this that makes sense. Closing a tax
loophole doesn't hurt anybody. Look at yesterday's vote. It was not
good; it was not pretty.

I am glad Senator Harry Reid is going to give us another chance to
change that, and I hope my Republican friends are now hearing from
their constituents back home. I hope when they come here tomorrow they
will cast a ``yes'' vote and let us proceed to this bill and let us do
our work. Let us stand for the people who need us to stand for them,
the middle class of this great country. We know why the country is
great; it is because of the middle class. We need to make sure they
have the opportunity to go to college and not have this burden on them
that is so heavy it becomes too heavy for them to bear. Pretty soon
they will stop going to college because they don't want to have that
burden on their back.
We have a chance to do the right thing. I hope we will. Let the
record show these filibusters are outrageous and they are historic in
nature. We have never had them before. We have never had such a lack of
cooperation from Republicans before, and it has been a sad several
years where we have seen filibuster after filibuster, even stopping us
from going to a bill. Tomorrow maybe we can come together and get on
this bill and do our work.
I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page S3023]]

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I have followed with great interest this
week the conversation in the Senate about student loans, the issue we
are currently on, to proceed to a bill on student loan interest. I have
followed it with great interest for a couple of reasons.
First of all, in the State of Florida, obviously, and across the
country, there are thousands--maybe hundreds of thousands--of people
who either have student loans and are paying them back or are relying
on them to go to school in the future. So it is totally an issue that
affects the State of Florida, where I come from.
I have a personal interest in the student loan issue as well. I think
I have said on the floor before that my parents worked very hard, but
they were never able to save enough money to pay for my college
education. So I relied on grants and on loans for undergraduate
education, but especially for my law school education. I came back to
Miami to go to law school. I am glad I went to the University of Miami.
I am proud to have gone there, and I think the education I got there,
my legal education, was very good. It also happened to be very
expensive. I relied on student loans to be able to pay that, so much so
that when I graduated from law school in 1996 I graduated with a law
degree and a significant amount of student debt that I had accumulated
throughout 7 years of study.
In fact, I am still paying one of those loans today. I think--I may
be wrong, but I know of one--I know of only one other Senator who is
paying student loans right now. I pay, as I have joked in the past,
about $723 a month to somebody named Sallie Mae, which is, all joking
aside, a servicer that collects on these loans. So it is an issue I
understand and care about on a personal level, as well as because of
the people I represent.
This issue we are discussing this week has allowed me to use it as a
point of illustration to the people back home who are watching this
debate. After having spent my first year here, one of the questions I
get the most is, What is it like in the Senate?
Let me begin by saying I am honored and privileged to serve here.
There isn't a day that I don't walk into this building, even into this
very room, and not be taken aback by the history that has been made on
this floor, by the great men and women who have served our country from
it, and by the wonderful Americans with whom I serve even now. I have
bragged to people who are watching or to whom I have spoken that I have
never had a bad experience with anyone in the Senate in the year and a
half I have been here, and I am very proud to be a part of this
institution.
However, there are things about it that trouble me. Particularly, at
this moment in American history, and maybe as a result of what is
happening this week, circumstances allow me to illustrate that better
than any other week since I have been here.
Everyone agrees that interest rates on student loans cannot go up.
Everyone agrees. There hasn't been a debate on that. I haven't run into
anybody in either party who has come to me and said: Let the interest
rate go up. Let students pay more. There isn't any argument about that.
The argument is simply this: How do we pay for it? We have to pay for
it because if we are going to keep the interest rates down on these
federally subsidized loans, we have to pay for it. We have to find the
money from somewhere to pay for it. So the debate and the disagreement,
to the extent it is a complicated disagreement--and I don't believe it
is--the disagreement is not about the student loan interest rate; the
disagreement is about how we pay for the cost of keeping the rate low
for another year. There is a difference of opinion.
I am new to the Senate. I am not new to legislation. I spent 9 years
in the Florida Legislature and 2 years as the Speaker. We dealt with
complicated issues there as well. What we would do in those instances
where there was a disagreement, not on what we wanted to accomplish but
on how to get there, is we worked on it. We would sit people down and
say it is not that much money in terms of Federal standards--it sounds
crazy to say that because we are talking about billions of dollars--but
from a Federal standpoint, it is not that complicated an issue. Let's
sit down. Let's get some like-minded people together and let's figure
out a bipartisan way to pay for what we all agree we need to do. That
is the normal, regular way to deal with an issue such as this.
That is not what has happened. Why hasn't that happened? Why have
smart, well-educated, intelligent people who serve in this Chamber not
met and discussed a way to pay for this? It is really not that
complicated. It wouldn't take that long to come up with a way to pay
for it that both sides agree on. Why hasn't that happened?
The answer to that question is something people back home are not
going to like, and people who are here today visiting are not going to
like to hear, and whoever is watching on television right now isn't
going to like. The reason is because that is the way things have been
since I have gotten here. It is about politics.
Shocking as that may be, there is politics in this process. That is
what is influencing us today.
A few weeks ago, the President made a decision that this was an issue
he wanted to use. His campaign folks made a decision that student loan
debt and the interest rate was a perfect opportunity to use as, yet
again, another wedge issue. The latest wedge issue, and we have seen a
series of them, is let's campaign on the idea that Republicans are not
in favor of students, and let's use the student loan issue as an
example of that. Of course, those plans kind of got messed up when
Republicans said: We agree with you. We can't let student interest
rates go up either. So they were off balance for a couple of days.
By the way, the President continued to travel the country and
campaign on keeping student loan rates down even though no one was
against them. He was campaigning against his opponents on this issue
even though there were no opponents on this issue.
But, nevertheless, after a couple of days of figuring out they were
going to lose this wedge issue, they came up with a second way to deal
with it; that is, let's bring this issue to a vote on the Senate floor,
but let's build it in such a way--let's put a bill on the floor of the
Senate that we know will fail, that we know Republicans can't vote for.
It wasn't: let's meet and see where we can agree on how to pay for this
so we can get something done. It was: let's put a bill on the floor
that we know Republicans will never support, designed specifically to
fail, so we can then spend the week talking about this on the Sunday
talk shows and speeches on the floor and missives from the campaign. It
is about messaging.

In a country where our national debt now equals the size of our
economy; in a country where we are 5, 6 months away from catastrophic
increases in taxes; in a country where just last Friday we learned that
job creation and job growth is stagnant, where millions of Americans
have been out of work for 2 years or longer; in a country where
millions of Americans have stopped looking for work because they have
become so depressed, the Senate has wasted yet another week on a show
when, in fact, this is an easy issue for us to have come together and
solved.
This is not new, by the way. This has been the mode of operation here
for most of the weeks I have been in the Senate. It is a pretty
familiar pattern. The campaign of the President decides on an issue
they want to use to divide Americans for electoral purposes, the Senate
offers up a bill they know Republicans will vote against, and then they
spend a week giving speeches on it. The only difference is they are
doubling down: We are going to vote on the exact same thing a second
time, just to drive the point home.
Here is why this bothers me. No. 1, there are real issues this
country faces, issues that deserve a sense of urgency, issues that
deserve every single person who serves here to solve. This is one of
them, by the way. We don't have time to waste on shows. It bothers me.
The second reason it bothers me is these are real people who are
being impacted by this issue. There are real people out there who,
because they can't find a job when they graduate, have to get a
forbearance. Forbearance

[[Page S3024]]

means they have to call their lender and say they can't pay their
loans. Do my colleagues know what happens when we get a forbearance on
our loans? It compounds. It sits there. It is delayed. It is not
delinquent, but it compounds. The interest rate is added to the
principal. So by the time a person starts paying it, their loan is even
bigger than the loan they took out to go to college.
There are other people who can only afford to make X amount of
payments because they are not making as much money. Maybe they didn't
find the job they thought they were going to get, so all they can do is
pay interest. So that means by the time they finish paying off these
loans, their kids will be in college.
Let me tell my colleagues what it means in the real life of someone
who has these loans because I still have them. What it means in the
life of a person who has a loan such as this is the following: They
can't save for their own kids' college, which means not only will they
have their student loan debt, but their children will be stuck with it
as well.
What bothers me about this issue is that instead of solving it, we
have spent the week playing a game with it while real people are out
there scared to death--real students, real parents, real families who
are facing the threat of not just an increase in the interest rate but
of an economy that doesn't have a job for them.
Do we think the interest rate is the biggest risk these people are
facing? It is not. The interest rate is a problem. Not having a job is
a catastrophe. The interest rate could be zero. If a person doesn't
have a job, how are they going to pay it? That is the No. 1 issue
facing these graduates. No one is doing anything about it.
Here is what I suggest. If this was a place that was really working
to solve problems, what we would have done and what we would do right
now is stop this process, go back there somewhere, get a few people
together who know how to solve this, and come back here. I guarantee
that if we decided we wanted to solve it, it would not take long.
Here is what else I guarantee. This is going to get solved. My
colleagues can mark my words. A few weeks from now they will come up
with a deal or a bill that will have enough votes to pass the House and
Senate, and this will get solved. But not before we score political
points, right? This will get solved, but not before the people who care
more about politics than policy score their political points on this
issue.
Now, look, I have been around politics. I understand this is an
election year and election year stuff is going to happen. But why are
we playing with the lives of real people? These are real people who are
hurting, and their lives and their experiences and their worries are
being used as a pawn in a political game. And it is wrong.
I will make another prediction to my colleagues. Next week it will be
another wedge issue of the week. Next week we will be right back here
with another bill that was designed to fail on purpose so we can get
another week's worth of talking points on yet another issue.
The good news is--people in this city, unfortunately, think they are
smarter than they really are. People back home know all of this. They
can see it for what it is. People aren't dumb. The American people
certainly aren't dumb. They can see right through this stuff, and they
understand exactly what is happening.
So my suggestion would be that on this issue, let's come together.
Let's say this is one of the issues that is so important, that impacts
so many people in such a significant way, that it should be above
politics. Let's get together over the next 48 hours. It doesn't seem as
though this place is overworked when we look around the room.
What are we doing all week? What is going on all week? We voted on a
few judges, and we have given a bunch of speeches. Why don't we go
somewhere and get a group of people to work on this issue and come back
with a solution? This can be solved.
What is going on now is a disservice to the people who sent us here.
They deserve better. They really do. The American people deserve
better. The people we represent, the people who hired us to do the job
we have now, deserve better than this sort of theater. The Senate has
become a theater. It has become a show. That is why people get grossed
out by politics. That is why people watch the news at night and just
don't understand this whole thing. They have a right to be frustrated.
They have a right to be upset. They have a right to be impatient with
us because nothing is happening on the issues that matter to their real
lives.
I hope this pattern will stop. I get it. There are still going to be
plenty of other issues we are going to have arguments about during this
election year, and that is good for our country that we have a good
debate on the issues of the day. But on the ones we can solve, on the
ones we agree on that impact the real lives of real people, let's stop
the games.
Let's get something done.
Thank you. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I cannot believe we have come to the
floor of the Senate at a time of economic hardship and recovery for
millions of families, a time where jobs are scarce, the need for a
skilled workforce is critical, and student loans are about to double,
only to have those on the other side turn this into yet another
filibuster, another capitulation to those on the far right of their
party--those who are so far right that when they look back along the
political spectrum they can only see the small image of their hero,
Ronald Reagan, fading in the distance.
They have gone so far to the right that they can no longer see any
heroes, not even their own. So here we are with our side once again
debating the obvious and the other side defending the indefensible
position of the far right.
We are looking for common sense, reason, and fairness. We are, that
is, looking to govern fairly for all. They are looking to play politics
that benefit a few.
We are asking to stop interest rates on student loans from doubling
for 7 million Americans by closing a gaping tax loophole that those who
have benefited most from this economy can drive an S corporation
through. My Republican friends are once again saying no. They are once
again attempting to govern from the extreme, once again demanding that
even closing an obvious tax loophole that benefits the wealthiest is an
unacceptable government intrusion but that ending preventive care for
those who are struggling with rising health care costs is the best
option.
Can they be serious? Can we be standing in this Chamber saying that
the most reasonable option to prevent student loans from doubling is
not commonsense tax reform but ending breast cancer screening for
millions of women? Is that the view from the far right of the political
spectrum? I ask my colleagues on the other side do they truly believe
that is a fair option? Have we run through all other possible options
to have reached a point where we can now say: The only arrow left in
the quiver is to end preventive care as we know it. Have we already
ended all outrageous tax loopholes for the wealthy? Have we already
ended subsidies to Big Oil that will make $1 trillion over the next 10
years and yet we give them $24 billion of tax cuts? Have we ended the
Bush tax cuts for the top 1 percent and now have no other option than
to end preventive health care for women, for millions of Americans
whose health depends on it?
Unfortunately, it seems our Republican friends have once again put
partisanship and politics first. Their budget prioritized tax breaks
for the wealthy over keeping college costs down for middle-class
families. Only when they realized this would not play well politically
did they reverse course and drop their objections to keeping student
loan rates lower because, they said, no, that is not the government's
role. But then they said: OK. We will climb on board with that idea but
only under certain conditions.
Rather than close a special-interest loophole that only a small
minority of

[[Page S3025]]

wealthy businesses can exploit, they would rather cut funding for
children's vaccines, mammograms, and other critical services. This is
the classic case of giving with one hand and taking with the other and
all without asking the wealthiest Americans--those who have reaped the
most rewards and benefited the most, particularly in tax breaks they
have received over the last almost decade--to help the country, simply
to help the country at this critical time.
If that does not tell us about the priorities of each party, I do not
know what will.
These preventive health services not only improve people's health and
their lives, they also reduce the cost of health care. That is because
it is a lot easier and less costly to treat illnesses when they are
first detected.
When women have access to affordable mammograms, their doctors will
be far more likely to catch breast cancer in its early stages, when it
is most treatable and least expensive to cure.
When we give a child a simple inexpensive measles vaccine, we do not
have to worry about expensive treatment for measles later on.
When we help people quit smoking, we dramatically reduce the cost of
treating that individual for a whole host of illnesses.
The saying, ``An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,''
could not be more appropriate to this debate.
For a party that loves to preach about fiscal responsibility, it
boggles my mind that they would fight to cut preventive care that will
reduce health care costs but allow tax loopholes to stay open.
Republicans decided to make a target of these programs, not because
of substantive issues--I would respect that--but just because, plain
and simple, they were included in the President's health care bill. As
we know, as the distinguished minority leader said, it is all about
defeating the President. The problem with that is, it is not about the
President failing, it is about the Nation failing at one of the most
critical times in its history. They lost the health care debate in
2010, and they have spent every day since trying to refight that
battle.
Now Republicans will try to scare people into thinking that closing
this corporate tax loophole will kill small businesses. That is the
mantra we hear every time. But, actually, according to Citizens for Tax
Justice:

[C]losing this loophole will actually help most small
businesses, which are currently subsidizing the minority who
abuse it to avoid [paying] payroll taxes.

Isn't that interesting? So most small businesses are out there
meeting the economic challenge every day. They pay payroll taxes, but
those who are taking advantage of this loophole do not. It seems to me
we would be giving small businesses a far better competitive advantage.
Let's be clear: The vast majority of small businesses pay their fair
share into Medicare. But this loophole--affectionately dubbed the
Edwards/Gingrich loophole--has allowed certain professionals such as
former Senator John Edwards and former Speaker Newt Gingrich to avoid
paying millions of dollars into the Medicare Program. Technically, they
were not wrong to take advantage of this loophole. We were wrong to
allow it to even be available.
But enough about the details on how we pay for it. This debate is all
about people, all about families struggling to pay for college. As the
first person in my family to go to college, who had to rely on Federal
grants and loans to pay tuition, I have a firsthand appreciation of the
importance of giving all students the opportunity to pursue their
dreams.

For students struggling to pay for college and racking up debt, this
is not an academic argument. The extra $1,000 they would have to pay
each year is not theoretical money. It is the difference between being
able to repay their loans and entering the workforce with good credit
versus being overwhelmed by debt and going into default.
Recently, I had the pleasure of having a roundtable and speaking to
students from Montclair State University in my home State of New Jersey
about how the interest rate would affect them.
I heard from Emily Delgado, a first-generation American and the first
person from her family also to go to college. She just completed her
freshman year at Montclair. Despite working for the college as a
student mentor, Emily will still be saddled with approximately $20,000
in debt by the time she graduates. If she decides to go on to graduate
school after that, then, of course, that will rise significantly.
She told me she cannot even bring herself to calculate how much the
interest rate hike will cost her because, in her words, ``it will just
crush my dreams.''
Nick Weber, works three--not one, not two, but three--part-time jobs
to help pay for college. Despite these three jobs, Nick only makes
around $175 per week, which is about how much extra he would have to
pay in interest every month if we do not act now. He does not think
that is fair, and neither do I.
A student by the name of Jamie Sommer--who dreams of one day becoming
a professor--works part time for the school, but her income hardly puts
a dent in her debt, and she fears she will not be able to afford
graduate school, she will never realize her dream.
Emily and Nick and Jamie and all the other students who are
struggling to pay for college deserve to be able to realize their hopes
and dreams and aspirations. It falls to us--all of us in this Chamber--
to do all we can to keep those dreams alive.
These students deserve our support. They deserve the common sense of
a community that understands we have to reduce the deficit but we
cannot balance the budget on the backs of the next generation. We
cannot cash in their dreams and let those with the most cash out. We
need a fair solution, not political dogma.
These students have worked hard. They deserve better. They are not
asking for a handout. They studied hard in high school, got good
grades, took out loans, and got jobs to pay for college. They are
working toward a better life, doing what every parent dreams of for
their children: to do well, build a decent life for themselves and
their family, and give something back to their community and to the
economy.
They epitomize everything we want our young people to be. All they
are asking in return is fairness--not a political sleight of hand that
helps them with their student loans, but in the process takes away
their health care. All they are asking is for us not to make it harder
for them, for us not to add yet another stress to their lives.
Certainly, it is our obligation to not shut down their dreams of a
higher education. For it is in their dreams for a better life that the
economic future of this Nation will be built.
We are globally challenged--globally challenged--for the creation of
a product or the delivery of a service in terms of human capital. The
boundaries of mankind have largely been erased in the pursuit of human
capital. So an engineer's report is done in India and sent back for a
fraction of the cost in the United States. A radiologist's report is
done in Northern Island and read by your doctor at your local hospital
or if you have a problem with your credit card, as I recently did, you
end up with a call center in South Africa.
In the pursuit of human capital for a product or service, we are
globally challenged. For the Nation to continue to be a global economic
leader, it needs to be at the apex of the curve of intellect--the most
highly educated generation of Americans the Nation has ever had. We
cannot achieve that if we have students who have to forgo not only
their dreams but the ability to help the Nation compete globally by
getting a world-class education.
We owe them every chance to achieve their dreams and to help us make
this another American century. Isn't that the least we can do? Isn't
the choice clear? Let's choose closing a tax loophole that is actually
creating challenges to small businesses that are paying their payroll
taxes, and let's preserve the preventive health care that will improve
the quality of the lives of our fellow citizens and, at the same time,
save our health care system hundreds of millions of dollars.
I think that choice is pretty clear--the choice the Senate should
take clearly on behalf of our students of the future and our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.

[[Page S3026]]

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, earlier today, just a few minutes ago
as I was presiding where the Senator from Minnesota is now sitting, I
listened to my colleagues speak on this issue of interest rates on
student loans. I was particularly interested in the speech of a
colleague who came to the floor and said this bill that is designed to
prevent interest rates from doubling is all political show. The concept
of it being a political show is difficult for me to get my hands
around. Quite frankly, the President didn't set July as the date
student loans would double in cost. That date was set by legislation
that was passed in the Senate and in the House and sent to the
President. It is that date, just 2 months from now, that brings forth
the urgency on this issue--Presidential campaign or no Presidential
campaign.
It is also important to recognize that this is not a debate at this
moment about final adoption of a bill. It is about beginning the
process of debating the bill. It is a motion to proceed. For those
unfamiliar with Senate process, well, this is a motion that says this
is an issue that, because of its urgency, should be on the floor now
for us to work on, and everybody in this Chamber knows it cannot pass
without 60 votes. As the debate unfolds, amendments are debated and
hopefully a path is found that will produce the 60 votes necessary to
send it on to the House and to the President's desk.
So I differ with my colleague, with whom I actually have collaborated
on a number of projects. My colleague sees this differently. He sees
this issue as one of politics. I see it as one of an urgent need in
America for our students to have a chance to go to college with
affordable financing, and that affordable financing will expire a few
weeks from now. It is incumbent upon this body to take up this issue
and provide a pathway to prevent that from happening.
I am struck by the voices I am hearing from Oregon. I was doing
townhalls in Oregon, and people expressed concern about this to me. I
am receiving letters from students about this issue and from other
Oregonians. This is really a kitchen-table issue. This is the family
sitting around the kitchen table and saying: How are we going to make
things work? Is our child going to be able to go to college? Are we
going to be able to afford it? We can contribute a little, and
hopefully our son or daughter will get some grants, but they will also
have to borrow some money. If they have a huge debt load and a high
interest rate, will that be feasible for them or will they have to take
a year or two off and try to find a job or two in the service economy
to save money and then go back, and then what?
That is why student loan rates are so important. It is about the
opportunity for our sons and daughters to have the course in life in
which they are able to pursue their dreams and realize their potential.
That is what this debate is about. That is a pretty big deal--certainly
a big deal for students in my State of Oregon, for their parents, and
for our future economy, which needs to have our children in America
well-trained in order to drive the success of our economy.
We are facing a Republican filibuster saying: We don't want to talk
about this issue. That is what a motion to proceed is. My colleagues
have said: No, we don't want to debate it. I disagree with them.
Let's hear it through the voices of some of those folks on the front
line.
Sermin from Multnomah writes:

Dear Senator Merkley:
Today I am writing about student loan interest rates. I do
not want to see these rise, even double, when the legislation
expires in July.
Please fight to keep these loans at a low interest rate so
average Americans can have a chance at an education, a better
life, without crippling debt.

She continues:

I was just accepted in the University of Oregon's graduate
program in architecture. I have applied for loans as I do not
have the money to pay for this education. My husband and I
will have to scrape by when I quit my job to go to school.
Once I graduate and find employment, I am confident in my
ability to pay back the loans. But raising interest rates
would make it difficult to do so quickly, adding $5,000 in
interest to my 5-year payback plan.
Please stand with middle America, average Americans, and
support legislation to extend the low interest rates on
student loans.

Kalie from Polk County writes:

Senator Merkley,
I am currently a freshman in college and have taken out a
substantial amount of student loans in my own name to make my
goal of attaining a college degree attainable.
Being 18 and having more than $20,000 in debt is scary,
especially with the insecurity of today's economy, but I
strongly believe that I am making the necessary investment to
not only better my own future, but that of the U.S. society
as a whole, as well as generations to come.
As it stands right now, a college education is something
that, realistically, not everyone can achieve purely from an
economic standpoint, and the legislation to raise interest
rates on Federal student loans would only make attending
college all the more difficult for some.
Please do myself, my peers, my future children, and their
grandchildren a favor and help keep student loan rates where
they are.
Help to make college more affordable for all people so more
of our citizens can realize their dreams of higher education
while simultaneously building a better country for future
generations.

Doesn't that sum it up? ``Help to make college more affordable for
all people so more citizens can realize their dreams while
simultaneously building a better country.'' I think she got right to
the heart of it.
Caroline in Benton County writes:

I am an oncology nurse, presently working on my Master's
degree in nursing. Like many others, I have student debt. If
we are to have an educated workforce, we must ensure that the
high cost of education doesn't leave students in financial
ruin.

Indeed, the fear of financial ruin from heavy debt burdens and high
interest rates is a significant factor that is dissuading people from
pursuing higher education.

Cynthia from Columbia County writes:

If we expect to compete in a global marketplace, our
children must have affordable access to education.
I have two kids in college, and the debts we are incurring
are already topping $50,000; is it right that only rich
people can send their children to college?
What kind of a country is it where we can spend billions on
``independent security contractors'' in Iraq or Afghanistan,
but not on our own children's education?

She concludes:

Please support a plan to keep student loan interest rates
from doubling this July.

I want to dwell on the point she made for a moment. We spent $120
billion in Afghanistan last year on misguided nation building while we
let nation building at home suffer, both in terms of investment in our
infrastructure and investment in education. So Cynthia wonders what is
wrong that we are failing our children when we have billions to spend
on a misguided war overseas.
Alana writes:

I am working to pay off student loans now, which is hard
enough. Now my family's trying to send my youngest sister to
college and is finding it hard to afford, and we are upper
middle class. If we can barely afford an education now, how
will anybody be able to do so if the interest rates go up?
Please support the plan to stop this. This is a critical
investment in the success of our middle class.

I think these folks from Oregon--Sermin, Kalie, Caroline, Cynthia,
and Alana--have hit the critical points here. They may not know the
finer points of Senate procedure, but the fact that a good portion of
this Chamber is voting to block having a debate and consideration of
this bill because the bill doesn't start in exactly the form they want
it passed at the end is pretty difficult to explain.
I say to my colleagues, if they don't like the bill as it is, why not
bring your amendment? The bill still cannot pass in the end without a
supermajority, so why not bring forth your amendment--collaborate with
others and bring an amendment forward.
There is a fundamental disagreement in the beginning on how we pay
for this extension. It would not surprise anyone that I would say let's
end this war in Afghanistan. Let's pay a third cutting down our
deficit, a third on infrastructure, and a third on education, including
keeping student loans affordable. But that is not the plan we are
debating today. I would be glad to propose that plan if colleagues
would like to join me to create a supermajority. I would do so after we
are on the bill. You introduce a bill, you debate and amend it, and you
have a final vote. You cannot get it done without a supermajority in
the end.
The bill as introduced says we are going to close a loophole that is
a tax entitlement for the very well off. I have heard many colleagues
across the aisle talk about entitlements for the

[[Page S3027]]

poor. I point out they should be equally concerned about wasteful
entitlements for the best off--in fact, more concerned. One is a
fundamental safety net for those who are struggling in an economy where
there are few jobs. The other is a big bonus for the best off at the
very top of society. Doesn't it strike my colleagues that the safety
net is better than the big bonus for the best off? Well, my colleagues
across the aisle have said: No, no, no, we want the bill to start with
our payment plan, which is to strip health care prevention from
children and parents. I guess they weren't raised with the same story I
was raised with, which is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure. It is simply better to inoculate children than to hospitalize
children with whooping cough. It is better to prevent measles than to
have children suffer with measles and be damaged by measles. It is
better to manage diabetes than it is to amputate feet and provide guide
dogs because folks have gone blind from diabetes. Prevention is better
than cure. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I disagree with the plan to strip prevention as a strategy when we
have options. Let's take that money from nation building in
Afghanistan, let's take the money from bonus breaks for the best off in
society, those tax loophole entitlements--let's do that because those
do not rip a big hole in the safety net for Americans.
I come from a working family. My father was a millwright and a
mechanic. They weren't sure how I would be able to go to college. They
were determined that I would go. They raised me to believe in gaining
the education necessary to have opportunities in life. But they didn't
have the money. Despite the fact that I worked a job in college, that
wasn't enough money. I got substantial grants, and that wasn't enough
money. I had to take out loans, and I had to pay back those loans. The
interest rates matter.
I say to my colleagues: End your filibuster. Come here as Senators,
present your amendments, debate this bill, and if you don't like the
bill in the end, vote against it. But do not block this debate on an
issue of fundamental importance to the success of our children.
Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, yesterday our colleagues on the other
side of the aisle stopped the Senate from reducing the enormous burden
of debt that students take on. At a time when college is more expensive
than ever, this body's inaction will increase each student's borrowing
costs by about $1,000 for each year of college. And that is no small
amount for most American families. That is because on July 1 the
interest rate on new subsidized Stafford loans is expected to double
from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. We have been talking about this all
day. The students who qualify for these loans are from middle-class and
low-income families. If the Senate does not act soon, we will make it
even harder for them to receive the education and training they need
for jobs in this 21st century economy.
High school students and adults looking for new career opportunities
realize how economically necessary it is to attend college. In my
generation, if you had a high school degree, you could get a good
manufacturing job that paid a decent wage and gave you health care and
a pension. Today we need postsecondary training and strong computer
math skills to operate the equipment in most manufacturing facilities.
But it is not just manufacturing, it is many of the fastest growing
jobs in the United States--it is computer jobs and health care jobs. A
high school diploma is simply no longer a ticket to a job that pays
family-supporting wages.
With an increasing number of jobs requiring some level of
postsecondary training, we have a significant skills gap. In
Minnesota--a State the Presiding Officer and I are proud to represent--
70 percent of the jobs in the next several years will require
postsecondary training. Yet only 40 percent of working-age Minnesotans
currently have a postsecondary degree. Most of our States have similar
skill gaps.
The United States used to lead the world in the percentage of adults
with a college degree. Today we are No. 16. If our Nation is going to
prosper in a global economy and continue to grow economically, we need
to provide pathways for students to attend and pay for college so we
can close those skill gaps.
A number of students are lucky enough their parents can provide these
pathways for them and help pay for college, but most other students
have to work--part time, maybe even full time. The Presiding Officer
will appreciate this. I had students from the MNSCU board--their top
students--who came to visit me. I am sure they visited my colleague
too. There were about 15 or 20 of them. They represented Minnesota's
colleges and universities. I asked them: How many of you work at least
10 hours a week while going to college? All of them raised their hands.
I asked how many work 20 hours a week. Most of them. I asked how many
work 30 hours a week while going to school. A lot of them. And how many
of you work full-time, 40 hours a week, while going to college? A
number of them.
That is no way to go to college. When you work 40 hours a week, can
you take the full course of credits? Maybe not. So then maybe it takes
you 6 years to graduate. But they are also taking out loans, and often
huge loans.
We take for granted these days that students can get a loan, but 50
years ago that was not true. Students could get scholarships, but that
was about it. My wife's family did it on Pell grants and scholarships.
At least until 1957, when the Russians--or the Soviets at the time--
launched Sputnik. Suddenly, the Soviets had nuclear weapons and were
ahead of us in space and, as a Nation, we were terrified. It woke our
Nation up to the importance of better educating Americans and getting
them the skills they needed to compete with the Soviets. That meant
more Americans would have to go to college.
I was 6 when Sputnik was launched. My brother was 11--younger than
the pages. A lot younger. My parents sat us down in our living room, in
St. Louis Park, MN, and said to us: You boys are going to study math
and science so that we can beat the Soviets. I thought that was a lot
of responsibility to put on a 6-year-old, but my brother and I were
obedient sons and we studied math and science. And wouldn't you know
it, my parents were right. We beat the Soviets. You are welcome.
But to get there we had to put in place new Federal programs to help
average Americans afford college. A year after Sputnik was launched,
Congress passed the National Defense Education Act, which helped put
America back on top. This was actually the predecessor to the Perkins
loan program, and it offered students low-interest loans to go to
school, with a preference for low-income students.
This was just the beginning. Soon we gave student loans to medical
students, created the Federal work-study program, and in 1965 created
the Guaranteed Student Loan Program. This last one was later renamed
the Federal Stafford Loan Program--which is what we are talking about
today--and it made more money available to students to offset rising
tuition. All this, really, because of Sputnik.
Today, there are two main types of Federal loans. Subsidized Stafford
loans are awarded based on need, and unsubsidized Stafford loans are
available to all students. The overwhelming majority of subsidized
loans go to students from middle and lower income families. The Federal
student loan program was created to open the doors of higher education
to more Americans and provide them with stable, low-cost loans to pay
for their education. And it originally did so to help Americans compete
with the Soviet Union.
Well, we may have beat the Soviet Union, but we now face new economic
threats from rising powers such as China and India. In our
interconnected world, in which it is easier than ever to outsource, the
quality of our workforce matters more than ever before. So with college
costs increasingly out of the means of many American families, in

[[Page S3028]]

2007 Congress decided to help lower and middle-income students by
cutting the interest rates on the subsidized Stafford loans.
The rates declined incrementally over time to a low of 3.4 percent
this past year. But because this program was so expensive, the 2007
legislation would sunset on July 1 of this year and interest rates for
subsidized Stafford loans would double, going back up to 6.8 percent.

Allowing this to happen doesn't make sense. Interest rates on
mortgages and Treasurys are far lower than they were in 2007, when no
one had any inkling of the turn our economy would take. No one could
have predicted we would be experiencing near-record low interest rates
and that it would make no sense to double them now to 6.8 percent. Of
course, the threat we face from global competition has not waned in the
last 5 years. It is greater than ever.
So with the July 1 deadline rapidly approaching, the time to act is
now. Most high school seniors already have had to decide where they are
going next year, and now they are figuring out how to pay for it. While
students are wrestling with these tough decisions, it is not time for
us to get into a procedural fight here in Washington. I am hopeful we
will vote again this week to move the bill, and this time we will put
our differences aside and represent all the families in all of our
States who can use any bit of help we can offer them.
I am glad to hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle agree
we should stop the interest rate from going up, and we agree we should
be fiscally responsible and pay for it. We just disagree on how to pay
for it. I am proud to have joined a number of my colleagues in putting
forward the legislation before us with a responsible, commonsense
offset.
I think we can all agree that if you are going to collect Social
Security and Medicare, it is only fair you pay in what you owe, and yet
some people have found a loophole that allows them to game the system
using subchapter S corporations to avoid paying some of their Social
Security and Medicare taxes, some of their FICA.
Most small business owners are not only honest but incredibly civic
minded, and so they pay all the payroll taxes that they owe.
Unfortunately, a small percentage of individuals have found a loophole.
If you have an S corporation, which is basically a passthrough--which
means at the end of the year the profits are passed through to you as
your income. If you have that, whatever profits you make at the end are
considered income by the IRS. So if you make $300,000 in 1 year, you
pay income taxes on all of that. Either way, on this you pay income
taxes on all your income. Here is the loophole: You decide, I know what
I am going to do. I am going to pay myself an artificially low amount,
$40,000, and call that my salary. You pay FICA on that amount so you
can qualify for Social Security later on in your life. Then at the end
of the year, you get the passthrough of the other $260,000. You still
pay income tax on all $300,000 because it is all considered income. It
is not capital gains; it is still income, so you pay income taxes on
it. But because of an ambiguity in the way the law is written, you can
avoid paying FICA taxes on the $260,000.
Again, this money is indistinguishable from the so-called salary you
took earlier. You could have paid yourself $30,000, so it could be
$270,000 that you harbor from FICA.
All of this is active income you are making because of active work
you have done--it is not capital gains--so you should pay FICA taxes on
all of it. There is simply no excuse for not paying FICA taxes on all
of your income--Medicare taxes on all the income and Social Security
taxes on up to $110,000. That is what anyone making $300,000 would do
except for this anomaly that was accidentally written into the Tax
Code. This is exactly the kind of loophole we should be closing.
I hear all the time that we should be closing loopholes so we can
keep the marginal rates down. If you can't close this loophole, you
can't close any loophole. There is no reason this loophole exists.
There is no good reason for it, there is no purpose to it, and there is
no reason to keep it. It is an accident that results in people avoiding
their rightful obligations. Our legislation would close the loophole
for those individuals making over $250,000.
Governing is about making choices, and this one seems as clear as day
to me. Save millions of Americans about $1,000 for each year of
schooling on their college loans by closing a tax loophole that allows
the wealthiest among us to avoid paying taxes they should pay and avoid
gaming the system. It sounds like a no-brainer to me. Instead, a
minority of Senators is stopping consideration of the bill because they
object to closing this loophole. They want to repeal a section of the
Affordable Care Act that supports prevention efforts. They want to
eliminate the provision that helps stop diabetes and other diseases
before they occur, the kinds of chronic diseases that are driving our
health care costs through the roof. This is simply shortsighted and,
frankly, fiscally irresponsible.
But I am ready to have that debate. Let's have it here. Let's debate
the different ways to pay for this legislation. Let's stop this
filibuster and proceed to consideration of the bill. Let's work
together to keep America on top and rise to our generation's Sputnik
challenge.
Millions of students are depending on us. This bill will provide some
relief to those students. Millions of businesses are depending on us to
give them the educated workforce they need. This bill will take a small
step toward helping them as well. It is time to act. I call on my
colleagues to work with me to pass this important legislation.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak
for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I come to the floor to share some
letters I have received about the importance of freezing the 3.4
percent Stafford subsidized college loan program.
It is important because there are some 380,000 students in my home
State of Ohio alone who are in the Stafford subsidized loan program.
Many of them will see as they continue their college education--whether
it is at Sinclair Community College in Dayton or Youngstown State or
Hiram College--where their costs are continuing to go up. We know the
average Ohio 4-year college graduate has about $27,000 in student loan
debt. That is much higher than people had a decade ago or 20 years ago
or 30 years ago or so when my generation was in college.
Federally subsidized student loans have been a reliable answer for so
many in my State. I wish to encourage people to tell their stories.
Some of my colleagues in the Senate are doing this also, but I urge
people in Ohio to go to brown.senate.gov/collegeloanstories, and tell
your story about how important this is.
The disappointment is that 5 years ago this was bipartisan. President
Bush signed a bill that many of us here sponsored, in both parties, in
a Democratic House, Democratic Senate, a good bipartisan support,
signed by a Republican President to lock in for 5 years this 3.4
interest rate. If we do nothing, if we can't get our Republican
colleagues to join us on this and then do the same in the House of
Representatives to continue this 3.4-percent subsidized Stafford loan,
it is going to mean that come July, the average college student will
pay about $1,000 more for each year of college. That is unconscionable
when college student loans are such a burden.
It means people who have these loans at this level, when they get out
of school they are less likely to buy a house, less likely to start a
family, less likely to start a business.
If people will bear with me, I wish to read four or five of these
letters I have gotten on our Web site.
Nick from Beavercreek, OH:

I am a college student at Xavier University, Cincinnati,
Ohio studying chemistry and biology. I hope one day, through
my education in the sciences, that I might be able to make us
a stronger nation through innovation and technology.
The fact of the matter is that I would not be able to
pursue an education if it were not for student loans from the
Government.
On behalf of the future of science in this country, which
is in trouble already from what I hear, I urge you to reach a
bipartisan agreement that would prevent interest rates from
doubling.

[[Page S3029]]

It seems that student debt is unavoidable for the average
college student. College already is an expensive investment
that shapes our personal finances for the rest of our lives.
I ask that you, on behalf of those who are already burdened
by debt, to find a way to reach across the aisle on this one
and stop interest rates from rising.
I ask that you find a way to lighten our load. We would not
forget that if you did that for us. We would greatly
appreciate policy that opens up avenues to higher education
for ourselves as well as for those future seekers of such an
education.

Justin from Cincinnati, in Southwest Ohio:

I am the first person in my family to attend college and am
on track to completing my BS in experimental psychology. I
plan to go straight into a PHD program after I graduate and
the prospect of loan rates doubling is absolutely horrifying.
I work full time to be able to support myself but still
have about $15,000 in student loans. By no means does this
compare to others who have much more in loans but allowing
the interest rate to double is unacceptable and severely
limiting to individuals such as myself.
Lower tuition would boost the number of students attending
college making life better for everyone.

I don't suggest that everybody should go to college. I know everybody
doesn't want to go to college. But I do know that people often need a
technical education or a 4-year degree, a 2-year degree at a community
college or a technical degree or a 4-year degree at a liberal arts
school, a State university or a private school. The choices in my State
are huge. We have literally dozens and dozens of small liberal arts
schools and 4-year and 2-year community colleges and institutions of
higher learning. Students should be allowed, if they choose, to be able
to have access to college. Increasingly, it is more difficult for
students to do that.
Lorie from West Jefferson, OH:

I am a full time working mother of three teenage boys as
well as a full time college student at Ohio Dominican
University.
I currently have over $40,000 in student loans. I still
have one more year to go before completing my program and
earning my Bachelor's degree.
By that time my loan amounts will probably be around $50K.
About the time I finish college, my oldest son will be
beginning college and the student loan process will begin
again.
He will be the first of three children that we will put
through college.

Listen to the definitive. She has decided she is going to make sure
her kids get a chance to go to school right away. I don't know her, but
apparently she didn't get a chance to go until she was older and became
married, with children, and has decided to go back to school and is
completing her education as her children reach their teens or mid-teens
or upper teens.

Low interest rates would help make this a little less of a
financial burden for me and my family.
I do not see how raising interest rates on student loans do
anything but cripple those trying to better themselves.

The last couple I will read. Linda from Centerberg, OH:

We are grandparents of 5 children. We and our children are
middle class constituents who live in a rural area close
enough to Columbus to commute.
Please do not let the interest rate for the Stafford Loan
increase in July.
Our oldest grandchild is preparing to start college in the
fall. She is fourth in her class and shows great promise for
a good future in her chosen field, but our children are
finding that paying for college is really going to stretch
their budget.
Please don't put a further burden on our grandchild by
increasing the interest rate of a loan she may need to
finance her future.

So those last two are interesting in that this doesn't just affect
college students; this affects the parents; it affects the
grandparents. It is important that they don't want welfare. They just
want an even shot and a break here. That is so important for this
grandmother. People understand that this is going to help everybody if
they get to go on to college.
The last one I will mention is Carla from Steubenville in eastern
Ohio, near the Ohio River:

I am very concerned about the raising of interest rates for
student loans.
I am a mother in a middle class family working to help put
my sons through college.
I don't expect a handout but I have worked hard to acquire
my position as a teacher.
My husband and I have exhausted our savings to pay for most
of our sons' expenses--even with the support of subsidized
and unsubsidized loans.
I have put out over $80,000 in my eldest son's college.
Please, let's help those that help themselves. If not, then
the economy is going to continue to fail.
The middle class will go bankrupt just trying to pay for
their kids college.
I was taught to work and you shall receive but that is not
true anymore. Please help the working poor.

What I take out of this more than anything is back in the 1940s and
1950s our government, through legislation that President Roosevelt
signed in 1944, the GI bill, created a whole generation of prosperity.
Millions and millions of young men and women coming out of World War II
were given the opportunity to go to college and build homes and get
their families started.
Because government at one time helped these millions and millions of
students, it lifted the entire country. It lifted the economy. We had a
much more prosperous economy because all these young men and women went
to college because they chose to--millions and millions of them--
because of the GI bill. It meant colleges were built. It meant more
highways were built. It meant more businesses were started after they
got out of college.
This subsidized Stafford Loan, as the Presiding Officer this
afternoon knows, as we all know, helping all of the hundreds of
thousands--in my State 380,000, in Minnesota more than 200,000
students--helping those hundreds of thousands of students in our two
States will help our States become more prosperous.
Again, I urge my colleagues to support our legislation. Lock this in.
Do it bipartisanly. It was bipartisan 5 years ago, as the highway bill
used to be bipartisan, as raising the debt limit used to be
bipartisan. Please return to those days when bipartisanship around here
was rewarded and was effective.

I close by asking people to go to my Web site and tell us your story:
brown.senate.gov/collegeloan stories. Tell us your story. I would like
to share it with my colleagues because I think putting a human face on
this for the student, for the parents who are struggling, even for the
grandparents who care so much about the future, as most of our
grandparents do, can make a real difference.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we are still here. We have not gotten
much of a response from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle
about our legislation that would help students throughout America pay
their tuition costs and pay a reasonable amount of interest on their
loans. I don't know what my colleagues are waiting for. We all know the
crisis in America. College has become more and more important. To many,
it is a necessity, and it has become more and more expensive. That
equation is not only hurting the kids who go to college, it is hurting
their families and hurting this country.
When the percentage of people who graduate from college declines vis-
a-vis other nations, that is a very bad sign for America. We can talk
about the problems of quality in our K 12 schools, and those are
important issues, but our higher education system is still rating just
about the best in the world. That is shown by the fact that hundreds of
thousands from around the world, including places such as China and
India, apply to our schools, come here and attend. It is a shame we
send them back even if they want to stay, but that is an immigration
issue not an education issue.
Our schools are great, and the big problem with higher education in
America is not quality--although, of course, it could be made better--
it is affordability. It is not the same as K 12.
Yet here we are, sitting here, and the other side is in a certain
sense twiddling their thumbs and making it worse.
How is America going to stay the greatest economic power in the world
when fewer and fewer of our bright, capable, hard-working students can
afford college and when more and more of them decide they are not going
to go to school or, if they go to school, not to the college of their
choice for financial reasons?

[[Page S3030]]

We put a reasonable offer on the table. The proposal is we pay for
our college tuition act by closing a loophole that people such as Rush
Limbaugh said should be closed when John Edwards was found to have used
it in his law firm, when other leading Republicans in 2004 said this is
one of the greatest abuses of the Tax Code they had ever seen. All of a
sudden our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say they cannot
vote for it. This was an issue that was talked about as we talked about
dealing with the budget gap in August or in December--during last year,
whenever it was. Again, we did not hear objections from the other side:
Take that one off the table, we can't live with it.
It seems what is going on is very simple. Our colleagues know that it
is certainly politically unpopular, but probably it is politically
wrong to allow interest rates to double. But they can't just say they
are against it. They tried to say they are against it, but when the
President went around the country and talked about it they had to back
off that.
So in the House they came up with a pay-for which was sort of
laughable. Everyone knew that would never pass, and no one took their
position seriously. But we had always hoped that our colleagues in the
Senate who, frankly, have been much more reasonable in the last little
while--we passed a highway bill with bipartisan support, we passed a
postal reform bill with bipartisan support, we passed the Violence
Against Women Act with bipartisan support, and we thought we could get
this done with bipartisan support.
Our goal is not to draw a difference between the parties--that has
been apparent--but to get this done. We thought when we put our
proposal on the Senate floor they would accept it. At minimum we
thought they would at least come back with an offer: Let's debate it.
Let's try and see if their amendment passes in terms of a different
pay-for. Let's see if our amendment could get support. Instead, what
have we found? A filibuster blocking the Senate from even considering
this reasonable measure.
I am going to yield the floor because I see my colleagues have
arrived, the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from New
Hampshire, who I know have strong beliefs about this issue. We have an
all-New England cast in the room, with a little help from the Mid-
Atlantic.
I hope they will reconsider. I hope they will reconsider because it
is better for the politics of this country to come together once again
on reasonable issues, as we have done in the past few months. It is
better, frankly, for their own politics. I am not wishing them ill. But
most of all, it is better for the future of our country. Please
reconsider. Let's move forward and debate this bill and let's not let
the high cost of going to college get unnecessarily higher.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored to follow my
distinguished colleague from New York and his very powerful and
eloquent words on a subject that concerns all of us, not only in New
England but across the country. I have heard from countless students in
Connecticut where we have some of the best educational institutions in
the country. I know my colleague, Senator Shaheen from New Hampshire,
has been very much in touch with the people of her State, and
particularly young people there, striving--as they are in Connecticut--
for more affordable education.
We are talking about the future of our country. There should be
nothing contentious, certainly nothing partisan about this issue of
financing the future of education and particularly student loans. This
ought to be a common cause, and it ought to be bipartisan. I believe
eventually it will be because we need to come together on this issue
for the sake of young people whose lives are very directly and
immediately impacted by this issue in Connecticut and across the
country. The impact is not only on their lives but our competitive
economy, increasingly a global economy in Connecticut that depends more
and more on exports and more and more on talented and gifted and
trained, educated skilled people. We need them in Connecticut, and we
cannot permit the interest rate on Stafford loans to rise to 6.8
percent from its present rate of 3.4 percent.
Even now the debt with the present 3.4 percent is crushing to many of
our students who are struggling to pay their student loans with that
lower interest rate.
Stanley Knotowicz--who contacted my office, who is seeking solutions
in good faith, constructively, and positively--reached out to my office
because he experiences the same financial hardships facing millions of
recent graduates across the country. He is paying $70 a week for gas.
He is providing financial support for his grandmother in her late
eighties who might lose her home. He is trying to save money to get his
own apartment. He is one of the many students in Connecticut and across
the country who have reached out and my office has helped him.
I have also heard from Brenda Kasimir, a mother who would be crushed
if she were forced to pay this higher interest rate. Again, my office
has helped her to meet the ever-increasing challenge of today's economy
with that student debt that now, overall, is the highest of any debts
faced by our people as a whole, more than $1 trillion.
Senators Reid and Harkin want to come to a solution that will keep
the burden off the backs of students without adding to our national
debt. It is not a tax increase that they propose, it is simply a
solution that clarifies tax rules that are already in existence by
closing a loophole. It is known as the Gingrich-Edwards loophole. I
wish it were not known by that name. But it lets lawyers, consultants
and highly paid professionals dodge payroll taxes and push that burden
off on the middle class.
Getting rid of this loophole is another step toward an America where
everybody pays their fair share and everybody plays by the same rules.
It is the America that we grew up believing in. It is the America that
we continue to believe in. Some have claimed that it is an America we
have lost. I don't believe it. We can prove it by closing this
loophole.
The provision proposed by Senate Democrats to close this loophole is
narrowly tailored to affect only wealthy individuals, those making over
$200,000 for an individual or $250,000 for joint filers. They are
trying to shield their salaries from taxes, calling themselves small
businesses. It will not affect the actual small businesses of this
country, and it will not raise taxes for anybody who already pays what
they owe in payroll taxes. This loophole should be closed independent
of the student loan crisis. We ought to close this loophole regardless
of the challenge we face now in keeping the interest rate at 3.4
percent.

Very simply, we are being asked to make a false choice--the choice
between accessible education and improved public health. It is not a
choice we have to make. Our long-term economy and, as a result, the
Federal budget will both benefit if both of these goals are served and
preserved.
There is an old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure, and that is supremely epitomized by this situation. Last year
an analysis in Health Affairs found that for each 10 percent increase
in local public health spending, the rate of infant deaths and death
from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer dropped significantly.
Preventing these deaths and the costly treatment that precedes them
could save the Federal Government large amounts of money and improve
the quality of life for countless Americans.
I urge my colleagues to come together and recognize that preventive
health care is essential not only to the future of this generation that
will take advantage of the 3.4-percent interest rate for their Stafford
loans but other generations as well, generations whose they will be and
generations who are their parents.
This program is essential. The 3.4-percent interest rate should not
be a partisan issue, and we should be closing this loophole regardless
of the Stafford loan issue. But one way or the other, we should pay for
it by closing the loophole and making sure students have an affordable
interest rate for these Stafford loans.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.

[[Page S3031]]

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator would yield for a unanimous consent?
Mrs. SHAHEEN. I will yield.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the
conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from New Hampshire, I be
recognized for up to 20 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues from
Connecticut and from New York and others who have been on the floor
today to talk about the importance of addressing the--of avoiding, I
guess I should say, the potential for the student loan interest rates
to rise at the end of June. The fact is that the U.S. workforce needs
to have the skills to compete in the global economy, and that means
making sure college is affordable because so many of the new jobs that
are being created require higher education.
The reality is that students today face ever-growing tuition rates,
and student loans are a critical bridge for them to cover these costs.
But unless we act, over 7 million students--38,000 in my State of New
Hampshire alone--who rely on subsidized Stafford student loans will see
an increase in their student debt when they graduate.
This is a particular problem for students in New Hampshire because
our students have the highest average student debt in the Nation. They
are graduating with just over $31,000 in debt per student. Not only do
they have the highest average debt, but 74 percent of our college
students are in debt, and that is the second largest number in the
country. So we have the highest average debt and the second highest
number of students graduating with debt.
Students in New Hampshire and across this country need some relief,
and doubling the interest rate is exactly the wrong way we should be
going in terms of policies to promote giving every American the
opportunity to succeed. We need to encourage our students to go on to
higher education, to advanced-degree programs, and to professional
schools. Their future employment and our future economy both depend on
this.
Last week I had the opportunity to visit with two of our State
colleges, Keene State College and Plymouth State University. Everyone I
spoke with had stories about the escalating cost of college and concern
for rising student loan interest rates. Over the past 24 hours I have
heard from hundreds more constituents who are anxious about this.
Now, to be clear, the legislation we are considering would affect
current and future students who will receive subsidized Stafford loans
starting July 1. The last thing anyone needs in this economic climate
is a reason not to pursue their undergraduate or graduate studies.
Meghan Jordan of Amherst is a sophomore at the University of New
Hampshire. She told the Union Leader newspaper that student loan debt
has become a constant concern for her. Meghan says that her parents
would do just about anything to pay for her college education in full,
but with two brothers also in college the finances are simply not
available. Meghan views the prospect of interest rates doubling as an
attack on college students trying to make a better future for
themselves. Sadly, she said it feels like it is a punishment for trying
to obtain a college degree.
When I was at Keene State College in Keene last week, I met Keith
Couch, a parent who has a daughter at Keene and a son at Boston
College. Between his two kids, his annual tuition bill comes to
$90,000. No wonder he is having trouble figuring out from where the
money is going to come. He spends hours trying to figure out how his
family will make college payments each month. He said loans help bridge
that gap.
One constituent, Erin, posted on my Facebook wall that her husband
recently completed medical assistant courses at Hesser College in
Manchester. He is due to start paying his student loans next month, but
he hasn't been able to find a job in his chosen field. Erin said that
family finances are tight and if interest rates were to double on the
loans they have, there is no way they would be able to pay them back.
The stories I have heard in New Hampshire are similar to the stories
Senator Blumenthal told about Connecticut and what Senator Schumer has
had to say about New York and what we are hearing from students and
families across the country. Higher education is essential for economic
opportunity and personal growth. It is equally essential to the
prosperity of our country, and, most importantly, the prospect of
higher debt levels affects whether people choose to enter college to
begin with.
When I was in Plymouth last week at Plymouth State University, a
student stood up and said: I want to teach history. Tell me why I
shouldn't just drop out of college and be a mechanic. I said: Well, I
like teachers myself, and we need more of them. But in this rapidly
changing, highly competitive global economy, we should be doing
everything we can to make sure college is more accessible to Americans
so we don't have students across this country saying: Why shouldn't I
drop out if no one supports my getting a college education?
It is critical for all of us, and, unfortunately, high debt burdens
have serious consequences for individuals, for families, and for the
economy. Student loan debt affects where graduates live, the kinds of
careers they can pursue, whether they can start a new business, when
they can start a new family, when they can purchase a new home, and
when they can start to save for retirement.
Our students deserve better. We need to get rid of any obstacles that
are keeping our students from getting the education they need to
succeed. We should not put more obstacles in their way. We need to come
together, Democrats and Republicans, to stop this increase in student
loan interest rates and to do what is in the best interest of our
families and our young people who need that college education.
Thank you very much, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I am proud to rise today to support the
Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike of 2012. I cosponsored this
bill because it extends the current interest rate of 3.4% for
subsidized Stafford Loans for the next school year. This interest rate
reflects a record low for interest rates on Federal student loans, and
these loans can only go to students and families that demonstrate a
need for them; nearly 50% of the students that take advantage of
subsidized Stafford loans come from families with an annual income of
less than $50,000. Subsidized Stafford loans help more than 7 million
students attend an institution of higher education without worrying
that the interest on their loans will begin accruing while they are in
school. It helps more than 103,000 students in Maryland. Middle class
families are feeling stretched and stressed and if we fail to act,
students could be facing an additional $1,000 in debt over the life of
their loans.
It is important to note that we will not expand our Federal deficit,
and we will help families not expand the family deficit, by keeping the
interest rate at 3.4 percent. Senator Reid's legislation offsets the
cost of this legislation by closing a tax loophole enjoyed by
individuals seeking to avoid paying payroll taxes on their income. This
would only affect those who make more than $250,000 a year and simply
requires people who make any income from a professional service
business such as lobbying to pay taxes if more than 75 percent of the
income from that business comes from three or fewer shareholders.
I adamantly oppose the alternative proposal from House and Senate
Republicans that would repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund
authorized by the Affordable Care Act. In the last year alone, that
prevention fund has funded activities in my home state of Maryland to
promote tobacco prevention, substance abuse prevention, mental health
services, and community programs to promote healthy living. The fund is
also used to invest in childhood immunizations to decrease the risk of
disease among children. In the future, the President plans to use this
fund to support breast cancer screenings for more than 300,000 women
and cervical cancer screenings for more than 280,000 women. Repealing
the prevention fund would not only

[[Page S3032]]

strike an unnecessary blow to prevention activities aimed to improve
the lives of women and children, it would also promote increased health
care costs by eliminating strategic investments meant to prevent or
mitigate chronic illnesses that can be expensive to treat.
Students will bless us if we are successful in keeping their student
loan interest rates as low as possible. Getting a college education is
the core of the American dream and I am going to be sure that every
student has access to that dream and make sure that when they graduate
their first mortgage isn't their student debt. This legislation pending
before us today should be passed in a swift, expeditious, uncluttered
way. This bill is absolutely a great bill for students and it is a
great bill for America. It gives our students access to the American
dream. It gives our young people access to the freedom to achieve, to
be able to follow their talents, and to be able to achieve higher
education in whatever field they will be able to serve this country.
I urge the swift passage of Senator Reid's legislation to maintain
the current interest rate for subsidized Stafford loans.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

EPA

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, I will be introducing a bill
in a minute called S. 3053, but as a predicate to that, let me talk
again about my ongoing investigation of the overreach of the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Certainly the Washington Post is right-on with their editorial. On
May 3, the Washington Post editorial board penned an editorial entitled
``The EPA is earning a reputation for abuse.'' In this editorial, they
discussed how former region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz's
``philosophy of enforcement'' has severely hurt the EPA.
To refresh your memory, it was a couple of weeks ago at this very
podium that I read the quotes I am about to quote again today. While
the Washington Post doesn't agree with me all the time, I was pleased
to read that they saw that the ``crucify'' policy Mr. Armendariz
purported in his visit to Dish, TX, clearly showed that he ``preferred
to extract harsh punishments on an arbitrary number of firms to scare
others into cooperating.'' Further, the Washington Post editorial board
saw this attitude as both unjust and threatening to investors in energy
projects.
While Armendariz has resigned--he is gone now--his statements have
undermined the legitimacy of the EPA's regulatory authorities. We know
that the policy of extracting harsh punishment on arbitrary individuals
in order to scare others into cooperation was not just an inflated
rhetoric. Mr. Armendariz followed through on his philosophy when he had
the EPA region 6 pursue a trumped-up emergency action against the
natural gas company Range Resources in Texas. The EPA is not using its
powers fairly and is showing its enforcement is arbitrary, unreliable,
capricious, and unduly severe.
But the Post's editorial board didn't see Armendariz as an isolated
incident. They also called out EPA's actions in another recent high-
profile misuse of power that has hurt the Agency's credibility.
The EPA insisted that an Idaho couple, the Sacketts, stop
construction on a home because that violated the Clean Water Act. On
March 21 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously--this was not a split
decision; it was unanimous, 9 to 0--that the EPA had exceeded its
authority in pursuing the Sacketts and has ensured that they and other
people who find themselves in similar situations can overcome the EPA's
assertion of whether or not their property contains jurisdictional
wetlands, without submitting to the permit process. A mere 2 days
later, the EPA was again called out for overreaching its authority on
water issues. Then on March 23 the U.S. district court ruled that the
EPA overreached in revoking a permit to Arch Coal after the Army Corps
of Engineers had already granted it. In quite a blow to the Agency, the
judge said EPA's claim--and I am now quoting what the judge said in his
order--``that section 404(c) grants it plenary authority to
unilaterally modify or revoke a permit that has been duly issued by the
Corps'' is a ``stunning power for an agency to aggregate to itself when
there is absolutely no mention of it in the statute.'' That is what the
court said.
Yet, in the midst of scathing rebukes from the press and the courts,
the EPA is still acting as if everything is the same as it was before
these cases happened, and they are actively pursuing more regulatory
power by attempting to vastly increase the scope of the Clean Water
Act's reach. In fact, when discussing the results of the Sackett case
at an American Law Institute-American Bar Association event on May 3 of
this year, Mark Pollins, Director of EPA's Water Enforcement Division,
said, ``Internally it is the same old, same old.''
I plan to send a letter to Administrator Jackson addressing Mr.
Pollins' comments and trying to find out how an EPA official, in the
face of a 9-to-0 Supreme Court decision, could say that the Agency is
not going to do anything different. And if the EPA is able to finalize
its new Clean Air Act jurisdictional guidance, it will have given
itself a whole new set of excuses for pushing the boundaries of the
Clean Water Act as far as possible. This continued overreach is why we
now have bicameral, bipartisan legislation introduced to stop this
current guidance overreach.

Let's take a moment and go back in time to where this all started. We
might remember a couple years ago Senator Feingold from Wisconsin and
Congressman Oberstar over in the House introduced the Clean Water
Restoration Act. The Clean Water Restoration Act removed the word
``navigable.'' This act gave the Federal Government, through the EPA,
the jurisdiction over the navigable water. That is what the law was.
But they wanted to take out the word ``navigable'' and, therefore, the
EPA would have jurisdiction over all land in the United States. It is
very simple. It was so unfair that not only did we defeat the Clean
Water Restoration Act but the people defeated Senator Feingold in
Wisconsin and Congressman Oberstar, after they had been in Congress for
a long time. Obviously, this is something that is not popular. It is an
overreach and everyone understands it.
Normally, when the Obama administration can't achieve what they want
to achieve through legislation, they do it through regulations. We see
this in cap and trade right now. We saw the President try to get
legislation on cap and trade which amounted to a $300 billion to $400
billion tax increase on the American people and it wouldn't have done
any good or helped anyone. Yet it would have been the largest tax
increase in history. I go back and compare it with what they were
attempting to do with the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993. That is
where they raised the marginal rates, the capital gains tax, the death
tax--this massive tax increase--a $32 billion tax increase. This will
be 10 times greater than that. Now they are trying to do what they
couldn't do with legislation through regulation. But that is because in
order to undertake a Clean Water Act rulemaking, EPA would have to
follow a transparent process and engage in a public comment period as
required by the Administrative Procedures Act.
For that reason, they didn't pursue that through regulations. Given
how unpopular their proposal has been, going through with the
rulemaking would make it much more difficult to obtain the expanded
Federal control they are clearly trying to pursue. By changing agency
practice in this formal and nonregulatory way, they virtually ensure
that they will be able to formalize this agenda easily through future
rulemaking. So what they couldn't achieve through legislation or, in
this case, through the proper rulemaking process, they are trying to do
through guidance.
What is even more frustrating than the EPA's continued overreach is
that this new guidance would provide no improvement to water and would
likely hinder real progress on cleaning water. The guidance's broad
reach and legalistic language would inevitably shift the balance of
regulatory authority further away from States, which are better
equipped to protect waters within their borders. Giving the Federal
Government control over nearly all water features will not lead to
cleaner water. It will, however, lead to tremendous uncertainty,
tremendous confusion, and economic pain for farmers,

[[Page S3033]]

energy developers, small businesses, and State governments by saddling
them with more layers of expensive, onerous, and unnecessary Federal
regulations. It is yet another Obama administration policy that will be
all pain for virtually no environmental gain.
Congress has been explicitly clear with EPA that this new guidance is
unacceptable. Last July I wrote a letter, along with Senator Roberts,
the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and 39 of our
colleagues to Administrator Jackson, where we raised our concerns that
this document went far beyond mere guidance. EPA and the Corps of
Engineers greatly expanded what can be considered jurisdictional waters
through a slew of new and expanded definitions and through the changes
to the applications and jurisdictional tests.
Administrator Jackson has said this guidance will increase the Clean
Water Act's scope. In the economic analysis that accompanied the
guidance, it stated that as few as 2 percent and as many as 17 percent
of the nonjurisdictional determinations under current guidance would be
considered jurisdictional using the expanded test under the new
guidance. However, this analysis was only for the Army Corps making
dredge-and-fill permit decisions when compared to current practice. The
guidance will apply to the entire Clean Water Act, including the
National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permits, the Oil
Pollution Act and Spill Prevention Control, and Countermeasure plans,
water quality standards, and even State water quality certifications.
Because most States have delegated authority under the Clean Water Act,
this change in guidance will also result in a change in the
responsibilities of States in executing their responsibilities under
the Clean Water Act and a change in how individual citizens are
governed by law.
So what we are talking about is what they have been unable to do with
legislation they were going to be doing with regulation. But in this
case, what they couldn't do with regulation because it would be too
transparent they are trying to do through guidance.
The finalized guidance document is currently at OMB for formal
interagency review before it is finalized. We don't know what changes
have been made, but based on a draft that was leaked to the press, it
doesn't appear that the document is substantially different from the
proposed guidance document they put out for public comment last May.
This is the last step before this expansive document starts being used
throughout the country, and that is why I hope all my colleagues in the
Senate on both sides of the aisle will join me in trying to stop it.
Working with Senator Barrasso, Senator Heller, Senator Sessions, and
others, we introduced S. 2245. We call it the Preserve the Waters of
the United States Act. It is a bill that stops the EPA from finalizing
the guidance and from using the guidance to make decisions about the
scope of the Clean Water Act or to turn it into a rule. The House has
also acted with chairmen and ranking members of the Transportation and
Infrastructure and Agriculture Committees introducing the bipartisan
H.R. 4965. I applaud Mr. Mica and Mr. Rahall in this bipartisan effort,
as well as Mr. Lucas and Mr. Peterson and Mr. Gibbs for their actions.
These bills do not change or roll back any current protections in the
Clean Water Act; they simply stop the EPA and the Corps of Engineers
from moving forward and making these unprecedented regulatory changes
through a guidance document.
The EPA needs to withdraw this guidance document immediately. If it
wishes to make changes to the Clean Water Act, it should go through a
complete and proper rulemaking process under the Administrative
Procedures Act. That is why it is there, so people in America will know
the cost of what these regulations mean to them and what they do and do
not do. Why do it under the veil of guidance when they should be doing
it out in the open? That is what we want. That is all we are asking
for.
I mentioned I am introducing a bill today.
(The remarks of Senator Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S.
3053 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. INHOFE. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, yesterday Republican Senators voted to
block the bill to prevent the doubling of the Federal student loan
interest rate on July 1. As long as they continue their filibuster,
there is no clear way forward to prevent that devastating rate hike
less than 2 months from now.
If that happens, more than 7.4 million American students will be
required to pay an average of $1,000 more per year of school. This is
especially important to my State of Iowa--and it is important to all
States--where nearly 72 percent of Iowa's college graduates have
student loan debt, the fourth highest percentage in the Nation. Those
borrowers are carrying an average of $30,000 in student loan debt,
which is the third highest in the Nation.
In floor debates this week, Republicans claimed that they, too, want
to prevent the rate hike. I welcome their support. But if they want to
join with us in preventing the rate hike, why in the world won't they
let us proceed to the bill? That will give us all the opportunity to
debate the bill and offer amendments.
I call on my Republican friends, if they want to keep the interest
rate hike from doubling on students, to call off the filibuster and
let's move ahead with the bill. I am not the only one who wants to end
this obstruction by our friends on the Republican side. I have heard
from constituents in Iowa who are frustrated at the Senate's failure to
act. This is a kitchen-table issue for middle-class Americans, families
all across the country.
I have heard reports that over 500,000 signatures from students
around the country have been delivered to the Hill to show their
support for keeping the rate at 3.4 percent. I know many Senators have
come to the floor to share stories from their constituents about how
the interest rate hike would affect them. I will share a story I
received from an Iowa student.

Dear Congressman, [or Senator, as the case may be] I am
writing you on behalf of myself, current college students,
and future college students everywhere. I recently re-
enrolled in college to further my education. This decision
came after much time and deep thought. The problem wasn't
that I didn't want to attend school, it was whether or not I
could afford to attend school.
I live on my own, hold a full time job that I previously
attended a technical school to obtain. This job supports me
fully, and as much as I love parts of my job, I know that my
decision to re-enroll in school to further my education was
the right decision for me.
. . . In the middle of all of this preparation, I came
across an article in the USA Today that said the Federal
Government might raise student loan interest rates. Not just
raise, but double them, unless Congress intervenes.
I could not believe what I was reading, and feel so
passionate about the subject that I had to write a letter to
you. I am already struggling on a daily basis to support
myself. I live paycheck to paycheck and often have to rely on
the savings account I worked so hard to save before
graduating high school, along with consistent help from my
parents and grandparents. I wish to be independent from this
help even though I am thankful that it is there.
This increase in interest rates on loans . . . was not only
disappointing, it was infuriating to me. This will have an
effect for many years beyond what it should and not only for
me.
I live in Stanwood, IA, a place that not many people have
heard of, and I commute the 35 miles to Cedar Rapids every
day for my job. . . .
So when I saw that these loans that I am relying on to
support me and fund my education were going to double, I was
heartbroken and I wonder what is wrong with my country? I am
very proud to be an American, and more so an Iowan. . . .
I believe that the one thing the USA has going for it:
supporting our future, but that is quickly fading in front of
my eyes. I hope that you read this and feel every ounce of
disappointment in our great country as I do, and do
everything in your power to not let the interest rate on
student loans increase on July 1.
I hope you can put faith in the American students who are
relying on these loans to

[[Page S3034]]

educate themselves, and together get our country back on the
right track, not headed down the wrong one. Thank you so much
for your time, and I hope to hear great things from my
representatives soon.
Sincerely, a proud fellow Iowan.

This is just one of the many stories I have received from my
constituents, telling me how detrimental it would be if the rate were
to double on July 1.
This increase is a looming reality for many students and families if
this Senate continues to do what it is doing--and that is to do nothing
to bring the bill up and having Republicans filibuster it, and not even
letting us proceed on it.
For the past 3 days, we have been hearing from Republicans that they
want to keep the interest rate at 3.4 percent, but they don't like how
we are paying for it in our bill. I have said many times that if they
don't like that--and our leader came out here, as many have, saying,
look, if my Republican friends don't like how we pay for it, let us get
on with the bill and they can offer their offset or pay-for. We can
vote on it and they can vote on ours. But that is not acceptable to the
Republicans. They don't even want the bill to go forward.
We have been hearing from Republicans that our offset, which is
closing a loophole in the Tax Code that affects subchapter S
corporations--and I might add it only affects a very small sliver of
subchapter S corporations, very tightly drawn; they can't have more
than three shareholders. How about that. And you have to have more than
$250,000 in income, and it pertains only to those subchapter S
corporations that provide certain kinds of professional services. In
other words, it doesn't pertain to real estate, or manufacturing, or
anything like that. It only has to do with certain professional
services, such as lawyers and accountants, people such as that.
Well, the Republicans say that if we do this--close that loophole--it
will hurt the ``job creators.'' How many times have I heard that, job
creators--that we are going to hurt small businesses. The other
side would have you believe that we are doing this for political gain,
that somehow we Democrats are doing this for political gain. Well, if
that were the truth, why would we pick an offset, a pay-for, to fix a
problem that conservatives have railed against in the past? Yes, the
problem that we are trying to fix in subchapter S corporations is a
problem that conservative Republicans have railed against in the past.
I want to refresh my colleagues' memories and set the record straight
on this issue of S corporations, the offset we have.

For starters, in 2004, the Wall Street Journal editorial page said
this on July 13, 2004:

Conservative Support for Closing the S Corp Tax Loophole.
Senator Edwards talks about the need to provide health care
for all, but that didn't stop him from using a clever tax
dodge [these are the words of the Wall Street Journal, not
mine] to avoid paying $591,000 into the Medicare system.
While making his fortune as a trial lawyer in 1995, he formed
what is known as a ``subchapter S'' corporation, with himself
as the sole shareholder. Instead of taking his $26.9 million
in earnings directly in the following four years, he paid
himself a salary of $360,000 a year and took the rest as
corporate dividends.
Since salary is subject to 2.9 percent Medicare tax, but
dividends aren't, that meant he shielded 90 percent of his
income. That's not necessarily illegal, but dodging such a
large chunk of employment tax skates perilously close to the
line . . .
CPA Magazine lists it as number 11 of its 15 best
underutilized tax loopholes.

I ask, is the Wall Street Journal in favor of--what did they say?--
hurting job creators? Are they in favor of that? Is the Wall Street
Journal in favor of ``raising taxes on the very businesses we are
counting on to hire these young people,'' as the minority leader said
on Monday? I repeat, we limit it to only three shareholders. They are
going to count on them to hire these young people, he said. What is the
minority leader talking about? That same year, in 2004, the late
conservative columnist Robert Novak wrote:

It is one of the last loopholes left in the Internal
Revenue Code, and it is a big one.

Here is the whole statement:

How can John Edwards explain setting up a dummy
corporation--subchapter S--to avoid paying an estimated
$290,000 in Medicare taxes in the 2 years before he ran for
the Senate? This is a classic subchapter S corporation
devised to shelter income, mainly for professionals, such as
lawyers (and also syndicated columnists, but not me). It is
one of the last loopholes left in the Internal Revenue Code,
and it is a big one.

That is Robert Novak. Has anyone ever questioned his conservative
credentials?
Sean Hannity said this:

Hey, John Edwards is worth, what, $30 million to $40
million, set up a sub-S corporation to keep him from paying
Medicare taxes on 90 percent of his income, and then he
lectures the rest of us how Medicare is going broke.

Finally, Rush Limbaugh himself said this:

. . . and he [Senator Edwards] has also compounded that by
structuring his own personal finances to avoid paying
Medicare taxes on 90 percent of the nearly $27 million he
earned over four years.

I ask my Republican colleagues, are Robert Novak, Sean Hannity, Rush
Limbaugh, and the Wall Street Journal all in support of raising taxes?
Are they all in support of killing job creators? These are their
statements. That is the record.
For the last several years, conservative Republicans have been going
after this loophole, until they obviously found a Democrat who used it,
John Edwards. Lots of people use it, a lot of lawyers and accountants
and doctors. A lot of different kinds of professionals have used this
loophole to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
Here is another classic case where the Republicans say we are using
this for political gain. Wait a minute. They are the ones who have been
going after this loophole for years. We said: Hey, we finally have
something on which we can agree. The Wall Street Journal and all these
other people are saying we have to close this loophole. We have the
opportunity to do so, and in doing so raise the money both to help
Medicare and Social Security and to keep the interest rates on student
loans at 3.4 percent. Yet the Republicans will not even allow us to
bring it to the floor.

So who is playing politics, I ask? Who is playing politics?
Well, as I have said before, and I will say again, we have come here
with a serious offset--one, as I said, that has been supported--at
least closing this loophole has been supported--by conservative
Republicans in the past. If anything, it is worse today than it was in
2004. More and more people are finding out about how they do this. They
form this little subchapter S corporation and avoid paying their taxes.
It is time to close that.
We came up with a serious offset we thought would be acceptable on
both sides because of the history. We are ready to do this now--ease
the concern of so many students and families across the country. The
Republicans came and wanted to pay for it by eliminating the Prevention
and Public Health Fund. They want to eliminate the one thing that is
going to prevent obesity, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes
in the future and save us a lot of money. They want to end that and
take that money and put it into keeping the interest rates low. They
are pitting the low interest rates for students against the health care
of children--immunizations for kids--which is what we use this
prevention fund for. And for diabetes prevention. That is what we use
the fund for. They want to take that away, pitting students against the
health of our country. That is not a serious offer. That is not a
serious offer by the Republicans.
That alternative is going nowhere. Besides, the President has said he
would veto that. So I ask my colleagues on the other side to quit
playing politics. Quit playing politics with this. Let's bring it up
for a vote.
Maybe they should listen to the Wall Street Journal, and the now
deceased Novak and Fox News and even Rush Limbaugh and Hannity. Let's
close this loophole once and for all and do something good with it.
Let's do something good with it. Keep the interest rates low for our
students in this country.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, during the day I flipped on the TV that we
have in

[[Page S3035]]

our offices and looked at it as often as I could. I was very impressed
with my colleagues who came and talked about why it is so important
that we not have an increase in the interest rate for student loans. I
have been very happy with my Democratic colleagues who have come here
and made such a profound case. But I listened also to what the
Republicans had to say, and it is beyond my comprehension how they can
come to the floor with a straight face and say what they have said. I
have listened as my Republican colleagues have come to the Senate floor
to blame Democrats for stalling legislation to keep college affordable
for 7 million people throughout our great country. The claim is pretty
rich considering that Republicans voted unanimously yesterday to
filibuster this legislation. What is a filibuster? It is stopping us
from going to the legislation.
Our bill would prevent 7 million students from paying $1,000 more on
their loans. With college already unaffordable for far too many young
people, Democrats believe we should be doing all we can to provide
access to higher education. That is what these student loans are all
about.
Republicans have repeatedly claimed they support efforts to support
legislation to keep loans from doubling this summer, but they sure have
a funny way of showing it with this endless filibuster. Today,
Republicans have said that Democrats should negotiate a way out of this
stalemate--again, a very strange reasoning. It is hard to negotiate
without a partner.
Every Tuesday after we do our weekly caucus meetings, I go to what we
call the Ohio Clock. One of the reporters said: Your Republican
colleague Senator McConnell said you should negotiate on this issue
with Speaker Boehner.
Now, how do you like that one, that I, the leader in the Senate,
should go to the Republican House and start negotiating with them? That
is a strange, strange way of doing business.
The Republicans claim their only objection to our legislation is how
it is paid for--by closing a tax loophole that allows wealthy Americans
to dodge taxes they already owe. That is what we feel should happen. We
don't believe it is a tax increase--just that people should pay what
they are supposed to pay. They now have a way of avoiding taxes. Rich
accountants and lawyers avoid it by claiming they are going to pay
dividends and not ordinary income. It is not fair to everyone else.
So if the Republicans object to this, fine. Democrats are willing to
consider alternative offsets. In fact, we are even willing to vote on
the House Republicans' own proposed offset. Now, that is a doozy, the
offset from the Republicans coming from the House, which takes away
money for preventive care for virtually everybody. The leading causes
of death in America are diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. They want
to take away preventive programs to stop heart disease. And, as we
know, there are programs now--mammograms, for example--that stop people
from having to get too far behind with the dread of breast cancer. That
is their offset. We strongly oppose that alternative, but we are
willing to vote on it. We are not running from it. And once their
proposal to slash programs that save money and lives fails on a floor
vote--and it will fail--we Democrats are still willing to consider
other options to pay for this legislation. My Republican colleagues on
the other hand have refused to consider alternative ways to pay for a
bill they claim they support.
So I say to my Republican colleagues, let us bring this bill to the
floor. If Republicans are so interested in negotiating a solution, they
should be willing to take that first step. Once the bill is on the
floor, we can debate it, we can amend it with an offset on which both
sides can agree. But until Republicans end their obstructionist
filibuster, there is no path forward.
So for my Republican colleagues to come down here and say ``we
support this legislation,'' I repeat, what a strange way of supporting
this legislation.

____________________