[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 85 (Thursday, June 7, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3803-S3835]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AGRICULTURE REFORM, FOOD, AND JOBS ACT OF 2012--MOTION TO PROCEED--
Resumed
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 415, S.
3240.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
The bill clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 415, S. 3240, a bill to
reauthorize the agricultural programs through 2017, and for
other purposes.
Schedule
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are now on the motion to proceed to the
farm bill.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is correct.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the time until 10:30 a.m. will be equally
divided between the two leaders or their designees. At 10:30 a.m. there
will be a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the farm bill. We
hope we can reach agreements on the amendments today.
The hour following the cloture vote will be equally divided, with the
Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the
final half.
Mr. President, here we are again on these endless, wasted weeks
because the Republicans are preventing us from going to legislation. We
should have been legislating on this bill. This is a bipartisan bill.
It is managed by two very good Senators. One is a Democrat, Debbie
Stabenow, chairman of that committee, and Pat Roberts from Kansas, who
in the past has been chairman of the committee and is ranking member of
the committee today. They have come up with a very good bill. It saves
the country $23 billion. It gets rid of a lot of wasted subsidies. It
is a fine piece of legislation.
We hear the hue and cry constantly from our Republican friends to do
something about the debt. This bill does it. It saves the country $23
billion. We are going to have a cloture vote on the ability for us to
proceed to the bill, and on the ability for us to start legislating.
I don't need to give a lecture to the Presiding Officer about how
vexatious this is, that we have to do this every time. The Presiding
Officer wanted to do something to change this process at the beginning
of this Congress. I will bet, Mr. President, if we maintain our
majority--and I feel quite confident we can do that and the President
is reelected--there are going to be some changes. We can no longer go
through this on every bill. There are filibusters on bills they agree
with. It is a waste of time to prevent us from getting things done. So
enough on that. It is such a terrible waste of our time.
Measures Placed on the Calendar--S. 3268 and S. 3269
Mr. REID. Mr. President, there are two bills at the desk due for a
second reading.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The leader is correct. The clerk
will read the titles of the bills for the second time.
The bill clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 3268) to amend title 49, United States Code, to
provide rights for pilots, and other purposes.
A bill (S. 3269) to provide that no United States
assistance may be provided to Pakistan until Dr. Shakil
Afridi is freed.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would object to any further proceedings
with respect to these bills, en bloc.
[[Page S3804]]
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection having been heard, the
bills will be placed on the calendar under rule XIV.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, would the Chair announce the business of the
day.
Reservation of Leader Time
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the leadership time
is reserved. Under the previous order, the time until 10:30 a.m. will
be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their
designees.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Chair start
calling the roll, with the time equally divided.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. 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.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader is recognized.
Student Loans
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it has been a week now since the
Republican leadership in the Senate and the House sent several good-
faith, bipartisan proposals to the White House in an effort to resolve
the student loan issue. And what has the White House done? Absolutely
nothing. The President has not yet responded. One can only surmise he
is delaying a solution so he can fit in a few more campaign rallies
with college students while pretending someone other than himself is
actually delaying action.
Today the President is taking time out of his busy fundraising
schedule to hold an event at UNLV, where, once again, he will use
students as props in yet another speech calling on Congress to act.
What the President won't tell these students is that the House has
already acted and that Republicans in both Chambers are ready to work
on solutions as soon as the President can take the time. All the
President has to do is to pick up his mail, choose one of the
bipartisan proposals we laid out in a letter to him last week--
proposals he has already shown he supports, with pay-fors he has
recommended--and then announce to the students that the problem has
been solved.
Unfortunately, the President is apparently more interested in
campaigning for the students at UNLV than actually working with
Congress to find a solution.
Mr. President, I would suggest you open your mail. Just open your
mail, and you will find a letter there from the Speaker and from the
majority leader in the House and from Senator Kyl and myself laying out
a way to pay for the extension of the current tax rates for student
loans for another year that you yourself previously recommended. The
only people dragging their feet on the issue are over at the White
House itself--dragging their feet to fit in yet another college visit.
Republicans here in Congress have been crystal clear on this issue
for weeks. We are ready to resolve the issue. It is time the President
showed some leadership and worked with Congress to provide the
certainty young people and their parents need. I encourage the
President, if he really wants to do something to help students, to join
us in working to find a solution. This is really pretty easy. We all
agree that we ought to extend the current student loan rates for a
year.
We have recommended to you, Mr. President, the way to pay for it that
you have already adopted. This isn't hard.
Every day he is silent on solutions is another day closer to the
rapidly approaching deadline here at the end of the month.
Tax Rate Extension
Mr. President, I stood with the Speaker of the House yesterday and
his conference leadership and called for at least a 1-year extension of
current tax rates to provide certainty to families and job creators
around the country that their taxes will not be going up on January 1.
In the Obama economy, we are facing a looming fiscal crisis that some
have called the most predictable in history. Millions are unemployed,
millions more are underemployed, and the country is facing the largest
tax hike in history at the end of this year.
This tax hike the President wants would hit hundreds of thousands of
small businesses. To put that in perspective, this tax hike would hit
job creators who employ up to 25 percent of our workforce, and we
really can't allow that to happen. I think we all know we cannot allow
that to happen. The economy is far too fragile right now.
Former President Bill Clinton said we are in an economic recession,
and earlier this week, before the Obama campaign got to him, he was for
temporarily extending current tax rates. Yesterday the Democratic
Senate Budget Committee chairman came out and said he was for
temporarily extending current tax rates. And I would remind everyone
that it was the President himself in December of 2010 who said that you
don't raise taxes in a down economy. Well, the economy is slower now
than it was when he last agreed with us to extend current tax law back
in December of 2010. In fact, the rate of growth in our economy is
slower now than it was in December 2010 when the President agreed with
us that at that point we ought to do a 2-year extension of the current
tax rates. We are experiencing slower growth now than then. The same
arguments apply now.
This is the time to prevent this uncertainty and the largest tax
increase in American history--right in the middle of a very fragile
economy. It really doesn't make any sense to do otherwise. Let's extend
all the current tax relief right now--before the election. Let's show
the American people we are actually listening to them. Let's send a
message that in these challenging economic times, taxes won't be going
up for anyone at the end of this year. And let's not stop there. Let's
tackle fundamental, progrowth tax reform. This is something upon which
there is bipartisan agreement. I think we all agree it has been over 25
years since we did comprehensive tax reform in this country. It is time
to do that again. We all agree on that. The President thinks that and
Republicans and Democrats in the Congress think that. The time to act
is now. If the President is serious about turning the economy around,
preventing taxes from going up at the end of the year is one bipartisan
step he could take right now.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, today the Senate will vote to move
forward on the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act, also known as
the farm bill. I hope my colleagues will vote to join us and begin the
debate officially on this important jobs bill because it is so
important to 16 million people who get their jobs from agriculture.
Our economy has seen some tough times, as we all know. Certainly we
know that in Michigan. But agriculture has been one of the really
bright spots. It is an underpinning of our economic recovery, and we
want to keep it that way. If we fail to pass a new farm bill before the
current one expires in September, it would cause widespread uncertainty
and result in job losses in a very important part of our economy that
is critical to keeping our recovery going.
Agriculture is one of the only parts of the economy, if not the only
part, that has a trade surplus--$42.5 billion in 2011--the highest
annual surplus on record. We know that for every $1 billion in exports,
8,400 people are working. So this is a jobs bill.
Thanks to the farm bill, tonight American families will sit down
around the kitchen table and enjoy the bounty of the world's safest,
most abundant, and most affordable food supply. I think it is too easy
for all of us to take that for granted. The men and women who work hard
from sunrise to sunset every day to put that food on our tables deserve
the economic certainty this bill provides.
The farm bill before us today makes major reforms. We are cutting
subsidies. We are ending direct payments. We cut the deficit by over
$23 billion. As my friend and ranking member has said, this is
voluntary. This is a real cut, as my budget chairman would say, and it
is more than double what was
[[Page S3805]]
recommended in the Simpson-Bowles Commission. So this is serious. This
is real. And we in agriculture--the first authorizing committee to
recommend real deficit reduction cuts--are serious about making sure we
are doing our part and that the families and ranchers and people
involved in agriculture are doing their part as well. They are willing
to do that. We have to have economic certainty because we are talking
about creating jobs all across America, in rural areas and in urban
areas.
This farm bill gives farmers new export opportunities so they can
find new global markets for their goods and create jobs. This farm bill
helps family farmers sell locally. We are tripling support for farmers
markets, which are growing all over this country, and new food hubs to
connect farms with schools and other community-based organizations.
This farm bill provides training and mentoring and access to capital
for new and beginning farmers to get their operations off the ground.
The bill really is about the future of agriculture in our country. As I
have said so many times, this is not your father's farm bill. This is
about the future.
We had three young farmers visiting with Senator Roberts and me
yesterday, and I can tell my colleagues they were so impressive--I feel
very confident about the future--but they were saying loudly and
clearly that we need to get this done now so they can plan for
themselves and their families.
We are also for the first time offering new support and opportunities
for our veterans who are coming home. The majority of those who have
served us in such a brave and honorable way in Iraq and Afghanistan
come from small towns all across America, and they are now coming home.
Many of them want the opportunity to stay at home, to be able to go
into farming, to be able to have their roots back in their communities.
We are setting up new support in this farm bill to support our veterans
coming home.
The farm bill supports America's growing biomanufacturing businesses,
where companies use agricultural products instead of petroleum to
manufacture products for consumers. I am so excited about this because
in my State of Michigan, we make things and grow things, and
biomanufacturing is about bringing that together. As we move through
this bill, I look forward to talking more about that.
This bill moves beyond corn-based ethanol into the next generation of
biofuels that use agricultural waste products and nonfood crops for
energy. This bill provides a new, innovative way to support
agricultural research--the men and women who every day fight back
against pests and diseases that threaten our food supply--with a new
public-private research foundation to stretch every dollar and get the
most results.
We extend rural development with a new priority for those proposing
to maximize Federal, State, local, and private investment so that
smalltown mayors--such as those who came before our committee--across
the country can actually understand and use the programs. We are
simplifying it. We are going from 11 different definitions of ``rural''
down to 1 so that it is simple and clear and so that smalltown mayors
and local officials have better tools to use to support their
communities.
Finally, let me say one more time that this bill is a jobs bill.
Sixteen million people work in this country because of agriculture. We
are creating jobs. We are cutting subsidies. We are reducing our
deficit by over $23 billion. I hope our colleagues will join with us
this morning in a very strong vote to move forward on this bill.
Can the Chair announce the time remaining on both sides?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 18 minutes on the
Republican side and 11\1/2\ minutes on the Democratic side.
Ms. STABENOW. Let me first yield, if I might--I know Senator Nelson
also wishes to speak--7 minutes, if that is appropriate, to our
distinguished budget leader.
In introducing the Senator from North Dakota, I wish to say that we
would not have the thoughtful approach on the alternative in the
commodity title that we have today--we know we are going to be working
more to strengthen that as we move through the process, but we would
not have the strong risk-based approach we have without the senior
Senator from North Dakota, our budget chairman. We also would not have
the energy title we have that creates jobs without his amendment and
his hard work. Frankly, this is somebody whom I looked to on every page
of the farm bill because of his wonderful expertise.
I have to say one more time that I am going to personally and, as a
Senator and chair of the committee, greatly miss him when he leaves at
the end of the year. I think I may be locking the door so he can't
leave.
So I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to say that the Senator has
provided brilliant leadership on this legislation. I am in my 26th year
here. I have never seen a chairwoman so personally and directly engaged
to make legislation happen in an extraordinarily difficult and
challenging environment.
When the history of this legislation is written, Senator Stabenow,
the chairwoman of our committee, will be in the front rank of those who
made this happen. I want to express my gratitude to her on behalf of
farm and ranch families all across America for the extraordinary
leadership she has provided.
Farm policy has many critics, and they perpetuate a myth about the
farm bill: that it only benefits a handful of wealthy farm and ranch
families. The truth is much different. The critics, who often look down
their noses at hard-working farm families who feed this country, do not
seem to understand the competition farmers face in the international
arena and what an extraordinary success this farm policy has been.
The simple fact is, our agricultural policy benefits every consumer
in America. As a share of disposable income, Americans have the
cheapest food in the history of the world. Americans spend less than 10
percent of their disposable income on food, which is far less than any
other country. As the Senator, the chairwoman of the committee, Ms.
Stabenow, says very clearly, this is not only good for consumers, this
is a jobs bill. Sixteen million people in this country have jobs
because of an agricultural policy that has been a stunning success.
It is also a bill that helps us compete around the rest of the world.
The 2008 farm bill has been a tremendous success by any measure--record
farm income, record exports, record job creation. That is the history
of the 2008 bill. It has contributed to the strong economic performance
of American agriculture. As you may recall, it passed with an
overwhelming bipartisan majority and it was paid for. It was paid for.
We actually reduced a little bit of the deficit with that legislation.
That strong safety net created by the 2008 bill has enabled American
farmers to continue to produce food for our Nation, even while facing
tremendous market and weather risks.
Critics of farm policy also imply that the farm bill is busting the
budget. That is simply false. Farm bill spending is only a tiny sliver
of the overall Federal budget. Total outlays for the new farm bill are
about 2 percent of total Federal spending; and of the farm bill
spending, only about 14 percent--14 percent--goes to commodity and crop
insurance programs. The vast majority of the spending in this bill goes
for nutrition. Mr. President, 79 percent of the spending in this bill
goes for nutrition programs. Only 14 percent goes for what could
traditionally be considered farm programs. The farm provisions
constitute less than one-third of 1 percent of total Federal spending.
That is a bargain for American consumers and taxpayers.
The truth is, our producers face stiff international competition. In
2010, our major competitors--the Europeans--outspent us almost 4 to 1
in providing support for their farmers and ranchers. And the EU is not
the only culprit. Brazil, Argentina, China, and others are gaining
unfair market advantages through hidden subsidies such as currency
manipulation, market access restrictions, and input subsidies that the
WTO is incapable of disciplining.
The reality is that farming is a risky business. Not only do farmers
and ranchers have to deal with unfair global competition, they also
have to face
[[Page S3806]]
natural disasters and unpredictable price fluctuations.
The Senate Agriculture Committee, working together in a bipartisan
way, will contribute over $23 billion to deficit reduction. That is
twice as much as the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission recommended--
twice the savings that the Simpson-Bowles commission recommended. In so
doing, the committee has provided more than its fair share of fixing
this country's deficit and debt problems. If the rest of the committees
of Congress did what this committee has done under the leadership of
Senator Stabenow, there would be no deficit and debt problem. That is a
fact.
This is also a reform bill. This is the strongest reform bill that
has gone through a committee of Congress in the history of farm
legislation, and the chairwoman and ranking member can be incredibly
proud of the leadership they have provided.
This legislation streamlines conservation programs, reducing the
number of programs, and making them simpler to understand and
administer. It reauthorizes important nutrition programs for 5 years,
helping millions of Americans.
I also want to thank Senator Lugar and Senator Harkin and the eight
other sponsors on the Ag Committee for joining me in an amendment to
continue funding for key rural energy programs. We are spending almost
$1 billion a day importing foreign energy. How much better off would we
be as a Nation if that money stayed here in the United States, instead
of looking to the Middle East, if we could look to the Midwest for our
energy supplies? This legislation will help move us in that direction.
In addition, I want to thank Senator Baucus and Senator Hoeven for
working with me to pass an amendment that will improve the bill for
farmers in our part of the country. I am also pleased the new farm bill
will continue the livestock disaster programs that are so important to
our ranchers when feed losses or livestock deaths occur due to
disaster-related conditions.
This legislation is the product of countless hours of deliberation,
and to reach this point was no easy task. However, I still have some
concerns about this legislation.
I am concerned that the new Agriculture Risk Coverage, or ARC,
program will not do enough if agriculture prices collapse again, as
they have done so many times in the past.
For those of you who do not believe that crop prices can fall again,
I will tell you that I have heard that argument before. In 1996, many
said that we had reached a new plateau of high prices, so Congress put
in place the freedom to farm legislation that removed price supports.
Two years later, Congress had to pass the largest farm disaster program
in history because prices had crashed and farmers were going under. I
will continue to work to ensure that we improve these provisions before
the final passage of this bill so that we do not find ourselves in that
situation again.
It is vital that we pass a farm bill, and it is just as vital that we
make sure these programs continue to work for American producers and
consumers.
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. CONRAD. I thank the chairwoman and I thank the Presiding Officer.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, how much time do we have on the
Republican side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eighteen minutes.
Mr. ROBERTS. Eighteen?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eighteen.
Mr. ROBERTS. I thank the Presiding Officer.
Mr. President, I yield myself 6 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the cloture
vote on the motion to proceed to the farm bill. Let me point out what
the distinguished chairwoman and the distinguished Senator who has just
spoken have already pointed out--and it bears repeating; I know it is
somewhat repetitive if people have been paying attention to the remarks
we have had here prior to this vote--but this is a reform bill at a
time in which reforms are demanded. It saves $23.6 billion in mandatory
spending. They are real cuts. They are real deficit savings. It
accomplishes this by reforming, reducing, and streamlining programs.
We eliminate four commodity programs. These programs are very
difficult to go through at the FSA office, the Farm Service Agency we
have. So when farmers have come in to try to wade through the four
commodity programs, they have always been terribly difficult and
complex.
We streamline the 23 conservation programs into 13 and eliminate
duplication. We tighten a major loophole in nutrition programs. We cut
16 rural development authorizations. We cut over 60 authorizations in
the research title and streamline programs.
In whole, we cut and/or streamline over 100 programs. Show me another
committee that has done that on a voluntary basis. There is not any in
the House or the Senate.
We have had speech after speech after speech after speech--heartfelt
speeches--why can't you work together back there in Washington and do
what is right for the American people and quit spending money we do not
have? We had a supercommittee that worked on this for a considerable
amount of time. I do not question anybody's intent who had that tough
job. At that time, we offered to the supercommittee a package that
could have been done at that particular time. But we did it--``we''
meaning the chairwoman and myself and members of the committee, and
staff as well, who worked extremely hard.
So there has not been anybody else who has come forward and said:
Here is real deficit reduction. That is why we should support the
motion to proceed. We have made the tough decisions because that is
what you do in rural America--whether it is in Michigan, Kansas, the
Dakotas, or Nebraska. Because that is what you do when budgets are
tight and you need to get things done.
Those in rural America are also why we need to get this bill done.
The current law expires September 30. How many things around here are
in purgatory? Tax extenders, the tax bill, what we call the tax cliff
that we are looking at over here if we do not get things done, the
specter of a lameduck Congress--in 3 weeks trying to get things done
like that. And you put folks in purgatory where they cannot make any
decisions.
Well, it would be a disaster in rural America if we do not pass this
law before we revert back to the permanent 1949 law. That law in no way
reflects current production or domestic and international markets. And
I would say, even if we extend the current law, it does not reflect
what we need as of today. That law goes back to base acres of 25 years
ago. We are talking about planted acres as of today. So basically it
would be government-controlled agriculture on steroids, and it would
also mean that virtually all programs in the current law would expire.
We cannot let that happen. We need certainty. Farmers need certainty.
Ranchers need certainty. Bankers need certainty. Everybody up and down
every Main Street in rural America needs certainty. Agribusiness needs
certainty. We need it because our farmers and ranchers and their
bankers need to know what the farm bill and the programs are going to
look like.
In farming, you have to go to your banker every year to get an
operating loan for the coming year. We raise winter wheat in Kansas. We
are known for that. Kansas is known as the ``wheat State.'' It will be
planted in September. That means farmers will be going to their bankers
as early as late July--next month--or early August to get their
operating notes for the coming year. Without certainty in the farm
bill, it is more difficult to make any economic projection, and it is
more difficult for farmers to obtain loans and for bankers and farm
credit to provide that credit. That is why we need to get it done now
in their behalf. Rural America needs to know the rules of the game.
Just as importantly, American taxpayers are demanding government
reforms and reduced deficit spending. This bill delivers on both
fronts. It is true reform.
[[Page S3807]]
Let's get this bill done. I urge my colleagues to vote for the motion
to proceed.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, before turning to the distinguished
Senator from Nebraska, I want, one more time, to say what a pleasure it
has been--and continues to be--to work with the senior Senator from
Kansas. This has been a partnership effort. It has been a strong
bipartisan effort. And I look forward to continuing to have that be the
case as we move to get this bill done.
Now I wish to yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska. And
I thank Senator Nelson for his strong advocacy for rural development,
for helping us make these true reforms. He has been a strong advocate
for the reforms in the commodity title, moving us to a risk-based
system. He has been a strong advocate for crop insurance and for
conservation, EQIP--things that are important, I know, to Nebraska.
This is also someone whom we are going to dearly miss on the
committee and in the Senate at the end of the year. I think I may put
the Senator from Nebraska and the Senator from North Dakota in a room
together, lock the door, and not let them leave, because they are both
so invaluable.
I yield to the Senator from Nebraska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. I thank the Senator for her strong efforts in
bringing together this very important reform bill. We are moving in the
right direction now with farm policy, moving away from protectionism,
moving away from outmoded programs to something that certainly is, in
today's world, important; that is, a safety net but a safety net that
involves risk management as opposed to direct farm payments.
This is particularly important to the State of Nebraska and all our
producers. We are No. 1 in production of many commodities, from red
meat to great northern beans; second in the Nation in the production of
ethanol, pumping more than 2 billion gallons of this homegrown fuel
into our energy supply every year.
Our productive farmers and ranchers in Nebraska make us fifth in the
Nation in agricultural receipts. While nearly one-third of all Nebraska
jobs are related to agriculture, it is our No. 1 industry. Given that
importance to my State, I truly appreciate the work that has been done
and the strong bipartisan support of 16 to 5 to get this bill out from
the committee to the floor.
Truly it is about reform. It creates a market-oriented safety net. It
eliminates direct farm subsidy payments. It streamlines and simplifies
and consolidates programs and at the same time creates jobs, helping
our economy grow.
I would like to emphasize one point again. This major reform moves us
away from government controls on production and moves us toward the
private market to help sustain American agriculture, going in the right
direction. It does all that while also making, as it has been noted, a
substantial contribution, more than $23 billion, to deficit reduction.
That sets the example of how Washington can begin to get our fiscal
house in order. Our bipartisan work in the agriculture bill is
important. It demonstrates that we can work together, particularly when
it comes to deficit reduction and finding new ways to do things in a
different way.
Turning to the reforms, by ending duplication and consolidating
programs, the bill eliminates more than 100 programs or authorizations.
It contains strong payment limitation language. Funding programs for
those who do not need them is nothing short of agricultural welfare.
Producers in my State understand we cannot keep funding programs for
those who do not need them, nor should we.
They understand we do need to fund programs for those who are in
need, particularly given our national fiscal problems. We need to
prioritize better. So the bill ends those outdated subsidies, ensuring
that farmers will not be paid for crops they are not growing on land
they are not planting, and ends direct farm payments, saving taxpayers
$15 billion on that program alone. That is a lot of money, even in
Washington terms.
As we end those subsidies, the farm bill establishes that crop
insurance will be the focal point of risk management, as it should, by
strengthening crop insurance and expanding access so farmers are not
wiped out by a few days of bad weather. This allows farmers and
ranchers on their own to select the best risk management for their
production needs, rather than having to rely on the sometimes good will
of the government to bail them out in periods of volatility.
At the same time, one of the greatest challenges farmers face is the
risk that prices will decline or collapse over several years. When
things are good, people never expect them to go bad. When they are bad,
they are worried they will never go good. Insurance will not cover
multiyear price plunges. This leaves farmers exposed to high costs and
low prices, and that can put them out of business.
In the Agriculture Committee, we worked to address this risk by
creating the Agricultural Risk Coverage Program, a program that
provides producers with a very simple choice to determine how best to
manage their operation's risk. It seeks to strike a better balance with
this market-oriented approach. We want farmers to stay in farming, but
we do not want them to farm Federal programs.
To conclude, this is a solid reform-minded start. In my mind, it
strikes the right balance between the need to cut spending while
maintaining a strong safety net to ensure a stable supply of food,
feed, fuel, and fiber. It is my hope that we will act on this bill soon
and that the House will follow.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and
ask unanimous consent that time be charged equally to both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Only the Republicans have time remaining.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ROBERTS. 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. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I yield the remaining time to the
distinguished chairwoman and thank her so much for this team effort
that has brought this excellent farm bill to the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, as we bring this time to a close, I just
once again wished to thank my ranking member and friend Senator
Roberts. I wish to thank all the members of the committee. We had some
tough negotiations. We had a strong bipartisan vote. As with any farm
bill, there are still improvements we can make, and we are committed to
doing that as we move forward.
But, overall, what we see before us is a true reform bill, cutting
over $23 billion from the deficit, the first authorizing committee to
do that, cutting or consolidating about 100 different authorizations or
programs. That, frankly, is unheard of. We have done that while
strengthening the farm safety net, moving to a risk-based system,
strengthening conservation. I am very proud that we have 643 different
conservation groups supporting this bill. All together, we are moving
forward on a strong agriculture, reform, food and jobs bill.
I hope colleagues will join us in a very strong vote to proceed to
this bill.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired. The cloture motion
having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to
read the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to Calendar No. 415, S. 3240, a bill to reauthorize
agricultural programs through 2017, and for other purposes.
Harry Reid, Debbie Stabenow, Carl Levin, Kent Conrad,
Jeff Bingaman, Herb Kohl, Patrick J. Leahy, Michael F.
Bennet, Christopher A. Coons, Al
[[Page S3808]]
Franken, Max Baucus, Barbara A. Mikulski, Ben Nelson,
Amy Klobuchar, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Robert P.
Casey, Jr.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
motion to proceed to S. 3240, an original bill to reauthorize
agricultural programs through 2017, and for other purposes, shall be
brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 90, nays 8, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 117 Leg.]
YEAS--90
Akaka
Alexander
Ayotte
Barrasso
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Blumenthal
Blunt
Boozman
Boxer
Brown (MA)
Brown (OH)
Burr
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chambliss
Coats
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Crapo
Durbin
Enzi
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hagan
Harkin
Hoeven
Hutchison
Inouye
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
Manchin
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Moran
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Paul
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Risch
Roberts
Rockefeller
Rubio
Sanders
Schumer
Sessions
Shaheen
Shelby
Snowe
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Toomey
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
NAYS--8
Coburn
Cornyn
DeMint
Hatch
Heller
Inhofe
Johnson (WI)
Lee
NOT VOTING--2
Kirk
Vitter
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 90; the nays are 8.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
Under the previous order, there will be an hour of debate equally
divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with
the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling
the final half.
The Senator from Iowa.
Health Care Ruling
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, political leaders on the Democratic side
of the aisle are now preemptively charging the Supreme Court with
judicial activism if that Court would strike down President Obama's
health care law as unconstitutional. I cannot remember when such a
significant threat to judicial independence was made in attempting to
affect the outcome of a pending case. It is an outrageous attack on the
separation of powers.
Democrats claim unless the Court rules in accordance with the policy
preferences of a particular speaker, the Court's decision would be
illegitimate. This is dangerous and this is wrong.
President Obama wrongly argued it would be unprecedented for the
Supreme Court to strike down a law that a large congressional majority
passed. He was wrong on the size of the majority, and he was wrong
about the Supreme Court's history in striking down laws they consider
unconstitutional. The President of the United States knows better
because he is a former constitutional law lecturer. He should know the
Supreme Court has done just that on many occasions over more than two
centuries, and it is just not the case, as Democrats claim, that the
Supreme Court can strike down ObamaCare only by failing to follow
established commerce clause jurisprudence.
When the Judiciary Committee held a hearing last year on the
constitutionality of the law, I asked whether the Supreme Court would
need to overturn any of its precedents to strike down the individual
mandate part of the health care reform. None of the witnesses--and most
of those witnesses were selected by the majority Democrats--could
identify a single precedent that would have to be struck down. No
matter how many times liberals repeat the statement, it is just not
so--the Supreme Court would not be an activist court if it struck down
health care reform.
What is unprecedented is health care reform's infringement on
personal liberty. The Constitution establishes a very limited Federal
Government. But when the Supreme Court asked him the obvious question
of what limit to Federal power would exist if the individual mandate
were upheld, the Solicitor General, arguing for the government and in
support of the constitutionality, could not and did not provide an
answer.
So the Obama administration believes the Federal Government can force
Americans to purchase broccoli or gym memberships, and don't believe
anyone who says otherwise once we start down that road of unprecedented
power of the Federal Government under the commerce clause.
Critics contend that the whole body of law allowing Federal
regulation of the economy would be threatened if the Supreme Court
struck down the health care reform bill. They even say that such a
ruling would harm the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. That is just
plain nonsense. The Supreme Court has never addressed a law like this.
Striking down ObamaCare would have no effect on any other existing law.
The real change in the law--and to the country as a whole--would be
if the health care reform bill were upheld as constitutional. People
understand this instinctively. A recent Gallup poll found that 72
percent of Americans--including even 56 percent of people who call
themselves Democrats--believe the individual mandate is
unconstitutional. So they clearly would accept the legitimacy of a
ruling striking down the individual mandate.
There is a constitutional law professor I am familiar with who leans
on the conservative side. He rarely discusses his work with his young
children. But the health care case has generated such attention that
his 8-year-old son asked him about it. The father explained that the
case involved whether the government could make people buy health
insurance. This is what his 8-year-old son said: ``They can't do that.
This is a free country.'' So even 8-year-olds understand the overreach
of health care reform.
Unlike the supporters of ObamaCare, who really never bothered to
think through the law's constitutionality before passing it, most
Americans understand that this law threatens our freedom unlike any
previous law. And I expect that the Supreme Court will agree. They
understand that the law is not compatible with the Constitution and
must be struck down.
It is ridiculous to claim that striking down this law would be
judicial activism. A ruling that ObamaCare is unconstitutional would
recognize that the law departed from the text of the Constitution, the
very structure of our federalism, and even against the history of our
country.
As former Judge McConnell has written, judicial activism cannot be
defined one way when the meaning of actual constitutional text is at
issue and another way when the words of the Constitution are silent on
questions such as same-sex marriage and abortion. This is what Judge
McConnell wrote:
[T]here cannot be one set of rules for liberal justices and
another set for conservatives.
By threatening the Court in advance, the critics are showing that
they now have real doubts that the health care reform bill is
constitutional. Whether addressed to an individual Justice or to the
Court as a whole, claims that only one possible result can be reached
or the Court's ruling would be illegitimate are shockingly improper
attempts to influence a pending case.
But all the Justices seem to have agreed to combat what they see as
any threat to their judicial independence. I suspect that inappropriate
attempts to influence the Court's decisions on pending cases will
backfire. They will make the Justices more determined than ever to show
that they are adhering to their oath to defend the Constitution without
regard to popular opinion. They will never want their rulings to appear
to have been the result of political browbeating. So let the
[[Page S3809]]
Justices undertake their proper responsibility in deciding the
constitutionality of health care reform. Let them do it without
threatening to pillory them in advance if we do not like the outcome.
There is always time for reasoned criticism after any ruling and
particularly this ruling.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). The Senator from Utah is
recognized.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stand today to respond to what I believe
are irresponsible and dangerous attacks on the legitimacy of the
Supreme Court of the United States.
Over a 3-day period, beginning on March 26 of this year, the Supreme
Court held more than 6 hours of oral argument to address the
constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. I was privileged to
attend each of those sessions, and I can say that as a lifelong student
of the Constitution and as one who served as a law clerk at the Supreme
Court of the United States, I was very interested to not only watch the
arguments but also to read many of the briefs and follow each of the
proceedings very closely.
Like so many others who watched or read those proceedings, I was most
impressed by the quality of the questions, the quality of the advocacy,
and the overall discussion that took place in the Supreme Court.
Through their questions, the Justices showed keen interest in the
nature of the arguments made in support of ObamaCare. For example,
Justice Kennedy asked whether, under the administration's theory of the
commerce clause, there could be any meaningful limitation on the
Federal Government's power under the commerce clause. He asked
specifically, ``Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?'' Such
questions and hypotheticals are common and they are a useful way by
which lawyers and judges tend to test the basic principled limits
enshrined in our Constitution.
If the Federal Government may compel commerce so that it may regulate
the resulting commercial activity, there would arguably be little, if
any, limit to the scope of Federal power. There would be no aspect of
our individual lives that the Federal Government could not dictate and
control. Such an all-powerful authority is, of course, flatly
inconsistent with the Constitution's doctrine of enumerated powers--
this principle that is perhaps more well-settled than any other
principle within our almost 225-year-old founding era document.
Based on the Justices' questions and oral argument, many
commentators--myself included--have predicted that the Supreme Court
may well choose to invalidate the individual mandate of the Affordable
Care Act. Apparently anticipating this possible outcome, some of my
colleagues, as well as President Obama, have made statements suggesting
that it would somehow be improper for the Supreme Court to invalidate
the Affordable Care Act. They have asserted that striking down an act
of Congress such as this one would somehow amount to judicial activism
and that that would otherwise be wildly inappropriate. They have
criticized some of the questions asked by individual Justices, and they
have even gone so far as to suggest that those Justices who might vote
to invalidate the Affordable Care Act would do so for reasons
representing bias or partisan political motivations. This reminds me of
the old saying that you can often tell in a particular game which team
is losing by which side happens to be yelling at the referee.
In response to these false and, frankly, reckless statements, I would
like to make three points.
First, attempts to manipulate or to bully the Supreme Court,
especially during deliberations in a particular proceeding, are
irresponsible, and they tend to threaten the very fabric of our
constitutional Republic. Each Justice has sworn an oath to support,
defend, and bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution and to
discharge his or her duties faithfully and impartially.
From time to time, politicians and others may disagree with the Court
as to important constitutional issues or even on the merits of a
particular case. I certainly feel that way myself from time to time.
But it is simply inappropriate for elected representatives--who
themselves have sworn an oath to the Constitution--in a spirit of
partisanship, to question the honesty and impartiality of our Nation's
highest Court in what could be perceived as part of an effort on the
part of those elected politicians to influence a case pending before
the Supreme Court.
Second, criticisms of the well-established principle of judicial
review grossly misrepresent how our constitutional Republic functions.
President Obama and some Members of this body have suggested that the
judiciary--which they sometimes denigrate as a group of unelected
people--should simply defer to Congress. But, of course, each branch of
government, including the judiciary, has an essential duty under the
Constitution to police its own actions, to make sure that its own
actions comply with the text, the spirit, and the letter of the
Constitution.
Congress and the executive branch should police themselves to make
sure they don't transgress those limits. But when the political
branches happen to overstep their own boundaries, their own legitimate
limits--as I believe happened with the individual mandate--the Supreme
Court can and indeed must enforce the Constitution.
In a recent appearance before the Judiciary Committee, Justice Breyer
explained, ``We are the boundary patrol.'' The Constitution sets
boundaries, of course. That is what is at issue here. This foundational
principle applies to popular laws just as much as it applies to
unpopular laws.
The vast majority of Americans--about 74 percent, according to one
recent poll--oppose the ObamaCare individual mandate. The Supreme Court
will not strike it down merely because it is unpopular, but the Court
must do so if the mandate exceeds the authority granted to Congress
under the Constitution. That is what is at issue.
Third and finally, it simply is not the case that a court can
properly be described as activist just because it enforces the
Constitution's structural limits on Federal power. In this context, it
is not altogether helpful to focus the discussion of whether the Court
is acting properly on the contours of the words ``activist'' or
``activism.'' We have to remember that, for the Supreme Court, not
acting to invalidate an unconstitutional law is every bit as bad, is
every bit as repugnant to the rule of law and to the Constitution as it
is for the Court to act to invalidate a law that is entirely justified
on a constitutional basis. Both represent, both are the product of a
betrayal of the Supreme Court's duty to decide cases according to the
laws and to the Constitution of the United States of America.
When the Supreme Court acts to enforce the Constitution's limits on
Federal power--as I expect it may do in the Affordable Care Act case--
it does so pursuant to specific textual provisions of the Constitution.
Enforcing the law in this undeniably legitimate matter is not activist;
rather, it is an essential function of the judiciary in preserving the
liberties guaranteed by our Constitution. Among those liberties, of
course, are those protected by perhaps the most important fundamental
component of the Constitution, this notion that we are all protected
when the power of Congress and the power of the Federal Government as a
whole is restricted. This is why James Madison appropriately observed
that it was with good reason that the Founding Fathers reserved to the
States powers that he described as numerous and indefinite, while
describing those powers that were vested in this body as few and
defined. We are all safer, we are all more free, we are all more
prosperous to the extent that we stand by this most important
fundamental precept of the Constitution. That is what is at issue in
this case.
I hope and I trust that, moving forward, President Obama and my
colleagues in this body will refrain from attempting to bully the
Supreme Court or seeking to misrepresent the Court's important work in
fulfilling its constitutional duties. Let's stop yelling at the
referees and let the Supreme Court do its job while we do ours.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wish to speak to this same question. As
everyone knows, a ruling on the constitutionality of ObamaCare is
expected
[[Page S3810]]
later this month. I think it is important that it be done in the right
context. A lot of our Democratic colleagues have made clear their view
that if the ruling doesn't go the way they want it to, it is not
because they passed an unconstitutional law but rather, in their view,
because it is some kind of a partisan activity by judicial activists
and a lot of attention has been specifically focused on Chief Justice
Roberts. This should not stand.
The President himself actually started this, I think, when he said:
I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what
would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning
a law that was passed by a strong majority of a
democratically elected Congress.
Never mind it was not passed by a strong majority--and, by the way,
the chairman of the Judiciary Committee said something very recently,
basically issuing a warning to Chief Justice Roberts on the floor of
the Senate, stating that a 5-to-4 decision to overturn the law would be
controversial. ``I trust he will be a Chief Justice for all of us and
that he has a strong institutional sense of the proper role of the
judicial branch.'' In other words, the intimation here is if the
decision doesn't go their way, the Court's reputation, and specifically
the reputation of Chief Justice Roberts, is on the line.
The Wall Street Journal wrote about this, and others have, talking
about threats by the President and certain other members of his party
with warnings that:
Mr. Roberts has a choice--either uphold ObamaCare, or be
portrayed a radical who wants to repeal the New Deal and a
century of precedent.
Let's clear up a few things. First of all, as I said, the law was not
passed by a strong majority of Congress, it was passed exclusively by
Democrats. Not a single Republican supported it. It was the first time
in history that major domestic legislation was passed by one party.
That is not the key point in terms of the constitutionality of the
law, however. The key point is that the Court's job is, as Chief
Justice Roberts said at his confirmation hearing, to work as an umpire,
calling the balls and strikes as the Court sees them. Nonlegal
arguments, such as the Court's decisions have to be popular or
unanimous--those are just unserious and frankly political rhetoric.
We all know that in 1803, in the Marbury v. Madison case, the U.S.
Supreme Court established the review of congressional action under
article III of the Constitution. Since then, courts have overturned
hundreds of laws. It would hardly be, therefore, unprecedented or
extraordinary for the Court to overturn a congressional enactment as
the President has said. As the Supreme Court noted in that case, courts
determining whether acts of the legislative branch are consistent with
the Constitution is ``of the very essence of judicial duty.'' The Court
further noted that ``the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act
of the legislature.'' If the two conflict, ``the Constitution and not
such ordinary act must govern the case to which they both apply.''
The actual substance of the case which Democrats seem eager to avoid
talking about is that ObamaCare, if upheld, empowers the Federal
Government to order its citizens to purchase particular goods and
services that the government believes its citizens must have. That sort
of all-powerful Federal Government is at odds with the concept of
enumerated powers, as is creating commerce in order to regulate it, as
Justice Kennedy intimated at the oral argument.
This is why a significant majority of Americans dislike the law. They
know the Constitution is meant to place limits on the power of our
Government in order to protect the freedom of the people.
I can't guess how the Court is going to rule. It may not agree with
my views. But I suggest that political leaders in the executive and
legislative branches need to cool their rhetoric, as my colleague said,
stop yelling at the umpire and stop the thinly veiled threats and react
to the ruling after it is rendered, rather than before.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, would the Chair advise me when 5 minutes
have elapsed.
I wish to add a few more words to what has already been said by some
of our most distinguished lawyers in the Senate; that is, it is not
controversial that, since 1803, the doctrine of judicial review, as
decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, has held in essence that it is the
responsibility of the judiciary, the Supreme Court, to say what the law
is. Congress has its role and the Court has its role and they are
different. We can tell one reason they are different is because
Congress is elected every 6 years in the Senate, every 2 years in the
House. We are accountable to the people for our decisions, for the
policies we vote for and against. That is why we are called the
political branches of government, as is the executive branch. The
President stands for election. In essence, every Presidential election,
every congressional election is a referendum on the people and the
policies they embrace.
The role of the Supreme Court and Federal courts is very different,
as we all know. It is kind of remarkable to me that we are having this
conversation, but it is necessitated by the fact that the President and
the distinguished chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee have--at
different times and different places--questioned the legitimacy of the
Supreme Court performing this function, which Chief Justice John
Marshall wrote about in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison, that it is the
role, the emphatic duty of the Court to say what the law is.
If it is Congress's responsibility to write the policies and to write
legislation, how is it different from the judiciary? Sometimes the
judiciary interprets that legislation, trying to figure out what
Congress intended. But in the area of constitutional review, more
fundamentally they want to make sure Congress has stayed within the
limits imposed upon it by the American people when they ratified the
U.S. Constitution. Of course, that is the big decision in the health
care case.
It is almost unprecedented. We probably have to go back to the 19th
century to find where the Supreme Court gave so much time for advocates
to argue a Supreme Court case. Ordinarily, it is very strict time
limits. But here the Court set 3 days' worth of arguments down because
of the importance of the case and importance of the issues that the
Court will be called upon to decide.
My colleagues have already talked about the fact that the individual
mandate has been the focus of so much attention. It is not the only
issue. There is another very important issue in terms of whether the
Congress and the Federal Government can commandeer State resources
through a huge expansion in Medicaid, which is then forced down on the
States that they then have to accommodate within their State balanced
budget requirements. But on the individual mandate, certainly we saw
how the Solicitor General of the United States stumbled, not because he
is inarticulate or incapable--he is very articulate, he is a very
capable lawyer--but he simply did not have a good argument to make when
he was asked what is the principle limitation on the Federal
Government's authority under the commerce clause if the Federal
Government can do this. Stated another way, what is it that the
Congress cannot do, the Federal Government cannot do, if they can force
us to buy a government-approved product and then fine us if we do not
do that, which is the individual mandated argument.
I don't think it is a controversial topic, and I am surprised we even
find ourselves here, responding to the Congress's remarks and the
chairman of the Judiciary Committee's remarks questioning the authority
that existed since 1810 in Marbury v. Madison, the doctrine of judicial
review and the role of the judiciary to say what the fundamental law of
the land allows and does not allow in terms of Federal power.
There is another argument being made; that is, that if the Supreme
Court comes out and disagrees with Congress on the health care law,
that somehow its legitimacy will be jeopardized. I do not think public
opinion polls have or should have anything to do with the way the
Supreme Court decides an issue because their focus should be on the
Constitution and not on the policy arguments. In other words, they
should not interfere with our role to make policy because, of course,
we are then held accountable to the voters while they are given life
tenure and they are given the protection
[[Page S3811]]
of no reduction in their salary during their service on the bench--
exactly for the reason they need to be protected from public opinion
because their role is to focus on the Constitution.
I close by saying, according to a recent poll, 74 percent of
Americans want the Court to strike down the individual mandate. Were
the Court to do that, it would hardly undermine the legitimacy of the
Court if the Court happened to, by coincidence, render a decision that
the majority of Americans would agree with.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are on the motion to invoke cloture on the
motion to proceed to the agriculture bill.
Mr. DURBIN. I ask consent to speaking as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Health Care Reform
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the speech given
on health care reform, and I would like to put in perspective what the
challenge is that faces America. Absent health care reform, absent a
change in the growing increase in the cost of medical care, not only
families but businesses and governments will find it impossible to
adequately fund the health care Americans need. If we do not come
together, as we tried with our health care reform bill, and dedicate
ourselves to reducing the increase in the growth of the cost of medical
care and do it with an assurance of quality being protected, then the
net result of all this, I am afraid, is going to end up with America
with medical bills it cannot pay.
We find as we look at government programs--Medicare, Medicaid,
veterans programs, for example--that if we do not change the projected
rate of growth of cost in these programs, in just a short period of
time, the Federal budget of America will be consumed by health care
costs and interest on the national debt to the exclusion of everything
else.
I just heard my friend, the Senator from Texas, speak against
individual mandates. The word ``mandate,'' I am sure, rubs many people
the wrong way. But let's take a look at what that individual mandate
is. From my point of view, it is a question of individual
responsibility, whether individuals in this country have a
responsibility to have health insurance.
Some argue of course not; they do not. Yet the reality is that if we
do not have some sort of individual responsibility, the people without
health insurance will get sick, present themselves at the hospital, be
taken care of, and their expenses will be shifted to all the rest of
us, to everyone else. So to argue that people have no responsibility to
have health insurance is an argument against individual responsibility
and an argument that others should have to pay for the medical bills of
those who have no insurance. That, to me, is unfair as well.
We had, within the Health Care Reform Act, protection against
expensive premiums. We limited the amount an individual would have to
pay for health insurance to 8 percent of their income. We provided
special help to those in lower income categories. I think that in
itself is an effort to strike the right balance.
I have been given a note by the staff that the Republican side has
time left. I see my colleague, the Senator from Alabama, has come to
the floor. I will yield to him at this point and resume after he has
finished.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I know the Senator is the assistant
leader. The majority has a lot of things to do. If he would like to
finish now, I would be pleased to yield.
The American people are all worried about the direction of our
country and for a good reason; they have witnessed a growing disregard
for the Constitution and the limits that it places on the federal
government. Our Government is a government of limited powers. In
essence, I hear my friend and colleague and able advocate Senator
Durbin say the question is about medical care. The question is about,
he thinks, that it is unfair that some people do not buy insurance and
therefore we ought to make them buy insurance. He thinks that is
unfair.
We had a nearly year-long debate in this Congress, and Senator Durbin
prevailed by a single vote, before Senator Brown could be confirmed to
kill the health care bill. They were able to pass it through with an
interim Senator by a single vote and it passed. But that is not what I
and Senator Cornyn and others are here to talk about today. The point
today is, Should the Supreme Court of the United States decide this
question as a matter of law and principle or should they divine what
they think the people want--although the polls show the American people
consistently oppose this legislation and never supported it, ever, but
it was rammed through anyway. So they want to say: This is important.
We think it is unfair--even though the polling data shows people don't
want this law--and the Supreme Court should uphold the law and
shouldn't worry about a little thing like the Constitution and limited
powers.
So that is what I want to talk about today. I want to affirm the duty
of the Supreme Court of the United States, and that duty is to fairly
and objectively interpret the Constitution and to render justice, not
based on polling data and not based on congressional desire.
Polling data shows that the American people overwhelmingly think the
law is an impermissible, unconstitutional regulation, so it is
difficult for me to say this is such a matter that the Supreme Court
has to acknowledge a minority view and approve it even if the
Constitution doesn't agree. I don't think that is an argument that can
be sustained, in my view.
Since the oral arguments in the case, in my view--and a lot of my
colleagues share this view--the President himself, Democrats in the
House and the Senate, their friends in the media and liberal
government, pro-health care advocates have stepped up undignified and
unjustified attacks on the Court, which seems to me to be a pretty
transparent effort to try to influence the decision of an independent
branch of government. It also seems to me an attempt--since I have been
a student of this for some time now--to lay the groundwork and to
declare that the Supreme Court is somehow illegitimate if they don't
render a verdict in line with one that my colleagues think should be
rendered.
I will say parenthetically that 2 years ago when this passed 60 to
40, it took 60 votes to pass it. It wouldn't pass today. It wouldn't
even come close to having 60 votes today because the American people
spoke and sent home a lot of people who voted for this bill when they
didn't want them voting for it. That was a big deal in the election,
frankly, if you want to talk about that.
So this philosophy that we hear advocated is a dangerous philosophy
of law and jurisprudence. It is results-oriented. It is political, not
law, and it surely is contrary to the great heritage of law that this
country has been so blessed with. It may be that my colleagues are
concerned because when pressed by the Supreme Court Justices during
oral argument, the Solicitor General of the United States seemed to be
utterly incapable of identifying any limiting principle on government
power. The Solicitor General proffered various reasons why health care
is unique, but not one of them was effectively grounded on any
constitutional text, principle, or theory--at least in my view.
People can disagree. The Justices will have the final word on it. The
nonlegal argument that the Court should not overturn a popular law
suggested by many is, of course, irrelevant, not only because this
health care law is, in fact, unpopular, but because popularity does not
translate into constitutionality. Of course, under the popularity
theory, it would be wrong for the Court to strike down the Defense of
Marriage Act, which the administration has decided is unconstitutional
and refuses to defend in court, even though the law was so popular that
it passed 342 to 67 in the House and 85 to 14 in the Senate. So making
the popularity argument revealed the lack of legal argument. It
condemns such advocates as advocates against law, not for law.
[[Page S3812]]
Supporters of the health care law have disdainfully and consistently
dismissed the notion, and it was done during the debate, that the
legislation raised serious constitutional questions. I remember the
debate in the Senate. This disdain was no more starkly demonstrated
than when a reporter asked then-Speaker of the House of Representatives
Nancy Pelosi what the constitutional basis was for the statute, and she
condescendingly replied: Are you serious?
Is our time up?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time has expired.
Mr. REID. How much time does the Senator need?
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, how long might the majority leader
expect to be, and if it is possible to have consent to speak an
additional 5 minutes after the majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator
from Alabama be recognized for another 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator from Alabama is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. SESSIONS. I know the majority leader is extremely busy, and I
appreciate his courtesy and respect with the difficult duty he has
here.
She said: Are you serious? Well, when the Solicitor General of the
United States was being grilled by the Justices, I have to say it
looked serious then. It is axiomatic that the Commerce clause--which is
the provision in the Constitution that the law's supporters argue gives
the government the power to take over health care--was never understood
to grant unlimited power to the Federal Government. The Federal
Government, without doubt, is a government of limited powers.
It certainly never meant that Congress could regulate noncommerce
under the power to regulate commerce. We can't regulate noncommerce
when the only power the Federal Government is given is the power to
regulate commerce. Give me a break.
As distinguished Judge Roger Vinson stated in his opinion in this
case when he struck this bill down:
It would be a radical departure from existing law to hold
that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce
clause. If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive
individual into a commercial transaction with a third party
merely by asserting--as it was done in the Act--that
compelling the actual transaction is itself ``commercial and
economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate
commerce,'' it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress
could do almost anything it wanted . . . If Congress can
penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in
commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would
have been in vain, for it would be ``difficult to perceive
any limitation on federal power'' (Lopez), and we would have
a Constitution in name only. Surely this is not what the
Founding Fathers could have intended.
It is a serious question. The Supreme Court needs to decide it, and
they don't need to have Congress trying to pressure them one way or the
other.
The President of the United States, President Obama, might think that
it is, in his words ``unprecedented'' or ``extraordinary'' for the
Court to strike down a clearly unconstitutional statute, but it is not.
The Supreme Court has a duty under the Constitution and under the
powers of the judiciary to speak clearly if Congress passes a law that
violates the Constitution, that assumes powers Congress does not have,
and that attempts to act in ways on behalf of the Federal Government
that the Constitution never gave the government the power to do. They
have a duty to strike it down.
The Court's reputation would be damaged if it bows to political
bullying, but it won't be damaged if it follows the Constitution. I
think it is wrong to disparage and threaten the Court during the
pendency of a case in order to influence the outcome. I don't have any
problem with criticizing a decision if I disagree with it, but to try
to politically pressure the Court I think is wrong for us to do.
These are important questions of law. I have an opinion, but the
Court has a duty. That duty is to decide the case before them
impartially, as a neutral umpire, and without regard to the crowd
noise. I believe they will do their duty, and we all await the outcome.
I thank the Chair, and I thank the majority leader.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
Productivity of Congress
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the last Congress was the most productive in
the history of the country. Some say not the most productive, but
certainly no one disagrees that it is the most productive since
Franklin Roosevelt was President during his first term. But since there
is a new majority in the House, this Congress has been altogether
different and that is an understatement.
Consistently this Congress has taken weeks or months to pass even
simple, commonsense legislation and proposals that would have
previously passed in minutes. The Senate has wasted literally months
considering bipartisan bills only to have those bills smothered to
death under nonrelevant Republican amendments.
Congressional Republicans have held even the most important jobs
measures hostage to extract votes on unrelated ideological amendments--
despite the minority leader's own call to ``stop all the showboats.''
Those were his words.
The Democrats and American people have endured this blatant
obstruction all year--in fact, for 18 months. What is it we are talking
about? Obstruction. If you look in the dictionary, it says it all. I
did that this morning. The dictionary says that obstruction is a
condition of being clogged or blocked. Doesn't that define what has
happened here in this wonderful body we call the Senate? Republicans
have clogged or blocked everything we have tried to do, even things
they have agreed on.
Yesterday we read that we will have to endure it every day for the
rest of the year--every day for the rest of this Congress. And this
came from Congressman Cantor, the No. 2 person in the Republican-
dominated House of Representatives. House Republican leaders admit they
have given up on actually running the country. Despite the work that
remains to keep our country on the right track and continue 27 months
of private sector job growth, they say they are done legislating for
the year, and in spite of the fact the President is working to create
4.3 million private sector jobs.
But listen to this report from the political publication Politico
yesterday, and I quote:
Serious legislating is all but done until after the
election . . . The rest of this year, Cantor said, will
likely be about sending ``signals. . . .''
Let's try that again. Because it is hard to comprehend that someone
who is supposedly running the other body would say such a thing, but he
did.
Serious legislation is all but done until after the
election. The rest of this year, Cantor said, will likely be
about sending ``signals. . . .''
So rather than work with Democrats to strengthen our economy and
create jobs, congressional Republicans will put on a show designed to
demonstrate the extreme ideological direction in which they would lead
this country.
Majority Leader Cantor's candor is frightening. He said out loud what
practically every Republican on Capitol Hill has been thinking all
along: They care more about winning elections than creating jobs. We
just don't usually hear them say so in public when reporters are
listening.
Just a short month ago, Speaker Boehner urged Congress ``to roll up
your sleeves and get to work.'' To an audience of conservatives, the
Speaker said, ``We can't wait until after the election to legislate.''
Less than a week after, he said Leader McConnell urged us to ``stop
the show votes that are designed to fail. Let's stop the blame game.
Let's come together and do what the American people expect us to do.''
The statements of Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell are Orwellian.
They do exactly the opposite of what they say.
Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, by all means a moderate Senator,
who is retiring amid frustration of increasing partisanship in
Washington, wrote to me in April to urge quick Senate action on many of
the challenging issues facing us. It was a letter crying out for help--
but not for help from us, not for help from Democrats. She was speaking
to the Republicans. She knew they were holding up virtually everything
we were trying to do. I am sure that is one reason this fine woman is
leaving the Senate.
[[Page S3813]]
Leader Cantor's remarks provide a window into the true Republican
agenda. It seems when congressional Republicans forget the world is
watching, they say what they really mean. They are more interested in
putting on a partisan sideshow than in solving the real problems facing
this Nation. In truth this comes as no surprise. It is just more of the
same.
Republicans have launched a series of attacks on access to health
care for women, even contraception, and have filibustered legislation
to ensure American women get equal pay for equal work.
In my desk--I haven't used this in a while, but I knew it was here
all the time. Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster, filibuster. That is
what obstruction is all about. ``Filibuster,'' from the dictionary:
One of a class of piratical adventurers who pillaged the
Spanish colonies in the West Indies during the 17th century;
one who engages in unauthorized and irregular warfare against
foreign States; a pirate craft.
Now, it is also defined as:
To obstruct progress in legislative assembly; to practice
obstruction.
That is what they have done. They have filibustered legislation to
ensure American women get equal pay for equal work. Who could be
against that? The American people--if we take a poll, no one is against
it. Republicans aren't against it, except Republicans in the Congress
of the United States.
They have stopped us from restoring fairness to the Tax Code to
ensure billionaires don't pay a lower tax than middle-class families.
They put women at risk by holding the Violence Against Women Act in
limbo. They blocked a bill to hire more teachers, cops, firefighters,
and first responders. They have stalled important jobs measures such as
the aviation bill. We had 22 short-term extensions of that.
Finally, they shut down the government on one occasion--the
government as it relates to the Federal Aviation Administration--
putting tens of thousands of people out of work. They have stalled for
months and months work done on a bipartisan basis by two fine Senators:
Senator Boxer, the chairman of that committee, and Senator Inhofe, the
ranking member. It doesn't matter. They are stalling the highway bill.
Millions of jobs. We can't get it done.
For months, congressional Republicans have actively worked against
any piece of legislation that might create jobs or support economic
growth. We don't need to take my word for it, just look at the record.
Democrats have known all along that congressional Republicans' No. 1
goal isn't to improve the economy or to create jobs. It is to defeat
President Obama.
People say: Oh, come on. You don't really mean that, do you? I mean
every word of it. Here is why: The leader of the Republicans in the
Senate said it. I didn't make it up. The minority leader, the senior
Senator from Kentucky, said so plainly in another one of those moments
of candor. Here is what he said:
The single most important thing we want to achieve is for
President Obama to be a one-term President.
He said that in October of 2010 when this country was mired in
monumental challenges, rather than saying let's work together and do
some things. How many jobs could we have created if we had some
semblance of help from the Republicans in Congress? Not 4.3 million
jobs. Remember, 8 million or 10 million were lost in the Bush
administration. We have struggled to get some of them back. We could
have created millions more jobs just with a little help, but here is
where they are headed. They are headed toward doing everything they
can, no matter what it takes, to try to make President Obama a one-term
President.
We are fighting back from the greatest recession since the Great
Depression. Yet Republicans' top priority hasn't been to create jobs;
their top priority wasn't to help businesses to grow and to have people
hire workers. It wasn't to train the next generation of skilled
employees or to hire more cops and firefighters or to put construction
crews back to work building those roads and bridges we need. We have
70,000--not 7,000--70,000 bridges that are in trouble in this country.
They need help.
We have a bridge in Reno, NV, where they will not have the kids stay
on the schoolbus. They take them out, drive the bus over the bridge,
and have the kids walk across the bridge. That is not the only place;
all over the country that is happening. But we are getting no help. No,
that wasn't their top priority, to help create those construction jobs.
It was to drag down the economy in the hopes of defeating President
Obama. Thanks to Leader Cantor's candor, today we know Republican
priorities haven't changed one single bit.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I wish to thank the majority leader for
that statement. He comes to the floor with the other members of the
leadership team to call to the attention of the Nation a statement made
yesterday by the majority leader of the House Republicans, Eric Cantor
of Virginia.
Many people remember, I say to the majority leader, that it was Eric
Cantor who was appointed to the deficit task force the President
created, chaired by Vice President Joe Biden--a bipartisan effort to
try to deal with the deficit--and people will remember there came a
moment after several weeks when Mr. Cantor stood up and said: I am
leaving. He walked out, literally walked out of this highest level
negotiation on deficit reduction. He said: I want no part of it.
Well, we have another walkaway. Eric Cantor, the majority leader in
the House, has announced we are finished for business this year. There
is nothing more we are going to do. We are going to politic and
campaign and posture. To him, I guess, that is an important
responsibility. To the rest of America it is an abdication of
responsibility--an abdication of responsibility.
This morning, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke,
appeared before the Joint Economic Committee. They wanted to talk to
him about what more could be done at the Federal Reserve on monetary
policy dealing with interest rates to get the economy moving forward.
It is a legitimate policy question. But if Mr. Bernanke could have
turned the tables for a moment, he might have asked the Members of
Congress: Well, what are you doing to get the economy moving forward? I
think that is a reasonable question.
Let me suggest to Mr. Cantor, who thinks we are finished for business
this year, that there are many elements of outstanding business that
can help create jobs in America. Let's start with the first one: the
Transportation bill. The Transportation bill will create 2.8 million
jobs in America. What kind of jobs? As the majority leader said, jobs
to repair bridges and highways, to build our airports, to make sure
America has a safe infrastructure upon which to build our economy.
Well, in the Senate, we came to an agreement. Senator Barbara Boxer,
the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Senator
Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma, the ranking Republican member, reached an
agreement and brought a bill to the Senate floor. We went through the
long process of amendments, and it passed. I think the final rollcall
was 74 to 22. It was an overwhelming bipartisan vote that extended for
2 years highway construction in America and created 2.8 million jobs.
Well, obviously, that is something that is good for America. The
question that should be asked is, Well, where was the House
Transportation bill? The honest answer is they never produced one--
never. They couldn't agree on a bill. The House Republicans failed to
pass the Transportation bill. Ultimately, they passed a measure to
extend the current highway trust fund and taxes that are collected to
July 1, just a few weeks from now.
Then the majority leader appointed a conference committee, and I am
honored to be on that committee with a number of my colleagues. I can't
tell my colleagues how hard Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe have
worked on that committee. This bipartisan effort, Democrats and
Republicans, has resulted in a compromised counteroffer which they
personally hand-delivered to the Chairman of the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee John Mica. They understand we have a July 1
deadline. They understand the urgency to take it up and move it to
create and keep 2.8 million jobs in America.
What was the response of Speaker Boehner? Well, it was warming and
[[Page S3814]]
welcoming, but the fact is as of today, maybe tomorrow--the House is
gone for a week. So in this critical period of time when we are up
against a July 1 deadline, when millions of American jobs are on the
line, the House Republicans are leaving and the Republican majority
leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, said it doesn't make any difference if
they stayed because they are not going to do anything significant. They
are just going to politic and posture.
How do we explain that to the families of all of these workers across
America--workers who need a job at a time when the economy is tough? I
guess people living paycheck to paycheck now have to accept this
furlough that the majority leader has announced for the rest of the
year.
There is important work to be done, and it isn't just the
Transportation bill. The majority leader raised some questions and
issues that are still pending between us. Let me also add another one
to the list: cybersecurity.
I attended a meeting, I guess it was about 2 months ago, the likes of
which I have never seen since I have been in the Senate. We had a
request by the administration--in fact, it started with Senator
Mikulski asking them for it--to ask all of the Senators, Democrats and
Republicans, to go to a classified setting--a secret setting--for a
briefing on cybersecurity. There was a large turnout, Democrats and
Republicans, and they spelled out to us the threat to the United States
of America from China, Russia, other countries, and individual actors
who are trying to invade our information technology to steal the
secrets not only of our government but also of major companies, to
burrow into our systems such as the utilities of America and be
prepared at a moments' notice to destroy the capacity of the U.S.
economy or worse.
We went through the exercise, and it really spelled out for us what
might happen; what might happen if there were a cybersecurity attack
into the United States and it literally turned out the lights on the
great city of New York. What would happen? Well, it would take days
before we could restore service. In the process, people would die, the
economy would be crippled, and we are at risk of that happening.
So the administration has produced a cybersecurity bill to keep
America safe from that kind of attack. Well, unfortunately, it doesn't
meet Mr. Cantor's test. He has told us we can't do anything the rest of
the year. All we can do is campaign, politic, and give speeches.
We have a responsibility as Members of the Senate and the House to
accept the challenges facing this Nation; No. 1, to create jobs,
invigorate the economy, and get this country moving forward; second,
keeping America safe.
I might say to Mr. Cantor from Virginia, take some time during your
next recess--which is next week--and go over to the Central
Intelligence Agency and sit down with them and talk about cybersecurity
and the danger to the United States, and ask them if we can wait 6
months or a year to get back to this issue. I know what they are going
to say. They are going to remind him he swore to defend and uphold this
great United States of America. And if he is going to do it, he ought
to roll up his sleeves and go to work instead of coming up with another
excuse for political campaigning and delay.
This comes down to a basic question. Eric Cantor, House Republican
majority leader, has all but predicted that 2012--this year--is
substantively over. We are finished. No more heavy lifting. It reminds
me of when I was a kid on the last day of school before summer
vacation. Remember that? It is usually a half day. You could not wait
to race out the front door, screaming and hollering and throwing things
in every direction, jumping up and down with your buddies, saying: We
are going to go swimming tomorrow. And get your bike out. We are going
to go have some fun. It was 3 months, at least, of pure unadulterated
joy, no responsibility.
Well, Majority Leader Cantor has announced that school is out for the
House Republicans. They are finished for the year. But America is not
finished. Our agenda is still there.
I want to commend the Senate Republicans who have joined us in
passing this transportation bill. And I want to say to Speaker Boehner:
When you return from the next recess, next week, roll up your sleeves
and get to work. Put 2.8 million Americans to work with this bipartisan
transportation bill. Have the courage to bring it for a vote on the
floor of the House of Representatives so we can put America to work and
make certain they know we take our job seriously.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise in support of the words of the
majority leader and the majority whip. Many of us have been frustrated
lately by the glacial pace of activity in the House of Representatives.
The Senate is supposed to be the cooling saucer, but, these days, the
House is where jobs bills and other important measures go to die.
They are dragging out negotiations on a highway bill that would put
millions to work. They refuse to even allow a conference on a
bipartisan Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, even though the
Senate produced a bill with 68 votes. They have refused to act at all
on a bipartisan bill that cracks down on China's unfair currency
practices--something which their own party's nominee for President
claims to support.
Why the stalling? Well, we got our answer in the pages of Politico 2
days ago.
Eric Cantor, who controls the floor schedule in the House, has
decided to forgo legislating in favor of politicking full time.
Despite all the major challenges this Congress faces--despite the
crisis of confidence that may hit our markets in the fall due to
uncertainty over the looming fiscal cliff--Eric Cantor has declared a
moratorium on any serious legislating until after the fall elections.
The House of Representatives is like a computer that has been turned
on sleep mode, and it does not plan to be rebooted until after
November.
This is a breathtaking admission by the No. 2 Republican in the
House. I would not be surprised if Leader Cantor wishes he could take
his statement back. It contradicts the rhetoric from many on his own
side.
Just last month, in a speech at the Peterson Institute, the Speaker
of the House made a great show of calling on the administration and
Congress to tackle tax cuts and the debt ceiling now--before the
election. Here is what Speaker Boehner said:
It's about time we roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Unfortunately, Leader Cantor's comments seem to reflect House
Republicans' true intentions more so than Speaker Boehner's quote. And
that is a terrible shame. Leader Cantor and the House Republicans are
shrinking from a potentially historic moment.
I have a message for Leader Cantor: You may have abandoned any
intention to legislate this year, but we will not bow to election-year
politics here in the Senate. The Nation needs us, and we have too much
to do.
All around this Chamber, there are green shoots of bipartisan
activity. In the last 2 months alone, we have overhauled the postal
system, approved a multiyear transportation program, renewed the
Violence Against Women Act, streamlined drug approval rules at the FDA,
renewed the Export-Import Bank, and passed a bill to help business
startups. We have confirmed 20 judges and put the Federal Reserve Board
at full strength for the first time in 6 years. And just this morning,
we moved to proceed to a farm bill--the first overhaul of agriculture
in 5 years--by an overwhelming 90-to-8 vote.
Every one of the issues I mentioned had broad bipartisan support.
Each would not have been accomplished without bipartisan support. These
are items, certainly, that are not the same as the big challenges that
await us on taxes and spending, but they are not trivial. They are not
post office namings either. They are real accomplishments.
``The Senate is on something of a roll,'' the New York Times recently
reported. These accomplishments could very well prove to be the
building blocks for bipartisan compromise on the bigger issues that
await our Nation. So the House may already have entered election mode,
but, I daresay, the Senate may be starting to gel at just the right
time.
[[Page S3815]]
In the Senate there is a hunger to legislate. Republicans and
Democrats alike in this Chamber sense our Nation is at a crossroads,
and their first instinct is not to pause to contemplate its political
implications, but to get things done. For this, I must salute the
growing number of my colleagues across the aisle who are seeking to
work across the aisle.
Even as the loudest voices on the Republican side cite the
President's defeat as their No. 1 goal, I believe there is a silent
majority within the Republican Caucus that yearns to come together and
address the Nation's problems, free of partisan politics.
Even after the extreme elements in their own party have claimed two
of the most esteemed Members of this body--one by retirement; one in a
contentious primary--a silent majority of brave Republicans still dares
to believe that compromise is a virtue, not a vice.
My colleague from Tennessee, Senator Alexander, is a Senator I
admire. He has taken the lead in bringing Members together to tackle
the big issues that await us at the end of this calendar year.
I was at a briefing this week organized by Senator Alexander, a
Republican, and Senator Warner, a Democrat. Believe me, no one in that
room thinks, as Leader Cantor apparently does, that these issues should
be put off till the election. The conversations were quite preliminary,
for sure, but the motivations of all the Senators who attended were
pure.
Senator Coburn is another brave Republican. I may disagree with Tom
Coburn on most issues, and even on many of his tactics, but I admire
the courage he displays on a daily basis by standing up to even the
most powerful special interests in his party. He does not talk the talk
about bucking his party's orthodoxy on revenues. He walks the walk.
Just this morning, I watched him on one of the morning news programs
making great sense about the need for both parties to show leadership
in confronting the big issues. He also made a point of saying that,
unlike Leader Cantor, he does not believe these issues should wait till
the election.
My colleague from South Carolina, Senator Graham, is another such
brave Republican. We have our differences on many issues, but he is a
statesman, plain and simple. He has been quite vocal on his wish to
overturn the defense cuts in the sequester. But while others in his
party propose to replace these cuts on entirely their own terms,
Senator Graham has bravely signaled an openness to make the tradeoffs
needed to help bridge the partisan divide. Asked by the New York Times
recently about the potential for tapping revenues to replace some of
the sequester cuts, Senator Graham bravely bucked his party's
orthodoxy. ``I have crossed the Rubicon on that [one],'' he said. Be
assured, Senator Graham is someone we can negotiate with.
Senators Alexander, Coburn, and Graham are not alone. There are
others who realize the need to act in a bipartisan fashion.
Senator Alexander's colleague from Tennessee, Senator Corker,
recently called out his own party for famously rejecting a deal, a
hypothetical deficit deal with a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax
increases.
Senators Isakson and Collins said in the same Politico article that
they, too, would be open to supporting a grand bargain that includes
revenues as well as spending cuts.
And my colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, is featured in the
pages of Roll Call today for his Herculean efforts to get House
Republicans to be reasonable on a long-term highway bill, along with
his colleague and our friend Senator Boxer.
I suggest that the House majority leader reconsider his remarks to
Politico and take a page from the book of these brave Republicans. The
House may be in an all-politics mode, but the Senate is not done
legislating--not by a long shot. And let's be honest: If a solution to
these big issues is at all possible in the lameduck, or maybe even
before the election, it is not going to come from the House. It is
going to come out of the Senate.
So I suggest to Leader Cantor, Washington does not need an election
to bridge our differences. It needs the Senate.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I come today to talk--as my colleagues
have discussed--about the fact that Republicans in the House of
Representatives seem ready to pack it in for the year.
Led by their majority leader and by the ``my way or the highway''
philosophy they have stuck to all year, they have signaled that they
have given up on the work of the American people.
From our yearly responsibility to pass appropriations bills, to
legislation that would create thousands of good-paying construction
jobs, to efforts to stop an impending student loan hike, to a bill that
would protect vulnerable American women from violence, House
Republicans have now indicated they would rather kick the can down the
road.
It is unfortunate that this is their attitude--not just for our
college students or construction workers looking for jobs or women at
risk, but it is statements such as the one the House majority leader
made that make every American shake their head. That is because as
American families come together around their kitchen table to make
tough decisions about their mortgage or how to make tuition payments or
even about how they are going to afford groceries, they want to see us
coming together to make similarly tough decisions.
But as Leader Reid and my other colleagues have made clear: It is
tough to legislate from only one side of Capitol Hill. It is tough to
address the issues affecting everyday Americans when House Republicans
are more interested in drawing dividing lines than coming to the
middle. It is pretty tough to create jobs and help our economy rebound
when House Republicans are more focused on next year than on the bills
that are stuck in their Chamber today. And it is impossible to do
anything about the looming fiscal cliff we face when House Republicans
continue to show they do not get that it will take a balanced approach
to fix.
The bottom line is we need a partner in legislating, and it appears
from comments such as those that were made this week that hope is
quickly fading.
What is particularly concerning about House Republicans wanting to
shutter their Chamber for the year is the fact that bipartisan,
commonsense Senate legislation is languishing there. Bills that have
gotten support from overwhelming majorities, and that were carefully
crafted over months of negotiations, are in limbo for no good reason.
In fact, what I would like to do today is highlight two important
numbers to illustrate what I mean. The first number is 68. Madam
President, 68--that is the number of Senators who voted to pass a
bipartisan, inclusive bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women
Act. It is a total that includes 15 Republican Senators who, like the
vast majority of Americans, agreed with us that we not only need to
reaffirm our commitment to protect those at risk from domestic violence
but that we also need to improve and expand protections. Those are 68
Senators who came together to say that our commitment to saving the
lives of victims of domestic violence should be above politics; 68
Senators who said we cannot allow partisan considerations to decide
which victims we help and which we ignore; 68 Senators who sent a
strong bipartisan message to the House that we can come together to
strengthen protections for all victims, regardless of where they live
or their race or their religion or gender or sexual orientation.
Unfortunately, it is a message that Republicans in the House have
ignored. True to form, instead of taking up our bipartisan bill,
Republicans have passed a bill that leaves out both the additional
protections for vulnerable women and the delicate compromises we
achieved.
Men and women across our country see the headlines that Leader Reid
pointed out earlier. They know their protections are at risk, and they
are at risk not because the Senate cannot come together but because
House Republicans refuse to join us.
The second number I wanted to highlight today is 74. That is the
number of Senators who came together to send a bipartisan
transportation jobs bill to the House; 74 Senators who voted for a bill
that will create or save millions of jobs in the country today; 74
Senators
[[Page S3816]]
who said that politics should not get in the way of our economic
recovery or the need to fix our crumbling infrastructure; 74 Senators
who got behind a bill that was the product of intense and long
negotiation between Senators we know often did not see eye to eye but
who did come together to pass a bill that could truly be called a
compromise.
Yet here we are, months after this bill was passed with overwhelming
bipartisan support, and it, too, is now the subject of political games
in the House. Another bill that should never be considered political
has become part of their grandstanding routine. It does not have to be
this way. If Republicans can set aside politics and stand up to their
tea party base, we can protect victims of domestic violence. We can
pass a transportation bill. We can stop those tuition hikes. We can
pass our appropriations bills.
In fact, we can even come together on the big issues that House
Republicans have indicated they believe can only be resolved after an
election. If Republicans are ready to admit it will take a balanced and
bipartisan deal to avoid that fiscal cliff, we can make a deal
tomorrow. But on this issue, Republicans have not just refused to meet
us in the middle. They will not even come out of their corner.
We all know a bipartisan deal is going to be required to include new
revenue along with spending cuts. Unfortunately, Republicans are
singularly focused on protecting the wealthiest Americans from paying a
penny more in taxes. Democrats are ready. We are willing to compromise.
We know it is difficult, but we have to have a partner to do that.
Republicans need to understand that the fiscal cliff is not simply
going to disappear if they close their eyes and wish hard enough. We
are going to have to act, and Republicans should not let politics stop
them from working with us now on a balanced and bipartisan deal which
middle-class families expect and deserve.
Statements such as the one made by the House majority leader only
reaffirm what American families fear the most, that at a time when they
deserve a government at their backs, they are being abandoned. In the
Senate, we have shown we can come together around bipartisan solutions.
But we cannot do it alone. House Republicans need to send the American
people a clear message they are willing to be a partner in compromise.
It is time for them to take up our bipartisan legislation to protect
women and put workers back on the job. It is time to work with us in
the appropriations process and help our Nation too. It is time to
realize that a solution to the impending fiscal cliff will require a
balance. It is certainly not time to give up.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. I appreciate very much the wonderful statements by Senators
Durbin, Schumer, and Murray. We have a problem in this country based on
what Cantor said. Here are the headlines: ``Congress switches from
policy to politicking.'' All we have said here today has been based on
fact. That is too bad. It is too bad we have someone who is running the
House of Representatives who is trying to kill these important pieces
of legislation Senator Schumer outlined that we have passed over here.
We have passed all these things, worked very hard to get them done.
Because of politicking, and not policy, the majority leader of the
House of Representatives is killing all this legislation for reasons we
all understand.
Order of Procedure
Madam President, cloture has been invoked on the motion to proceed to
the farm bill by an overwhelming vote of 90 to 8. Senators Stabenow and
Roberts are now, as we speak, working on an agreement to amendments to
the bill. I am hopeful they can make significant progress over the
weekend. There will be no more rollcall votes today. Monday at 5:30 we
will have a vote on Andrew Hurwitz to be a Ninth Circuit judge.
I hope we can get the farm bill done next week and lock in an
agreement on flood insurance, which is also vitally important to this
country.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Legislating
Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I came to the floor to talk about
legislating. I was struck, in fact, by the comments recently because
what I am here to talk about is essentially the yeoman's bipartisanship
we have seen with Senator Stabenow and Senator Roberts on the farm
bill. I am going to talk about some specific ideas, each of which I
believe could win bipartisan support and help strengthen the
legislation as we go forward in the Senate.
I believe it is hard to overstate the importance of writing the best
possible farm bill in the Senate. When America desperately needs more
jobs, and 1 in every 12 American jobs is tied to agriculture, this bill
is an opportunity for the private sector to grow more jobs. When
obesity rates are driving the American health care challenge, this bill
can promote healthier eating without extra cost to taxpayers. When we
are concerned about the threat to our treasured lands and air and
water, this bill is our primary conservation program. When our rural
communities are especially hard hit, and the Presiding Officer knows
about this because she has a lot of rural country in her State, these
rural communities are walking on an economic tightrope, and this bill
can be a lifeline.
I spent much of last week in rural Oregon. In my State, Oregonians do
a lot of things well, but what we do best is grow things--lots of
things. Oregon grows more than 250 different crops, including
everything from alfalfa seed to mint and blueberries. Several weeks
ago, the Oregon Extension Service reported that agricultural sales in
my home State increased more than 19 percent in 2011.
Agriculture in Oregon is now more than a $5 billion industry
annually, and much of this is driven by high prices for wheat and
cattle and dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and other specialty
crops. The fact is, agriculture is the lodestar to prosperity for many
rural Oregon communities. Nationwide, there are many other towns in a
similar position to the small communities I have the honor to represent
in the Senate.
That is what is apropos about this talk and the need for
bipartisanship. Senator Schumer listed a number of these bipartisan
areas. I consulted with the chair of the Agriculture Committee, Senator
Stabenow, and the ranking member, Senator Roberts, who I also served
with in the other body. After getting their counsel, I selected 28
Oregonians, from every corner of my State and across all types of
agriculture, to help serve as an advisory committee on ways to improve
the economic opportunities for Oregon, specifically through this bill.
We have the good fortune to have the committee chaired by Mrs. Karla
Chambers, who owns a farm in the Willamette Valley, Stahlbush Farms,
and also Mike Thorne, a wheat farmer in eastern Oregon.
From the outset, this advisory committee did not talk at all about
politics, did not talk about whether there was a Democratic way to
write a farm bill or a Republican way to write a farm bill. What they
did talk about was the importance of the issues I have just outlined:
jobs, health care, conservation, rural communities. That is what they
spent their time focused on and particularly the jobs issue was central
to their discussion.
There are about 38,000 farms in my home State which roughly support
234,000 jobs. That is about 11 percent of our State's employment. As
much as 80 percent of the agricultural goods produced in Oregon are
sold out of State. Half of that is exported to foreign countries. That
is especially important to me because I chair the trade subcommittee of
the Senate Finance Committee. So what I have taken as the centerpiece
of my approach to agriculture and to our country's economy is that we
ought to do our very best to: grow things in the United States, to add
value to them in the United States, and then ship them somewhere.
It is especially important for Oregon agriculture. As I just noted,
80 percent of the agricultural goods that are produced in our State are
sold out of State.
Abroad, our producers are doing very well. Nationally, each $1
billion in agricultural exports is tied to approximately 8,400 American
jobs. These growing overseas markets represent a
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way to create and sustain good-paying jobs that rely on export sales.
In fact, agriculture is one of the only sectors with a trade surplus,
and in 2011, it boasted a surplus totaling $42.5 billion--the highest
annual surplus on record.
That is why I was honored to have a chance--when Chairman Baucus was
tied up in discussions with respect to the super committee--to manage a
significant part of the debate on the three recently passed free-trade
agreements, which again give us a chance, as I have indicated, to build
on that proposition that I have outlined, where we grow things here,
add value to them here, and then ship them somewhere else.
Nothing says that more than giving those opportunities to producers
from Oregon to Florida. They sell their fruits and vegetables, their
wheat, their beef, their nursery crops, and other high-value products
at home and abroad. The farm bill continues those programs that
American producers rely on to help market their goods in foreign
markets. I think it is important again to stress the bipartisanship
associated with making sure there are bountiful opportunities for
American agriculture and particularly for Oregon agricultural goods.
The second area my agriculture advisory committee focused on was
stressing the importance of healthy nutrition here at home. Of course,
the USDA, our Department of Agriculture, has recommended eating five
fresh fruits and vegetables daily.
What that means is that from Burns, OR, to Bangor, ME, farm programs
need to make it easier for those with low incomes to be able to eat
healthier. There never ought to be a tradeoff between health and
affordable food. So I think we have to look at some fresh approaches to
promote healthy nutrition in this country. I believe it is not just an
economic threat to our economy, it is also a national security threat
to our Nation because we have seen, regrettably, that many Americans
who would like to wear the uniform of the United States, patriots, have
not been able to pass the health standards necessary to serve in our
military.
In the past three decades, obesity rates have quadrupled for children
ages 6 to 11. More than 40 percent of Americans are expected to be
obese by 2030. The Centers for Disease Control reports that in 2008
alone, the United States spent $147 billion on medical care related to
obesity. Obesity is the top medical reason one in four young people
cannot join the military, and it has been identified by the Department
of Defense as a threat to national security. It doesn't have to be this
way.
I wish to outline some specific ideas for changing that and to
promote good health in our country without adding extra costs to
taxpayers. One opportunity for change is through the Farm to School
Program. Again, without costing taxpayers additional money, it ought to
be easier for delicious pears, cherries, and other healthy produce,
grown just a few miles down the road, to make it into our schools. This
ought to be a national approach. Schools from Springfield, OR, to
Savannah, GA, currently purchase their fruits and vegetables from
USDA--the Department of Agriculture--warehouses, which may be hundreds
of miles away. Many of our farmers and our producers would like to sell
their goods to local schools, and many schools would like to source
their produce locally. The farm bill ought to promote that.
When I was in Oregon last week, I had a chance to meet with the
management of Harry & David. They are a major employer in my State, and
an Oregon pear producer. They told me they want to sell their fruit to
schools down the street, but instead a complex maze of Federal rules
and regulations has created a hassle for them, and the process sounds
like bureaucratic water torture. So I am going to offer an amendment
that would make it less of a hassle for producers such as Harry & David
and farmers to sell directly to local schools, all without spending
additional Federal dollars.
A second opportunity to improve our Nation's health lies with the
SNAP program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better
known as food stamps. This program currently spends over $70 billion a
year. This is the big expenditure in the farm bill, and there is no way
to really determine whether it promotes good nutrition. Think of all of
the possibilities for helping our country, all the possible benefits if
the SNAP program did more to improve nutritional outcomes for those who
use the program.
Let me make clear that I am not for cutting benefits. I understand
the crucial lifeline this program provides for millions of our people.
What I am interested in doing is seeing that, through that $70 billion,
it is possible to improve nutritional outcomes, all while getting the
best value out of that enormous expenditure.
One of the ways we could do it would be to allow States to obtain a
waiver from the SNAP program when they bring their farmers, their
retailers, their health specialists, and their beneficiaries together
and say: We have a consensus for improving the nutritional outcomes in
our State, for those on the Food Stamp Program, the SNAP program. They
ought to be able to get a waiver in order to do that and help us
produce more good health in America. That is not some kind of national
nanny program. That is not telling people they can only eat this or
that. It is just common sense to have farmers, retailers, those on the
program, and health specialists look, for example, to try to create
some voluntarily incentive to promote better nutrition with this
enormous expenditure, and I intend to offer an amendment to do that.
A third opportunity for improvement is through what is known as
gleaning. Historically, gleaners gathered leftover produce from the
fields, but today gleaners play a crucial role in reducing the
staggering amount of food that goes to waste each year. At a time when
food waste is the single largest category of waste in our local
landfills--more than 34 million tons of food--again, without spending
extra taxpayer money, we can do more to ensure that this unwanted food
is used to tackle hunger in America.
Led by the dedicated work of local food banks, many are striving to
put America's food bounty to better use. In Portland, OR, Tracy Oseran
runs a wonderful nonprofit organization known as Urban Gleaners. They
are poised to collect surplus food--hundreds of thousands of pounds of
food--from grocers, restaurants, parties, and all kinds of social
organizations, and they redistribute those hundreds of thousands of
pounds of food to organizations that serve the hungry. Urban Gleaners
is doing great work, but they could be doing a lot more.
Without spending a dime of extra money, we can advocate for gleaners
all across America by making it possible for them to receive loans
through the Microloan Program. If someone is trying to set up a
gleaning program in a small town and they have to borrow, say, $20,000
to start a refrigeration program to preserve the quality of the food,
let's make it possible for the gleaners to do that.
I am not proposing--and I discussed this with the chair of the
committee, Senator Stabenow, and Senator Roberts, the ranking minority
member--to allocate one additional dime to the program. I think it is a
fine program. I simply want to say that when we have gleaners in our
country who are telling us about the enormous amount of food that is
still wasted despite their tremendous efforts, let's not pass up an
opportunity to, with this bill, make it possible to promote gleaning in
our country.
To produce the healthy food needed to feed America, we need fertile
agricultural land, and conservation plays a central role in that.
Roughly 28 percent of Oregon's land mass is devoted to agricultural
production. Maintaining this land is crucial for our long-term
productivity. For more than half a century, the farm bill has supported
infrastructure modernization and conservation projects. They give, once
again, the opportunity for collaboration, and that is key to our
natural resources.
I see my friend from Arizona, Senator McCain, here. We talked about
doing this in the forestry area years ago. We ought to be promoting
collaborative projects to boost rural economies. It is the Oregon way,
and we ought to build on that in this farm bill as well.
The time is also ripe to promote farmers markets and locally grown
food, which will lead to greater awareness of local markets, roadside
stands, and community-supported agriculture.
[[Page S3818]]
This farm bill expands those opportunities, and I think these types of
local initiatives give us the opportunity to change the trajectory--the
tragic and staggering trajectory--of obesity in this country, and to
ensure the viability of these programs, the land required to produce
nutritious foods must be addressed.
I plan to offer, as I have indicated in these comments, a number of
amendments to the farm bill, each of which I have discussed with the
chair of the committee, Senator Stabenow, and ranking member, Senator
Roberts.
The farm-to-school amendment that I will offer would not spend
additional taxpayer money, but it would make it easier for schools to
purchase locally for the breakfast, lunches, and snacks they serve
children.
My second amendment would allow States across this country to get a
waiver under the SNAP program, so they can consult with their farmers,
their retailers, their health specialists, and those who use it, and
try to come up with a way to get more good health and nutrition out of
the $70 billion that is spent on the program. States ought to have an
opportunity to do that so that the SNAP program can be a launch pad for
healthier eating rather than just a conveyor belt for calories. With a
waiver, States with innovation and effective ideas could improve
nutritional outcomes and put their good ideas into action.
Third, I intend to offer an amendment--again, it doesn't spend
additional taxpayer money--to promote gleaning through the Microloan
Program.
Finally, based on the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, I
will offer an amendment to make it possible to advance some of the
recommendations of the Institute of Medicine to look at the
relationship between agriculture policy, the diet of the average
American, and how we can reduce childhood obesity. This amendment would
give us a chance to advance the recommendations of the Institute of
Medicine. They have made a number of thoughtful proposals that I think
will give us a chance to reduce obesity and promote our national
security, and we certainly should pursue them through this farm bill.
The last comment I will make is that I think Oregonians got it right,
and I think we ought to be building on the work done by Senator
Stabenow and Senator Roberts. At a crucial time in American history,
this bill can help us grow more jobs, it can help us improve the health
of the people of our country without spending additional money, and it
is an opportunity to protect our treasured land and air and water.
Finally, it is a lifeline for rural communities--these communities that
I have described as walking on an economic tight rope.
I intend to work with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis. I have
heard all this talk about how the legislating is over. We ought to
build on the work that has been done already and get this important
bill across the finish line because it will be good for our economy,
for our national security, and it will be good for our health and for
our environment.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the
Senate as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Tribute to Fallen Heroes
Mr. MORAN. Madam President, last week on Memorial Day, Americans
remembered our Nation's fallen troops who laid down their lives for our
Nation. We are blessed to live in a country where individuals volunteer
to defend our Nation and our freedoms--no matter the cost. Because of
the sacrifices of our Nation's veterans, we have the opportunity to
live in the strongest, freest, and greatest Nation on Earth.
Today at Arlington National Cemetery, 30 U.S. servicemembers will be
honored for their service and sacrifice to our country. These men were
killed last August when insurgents fired upon their helicopter as it
was rushing to aid troops in a firefight in Wardak Province in
Afghanistan. More than 20 U.S. special operations forces were killed
when the helicopter crashed--the deadliest single loss of American
forces in the war in Afghanistan.
Among those lost were brave soldiers who called Kansas home: CWO
Bryan Nichols of Hays, SPC Spencer Duncan of Olathe, and SGT Alexander
Bennett of Tacoma, WA, who was stationed in New Century, KS. These men
will be given full honors during a special memorial service and laid to
rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
We lost 30 American heroes on that tragic day--brave men who answered
the call to defend our country. Our Nation is forever indebted to these
young men for their service and sacrifice. Especially today, we think
of their families and the loved ones they left behind. May God comfort
them in their time of grief and be a source of strength for them.
Yesterday, in Kansas, another soldier's life was remembered. PFC Cale
Miller of Olathe was killed just 2 weeks ago during a combat mission in
Afghanistan when the vehicle he was driving was struck by an improvised
explosive device.
It has been said that the ``American soldier does not fight because
he hates who is in front of him, he fights because he loves those who
are behind him.'' This passage was read during Cale's service in
Olathe, and it is a fitting description of this young man's devotion to
his country.
Cale was raised in Olathe and was a 2007 graduate of Olathe Northwest
High School, where he was a member of the football and track teams and
played trumpet in the marching and jazz bands. Three years after
graduation, Cale joined the Army and was assigned to Ft. Lewis in
Washington State.
Cale was known as a fierce warrior on the battlefield and was one of
``the best of the best.'' Among his buddies he had a reputation for
being a hard worker, someone who would go above and beyond to
accomplish the task at hand. Cale's battalion commander said he was
known as ``everyone's protector'' and was ``hands down, the best
Stryker driver he ever had seen.''
More importantly, his sergeant said Cale had the unique ability of
knowing the right thing to say at the right moment. He was a source of
strength that pulled his sergeant and his squad mates through many
difficult days.
Cale loved the Army, but he was also devoted to his family. He loved
to laugh and had a great sense of humor, which helped his family find
the bright side of every situation. His stepfather Dave is known for
giving sound and practical advice and served as a role model for Cale.
In fact, Cale once told his mom he was turning into the ``Dave'' for
his buddies since they often turned to him for advice or encouragement.
Cale had a close relationship with his sister Courtney and loved his
mother deeply. He spoke of her often to his buddies.
My heart goes out to the entire Miller family, and I ask that all
Kansans, all Americans, join me in remembering them in our thoughts and
prayers during this difficult time.
On Monday, Cale was given a hero's welcome upon his return to Kansas.
Volunteers placed flags along 151st Street in Olathe and hundreds of
people stood in silence waving those flags and signs that read
``Community 4 Cale'' to honor this young man and his service to our
country. This demonstration of support comes naturally to Kansans who
respect and honor those who volunteer to defend and serve our Nation.
Today we honor Cale Miller, Brian Nichols, Spencer Duncan, and
Alexander Bennett, who laid down their lives for our country. We thank
God for giving us these heroes, and we remain committed to preserving
this Nation for the sake of the next generation so they, too, can
pursue the American dream with freedom and liberty. We are indebted to
our veterans to do nothing less.
May God bless our service men and women, our veterans, and the
country we all love.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. I would like to thank Senator Moran of Kansas for a very
moving tribute to those who have served and sacrificed. I know the
people of Kansas join him in expressing their gratitude for their
service and sacrifice, and I thank the Senator from Kansas for a very
eloquent and moving statement. God bless.
Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Arizona for his
tremendous service.
[[Page S3819]]
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator
from Connecticut and I be permitted to join in a colloquy on the
situation in Syria.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Syria
Mr. McCAIN. Before entering into our colloquy, I would like to make
some brief remarks.
It should come as no surprise to any of our colleagues--and it
certainly comes as no surprise to me--that the civil war raging in
Syria has only deteriorated further over the past 2 weeks. On Saturday,
May 26, we read the horrific news of a massacre that Bashar al-Assad's
forces committed in the Syrian town of Houla. At least 108 civilians--
the majority of them women and children--are now believed to have been
killed, some from repeated shelling by Assad's tanks and artillery, but
most slaughtered in their homes and executed in the streets. Survivors
describe a scene so gruesome that even after 16 months of bloodshed and
more than 10,000 dead, it still manages to shock the conscience.
There are now reports of another massacre by Assad's forces with as
many as 78 Syrians dead and that Syrian authorities are blocking access
to the scene for the U.N. monitors on the ground. These massacres of
civilians are sickening and evil, but it is only the latest and most
appalling evidence there is no limit to the savagery of Assad and his
forces. They will do anything, kill anyone, and stop at nothing to hold
on to power.
What has been the response of the United States and the rest of the
civilized world to this most recent atrocity in Syria? More empty words
of scorn and condemnation. More hollow pledges that the killing must
stop. More strained expressions of amazement at what has become so
tragically commonplace.
Indeed, as Jeffrey Goldberg has noted, administration officials are
now at risk of running out of superlative adjectives and adverbs with
which to condemn this violence in Syria. They have called it
``heinous,'' ``outrageous,'' ``unforgivable,'' ``breathtaking,''
``disgraceful,'' and many other synonyms for the same. I don't know
what else they can call it. Yet the killing goes on.
The administration now appears to be so desperate they are returning
to old ideas that have already been tried and failed. Let me quote from
a New York Times article that appeared on May 27.
In a new effort to halt more than a year of bloodshed in
Syria, President Obama will push for the departure of
President Bashar al-Assad under a proposal modeled on the
transition in another strife-torn Arab country, Yemen. . . .
The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Mr. Assad's
staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal.
This is a case of history repeating itself as farce. Trying to enlist
Russia in a policy of regime change in Syria is exactly what the
administration spent months doing earlier this year, and that approach
was decisively rejected by Russia when it vetoed a toothless sanctions
resolution in the U.N. Security Council in February.
How is this recycled policy working out? Well, last week, a human
rights organization disclosed that on May 26, a Russian ship delivered
the latest Russian supply of heavy weapons to the Assad regime in the
Port of Tartus. Last Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a
statement on the Houla massacre--and blamed it on the opposition.
President Putin, after blowing off a trip to Washington in favor of a
visit to Europe, suggested that foreign powers were also to blame for
the Houla massacre. He went on to reject further sanctions on the Assad
regime and to deny Russia is shipping any relevant weapons to Assad.
Not to be outdone, last week the Russian Foreign Minister also
described the situation in Syria this way.
It takes two to dance--although this seems less like a
tango and more like a disco, where several dozens are taking
part at once.
One might think this alone would be enough to disabuse the
administration of its insistence, against all empirical evidence, that
Russia is the key to ending the violence in Syria. One might think so,
but one would be wrong. Asked last week whether he could envision some
kind of military intervention in Syria without a U.N. Security Council
resolution, which is subject to a Russian and Chinese veto, the
Secretary of Defense said, no, he cannot envision it.
Similarly, the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, rejected the idea
of providing weapons to the Syrian people to help them defend
themselves, saying that would lead to--get this, get this: If we
supplied weapons to the Syrian resistance, it would lead to ``chaos and
carnage,'' and it would militarize the conflict. It would militarize
the conflict. After more than 10,000 have been slaughtered by Bashar
al-Assad with Russian weapons, Iranians on the ground, it would
militarize the conflict.
It is difficult even to muster a response to statements and actions
such as these. U.S. policy in Syria now seems to be subject to the
approval of Russian leaders who are arming Assad's forces and who
believe the slaughter of more than 10,000 people in Syria can be
compared to a disco party. Meanwhile, the administration refuses even
to provide weapons to Syrians who are struggling and dying in an unfair
fight, all for fear of ``militarizing the conflict.'' If only the
Russians and the Iranians and al-Qaida shared that lofty sentiment.
I pray that President Obama will finally realize what President
Clinton came to understand during the Balkan wars. President Clinton,
who took military action to stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and did so
in Kosovo without the U.N. Security Council mandate, ultimately
understood that when regimes are willing to commit any atrocity to stay
in power, diplomacy cannot succeed until the military balance of power
changes on the ground.
As long as Assad and his foreign supporters think they can win
militarily, which they do, they will continue fighting and more Syrians
will die. In short, military intervention of some kind is a
prerequisite to the political resolution of the conflict we all want to
achieve.
The question I would pose to my colleague from Connecticut and to the
administration is this: How many more have to die? How many more have
to die? How many more young women have to be raped? How many more young
Syrians are going to be tortured and killed? How many more? How many
more before we will act? How many more?
I would like to also ask, When will the President of the United
States speak up in favor of these people who are fighting and dying for
freedom?
I thank my colleague from Connecticut for his continued involvement.
He has shared the same experiences I have in refugee camps, meeting
people who have been driven out of their homes, family members killed,
tortured, young women raped as a matter of policy and doctrine of
Assad's brutal forces.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, it is an honor to join in this
colloquy with my friend from Arizona, though I obviously take no
pleasure in it because it is an outcry--a cri de coeur--an outcry of
the heart about the slaughter going on in Syria now, once again, with a
government killing its own people to maintain its own presence and
power. It is an outcry because for more than a year now the rest of the
world, including the United States, has offered these victims of the
brutal violence of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus essentially
words--words of condemnation, words of sympathy. But those words--or
the few cell phones we have given those Syrian freedom fighters--don't
stand up against Assad's tanks, his guns, and the brutality of his
forces.
So I would say the answer to the question my friend from Arizona
posed--how many more people have to be killed?--obviously, too many
people have already been killed. It is time for the United States to
show some leadership.
Senator McCain and I are not calling for American troops on the
ground in Syria. We are not calling for the United States alone to take
action. There is a coalition of the willing. If we continue to say we
are not going to take action to help the victims of Assad's brutality
until and unless we get authorization from the U.N. Security Council,
there is never going to be any help to go to these victims in
[[Page S3820]]
Syria because the Russians and probably the Chinese will veto any U.N.
resolution.
Every time we say we have to go to the U.N., we raise the power of
Russia to protect its ally in Damascus. But there is a coalition of the
willing ready throughout the Arab world, and I think some in Europe and
elsewhere, which will not act until the United States shows some
leadership.
I want to just briefly put this in a historical context. After the
Nazi Holocaust of the last century, the world said, ``Never again.''
``Never again.'' We have kept that pledge in some cases, such as Bosnia
and Kosovo, although it took us too long--too many people were killed
before the world acted--and in other places, such as Rwanda, we turned
away from the slaughter of people there.
Once again, we are challenged to show the victims whether we are true
to our words. I read something a few days ago in the Washington Post.
An article was drawing parallels between the genocide in Bosnia during
the 1990s and the killing that is taking place in Syria today. There
was a 37-year-old survivor of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia that
finally got the world to get involved, who said:
It's bizarre how ``never again'' has come to mean ``again
and again.'' It is obvious that we live in a world where
Srebrenicas are still possible. What is happening in Syria
today is almost identical to what happened in Bosnia two
decades ago.
So what is the world waiting for? A Syrian Srebrenica when thousands
are killed on a single day by their own government before we act? I
hope not. And that is why we speak out today.
Just within the hour, a story was posted on Reuters news service out
of Beirut:
Six hours after tanks and militiamen pulled out of Mazraat
al-Qubeir, a Syrian farmer said he returned to find only
charred bodies among the smoldering homes of his once-
tranquil hamlet.
``There was smoke rising from the buildings and a horrible
smell of human flesh burning'' said a man who told how he
watched Syrian troops and ``shabbiha'' gunmen attack his
village as he hid in his family olive grove.
``It was like a ghost town'' he told Reuters, . . .''
Senator McCain and I have been explicit for some period of time. We
have been both to Turkey and Lebanon to talk to leaders of the
opposition and people in the refugee camps, and they simply say to us:
As Americans, you are our only hope. This is from a people whose
government has been determined in its anti-American posture, the Assad
government, and yet the people now turn to us--as people always do in a
time of crisis around the world--and say, This is what America is
about. America has a moral government that cares about people's right
to life and liberty, and we will not be saved unless you get involved.
I hope the latest events move our government to go beyond words to
actions. And immediately. Again, Senator McCain and I have talked about
actions we would support: arms to the opposition fighters, training of
the opposition fighters, safe havens in Turkey, and perhaps other
neighboring countries to Syria, where they can be trained and equipped;
provision of intelligence that we have, which will help the opposition
fight to defend themselves and their families.
Frankly, if it were up to us--and I know I can speak for Senator
McCain--I think if we wanted to help and turn the tide quickly without
a lot of unnecessary loss of life, we would use allied air power,
Americans and our allies, and we would hit some targets important to
the Assad government. I think that would break their will, and it would
increase the number of defections from Assad's army and from the very
important business community, and would result in a much sooner end to
this terrible waste of lives.
So that is our outcry, and that is my answer to the question of my
friend from Arizona. I thought the Senator was particularly right in
condemning the idea that if we get involved, it militarizes the
conflict--the conflict is already militarized on one side. Russia and
Iran are providing Assad with all the weapons he needs. In the
meantime, the opposition is scrounging around, paying exorbitant prices
just for bullets which they have been running out of.
I ask my friend from Arizona, people say that intervention in Syria
will be much harder than it was in Libya. I wonder if he would respond
to that argument against us getting involved.
Mr. McCAIN. I thank my colleague. I also want to point out that
traveling in the region and meeting with the leaders in these various
countries, it cries out for American leadership, I think my colleague
would agree, in a coordinated partnership with these countries. But
they cry out for American leadership. And meanwhile, the President of
the United States, as this slaughter goes on, is silent. His spokesman
says they don't want to militarize the conflict. How in the world could
you make a statement like that when 10,000 people have already been
slaughtered? That, to me, is so bizarre. I am not sure I have ever seen
anything quite like it.
There is always the comparison, I say to my friend from Connecticut,
about Libya. There is an aspect of this issue. Libya was not in
America's security interests. Libya was clearly a situation where we
got rid of one of the most brutal dictators who was responsible for the
bombing of Pan Am 103 and the deaths of Americans. But if Syria goes on
the path to democracy, it is the greatest blow to Iran in 25 years.
Hezbollah is broken off. Russia loses its last client state. Iran loses
the most important ally it has in the region.
Finally, I would say to my friend we keep hearing over and over again
that extremists will come in; Al Qaida will come in. We heard that in
Tunisia, we heard that in Libya, we are hearing that in Egypt, and we
are hearing that again--neglecting the fact that al Qaida and
extremists are the exact antithesis of who these people are. These
people believe in peaceful demonstrations to bring about change--they
have been repressed through brutality--whereas al Qaida, as we know,
believes in acts of terror.
I agree with my colleague, if we provided a sanctuary for these
people in order to organize and care for the wounded, to have a shadow
government set up as we saw in Libya, then I think it is pretty obvious
that it would be a huge step forward.
Again, as my friend from Connecticut has often said so eloquently,
probably the most immortal words ever written in English are: We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all of us are endowed--all--by
our Creator with certain inalienable rights.
The people of Syria who are suffering under this brutal dictatorship
and are being slaughtered as we speak I believe have those inalienable
rights. The role of the United States has not been to go everywhere and
fight every war, but it has been the role of the United States of
America, when it can, to go to the assistance of people who are
suffering under dictatorships such as this, one of the most brutal in
history. And for us to now consign them to the good graces of Russia
and whether they will veto a U.N. Security Council resolution as to
whether we will act on behalf of these people is a great abdication of
American authority and responsibility.
Finally, I wish to say that Senator Lieberman and I have visited
these places. We have seen these people. I wish all of our colleagues--
I wish all Americans--could have gone to the refugee camp where there
are 25,000 people who have been ejected from their homes, the young men
who still had fresh wounds, the young women who had been gang raped,
the families and mothers who had lost their sons and daughters. It is
deeply moving. It is deeply, deeply moving. And, as my friend from
Connecticut said, they cry out. They cry out for our help.
We should be speaking up every day on their behalf, all of us, and we
should be contemplating actions that stop this unprecedented brutality.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I thank Senator McCain. I think he
spoke with real clarity and strength, and this is exactly what we need
to continue to do.
I want to go to the point he made. Some people say we shouldn't get
involved in Syria because we don't know who the opposition is;
therefore, we should be cautious before helping them.
We have had the opportunity to meet the opposition and their
leadership, both the political opposition and the military opposition.
And I would tell you, to the best of my judgment--I believe it is our
judgment--these aren't extremists. These are Syrian patriots.
[[Page S3821]]
As Senator McCain said, this whole movement started peacefully. They
went out into the squares in big cities in Syria. They were asking for
more freedom. They actually weren't at the beginning asking for an
overthrow of the Assad government. But what was Assad's response to
them? He turned his guns on them and started to kill them wantonly. And
when they decided there was no peaceful course--because he rejected
every compromise alternative that intermediaries put in--they took up
arms such as they could find.
The danger here is not that the people who are the leaders of the
opposition are extremists or terrorists; the danger is that the
extremists and terrorists will take over this movement if we and the
rest of the civilized world don't get involved, and the Syrian
opposition will be sorely tempted to take their support because they
have no alternative. We simply can't let that happen.
I know there is a lot going on in our country. I know people are
worried about the economy, as we are, of course. But America's strength
and credibility in the world has actually always been not only what we
are about by our founding documents and our history but what maintains
our credibility and strength in the world, which is a foundation of our
economic strength. The longer we give words but no action in response
to the murder and rape of victims in Syria, the lower our credibility
is. And we can't afford that.
Senator McCain said, and I want to emphasize, the main reason to get
involved here is humanitarian. It is what America is about. It is about
the protection of life and liberty. But it happens to be that this
makes a lot of strategic sense, too, because the No. 1 enemy we have in
the world today is Iran. If Assad goes down, Iran will suffer a
grievous blow.
Some people said, and some still say it--including high officials of
our government--that it is not a question of whether Bashar al Assad
will fall but when. I don't agree. Having been over there talking to
the opposition, watching what is happening, this is a profoundly unfair
fight. Assad has most of the guns and systems, and the freedom fighters
have very little. He will keep doing this as long as he has to, and
this war will go on a long time, with thousands and thousands and
thousands of more innocent people killed as they were earlier today in
the Mazraat al-Qubeir.
The facts cry out for us to take action. I hope and pray we will.
Senator McCain and I and others have. Senator Rubio has an op-ed in the
Wall Street Journal today that speaks to some of the points we have
made, and others on both sides I hope will continue to speak out until
finally there will be action to save the lives of innocents.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a series of
questions that opponents of our involvement raised, and the answers I
would offer to those questions arguing for our involvement with a
coalition of the willing.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Providing weapons to the opposition will only
``militarize'' the situation in Syria further and add to the
chaos there.
Our policy must be based on the reality of the situation in
Syria as it is, not as we might wish it to be--and the
reality in Syria today is that the conflict has already
militarized. It has militarized not because of the Syrian
opposition--which began last year by holding peaceful
protests--but because of Bashar al Assad himself, who
responded to peaceful protests by unleashing tanks,
artillery, militias and attack helicopters to slaughter the
Syrian people, and will keep doing so until he is stopped.
Bashar's regime has been enabled and encouraged in its
campaign of violence by Russia, by Iran, and by Hezbollah.
They are providing and resupplying Assad with weapons. They
are providing funding to sustain his killing machine. They
are providing training and instruction to Assad's forces.
There are even reports that Iranian operatives are on the
ground in Syria. In fact, an IRGC Quds force commander
acknowledged this last week.
That is why the situation has militarized in Syria. And
right now, it is not a fair fight. While Assad is being armed
and resupplied by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, the Free
Syrian Army has only light weapons to defend itself. When
Senator McCain and I traveled to southern Turkey in April to
meet with Syrian refugees and opposition fighters, we were
told that opposition fighters were running out of ammunition.
Getting communications equipment to the opposition in Syria,
as the United States has pledged to do, will be helpful. But
radios alone will not protect the Syrian people against tanks
and helicopters.
Providing weapons and intelligence and other lethal support
to the Syrian opposition therefore won't militarize the
situation in Syria. The conflict already has been
militarized, because of Assad. What we can do is give the
Syrian people the chance to defend themselves against Assad,
by providing them with weapons. This will give the Syrian
people a chance to fight back and change the military balance
on the ground in Syria.
And let me add: it has been almost a year since President
Obama said that Assad must go. And still he remains in power.
We all agree that there will be no peace or stability in
Syria as long as Assad is in charge. But there is absolutely
no prospect that he will leave power until the military
balance of power in Syria turns against him. As of now, Assad
thinks that he is winning. The only way to change the
military balance of power is to begin to provide the
opposition with the means to turn the tide of this fight
against him. Until that happens, Assad will stay, and the
Syrian people will continue to die.
____
Syria is not Libya. Intervention in Syria will be much
harder and more complicated.
It is true that there are differences between Syria and
Libya. Syria's air defenses are far more sophisticated. The
population of Syria is larger and more diverse than the
population of Libya. And the opposition in Syria does not
have a safe zone--although it is worth remembering that the
only reason the opposition in Libya had a safe zone was
because of our intervention. Had we not stepped in when we
did, Qaddafi's forces would have overrun Benghazi and
slaughtered the people there--just as Bashar al Assad did
after the opposition briefly took over Homs and Hama and
other cities in Syria. Likewise, if we were to intervene as
we did in Libya, we could create a safe zone for the Syrian
opposition to organize.
But here is another difference between Libya and Syria that
is even more important. The stakes in Syria are dramatically
higher than they were in Libya.
First, let's remember: Bashar al Assad is Iran's most
important ally in the Arab world. His regime is the critical
linchpin that connects Iran and Hezbollah. As General Mattis
told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year,
the fall of Assad would represent ``the biggest strategic
defeat for Iran in 25 years.'' It would make it harder for
Tehran to ship weapons to Hezbollah, including the tens of
thousands of rockets that are pointed at our ally Israel.
That is why the Iranians are doing everything in their power
to help Assad crush the opposition and stay in power. The
fight in Syria, therefore, is fundamentally about Iran. If
Assad stays in power, it will be viewed by everyone in the
Middle East as a huge victory for Iran, and a defeat for the
United States.
Second, if things continue on their current path in Syria,
it is increasingly clear that the country will descend into a
sectarian civil war. The result could be a failed state in
the heart of the Middle East, and the perfect environment for
al Qaeda to establish a toehold. In addition, we are already
seeing signs that chaos in Syria is spilling over and
destabilizing Lebanon. This will likely get worse,
threatening not only Lebanon but also Syria's other
neighbors, including Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and of course
Israel. In short, if Syria collapses, it will be a threat to
the entire Middle East, including some of our closest friends
there. Add to this that the Syrian regime has one of the
largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world.
For all of these reasons, the United States has vital
national interests at stake in Syria--much more than we did
in Libya. We cannot afford to let Iran prevail in Syria. We
cannot afford to let Syria become a failed state with weapons
of destruction that threaten its neighbors. We cannot afford
to allow Syria to become a new base for al Qaeda. And yet, in
the absence of our intervention, these are precisely the
outcomes that are most likely to happen.
____
Unlike in Libya, there is no international consensus for
intervention in Syria.
Let's be absolutely clear. The United States should not act
unilaterally in Syria. Nor do we need to put any boots on the
ground there. On the contrary, our key partners in the Middle
East have the money, resources, and territory that are needed
for a full-scale effort to train, equip, arm, and organize
the Syrian opposition against Assad--and they are ready to do
so. What has been missing is leadership, organization and
strategy, which only the United States can provide.
Senator McCain and I have personally traveled to the Middle
East on several occasions this year. We have spoken to the
leaders of our key partners in the region. They are ready to
work with us to help the opposition. They have also said so
publicly. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have called for providing
weapons to the Syrian resistance. The Kuwaiti parliament has
called on its government to do the same. The leader of Turkey
has spoken openly about the need for establishing safe zones.
Most importantly, Syrians themselves have for months been
calling for international intervention, including military
intervention.
Now it is true we cannot get a UN Security Council
resolution authorizing military
[[Page S3822]]
intervention in Syria. That is because of Russia and China,
whose governments made clear long ago that, for their own
reasons, they will veto any meaningful resolution related to
Syria. There is no sign that is going to change.
But let's also remember: NATO took military action in
Kosovo in 1999 without UN authorization. Then, as now, a
dictator was slaughtering innocent people. Then, as now, the
dictator was a close ally of Moscow, which made clear it
would not allow the UN to authorize the use of force.
Thankfully, this did not stop President Clinton from rescuing
Kosovo. At the time, he argued, correctly, that the UN
Security Council was not the sole path to international
legitimacy and instead worked through NATO to save Kosovo.
The same is true today. And there is no reason why the Arab
League or the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) or perhaps the
Friends of Syria Contact Group couldn't provide the
legitimacy for military measures to save Syria, just as NATO
did in 1999.
____
Why not just let Syria's neighbors take the lead in helping
the Syrian opposition? Why does America need to be involved?
It's true that many of our partners in the Middle East want
to help the Syrian opposition by providing them with weapons.
But they want and need America to work with them in this
effort. They recognize that only the United States can
provide the leadership, the organization, and the strategy to
ensure that these efforts to support the Syrian opposition
are successful.
That being said, I don't doubt that, in the absence of U.S.
leadership, some countries in the region will try to supply
the Syrians with weapons on their own. Likewise, the Syrian
fighters themselves are trying to find weapons wherever they
can--including through the black market and criminal
networks. And can we blame them for doing so? They are in a
fight for their very lives.
So the question is not whether weapons are going to flow to
the opposition. The question is whether we the United States
play a role in this process, or whether we take a hands-off
approach and just let the chips fall where they may. The
question is, which path is more likely to allow us to protect
our interests and encourage a decent outcome in Syria? Which
path is more likely to be successful?
If we stand back, it is much more likely that the people in
Syria who will end up with weapons will not be the people we
want to see empowered. It will not be the elements in the
opposition who respect human rights and reject terrorism.
By contrast, if we get involved, we will be in a much
stronger position to influence the conduct of the Syrian
opposition, to empower the responsible elements inside the
country and sideline those on the fringes who commit human
rights abuses or who have ties to al Qaeda.
____
The Russians can be persuaded to abandon Assad. We should
focus on attention on diplomacy with Moscow, rather than
aiding the opposition.
For months, the Obama Administration has told us that
Russia is on the brink of changing its position and
abandoning Assad. For months, we have been told that Moscow
is coming around to seeing things our way. And as we've
waited and waited for the Russians, thousands more Syrians
have been killed, the situation inside Syria has
deteriorated, and nothing has changed.
Mr. President, it is time to stop waiting for Putin. The
Russians are not going to abandon Assad--especially as long
as he seems to be winning on the battlefield. If there is any
chance to get Moscow on board, it will only happen when the
Russians realize that Assad is going to lose--and that it is
therefore in their interest to work with us to hasten his
departure in exchange for protecting their interests in post-
Assad Syria.
Finally, let me add, even if Putin is somehow persuaded to
abandon Assad, it is far from clear that he has the means to
deliver. Last year, the Turkish government--which had
previously been one of Assad's closest partners in the
world--turned against him as the violence in Syria escalated.
This had absolutely no effect on Assad, who continued his
campaign of terror. The same very well could prove to be the
case with Russia as well.
____
We don't know who the opposition is, and we should
therefore be cautious before helping them.
Mr. President, we hear again and again that we don't know
who the Syrian opposition is. This astonishes me. It has been
nearly a year and a half since this uprising began. If we
don't know who the Syrian opposition is by now, it is only
because of a willful refusal on the part of the Obama
Administration to find out who they are.
The truth is, we do have a good idea of who these people
are. Senator McCain and I have met with them--here in
Washington, in Turkey, Lebanon and elsewhere in the region.
We have met the leaders of the Syrian National Council and of
the Free Syrian Army. We have met with young Syrian activists
who have been going back and forth into Syria. We have met
with the refugees who have fled the killing fields of Hama
and Homs and Deraa into neighboring countries.
So there is no great mystery here. These people are not al
Qaeda. They are Syrians who are desperately trying to free
themselves from a terrible dictatorship.
Now it is unquestionably true that al Qaeda is trying to
exploit the situation in Syria. They want to get a foothold
there. But that is precisely why we must help the opposition.
The fact is, the longer this conflict goes on, the more the
Syrian people are going to be vulnerable to radicalization.
And if responsible nations abandon the people of Syria, al
Qaeda will stand a better chance of making inroads.
____
The opposition is too divided, and therefore we can't
effectively help them until they unify and get organized.
It is true that there are divisions in the Syrian
opposition. But it is worth remembering that the Libyan
opposition also was divided. It was our intervention that
helped them to unite, not least because we ensured that they
had the safe zone in which to do so.
People who therefore argue that we shouldn't help the
Syrian opposition until they are united have it exactly
backwards. It is precisely by helping the Syrian opposition
that we can unite them.
A U.S.-coordinated train-and-equip mission would provide
the leverage to better unify and broaden the opposition,
incorporate all of the key stakeholders in Syrian society,
and influence their conduct. The benefit for the United
States in helping to lead this effort directly is that it
would allow us to more effectively empower those Syrian
groups that share our interests and our values.
Syrian fighters who want our help must reject al-Qaeda and
terrorism; refrain from human rights abuses and revenge
killings; place themselves under civilian-led opposition
command-and-control; and secure any weapons stockpiles that
fall into their hands.
____
The American people are tired of war. We can't afford to
get involved in another fight in the Middle East.
Mr. President, Senator McCain and I know that the American
people are tired of war. But the fact is, the United States
remains the leader of the world. We are the indispensable
nation. And we have vital national interests in the world
that we need to uphold, and we have values that we have to
stand for. Everyone in the world knows that there is only one
nation on earth that can stop the killing in Syria, if it
chooses to do so, and that is us. And if we fail to do so,
then the responsibility for that failure and that continued
killing will also rest with us--just as it did with Rwanda.
Let me close, Mr. President, by asking a simple question:
how many people must die before the United States puts an end
to this slaughter? More than 10,000 have been killed. More
than 1,000 have died just since the Annan plan was announced
two months ago. How many more must be killed before we do
something meaningful to hasten the end of the Assad regime?
A few days ago, the Washington Post ran a story about the
parallels between the genocide in Bosnia during the 1990s,
and the killing that is taking place in Syria today. The Post
interviewed a 37-year old survivor of the Srebrenica
massacre, who said: ``It's bizarre how `never again' has come
to mean `again and again.' It's obvious that we live in a
world where Srebrenicas are still possible. What's happening
in Syria today is almost identical to what happened in Bosnia
two decades ago.''
That is sadly true. Shame on us if we fail to stop history
from repeating itself.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. 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. WHITEHOUSE. I ask permission to speak as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Gaspee Day
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, we are always wise in this Chamber
to reflect with reverence and gratitude on those who risked their lives
fighting to establish this great Republic. Today I would like to
recognize and celebrate the 240th anniversary of one of the earliest
acts of defiance against the British Crown in our American struggle for
independence.
Most Americans remember the Boston Tea Party as one of the major
events building up to the American Revolution. I see the pages in front
of me nodding knowledgeably: Yes, I do know about the Boston Tea Party.
We learned that story of the spirited Bostonians--literally spirited
Bostonians, I am told--clamoring onto the decks of the East India
Company's ships and dumping those tea bags into Boston Harbor to
protest British taxation without representation.
However, there is a milestone on the path to the Revolutionary War
that is too often overlooked, and that is the story of 60 or so brave
Rhode Islanders who challenged British rule more than
[[Page S3823]]
a year before the Tea Party in Boston. Today I rise to honor those
little-known heroes who risked their lives in defiance of oppression on
one dark night in Rhode Island 240 years ago.
In the year before the Revolutionary War, as tensions with the
American Colonies grew, King George III stationed revenue cutters,
armed customs patrol vessels, along the American coastline to prevent
smuggling and force the payment of taxes and impose the authority of
the Crown. One of the most notorious of these ships was stationed in
Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay. The HMS Gaspee and her captain, Lt
William Dudingston, were known for destroying fishing vessels, seizing
cargo, and flagging down ships only to harass, humiliate, and
interrogate the colonials.
Outraged by this egregious abuse of power, the merchants and
shipmasters of Rhode Island flooded civil and military officials with
complaints of the Gaspee, exhausting every diplomatic and legal means
to stir the British Crown to regulate Dudingston's conduct. Not only
did British officials ignore the Rhode Islanders' concerns, they
responded with open hostility. The commander of the local British
fleet, Adm John Montagu, warned that anyone who dared attempt acts of
resistance or retaliation against the Gaspee would be taken into
custody and hanged as a pirate, which brings us to June 9, 1772, 240
years ago this week.
Rhode Island ship captain Benjamin Lindsey was en route to Providence
from Newport in his ship, the Hannah, when he was accosted and ordered
to yield for inspection by the Gaspee. Captain Lindsey and his crew
ignored that command and raced northward up Narragansett Bay--despite
the warning shots fired by the Gaspee. As the Gaspee gave chase,
Captain Lindsey knew that his ship was lighter and drew less water, so
he sped north toward Pawtuxet Cove, toward the shallow waters off
Namquid Point. The Hannah shot over the shallows, but the heavier
Gaspee grounded and stuck firm.
The British ship and her crew were caught stranded in a falling tide
and would need to wait many hours for a rising tide to free the hulking
Gaspee. Spotting this irresistible opportunity, Captain Lindsey
proceeded on his course to Providence and enlisted the help of John
Brown, a respected merchant from one of the most prominent families in
the city. The two men rallied a group of Rhode Island patriots at
Sabin's Tavern in what is now the East Side of Providence. Together,
the group resolved to put an end to the Gaspee's reign over Rhode
Island waters.
That night, the men, led by Captain Lindsey and Abraham Whipple,
embarked in eight longboats quietly down Narragansett Bay. They
encircled the Gaspee and called on Lieutenant Dudingston to surrender
his ship. Dudingston refused and ordered his men to fire upon any who
tried to board. Refusing to yield to Dudingston's threats, the Rhode
Islanders forced their way onto the Gaspee's deck, wounding Dudingston
with a musket ball in the midst of the struggle. Right there in the
waters of Warwick, RI, the very first blood in the conflict that was to
become the American Revolution was drawn.
As the patriots commandeered the ship, Brown ordered one of his Rhode
Islanders, a physician named John Mawney, to head immediately to the
ship's cabin to tend to Dudingston's wound. In their moment of victory,
Brown and his men showed mercy to a man loathed for his cruelty, a man
who had threatened to open fire on them only moments before.
Allowing the Gaspee's crew time to collect their belongings, Brown
and Whipple took the captive Englishmen to the shore before returning
to the despised Gaspee to rid Narragansett Bay of her presence once and
for all. They set her afire. The blaze spread to the ship's powder
magazine, setting off explosions like fireworks, the resulting blast
echoing across the bay as airborne fragments of the ship splashed down
into the water.
The site of this historic victory is now named Gaspee Point in honor
of these audacious Rhode Islanders. So I come again to this Senate
floor to share this story and to commemorate the night of June 9, 1772,
and the names of Benjamin Lindsey, John Brown, and Abraham Whipple, a
man who went on to serve as a naval commander in the Revolutionary War.
I do know that these events and the patriots whose efforts allowed for
their success are not forgotten in my home State. Over the years, I
have enjoyed marching in the annual Gaspee Day Parade in Warwick, RI,
as every year we recall the courage and zeal of these men who fired the
first shots that drew the first blood in that great contest for the
freedoms we enjoy today. They set a precedent for future patriots to
follow--including those in Boston who more than a year later would have
their Tea Party.
But don't forget, as my home State prepares once again to celebrate
the anniversary of the Gaspee incident, that while Massachusetts
colonists threw tea bags off the deck of their British ship, we blew
ours up and shot its captain more than a year before. We are little in
Rhode Island, but, as Lieutenant Dudingston discovered, we pack a
punch.
I thank the Chair.
I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. COATS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Jobs
Mr. COATS. Madam President, I just returned from a week back home in
Indiana where I had the opportunity to meet with Hoosiers from all
parts of our State and on all kinds of different issues. One of the
common themes that came out of my week back home was the sentiment that
we just are not growing as fast as we need to as a nation in order to
get people back to work.
We held a job fair in Lafayette, IN. About 2,200 people showed up at
this job fair looking for work opportunities. While many walked away
with job offers in hand, clearly there are not enough viable
opportunities out there to get the people back to work who really want
to get back to work.
As I talked to businesspeople across the State, particularly with
small business owners, there was a common theme that came forward: they
are very reluctant to hire. It is not that their businesses aren't
improving. We have seen some significant improvement, particularly in
Indiana, with some drop in the unemployment rate. But they say it is
not specifically that they don't have the work, it is that they are
afraid to hire. They are afraid to hire new people because there is so
much uncertainty about what their taxes are going to be, what new
regulations are going to come forward, what new items are going to be
imposed upon them by the regulatory authorities in Washington, DC, and
by the health care reform bill which puts some new mandate on them.
To hire new employees, they say, we have to factor in all
of these various uncertainties in terms of our ability to
continue this business on a profitable basis. So whether it
is talking to farmers in southern Indiana who are upset about
the various proposed regulations affecting their businesses
or whether it is manufacturers in northwest Indiana or to
small business people across the State, I am hearing this
repetitive response--that Washington is trying to impose too
much, and there is too much uncertainty about their ability
to deal with the future and make decisions about hiring.
One of the latest things we have been hearing is that the EPA is
imposing significant new regulations relative to the Clean Air Act on
emissions that will affect Indiana utilities in a very significant way.
Another thing our businesspeople mentioned is they don't know what
their utility rates are going to be in the future because of these new
regulations coming out, and the utilities are basically telling them
they are going to have to pay more in the future because of these new
regulations.
I stand here as someone who voted for the Clean Air Act and supports
the Clean Air Act. We are all for clean air. However, there are those
of us who are trying to propose reasonable ways of achieving that goal
without negatively impacting our ability to hire people and the ability
of consumers to pay their utility bills and the ability of corporations
and businesses to have reasonable rates so they can compete
[[Page S3824]]
worldwide in producing products. They are not asking for a return to
dirty skies. They are not asking for a return to dirty water. They are
citizens of the United States. They breathe the same air we all
breathe. What they are saying, however, is that they need a solution to
the problem handled in a responsible, reasonable way, and an affordable
way that gives them time to implement these regulations. There has been
a lot of talk recently about two items the EPA has been imposing on the
power industry, and after visiting with Indiana utilities it is clear
the EPA timeline will result in more job loss and skyrocketing rates.
So, again, while we all want to support clean air, doing so in a way
that also keeps our people at work and keeps our utility rates at a
reasonable level is not being considered by the EPA.
I joined with a Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, to bring
forward legislation that meets the standards and meets the goals but
does so in a way that gives those power-producing utilities the
opportunity and time and cost opportunity to be able to accomplish
that. All we have done is just extend, in the case of one of the
regulations, for 2 years, and in the case of another, for 3 years to
give those utilities time to comply because the immediate compliance
requirements of the EPA on these utilities means they are going to have
to shut down the plants.
Some of them are in retrofit as we speak; however, that retrofit may
not meet the EPA deadline. Therefore, they are asking for the right to
get a waiver for an extension. That is what Manchin-Coats--Coats-
Manchin--does. It provides a reasonable way of achieving the goals of
clean air, but doing so in a way that doesn't have a devastating impact
on our States as these regulations would do.
One is the CSAPR Rule, which deals with sulfur and nitrogen oxide
emissions, and the other is called Utility MACT, which reduces mercury
emissions. In particular, there is a movement underway now to remove
mercury from these emissions. But if we don't do it in a responsible
way, the consequences of the EPA regulations coming down hard mean
closing up to six powerplants in Indiana and a skyrocketing of utility
rates.
There is a particular impact on small business. Small business, as we
know, provides most of the hiring and those small businesspeople don't
have the backroom support to comply with all the written and required
regulations that are being imposed on them. I have talked to so many
people who have said instead of being out on the showroom floor, being
out front at the counter, they have to be back half the time in their
business complying with regulations. A hospital administrator told me
of the 12,000 people under their employ, 6,000 provide care and 6,000
fill out paperwork for compliance with regulations, compliance with
reimbursement, administrative costs, many of which are imposed by
legislation or regulation, in most cases, that comes out of Washington.
So as we look at opportunities in the Senate to responsibly address
some of these issues, in this business it is always tempting to
politicize the process so that if someone doesn't immediately step up
and salute the latest EPA regulation, we are harming people here or
denying people there; that there are safety concerns, and we are
risking harm to people and so forth. All we are asking for is a
reasonable way to go forward to meet reasonable health and safety
standards. What we are saying is that the surge of regulations that is
pouring out of Washington upon our people and upon our businesses
within the last 2 or 3 years is staggering, and it is clearly holding
down growth. It is clearly holding down economic recovery. It is
clearly holding down the ability of businesses to hire and put more
people back to work.
So whether it is the Inhofe resolution of disapproval, which I
strongly support, or any of a number of other proposals, I am going to
support those. The blank check that has been given to regulatory
agencies, because it is not possible for this administration to pass it
through Congress as they did in 2009 and 2010 with a total majority no
longer exists. Therefore, the regulatory agencies appear to have been
given a blank check, and they have just run amok with regulations. So
as we look at these regulations, let's take a reasonable look in terms
of what we need to accomplish and in terms of providing for the health
and safety of our people and what the consequences are of trying to do
it in a way that jeopardizes our economic recovery and getting people
back to work.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, I rise today to speak on S. 3240, the
legislation to reauthorize the farm bill. As a former chairman and
former ranking member of the Agriculture Committee in the Senate, I
recognize how difficult it is to combine all of the diverse interests
into legislation that meets the needs of all crops, regions, and rural
and urban communities that the farm bill impacts. This bill before us
is no exception. I am disappointed that at this time I am not able to
support this bill because of its current form.
I wish to take a moment to commend the chairman and the ranking
member for their efforts in putting a farm bill together in the very
difficult budget time we are in. We all understand that agriculture has
to pay its fair share of deficit reduction. Frankly, for what it is
worth, it is going to be at the lead of the pack when it comes to
participating in deficit reduction. We are one of the first agencies
out of the box to make a commitment to do so.
That being said, it is my hope that at the end of the day, I will be
able to support this bill as we complete the legislative process.
However, as of today, the bill is filled with inequities and is
unbalanced. Contrary to statements made on this floor over the last
several days, the bill under consideration seeks to place a one-size-
fits-all policy on every region of the country. It works for some
regions, but it does not work for other regions. Because the
distribution of benefits is skewed to one particular region, it fails
the basic test of fairness that we all seek in legislation that moves
through this Chamber.
I believe the farm bill needs to provide an effective safety net for
farmers, ranchers, and rural communities in times of deep and sustained
price decline. It should also responsibly provide nutrition assistance
to those in need in all parts of the country, urban and rural alike.
The farm bill initially, and remains, focused on farmers and
ranchers, helping them manage a combination of challenges, much out of
their own individual control, such as unpredictable weather, variable
input costs, and market volatility. All combined determine profit or
loss in any given year. The 2008 farm bill continues today to provide a
strong safety net for producers, and any follow-on legislation must
adhere to and honor the same commitment we made to our farmers and
ranchers across America 4 years ago.
At the same time, I believe the agriculture sector can contribute to
deficit reduction, and the bill before us provides savings and
mandatory spending programs. The key, though, is to do this in an
equitable and fair manner throughout all titles and areas of the bill.
The nutrition benefits in this bill, which are already inflated by the
President's failed stimulus package, are reduced by only one-half of 1
percent, while the commodity title is cut by roughly 15 percent. By
this account, it is clear that the Agriculture Committee carefully
determined how best to contribute to deficit reduction to ensure an
undue burden was not placed on those truly in need.
This farm bill will be my fourth as a Member of Congress, and each
has had its own unique challenges and opportunities. Balancing the
needs and interests of all agriculture requires patience and an open
ear. It is very important that we recognize the unique differences
between commodities as well as different parts of the country.
As agricultural markets become more complex, we must be mindful that
a one-size-fits-all program no longer works for U.S. agriculture.
Regions are much more diverse than they ever were, and we need to
recognize this diversity by providing producers with different options
that best match their cropping and growing decisions.
My greatest concern with this bill is that the commodity title
redistributes resources from one region to another not based on market
forces or cropping decisions, but based on how the underlying program--
the Agriculture Risk Coverage Program--was designed.
[[Page S3825]]
After deducting a share for deficit reduction, certain commodities
receive more resources than others, and crops such as peanuts and rice
are left without any safety net whatsoever.
There are many reports illustrating the lopsidedness of this bill.
Among the biggest losers in budget baseline are wheat, barley, grain,
grain sorghum, rice, cotton, and peanuts. We should not convince
ourselves that this is not going to have an enormous negative
consequence for many regions of the country. Put simply, by making the
bill too rich for a few at the expense of many it lacks balance.
Some will say planting shifts are responsible for much of the change
in the budget baseline, and that is partly true. But it does not take
away the injury that would be inflicted on regions of the country nor
does it tell the whole story. By squeezing all crops into a program
specially designed for one or two crops, this bill will force many
growers to switch to those crops in order to have an effective safety
net. This is the very planting distortion caused by farm policy that we
seek to avoid in any farm bill.
But there is another very serious problem with this bill: It is not
going to be there when farmers really need it. Whether offered on an
on-farm or area-wide basis, offering farmers a narrow 10-percent band
of revenue protection will not provide a safety net if crop prices
collapse--and we know they will. Under this bill, a farmer has an 11-
percent deductible, then the next 10 percent of losses is covered, but
then farmers are left totally exposed to a plunge in crop prices all
the way down to the loan rate. If that happens, Congress will be asked
to pass ad hoc disaster programs again. We should seek to avoid such
disaster packages, and farm bills give us the opportunity to do that,
not create ad hoc disaster opportunities. Crop insurance can cover the
production side of the risk if you can afford to buy higher coverage,
but it does not cover year-on-year low prices. Even the 10-percent
revenue band the bill does cover has problems. Because the revenue
guarantee is based on the previous 5 years' price and production, the
guarantee is only as good as those previous 5 years. If they were bad
or they become bad, the guarantee is also bad. This is not an effective
safety net.
Just last week, my staff and I traveled throughout south Georgia, and
we witnessed crop damages and in some cases total losses of crops which
were the result of a hailstorm that occurred across a 40-mile stretch
of Georgia. It is estimated that well over 10,000 acres have been
damaged or totally lost. I do not see how a small band of revenue
protection, provided for in this bill, that is limited to $50,000, is
helpful to some farmers who lost over $1 million in one field. The ARC
proposal in this bill is simply not an effective safety net.
Members have come to the floor championing the commodity and crop
insurance programs included in the bill, as well as stating that we
were solving the problem with commodity programs by eliminating direct
payments. I have seen quotes in the press criticizing southern
commodities, stating we are too closely tied to direct payments.
Well, let me be very clear. I have never been a fan of direct
payments, and back in 1996, as a Member of the House, I supported a
much different proposal. Let me also state clearly that from my point
of view, direct payments were always difficult to defend and we needed
to find a different way to provide a safety net, while doing it in a
fiscally responsible way. Southern growers have not asked for direct
payments at any time during the current discussions. My criticism stems
entirely from the fact that this farm bill shoehorns all producers into
a one-size-fits-all policy. Producer choice based on a producer's
inherent risk is the better course to follow.
The University of Georgia's National Center for Peanut
Competitiveness evaluated the ARC Program, which is the fundamental
safety net that is provided for in this farm bill, and they determined
that it is of little utility to peanut producers. The center has a
database of 22 representative farms spread throughout Oklahoma, New
Mexico, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina,
North Carolina, and Virginia. Based on the analysis provided, this farm
bill does not provide the same level of protection as for midwestern
growers who will be growing corn and soybeans. That is a fact.
I want to work with the chair and ranking member with respect to
trying to make the bill more balanced and more equitable, but, frankly,
all of our offers to this point in time have been rejected. Peanut
producers have offered no proposal that includes direct payments, yet
they are labeled as ``unwilling to change from the status quo.'' The
ARC Program is not new; it is a derivative of a program in the 2008
farm bill that experienced low participation. In fact, when producers
had a choice, they chose something other than this type of program.
In spite of all this, I should point out that this bill includes a
new program for cotton that complies with our international commitments
and will show our trading partners that we will abide by our
international agreements.
As chairman and ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, I
committed to finding a solution to the WTO Brazil case. I authored
legislation in 2005 and again in 2008 that made significant changes in
the cotton and export programs to bring us into compliance with our
international commitments. We eliminated the Step 2 program, we
reformed the cotton marketing loan program, and reduced the cotton
countercyclical program unilaterally and in good faith.
We find ourselves again reforming the cotton safety net with what is
called the Stacked Income Protection Plan for users of upland cotton,
or the STAX program. The program in this bill is a significant
departure from what is available to other covered commodities and puts
us down the path of resolving the WTO dispute with Brazil. My hope now
is that our Brazilian friends engage in a real and meaningful way and
we can put this issue behind us.
At the end of the day, let's remember, the reason we are here is to
represent the hard-working men and women who work the land each day to
provide the highest quality of agricultural products in the world. I
believe we have the opportunity to pass a bill that can be equal to
their commitment in providing food, feed, and fiber that allow us to
continue to be the greatest producer on the Earth.
Right now, this bill lacks the commitment and strength of those it
was designed to support. I do not intend to impede the movement of the
farm bill that, if repaired through an open amendment process--of which
we have been assured at this point--has the potential of providing for
all of America.
Farm bills are complex. They always consume a lot of floor time. But
the farm policy is also very important. I look forward to the
forthcoming debate over the next several days and weeks and, at the end
of the day, to hopefully having a true, meaningful, and balanced farm
bill that will provide producers an equitable opportunity of a safety
net and at the same time continue to provide the world with the safest,
most productive, and highest quality agricultural products there are
today.
With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Majority Control of Senate Agenda
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, earlier today the majority leader and the
majority whip came to the floor to decry and denounce, attack
Republicans for what appeared to be literally everything bad that has
happened in the world in the last several years, to the point you have
to ask yourself, do they really believe what they are saying? They came
down here to talk about how Republicans are blocking this, are blocking
that.
I think it is important to point out that now for the past 6 years,
the Democrats have been the majority party in the U.S. Senate. In fact,
for 2 of those years, they had a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in
the Senate. Filibuster proof--literally, they could do anything they
wanted to in the Senate. They had a majority in the House of
Representatives, and, of course, they got the Presidency.
If you look at the volume of the legislation that was produced at the
time, most of the things that were accomplished with the 60-vote,
filibuster-proof majority were things the American people disagreed
with--I think as
[[Page S3826]]
evidenced now by what you see in terms of public opinion polling about
the health care bill. Most people disagree with the individual mandate
that was included in that legislation and disagree generally with many
of the provisions in the bill.
But my point very simply is, for a period of time, the Democrats
literally had the run of the tables here in Washington, DC, as we know
it--a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in the Senate, a majority in
the House of Representatives, and the Presidency--yet they come down
and decry Republicans as being responsible for all the things that have
or have not happened here in the Senate.
One of the things they point out is that there is this intent by
Republicans to continue to filibuster legislation. I would argue that
nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, everybody knows that
in the Senate the majority leader is the person who is first to be
recognized on the Senate floor, which allows him to use that power to
offer a series of Democratic amendments to pending legislation in a way
that prevents Republicans from offering their own ideas. It is called
filling the tree--sort of a term of art that is used around here in the
Senate. But filling the tree essentially is what the Democratic
majority leader has the opportunity to do because he has the power of
recognition and he can fill the amendment tree and prevent the
Republican amendments from being offered and voted on.
Now, interestingly enough, Majority Leader Reid once insisted that
this practice ``runs against the basic nature of the Senate.'' Let me
repeat that. Majority Leader Reid once insisted that filling the
amendment tree ``runs against the basic nature of the Senate.'' But by
the way the Senate operates today, it is pretty clear that he has
abandoned that assessment.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the CRS, Majority
Leader Reid has employed this tactic a record 59 times. He has used it
to block minority input into legislation 50 percent more often than the
past six majority leaders combined. I think that is worth repeating.
This majority leader has used the filling-of-the-tree procedure 50
percent more often than the past six majority leaders combined. So the
only option the minority is left with under that scenario is to
basically try to get votes on amendments and to work with the majority,
in which case the majority says: No, we are not going to give you any
amendments; we have filled the tree. So a cloture motion is filed, and
we end up having a vote on cloture.
What we have seen repeatedly now is the Senate sort of break down
into this state of dysfunction simply because the majority does not
want to make tough votes on amendments. We have seen this over and over
and over again. As I say, it is historic and unprecedented in terms of
the number of times it has occurred in the U.S Senate.
I would also suggest that the real reason, probably, that we do not
have votes on amendments and that the filling of the tree is used
repeatedly is because Members on the other side do not want to make the
hard decisions, do not want to cast the tough votes. I think that is
evidenced as well by the fact that for 3 years in a row now, we have
not had a budget in the Senate.
If there was a real interest in solving problems, you would think the
majority--again, which has the responsibility to put a budget on the
floor--would bring a budget to the floor that would set a direction for
the future of this country and ask the Members of the Senate to vote on
it, to vote on amendments, to have an opportunity to say to the
American people: This is how we would lead the country. That has not
happened now for over 1,100 days, for the past 3 years.
Now, Republicans are ready and willing to work with the majority, as
we have evidenced on many occasions. In fact, we are going to debate,
this next week, farm bill legislation--something for which there is
bipartisan support in the Senate.
I would argue that there are many things we would like to see done.
We would love to have an opportunity to vote on extending the tax rates
that are in effect today--which is something that even President
Clinton in the last few days has come out in support of--because we
know--everybody here knows--we are facing this fiscal cliff. It could
be very dangerous to our economy if steps are not taken to prevent and
avoid that. And we would be more than willing to work with the majority
on extending the tax rates to give some certainty to our job creators
and our small businesses.
We would also like to work with them on the sequester that is going
to happen at the end of the year, in redistributing those cuts in a way
that does not completely decimate our national security budget.
There are lots of things the Republicans are ready to work on with
our colleagues on the other side when it comes to trying to grow the
economy and create jobs. But, frankly, we believe it is important that
we at least have an opportunity to get amendments debated and voted on.
That simply has not happened, as I pointed out by the number of times
the majority leader has filled the tree.
So I am not suggesting there is not plenty of blame to go around in
Washington for the state of the situation we are in. All I am simply
saying is that for the majority leader to come down here and suggest
that somehow Republicans are responsible for gridlock here in the U.S.
Senate is a complete denial of reality and a denial of the facts.
As I said before, they had a period here for a few years where they
had the complete run of the place. They had a 60-vote, filibuster-proof
majority in the Senate, a majority in the House of Representatives, and
the Presidency, enabling you to do literally anything you wanted to do.
They still have the majority in the U.S. Senate, the ability to control
the agenda and to determine what does and does not come to the floor,
what amendments are allowed, and the use of the filling of the tree in
an unprecedented way. It is pretty clear to me that to suggest for a
moment it is Republicans who are attempting to slow things down around
here or keep the majority from working its will is completely contrary
to the facts and the reality, as I think most Senators--all Senators, I
think--know.
I know my colleague from Wyoming is someone who is somewhat new here,
but he has been here long enough now to have seen many times where the
majority has prevented the minority from actually offering amendments,
getting votes on amendments on the floor of the Senate. I would just
suggest to him and allow him to make some observations with regard to
this subject as well because it strikes me, at least, that he and I
both--and many of our colleagues--are very interested in working with
the majority on things that would actually put people back to work, get
our economy growing again.
We would love to have that opportunity.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I would just like to comment on that.
Because it does not matter how long one is here, all we need do is pick
up the newspaper or pick up the National Journal. I agree with my
colleague from South Dakota.
At the beginning of this year, the National Journal, big article,
picture of the majority leader, and the headline is: ``Reid's New
Electoral Strategy.'' ``Forget passing bills'' is the subheadline.
``Forget passing bills. The Democrats just want to play the blame game
in 2012.''
That is exactly what we saw this morning on the floor of the Senate.
This is not some piece of fiction. This is something that actually the
majority leader told 40 Democrats from the House about his goal, his
intentions for the 2012 year in Congress. It goes on to say:
Working with the White House, Senate Democrats are
applauding a 2012 floor agenda driven by Obama's reelection
campaign. . . .
It goes on.
Senate floor action will be planned less to make law--
We have 8.2 percent unemployment, and this party admits--the leader
admits in this piece the Senate action will be planned less to make
law--
than to buttress Obama's charge that Republicans are
obstructing measures. . . .
That is what their goal is? That is a year's plan, as outlined to
Democrats in the House from the majority leader.
It goes on to say:
. . . Democrats will push legislation that polls well and
dovetails with Obama's campaign. . . .
[[Page S3827]]
With 8.2 percent unemployment, that is not polling so well. With the
New York Times reporting today that over two-thirds of Americans want
to find that the health care law is unconstitutional--New York Times,
two-thirds of Americans, unconstitutional health care law. That is what
the people are saying.
Nothing this President and this administration and the Democrats are
doing is polling very well. We ought to look back at the history of
this great institution. The Senate is a unique legislative institution.
No matter who the majority is, it is designed to guarantee the minority
party, and therefore a large block of Americans whom it represents,
that that party has a voice.
Traditionally, this body functions well when the majority party works
to find consensus with the minority party on the process and the
substance of legislation--consultation, compromise, and both parties
working together. Historically, that has been the rule, not the
exception, as we have seen in recent years.
I sit here and look at the seat, the empty seat a couple rows ahead
of me and off to the other side of the aisle where Robert Byrd sat.
Senator Byrd understood the importance of allowing for a full debate
and amendment process in order to preserve the Senate as a unique
institution in our democracy--``the one place in the whole government
where the minority is guaranteed a public airing of its views.'' The
Senate, he taught, ``was intended to be a forum for open and free
debate and for the protection of political minorities.'' Indeed, ``as
long as the Senate retains the power to amend and the power of
unlimited debate, the liberties of the people will remain secure.''
I would say allowing the minority to debate and amend legislation has
given way to what we see now as Democrat's election-year political
strategy of blaming Republicans as obstructionists. The minority and
the majority need to work together. Majority Leader Reid has done all
these things in terms of the strategy and the blaming by preventing
Republicans from amending pending legislation, ending debate before it
starts, and bypassing the committee process.
He has made a habit of squelching the voice of the minority by
curtailing its ability to amend legislation. The majority leader is
always the first to be recognized on the Senate floor. He can use that
power to offer a series of Democratic amendments to pending legislation
in a way that prevents Republicans from offering any of their ideas. It
is called filling the tree.
How often does it happen? Let's think first about the history. The
majority leader once insisted that this practice of filling the tree,
he said, ``runs against the basic nature of the Senate.'' By the way
the Senate operates today, however, it is clear he has abandoned that
previous assessment.
According to the Congressional Research Service, Majority Leader Reid
has employed this tactic a record 59 times. He has used it to block
minority input in legislation 50 percent more often than the past five
majority leaders combined. The minority's only option, under these
circumstances, is to oppose ending debate on legislation known as
invoking cloture in order to convince the majority to allow it to offer
amendments to legislation and thereby represent the interests of their
constituents.
This is a very bad practice. When one takes a look at Congress after
Congress, whether it was George Mitchell, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Tom
Daschle, Bill Frist, combined, here we have Senator Reid 50 percent
more than all the others combined.
So here we are. We have come to the floor of the Senate to respond to
what we heard from the majority leader this morning about
obstructionism, and what do we see? It is just a page from the majority
leader's playbook of the electoral strategy for 2012 from the leader of
the majority. Forget passing bills, the Democrats just want to play the
blame game in 2012. That is exactly what we saw today.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
The Highway Bill
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, actually, I am not here to play the
blame game. I am here to talk about a place where we in the Senate have
found real bipartisan consensus. It is an issue that is critical to us
in the State of New Hampshire and to all the Senators because, in 23
days, our country's surface transportation programs are going to shut
down unless Congress can come to an agreement on critical legislation.
Nearly 3 months ago, 74 Senators voted to pass a measure that would
reauthorize these programs through the end of fiscal year 2013,
providing much needed certainty to our States and to private industry.
In this Chamber, Senators from vastly different ideologies were able to
lay aside those differences and come up with bipartisan ways to pay for
this bill, to streamline Federal programs, and to make our
transportation investments more efficient, so we spend less on
overhead, more on roads and bridges and other transportation projects.
This process was not easy, as everyone remembers. It required
compromise from both sides to ensure that we could put together
legislation that would bring America's transportation policies into the
21st century. But if Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma, the ranking member on
the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Barbara Boxer, the
chair of that committee, can come together and figure out how to put
together a transportation bill, there is no reason why our adjoining
body over in the House cannot do the same thing.
I have been very disturbed by recent news that the House is less
interested in finishing this bill than in approving a host of unrelated
policies. There is a time and a place for us to consider whether some
of the amendments that have been proposed on the Transportation bill in
the House, such as whether coal ash should be regulated as a hazardous
material, but the Transportation bill is not one of those places.
We need to focus on policies that will encourage the types of
investment in our highways, in our railroads, in our bridges that put
Americans back to work and spur economic growth. We just heard the
unemployment rate went up slightly for the last month. We have
legislation pending that came out of the Senate that would put people
back to work.
Every billion dollars we spend in transportation funding puts 28,000
people to work, and we have the House fiddling while construction
workers all over this country are out of work. The conference committee
needs to focus on transportation policies that will reduce congestion,
that will create jobs, and that unleash economic development.
We have a project similar to that in New Hampshire. It is one of our
most important roads. It is the corridor that goes from our largest
city of Manchester down to the border with Massachusetts. It has too
much traffic on it today. It is a safety concern. We need to finish
this road. We are being held up from doing that because of the failure
of the House to be willing to go along with what the Senate did and
reach agreement.
Our Department of Transportation in New Hampshire has said that work
on just a single portion of this highway, Interstate 93, will put to
work 369 people in the construction industry, which is still
struggling. That is the industry in this country that still has the
biggest impact from this recession. Last year in Nashua and Portsmouth,
NH, construction employment declined by 7 percent. Job creation in that
industry remains stagnant in New Hampshire and nationwide and we need
this legislation to get these folks back to work.
It is not only construction jobs that depend on Federal investments
in transportation; it is our economy as a whole. The deteriorating
condition of America's infrastructure, its roads, its railroads, its
bridges, costs businesses more than $100 billion a year in lost
productivity, and this is a bill that a broad coalition of people are
behind. Both the AFL CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce agree that we
need transportation legislation.
Despite the importance of this spending to American workers and
businesses today, the House plans to vote on a motion to cut Federal
transportation investment by one-third. The Federal Highway
Administration found that cutting funding so severely would put 2,000
people in New Hampshire alone out of work, one-half million people in
the country out of work.
[[Page S3828]]
This is a time when we should be creating jobs, not destroying them.
Cutting funding at this time would be so shortsighted. Brazil, China,
and India are all spending about 9 percent of their GDP per year on
infrastructure, roads, bridges, public transportation. What we are
spending in the United States is roughly 2 percent. That is half of
what we were spending in the 1960s when there was real bipartisan
support for policies from both President Kennedy and President Dwight
Eisenhower to invest in projects such as our Interstate Highway System.
Both Republicans and Democrats agree that investment in our
Interstate Highway System was one of the best decisions in our Nation's
history. Members of both parties need to come together as we have for
decades and focus on reasonable bipartisan policies that will end the
uncertainty that States and private industry are facing when it comes
to our transportation legislation.
On June 30, it will have been 1,000 days since our last Federal
Transportation bill expired. Congress needs to come together now and
pass a transportation reauthorization bill before we get to the end of
those 1,000 days.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the farm
bill which is now before the Senate. As a member of the Senate
Agriculture Committee, I worked, together with my fellow committee
members, on a bipartisan basis to put forward what we believe is a
sound farm bill for this country. We passed the bill out of committee
on a strong bipartisan vote, 16 to 5. So it comes to the Senate floor
for deliberation. The bill is entitled ``The Agriculture, Reform, Food
and Jobs Act of 2012.''
I would like to begin with just a simple question. Why is the farm
bill so important? Why is the farm bill so important? I think the first
chart I have sums it up. This is the most important point I will make
today. I am going to begin and I am going to conclude my comments with
it as well. U.S. farmers and ranchers provide the highest quality,
lowest cost food supply in the world. Our farmers and ranchers today
provide the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the world.
Not only do they provide the highest quality, lowest cost food supply
in the world, but in the history of the world. That is vitally
important to every single American. So when we pass a farm policy that
supports our network of farmers and ranchers throughout this great
country, we are doing something that makes a fundamental difference
every day for every American and for millions of people beyond our
borders.
There are other aspects to the farm bill that are very important as
well. For example, we have a tremendous number of jobs in farming and
ranching across this country--every State in this country, throughout
our heartland and beyond. There are not just direct jobs in farming and
ranching but there are indirect jobs, from food processing to retail,
to transportation, to marketing--you name it. We could say it is an
incredible jobs bill, which it is. There is no question about it. When
we provide a good, sound, solid farm program for our farmers and
ranchers, we are also very much passing a jobs bill as well.
We can also talk about it in terms of a favorable balance of trade.
The United States has a deficit in its trade balance, but agriculture
has a positive balance of trade. We export millions in food products
all over the world to feed hungry people, and it generates a positive
return for this country in a big way.
We can talk about it in terms of national security. Think about how
important good farm policy is for national security. We produce not
only the food we need, but far more than the food we need for our
citizens, we provide food for many citizens in other countries as well.
Think about the national security implications if we had to depend on
other countries for our food supply--maybe even countries that don't
necessarily share our interests or values, which is currently the case
with energy. We certainly don't want to be in that situation when it
comes to feeding our people. So it is truly an issue of national
security. We want to be in the position to make sure we have farmers
and ranchers who will supply not only the food we need in this country
but food that people consume in many countries throughout the world.
For all those reasons this is an incredibly important bill. It is not
just incredibly important to farmers and ranchers, it is incredibly
important for every single one of us--for all those reasons and more.
The second point I want to make is this farm bill is cost-effective.
It is not only cost-effective, but we provide real savings to help to
reduce the deficit and the debt. It provides strong support to our
farmers and ranchers, but it does it the right way. It does it in a way
where we provide savings that will go to reduce the deficit and debt.
Our farmers and ranchers are stepping up and not only doing an amazing
job for this country in terms of what they do in food supply and job
creation, but they are helping meet the challenge of our deficit and
debt as well.
The second chart is an example of what I am talking about in terms of
the farm program being cost-effective. I will use this and several
other charts to go into the actual numbers to show that the farm
program--particularly this bill we have crafted--is not only cost-
effective, but it provides real savings as well. At the same time, it
provides enhanced support for our farmers and ranchers throughout the
country.
Looking at the chart, if you think of the total Federal budget as
this cornfield, the portion that goes to the farm bill would be similar
to this ear of corn out of the cornfield. If you think of the total
cornfield as the Federal budget, the farm bill would be about one ear
of corn. The portion of the farm bill that goes to farmers and ranchers
to support what they do would be one kernel of corn out of the entire
cornfield. To put those numbers into perspective--and these are
analyzed numbers--you are talking about Federal spending of about $3.7
trillion, in that range. You are talking about a farm bill that, on an
annualized basis, is about $100 billion. So it is $100 billion out of
$3.7 trillion. Then if you talk about the portion that actually goes to
support farmers and ranchers and support that network, you are talking
about less than $20 billion out of $3.7 trillion. That is why I use
this frame of reference.
If we go to the next chart, we will go into some of the numbers and
how that funding is broken out in the farm bill itself. This pie chart
shows the CBO scoring. Of course with any legislation you need the CBO
scoring that shows the actual cost. We try to do that in a consistent
way across all of the legislation we pass. CBO uses a 10-year scoring
period. On that basis, this entire pie, the farm program score, over a
10-year period is $960 billion. Of that, almost $800 billion is
nutrition programs. Almost 80 percent goes to nutrition. I mean by
that, primarily SNAP, nutritional assistance payments, or food stamps.
So nutrition programs comprise 80 percent of the total cost in the farm
bill.
Only about 20 percent actually goes for farming and ranching, for
farm programs, and for conservation. So in the scoring, that is only
about $200 billion. We know the bill is not a 10-year bill, it is a 5-
year bill. So the actual cost is $480 billion, or half of the score.
That means approximately $400 billion goes for nutrition programs, food
stamps, and so forth; and less than $100 billion goes for farm programs
and conservation programs. So we are talking about an annual cost of
this farm program--a program that supports farmers and ranchers who
feed this country and much of the world--of about $20 billion--actually
less.
Let's go to the next chart on how the program actually provides
savings, how farmers and ranchers are providing real savings for
deficit reduction in this country. This bill saves more than $23
billion--$23.6 billion is the savings generated by this farm bill; $15
billion comes from the farm programs themselves; $6 billion comes from
conservation programs; only about $4 billion comes out of nutrition
programs. So 80 percent of the cost in the bill is nutrition programs,
which is $400 billion over 5 years. Only $4 billion comes out of the
nutrition programs; close to $20 billion comes out of the agriculture
portion of the bill. Going back to my prior chart, if you go back to
the crop insurance provisions and commodity,
[[Page S3829]]
which comprise the farm support network, that is about $150 billion in
the CBO scoring. Remember, I said $15 billion comes out of that $150
billion. My point is that 10-percent reduction. So farmers and ranchers
are stepping up in the farm bill and saying, OK, we are going to help
meet the deficit and the debt challenge. They are, in essence, taking
10 percent less.
Think about that, if throughout all aspects of the Federal budget
everybody stepped up the way farmers and ranchers are in this
legislation and said, OK, here is a 10-percent reduction we are going
to take to help get the deficit under control and the debt under
control. My point is, very clearly, in this legislation we have real
savings, and that savings is being provided by our farmers and
ranchers.
At the same time--this is my third point, and it is very important--
this farm bill provides the kinds of support our farmers and ranchers
need by providing the risk management tools our farmers need. This farm
bill provides strong support for our farmers and ranchers, and it does
it the right way. It does it right, with sound risk management tools.
What are those risk management tools? I have them here on the chart. It
enhances crop insurance. Second, a new Agriculture Risk Coverage--or
ARC--Program. It includes also reauthorization of the no-net-cost sugar
program. It improves and extends the livestock disaster assistance
program. These are the kinds of risk management tools our farmers and
ranchers have asked for. They are cost-effective and a market-based
approach. They provide the sound, solid safety net our farmers and
producers need to continue to produce the food supply for this country.
I will go into more detail on the next chart on crop insurance. As I
travel around the State, and as myself and others who are members of
the Ag Committee travel the country, one thing our farmers and ranchers
say to us over and over again is that they want enhancements to crop
insurance. We worked on the safety net for our farmers, and as we
worked on the tools for them, they said the heart of the farm bill
needs to be enhanced crop insurance. That is exactly what we have done
with this legislation. That is the heart of the bill.
Enhanced crop insurance involves a number of things. First, farmers
can buy individual crop insurance, and do buy it, at whatever level
they deem appropriate. They look at their farm operation and decide how
much crop insurance they are going to buy to cover that farm operation.
But as they insure at higher levels, the cost to buy that insurance
gets more and more expensive. One of the things we tried to do in terms
of enhancing crop insurance is figure out how we can help insure at a
higher level at an affordable price. That is one of the new
innovations. It is called the supplemental coverage option, or SCO. It
enables farmers to insure or cover their farming operation at a higher
level, but still at an affordable price.
The way it works is, the farmer buys his normal, individual, crop
insurance that he would normally purchase. But then, in addition, on a
countywide basis, he can buy supplemental coverage, with the
supplemental coverage option, on top of his existing insurance. If he
typically insures up to, say, 60, 65, or maybe a 70-percent level, he
can buy additional insurance on top of his regular policy at a
reasonable premium. His regular policy is an individual, farm-based
policy, and this is a county-based policy that provides additional
coverage at a reduced rate--again, management tools on a market-based
approach to cover their farming operation.
The second innovation on the next chart is a program called
Agriculture Risk Coverage, or ARC. Very often, farmers--obviously, one
of the challenges they face is due to weather. When they face weather
challenges, oftentimes we can get in a wet cycle or a dry cycle. So the
problem they have with weather may not be limited to one year. You may
have a number of years where they face real weather challenges.
In addition, what may happen is that it may trigger losses in their
farming operation that are not severe enough to trigger their regular
crop insurance, but still cause them losses. You can have repetitive or
shallow losses. Over time, those can make an incredible difference in
terms of farmers being able to continue in farming and continue their
operation. We add shallow loss coverage, or the agriculture risk
coverage, to help them protect against these repetitive losses, which
they often face due to weather conditions. That is the agriculture risk
coverage. It covers between 11 and 21 percent of historical revenue.
How do you calculate that percentage? That is a 5-year average--the
last 5-year average--based on price and yield, the revenue they
generate on their farming operation. You take out the high year and the
low year, and you average the other three. The way it works is, when
you have a year where the farmer's crop insurance may not trigger, they
still have help when they have a loss, but a loss that may not trigger
on their crop insurance. In other cases, it works with their crop
insurance to make sure they are adequately covered so they can continue
their farming operation. Again, an enhanced risk management tool, cost-
effective, focused on a market-based approach to make sure our farmers
and ranchers have the coverage they need to continue their operation.
One other point I want to make in wrapping up is that this bill also
continues strong support for agricultural research. Agricultural
research is making a tremendous difference for our farmers in terms of
what they are doing to increase productivity. Obviously, we all know
technology has done amazing things to help productivity. But at the
same time, agricultural research has made an incredible difference in
not only food production--productivity when it comes to food
production--but energy production as well.
So that is it. That is how this legislation works. It provides strong
support to our farmers and ranchers. It provides that support on a
cost-effective basis. The bill emphasizes a market-based approach,
focused on crop insurance, which is exactly what producers have told us
they want. At the same time, this legislation provides real savings--
$23.6 billion--to help reduce the Federal deficit and the debt. It is
bipartisan, and it received strong committee support.
I know some of our southern friends are still looking for more help
with price protection, and we are working with them. It is likely the
House Agriculture Committee will seek to do more in that area as well.
But this is legislation that we need to move forward. This is
legislation that supports our farmers and our ranchers the right way as
they continue to provide--and I am going to go back to my very first
chart--support our farmers and ranchers as they provide the highest
quality and the lowest cost food supply for every single American.
As I said, this is where I started my comments, and this is where I
will conclude. When we are talking about a farm bill, we are talking
about something that is important to every single American--every
single American. We do it the right way here, and I ask all of my
fellow Senators on both sides of the aisle--we worked together in a
great bipartisan way in the committee--to work together in a great
bipartisan way on the Senate floor and pass this bill.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and 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. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Health Care Cost Reduction Act of 2012
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today the House of Representatives will
vote on the Health Care Cost Reduction Act of 2012. I want to say a few
words about that bill, which repeals two of the more counterproductive
of the many components of the President's health care law.
Specifically, it repeals the restrictions on the use of FSAs and HSAs
in the purchase of over-the-counter medications, as well as the medical
device tax.
I want to thank my colleagues in the House for advancing this
legislation. Repeal of the onerous OTC restrictions and the device tax
are priorities of
[[Page S3830]]
mine as well. I have introduced legislation that specifically repeals
the medical device tax, and my bill--the Family and Retirement Health
Investment Act--includes the repeal of the limitations on the purchase
of over-the-counter medication.
Others in the Senate, including my friend and colleague Senator
Hutchison, have also been working to repeal the OTC restrictions. My
friends from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Senators Brown and Toomey,
have been strong advocates for repeal of the medical device tax. I
appreciate working with them and all Members who are committed to the
repeal of the President's health care law.
I appreciate the hard work of Chairman Camp and Speaker Boehner in
moving the Health Care Cost Reduction Act through committee and onto
the floor. I also want to thank, in particular, my friend Congressman
Erik Paulsen of Minnesota for his hard work. We have partnered on both
the OTC repeal and the medical device repeal, and he has been tireless
in fighting not only for his constituents but for all Americans who are
burdened by these misguided policies.
Despite some weak protestations to the contrary from the White House,
neither of these provisions serve any health policy purpose. They exist
for one reason: to bankroll the $2.6 trillion in new spending that is
the real soul of ObamaCare. There is no good that can come of
ObamaCare. The bad and ugly are plenty, however.
The restriction on the purchase of over-the-counter medications--what
some have called a medicine cabinet tax--inconveniences patients and
busy families, increases burdens on primary care providers, reduces
patient choice, and may actually increase health care utilization and
spending. So much for bending the cost curve down.
The medical device tax, in addition to harming patients, is a job
killer at a time when our country needs all the good jobs it can get.
Together, they are also clear violations of the President's pledge not
to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.
With respect to the restrictions on the purchase of over-the-counter
medications, ObamaCare now requires the holders of health savings
accounts and flexible spending arrangements to obtain a physician's
prescription before using those accounts to purchase over-the-counter
medicine. In some respects, this policy, more than any
other, represents the incredible arrogance and wrongheadedness of the
President's signature domestic achievement.
When President Obama and his allies touted the virtues of this law,
they mentioned increased access and lower costs. Yet to pay for the
law's coverage expansions, they included this medicine cabinet tax,
which will do nothing but burden medical providers, undermine access to
health care, and increase costs for patients and businesses.
It is worth noting that in yesterday's Statement of Administration
Policy announcing President Obama's opposition to the House bill, they
did not even describe this provision in detail, much less defend it. It
seems clear to me the administration is embarrassed by this tax on
patients, and they should be.
A study from the Consumer Health Products Association determined that
10 percent of office visits are for minor ailments, and 40 million
medical appointments are avoided annually through the self-care enabled
by over-the-counter drugs.
According to a study by Booz & Company, the availability of these
over-the-counter medications saves $102 billion annually in clinical
and drug costs. Yet ObamaCare deliberately restricts their
availability.
With respect to the medical device tax, we all know how bad this tax
policy is. I am sure the President knows how bad this policy is as
well, but he and his allies continue to defend it. Beginning next year,
ObamaCare imposes a tax on the sales of medical device makers--not the
profits, the sales.
With this excise tax, even unprofitable firms will be responsible for
a 2.30-percent tax on sales of their devices. It is difficult to
overstate the damage to patients and our economy this tax will wreak.
According to one analysis, this ObamaCare tax will kill between
14,000 and 47,000 jobs. We wonder why we are having trouble with
unemployment. According to another analysis by Benjamin Zycher, it will
reduce research and development by $2 billion a year. The resulting
collapse in innovation will undermine care for not only the elderly but
all patients. Zycher has determined that the effect of this tax will be
1 million life-years lost annually--one million life-years lost
annually.
Between 1980 and 2000, new diagnostic and treatment tools, such as
improved scanners, catheters and tools for minimally invasive surgery,
helped increase life expectancy by more than 3 years. Medical devices
helped to slash the death rate from heart disease by a stunning 50
percent and cut the death rate from stroke by 30 percent.
From 1980 to 2000 the medical device industry was responsible for a
4-percent increase in U.S. life expectancy, a 16-percent decrease in
mortality rates, and an astounding 25-percent decline in elderly
disability rates, according to a study by MEDTAP International.
Why on Earth would anyone vote for a targeted tax on an industry that
provides such enormous value and security to patients?
For those who vote against repealing this tax today and stand against
its repeal in the Senate, it is worth recalling last week's jobs
report. In the month of May, our economy created only 69,000 new jobs.
That is, frankly, pathetic. It is barely keeping up with population
growth, much less digging us out of our jobs deficit.
I think there is little doubt the mere threat of this tax on medical
devices is contributing to these paltry numbers. In other words, this
tax is undercutting a key industry, creating deep uncertainty, and
hindering job creation.
Since President Obama signed this tax into law, the dollar amount of
venture capital invested has declined more than 70 percent. The $200
million raised last year is the lowest level of medical device startup
activity since 1996.
This industry is one of the engines of our economy. According to the
Lewin Group--a highly respected group--the medical technology industry
contributes nearly $382 billion in economic output to the U.S. economy
every year. In 2006, it shipped over $123 billion in goods, paid $21.5
billion in salaries to 400,000 American workers, and was responsible
for a total of 2 million American jobs.
It pays its employees on average $84,156--that is 1.85 times the
national average--and more than 80 percent of medical device companies
are small businesses employing 50 people or less. Yet this is the
industry President Obama decided to target? This is the industry every
Senate Democrat voted to tax when Obamacare passed the Senate?
There are over 120 medical device companies in my home State of Utah
alone. Let me tell you, they know what is going to happen if this tax
goes into effect, and it is not going to be pretty. I think the
President must know this. He and his advisers must know what a disaster
the medicine cabinet tax and the medical device tax are as both fiscal
and health policy. But yesterday they doubled down on it. Their
Statement of Administration Policy threatened a veto of the House bill.
It is clear to everyone that the USS Obamacare is a sinking ship, but
the President seems committed to going down with it.
Obamacare needs to go. All of it. The law created a web of
unconstitutional, misguided, unrealistic, and costly regulations,
taxes, fees, and penalties. That web must be pulled down in its
entirety, whether by the Supreme Court, or by a Republican Congress and
President Romney.
There are few policies more emblematic of that law's failures than
the medical device tax and restrictions on the purchase of over-the-
counter medications, and I commend my friends in the House for
repealing them today.
Mr. President, 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.
(The remarks of Mr. Coons pertaining to the introduction of S. 3275
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
[[Page S3831]]
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, since we are talking about farm
legislation as well as nutrition legislation, I think I should be very
transparent when I talk about this and talk about my background and
lifetime in farming. I don't want to say something about farm bills and
then have people who don't know where I am coming from find out later
that I am a farmer and might benefit from some of the farm programs. So
in the vein of transparency and accountability, I will just say that
since 1960, when my father died, I have been involved in farming. Since
1980, I have been involved with my son Robin renting my farmland,
farming with what we call in Iowa 50 50 farming. Others might call it
crop share. Basically, that means that he and I are partners, and I pay
for half the expenses, and I get half of the crop to market, and he
gets the land rent-free. When you are crop-sharing or when you are 50
50, that means I am not an absentee landowner collecting cash rent,
that I have risks. With risks, you assume that maybe you might get a
crop or not get a crop, and if you don't get a crop, you don't get your
rent as a landlord. It is the same for my son. He has risks as well. If
he doesn't get a crop, he won't have to pay rent, but he isn't going to
have anything to live on if he doesn't have a crop. So that is kind of
the situation I have been in since 1960 when I was farming on my own
and then in partnership with my son.
In the last 7 or 8 years, we have had a grandson, Patrick Grassley,
who is a member of the State legislature, join our farming operation,
and what I found out, with having a grandson in the farming operation,
they don't have a lot of work for a grandfather to do. So last year
about all I did was fall tillage with what we call in Iowa chisel
plowing.
With that background, I want to go to my statement.
Growing up on my family farm outside of New Hartford, IA, where I
still live today, I grew to appreciate what it means to be a farmer.
The dictionary defines a farmer as ``a person who cultivates land or
crops or raises animals.'' But that definition doesn't come close to
fully describing what a farmer is. Being a farmer means someone willing
to help a cow deliver a calf in the middle of the night when it might
be 5 degrees outside. A farmer is someone who is willing to put all of
their earthly possessions at risk just to put a bunch of seed in the
ground and hope the seed gets rain at just the right time. Farmers work
hard cultivating their crops and get the satisfaction of seeing the
result of their hard work at the end of each crop season. They take
great pride in knowing they are feeding this Nation. A farmer in Iowa
produces enough food to feed 160 other people. So obviously we export
about one-third of our agricultural production.
Farmers tend to be people who relish the independence that comes with
their chosen profession. They are people with dirt under their
fingernails, and they also work very long hours. Often they are
underappreciated for what they do to put food on America's dinner
table, and they receive an ever-shrinking share of the food dollar.
At this point, I would speak about a fellow Senator. I won't name the
fellow Senator, but he is from an urban State.
Throughout our years of service here, I like to say to him: Do you
know that food grows on farms?
And he says: Oh, does it?
Well, the other night at the spouses' dinner we had, he came up to my
wife and he said: I know food grows in supermarkets, but Chuck thinks
it grows on farms.
So that is the sort of camaraderie we have around here on
agriculture, and I am very glad to have it.
I always say that agriculture is probably a little easier in the
Senate because I believe every Senator, even in Alaska, Hawaii, and New
Hampshire, represents agriculture to some degree--maybe not as much as
in the Midwest, where I come from, or California or Texas, but every
State has some agriculture, and there is an appreciation of it. In the
other body, our House of Representatives, I don't know an exact figure,
but I would imagine that there are probably only 50 districts that
really are agriculture-oriented districts and the rest of them are very
urban or suburban. So we have an understanding of agriculture and how
important it is. When I talk about it, I don't mean to talk down to my
colleagues, but I do think I understand agriculture. It is not to say
that other Senators don't understand agriculture, but I think if you
have been involved in it for a lifetime the way three or four of us
here in the Senate have been, it means a little more.
Farmers have chosen a line of work that comes with risk. It is a risk
that is inherent in farming and often out of their control. The risk
inherent in farming is why we have farm programs.
If I may digress a little bit here, from memory, just to show how
there are a lot of issues with agriculture that are beyond the control
of farmers--I am not just talking about natural disasters such as hail
or drought. In 1972 Nixon wanted to get reelected so bad that he froze
the price of beef. It was only for a short period of time, maybe 3 or 4
months, because they found out it was not working the way he wanted. He
didn't care about the farmers. Iowa was No. 1 in beef production up to
that time. After that, everybody got squeezed out of the beef business
because of the freeze. We went from No. 1 down to No. 13. Now I think
we are about fifth or sixth in the production of beef.
Another example is when soybeans were being exported and they got up
to $13 a bushel in 1973 or 1974--let's see. I am just trying to think.
It was either when Nixon or Ford was President. At the time, one of
them decided it was going to drive up the price of food in America, so
they forbid the export of soybean. Soybean prices fell from $13 down to
$3.
Another time, Carter decided that it was wrong for Russia to invade
Afghanistan. At that time, we were selling them wheat, until the
decision was made that we were not going to sell them any more wheat,
so the price dropped.
I suppose I ought to think of things a lot more recent, but there are
a lot of international politics that affect farming. Right now it is
with Iran sanctions and oil. I am not sure to what extent that affects
the price of energy, but agriculture is a big user of energy.
So what I am trying to say with just a few examples--and I ought to
have more from memory--is that there are so many things that are beyond
the control of farmers that if you ever wonder why we have a farm
safety net, that is why.
Why do we have a farm safety net? For national security. As Napoleon
said, an Army marches on its belly. We have to have food. Why do you
think Japan and Germany protect their farmers so much today? Because
they found in World War II that if they don't have food, they don't
have very good national security. Or how long can a nuclear submarine
stay underwater? Forever. Except if it runs out of food, it has to come
up. Or what about the old adage of being nine meals away from a
revolution? In other words, as a mother and dad, if you can't get food
for your kids for 3 days, and they are crying, you might take any
action to make sure they get food.
So I think having a secure supply of food is very essential to the
social cohesion of our society.
We don't worry about that in America, do we? We go to the supermarket
and the shelves are full, but there are a lot of places in the world
where they don't have that. There are a lot of places in the world
where they pay more than 50 percent of disposable income for food, and
in America it is about 9, 10, or 11 percent.
So there are plenty of reasons to make sure we have a sound
agricultural system in America, and we ought to make sure we take it
seriously, both from a national security standpoint and for our social
betterment.
If we want a stable food supply in this country, we need farmers who
are able to produce it. When they are hit by floods, droughts, natural
disasters, wild market swings, or unfair international barriers to
their products, farmers need the support to make it through because so
much is beyond the control of farmers. Most farmers I know wish there
wasn't the need for a government safety net, but they appreciate that
safety net when they do need it. For decade after decade, Congress has
maintained farm programs because the American people understand the
necessity of providing a safety net for those providing our food.
[[Page S3832]]
That is not to say that each and every farm program ever created
needs to continue. In fact, there is a lot in this farm bill we have
before us that brings reform, and some programs not reauthorized, that
prove what I just said--that just because we have had some for 60 years
doesn't mean we have to have them for the next 5 years in this farm
program. Just as there are shifts in the market, sometimes public
sentiment toward certain farm programs also shifts.
Take direct payments, for instance. There was a time and place for
direct payments to help farmers through some lean years. But now times
are OK in the agriculture industry, and the American people have
rightly decided it is time for direct payments to end. With a $1.5
trillion deficit every year, it is also a reality that those payments
can't continue from a budget point of view. So the Senate committee has
responded, and we have proposed eliminating the direct payment program,
and many farmers agree direct payments should go away as well.
There are other reforms the American taxpayers want to see. There is
no reason the Federal Government should be subsidizing big farmers to
get even bigger. I might repeat myself as I go through my statement,
but I want to say that a farm safety net ought to protect the people
who don't have the ability to get beyond these things that are beyond
their control--whether it is domestic politics or whether it is a
natural disaster or whether it is international politics or energy
policies or all of the things that can happen.
There are some farmers who might not get over that hump because it is
beyond their control--a problem that affects them financially. But
there are some farmers who have that capability, and I think
traditionally we have geared the farm program--not enough, from my
point of view--but we have geared the farm program toward a safety net
for small- and medium-sized farmers.
We have a situation where 10 percent of the farmers in recent years--
the biggest farmers--are getting 70 percent of the benefits of the farm
program. There is nothing wrong with getting bigger. I want to make
that clear. In fact, in agriculture, with the equipment costs a farmer
has to get bigger, but the Federal taxpayers should not be subsidizing
farmers to get bigger. It isn't just a case of a principle not to do
that; it is the economic impact. When we do that--provide the
government subsidy to the big farmers--they go out and buy more land,
which drives up the price of farmland or drives up the cash rent in a
particular area. Consequently, it makes it very difficult for young
people to get started farming.
We want to be able--we have to pass this on to the young farmers.
Many farmers understand that in order for us to have a farm program
that is defensible and justifiable, it needs to be a program designed
to help these small- and medium-sized farmers who actually need the
assistance to get through rough patches out of their control.
So what I have been trying to do for years, and it was finally put in
this farm bill, is to put a hard cap on the amount of money one farming
operation can get so, hopefully, we cut down that 10 percent of the
largest farmers that gets 70 percent of farm payments, so it is more
proportional to the benefit of small- and medium-sized farmers. That is
in this bill at $50,000 per individual and $100,000 per married couple
for the payments under the Agriculture Risk Coverage Program. It is in
this bill. I know to a lot of people listening that $50,000 and
$100,000 is too much, and it is even too much for most Iowans. But
there are some sections of this country, such as the South and West,
where we will find our fellow Senators--I don't know how open they are
going to be about this, but behind the scenes they are raising Cain
about this $50,000 cap. I just about had this put in the present farm
bill in 2008, except I had 57 votes, and we know how things work around
here. We have to have 60 votes to get something done if people want to
push the point. So I didn't get 60 votes. Now it is in the farm bill. I
don't know who is negotiating around here on amendments, but there is
going to be somebody trying to take this out of here--somebody from the
South, I would imagine--trying to take this $50,000 cap out.
I expect to have the same considerations to this not being taken out
by a 60-vote margin as I was kept from putting it in 5 years ago
because if it had been put in 5 years ago, we would have saved $1.3
billion over that period of time.
Taxpayers are tired of reading reports about how so many nonfarmers
receive farm payments. I have been working to get reforms on the farm
payment eligibility for years, and just as the tide has turned on the
status quo for direct payments, the tide has turned on program
eligibility. The bill contains crucial reforms to the ``actively
engaged'' requirements. These reforms will ensure farm payments go to
actual farmers. The American people are not going to stand idly by
anymore and watch farm payments head out the door to people who don't
farm. In other words, if they aren't out there working the land--if
they are on Wall Street or something and have farmland in the Midwest--
they shouldn't be collecting these farm payments.
There have been some people complaining about the payment limit
reforms I have talked about. They complain it will detrimentally change
the way some farm operations do things. Well, if they mean it will not
allow nonfarmers to skirt around payment eligibilities and line their
pockets with taxpayers' money meant for actual farmers, then the answer
is, yes; that is what those reforms will do.
Let me make it perfectly clear. The reforms contained in this bill
will not impact a farmer's ability to receive farm payments.
Furthermore, the reforms will not affect the spouse rule. In other
words, if the husband and wife are together in the farming operation,
and some Senator comes around and says the spouse who is working beside
the other spouse in this farming operation can't get the benefit of it,
they are wrong.
These reforms reflect what we hear from the grassroots, which is
Congress needs to be a better steward of the taxpayers' dollars. That
is true if we are talking about farm programs or any other Federal
program.
Those who are against these reforms are asking the American people to
accept the status quo and to continue to watch as farm payments go to
megafarms and nonfarmers. We cannot and will not accept the status quo.
In other words, 10 percent of the biggest farmers getting 70 percent of
the benefits of the farm program ought to end.
The Agriculture Committee should be proud of the improvements we are
making to payment limitations in this bill. With these reforms we bring
defensibility and integrity to this farm bill. In addition, it is
probably the only bill that is going to pass this year that is going to
cut any programs, and it is going to do that by $23 billion. In fact,
without these reforms in the farm program, I wouldn't be able to
support this bill.
I urge my colleagues to voice their support for these important
payment limitation provisions and join with me in resisting any attempt
to weaken these reforms, particularly from people in the Southern
States who say somehow we ought to still continue to allow these
megafarmers to get these millions of dollars of payments.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tester). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to discuss today several
amendments I have to the farm bill that is now before the Senate. What
might surprise many people to learn is that the overwhelming majority
of funds in the farm bill are not spent on anything to do with farmers
or even agriculture production. For instance, crop insurance amounts
to--which is a big part of the new bill and is progress, I think--the
crop insurance provisions amount to just 8 percent of what we will be
spending. Horticulture is less than 1 percent. But a full 80 percent of
the farm bill spending goes to the Federal food stamp program. Yet only
17 percent of the small savings that are found in this proposal comes
from food stamps. Out of the $23 billion in cuts, none of which
[[Page S3833]]
occurs next year, out of almost $1 trillion in spending over 10 years.
So about $23 billion in cuts. Most of that is taken from the farm
provisions, but only 20 percent of it goes to that. At the same time,
food stamp spending is virtually untouched. I believe they propose $4
billion in savings after 80 percent of the cost of this bill is in the
food stamp program. The other $17 billion comes out of the 20 percent--
not the food stamps.
Overall, the legislation will spend $82 billion on food stamps next
year--$82 billion, and an estimated $770 billion over the next 10
years. To put these figures in perspective--and they are so large it is
difficult to comprehend--we will spend, next year, $40 billion on the
Federal highway program, but $80 billion on the food stamp program.
Food stamp spending has more than quadrupled--four times. It has
increased fourfold since the year 2001. It has increased 100 percent
since President Obama took office, doubled in that amount of time.
There are a number of reasons for this arresting trend. While the poor
economy has undeniably increased the number of people who qualify for
food stamps, this alone does not explain the extraordinary growth in
the program.
For instance, between 2001 and 2006, food stamp spending doubled, but
the unemployment rate remained around 5 percent. So from 2001 to 2006,
we had a doubling of food stamps while unemployment is the same. When
the food stamp program was first expanded nationwide, about 1 in 50
Americans received food stamp benefits. Today, nearly one in seven
receive food stamp benefits.
We need to think about that. This is a very significant event. We
need to ask ourselves, is this good policy? Is it good for America? Not
only is it a question of, do we have the money, the second thing is, is
it going to the right people? Is the money being expended wisely? Is it
helping people become independent? Is it encouraging people to look for
ways to be productive and be responsible themselves for their families?
Or does it create dependency, part of a series of government programs
that, in effect, are not beneficial to the people who actually benefit
from them in the short term?
Three factors help explain this increase. First is that eligibility
standards have been significantly loosened over time with a dramatic
drop in eligibility standards in the last few years. Second, it has
been the explicit policy goal of the Federal bureaucracy to increase
the number of people on food stamps. Bonus pay is even offered to
States that sign up more people. States administer this program.
And, third, the way the system is arranged with States administering
the program but the Federal Government providing all of the money, all
of it, they do not have--States do not match food stamps. States have
an incentive, do you not see, to see their food stamp budget grow, not
shrink, because it is more Federal money coming into the State which
they pay no part of.
That means overlooking, I am afraid, I hate to say, dramatic amounts
of fraud and abuse, because the enforcement and supervision is given
over to the States. So I filed a modest package of food stamp reforms
to the farm bill which will achieve several important goals: save
taxpayer dollars, which is a good thing; reduce the deficit; achieve
greater accountability in how the program is administered; confront
widespread waste; direct food stamps to those who truly need them; and
help more Americans achieve financial independence.
I guess I am the only person in the Senate who has ever dealt with
fraud in the food stamp program. Shortly after law school, when I was a
young Federal prosecutor, I prosecuted fraud in the food stamp program.
Later I came back as a U.S. attorney, and we saw drug dealers selling
food stamps, we saw various other manipulations of it. As attorney
general of Alabama for a period, I was involved in enforcing integrity
in the program. So I know the benefits food stamps play to people in
desperate need. I know it is helpful. But I know, Americans know, they
see it every day, that there are abuses in this program. It is the
fastest growing entitlement program bar none. We need to look at it. I
understand there are some who oppose even saving $4 billion over 10
years out of the food stamp program.
We are spending 80 a year. Four years ago, we were spending 40. We
cannot do better than that?
Food stamps is the second largest Federal welfare program following
Medicaid. If food stamp spending were returned next year to the 2007
funding level, and you agreed to increase it for 10 years at the rate
of inflation, that would produce an astonishing $340 billion in savings
for the U.S. Treasury. And we have to have some savings because we
don't have the money to continue spending at the rate we are.
Food stamps are 1 of 17 Federal nutritional support programs and 1 of
nearly 80 Federal welfare programs. So there is no confusion, these
figures count only low-income support programs. They don't include
Medicare, Social Security, or unemployment benefits.
Collectively, our Federal welfare programs constitute about $700
billion in Federal spending and $200 billion in State contributions to
the same programs. That is about $900 billion on the Federal-State
combined--most of it Federal--and $900 billion is about one-fourth of
the entire Federal budget.
An individual on food stamps may receive as much as $25,000 in
various forms of financial assistance for their household from the
Federal Government--as much as $25,000--in addition to whatever salary
they may earn in part- or full-time work, or any support they may
receive from their families or communities. In other words, this is not
normally the only source of income for the person.
Changes in eligibility have also eliminated the asset test for food
stamp benefits, which brings me to the first of four amendments I have
filed.
No. 1, let's restore the asset test for food stamps. This change has
been quite significant. Through a system known as categorical
eligibility, States can provide benefits to those whose assets exceed
the statutory asset limit, as long as they receive some other Federal
benefit. Why is that? I don't know; it makes no sense to me. If you
qualify for another program, you automatically get food stamps.
Categorically, you are eligible for them. One State went so far as to
determine that individuals were food-stamp eligible solely because they
received a brochure for another benefit program in the mail. Well, that
meant there is more money from the Federal Government coming into their
State, more benefits. I guess they see it as an economic benefit. It
didn't cost them any money; the money came from Washington.
According to the CBO, the simple process of going back and
restricting the categorical eligibility problem that is now springing
up would produce $12 billion in savings for taxpayers over the next 10
years and should not eliminate a single person who qualifies for food
stamps under the statutory restrictions for the program. All it would
mean is that if you qualify for food stamps and fill out the proper
form, you get it, like everybody else has to do.
Second, there is the heating subsidy loophole. Fifteen States are
using a loophole in order to get more food stamp dollars from the
Federal Government. They do this by mailing a very small check--get
this--often less than a dollar a month--under the Low Income Home
Energy Assistance Program, LIHEAP. Anyone who receives that check,
which may be as little as a few dollars a year, becomes eligible to
claim a lower income on the basis of home energy expenses--even if they
don't pay those expenses.
This reform will require households that receive food stamps to
provide proof of payment for their heating or cooling in order to
qualify for the income deduction. If the government is paying for your
heating, you should not say I need food stamps because I have a big
heating bill. But this is a clever maneuver designed by States--
frankly, deliberately--to extract more money from Washington--free
money for their States, and it is not good policy for America. It is
not right that some States get more under the food stamps program by
using this technique than others who don't use this abusive practice.
Closing this loophole will produce $14 billion in savings over the next
10 years. That is a lot of money.
No. 3, let's end the bonus payments going to States for increasing
the number of people who sign up. We ought to
[[Page S3834]]
be giving bonuses to people who identify people who are abusing the
problem and bringing those down, if anything.
States currently receive bonus payments for enrolling individuals in
the food stamp program. Those bonus payments highlight the perverse
incentive States have to expand food stamp registration rather than to
reduce fraud and help more people achieve financial independence. We
need to be focusing on helping people to get work and to be more
productive and to bring in more money for their families than food
stamps would bring in. That is what the focus of American vitality and
growth should be.
No. 4, let's implement the SAVE Program for food stamp usage. This
amendment would simply require the government to use a very simple SAVE
Program, similar to the E-Verify Program, to ensure that adults
receiving benefits are in fact lawfully in the country. This is a
commonsense thing to do at a time when we have to borrow 40 cents out
of every dollar we spend in this government. We spend $3,700 billion
and we take in $2,400 billion. We borrow the rest every year. We cannot
afford to be providing incentives, benefits, bonuses, and payments to
reward people who have entered the country illegally. We just don't
have the money.
Ultimately, beyond first steps, the best way to achieve integrity in
the food stamp program is to block-grant it to the States. Send so much
for the program, a fair percentage to each State, and let them
distribute it. This will provide States with a strong incentive to make
sure each dollar is being properly spent. They don't have that today.
It does no damage to a State if somebody is getting the money
improperly, or getting more than they are entitled to. If a State is
administering the program and some people are getting too much and
others are not getting enough, then the State has an incentive to make
sure the abuses stop and the aid goes to the people who need it. That
is the kind of program we need in America--one that works and has
incentives built in to make the program have integrity.
The House budget adopts this reform. They like to complain about the
House and say the House doesn't know what they are doing. This is a
commonsense reform. I am proud of what the House did. They did exactly
the right thing. Senate Democrats, of course, have not even written a
budget in 3 years. It has become clear that if we had gone through a
financial analysis, a budget debate in this Congress, we could save a
lot of money by ending the abuses in the Food Stamp Program, and it
would help us do other things the government needs to do. It would also
become clear that we will run out of money to pay for this program if
we don't make changes soon. We are in a financial situation that is so
grave that every expert has told us we are on an unsustainable path and
we have to get off of it. If we don't, we can have another financial
catastrophe, like in 2007, and like they are having in Europe today.
That is very possible. So we have to reduce our deficit and our abusive
spending.
Reforming the way we deliver welfare is the compassionate course. It
is not mean-spirited to say that people who are not entitled to the
benefits don't need the benefits and should not get them. There is
nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with having incentives
in your program, not to see how many people you can get on food stamps
but to see how many we can get to work and be productive and take care
of themselves.
The result of welfare reform in 1996, if you remember that--and many
of you do--was less poverty, more growth, less teen pregnancy, more
work, and more people successfully caring for themselves. We have
slipped back, in my opinion. We moved back from some of the progress we
made from the 1996 provision.
Unfortunately, since 1996, Members in both parties have failed to
protect these gains. The welfare budget has swelled dramatically.
Oversight has diminished. Standards have slipped. We now find ourselves
in need of welfare reform for the 21st century. We do. That is the
nature of any government, where once programs are established, they go
beyond rationality and need to be reformed periodically.
It is time to re-engage the national discussion over how the receipt
of welfare benefits can become damaging, not merely to the Treasury but
also to the recipient.
Left unattended, the safety net can become a restraint, permanently
removing people from the workforce. And Federal programs, unmonitored,
can begin to replace family, church, and community as a source of aid
and support.
We need to reestablish the moral principle that Federal welfare
should be seen as temporary assistance, not permanent support. The goal
should be to help people become independent and self-sufficient.
Such reforms, made sincerely and with concern for those in need, will
improve America's social, fiscal, and economic health. Empowering the
individual is more than sound policy; it remains the animating moral
idea behind the American experience, our national exceptionalism. We
believe in individual responsibility. We believe in helping people in
need, but we don't believe in creating circumstances where decent,
hard-working people, who work extra and save their money, who give up
vacations and going out to eat so they can take care of their family,
are also required to support people who are irresponsible. That is not
a healthy situation for us to be in.
We need to strike the right balance. We can help those people in need
and create a government and a social assistance program in America that
benefits the people we seek to benefit and benefits the State
treasuries at the same time.
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. BROWN of Ohio. 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.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning
business for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Student Loans
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I come to the floor fairly often to
share letters I get from people in Ohio and especially when it is an
issue that is on the tips of so many young people's tongues and on the
minds of so many in our State.
I spent much of the last month visiting with students on college
campuses at Wright State University in Dayton, at Hiram College in
Portage County in northeast Ohio, at the Cuyahoga County Community
College in Cleveland, at the University of Cincinnati, and Ohio State
University. Just this last Monday, I was at Owens Community College in
Toledo. I hear over and over and over about the debt that far too many
of our young people bear when they get out of school.
Today is the last session day for our pages from the winter term, and
I hope the burden of debt on them--they are still several years away
from absorbing the debt from college and going on to the workplace. But
I worry for them, as I worry for so many of my constituents from
Cleveland to Cincinnati and Ashtabula to Middletown and Gallipolis to
Wauseon because the average Ohio student who is graduating from a 4-
year school and who has borrowed money owes $27,000. This is a small
step, but it is one more piling on of debt. If we are not able to
freeze interest rates on Stafford loans--which is what my legislation
will do, with Senator Reed of Rhode Island, Senator Harkin of Iowa--to
freeze interest rates for at least another year, these students will be
faced with another $1,000, in addition to what they are already facing.
It has become a moral issue. If we turn things over to these young
people when they come out of school and they face this kind of debt, it
means they are less likely to buy a house, it means they are less
likely to start a business, and it means they are less likely to start
a family. Do we want to do that to this generation of smart, young,
enthusiastic, talented people, instead of giving them a better launch
for their lives in their twenties and thirties? That is why it is
essential we do this.
Two years before the Presiding Officer came to the Senate, in 2007,
we
[[Page S3835]]
passed this freeze; President Bush signed legislation that Senator
Kennedy and I and others in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee worked on to freeze interest rates for Stafford subsidized
loans at 3.4 percent. There is a 5-year freeze. If we don't act by July
1, 2012, 5 years after we passed it, that will mean these loans are
going to double.
I wish to share a couple letters I have gotten from people in Ohio.
This doesn't just affect the students; there are some 380,000 college
students in my State whom it affects. But it doesn't just affect these
students; it affects their families. Their parents, sometimes their
grandparents, send us letters about how serious this is for them. I
will read two letters.
Jeff from Lorain--which happens to be my home county:
I've been a lifelong resident of Lorain, OH. My daughter
graduated top of her class from Southview in 2008. She just
graduated from Hiram College with a bachelor in Mathematics
and minor in Political Science Cum Laude. She maxed out her
Stafford loans each year, and these help her to attend
college. I've worked in factories all my life, the last 20
years at Avon Lake Ford so we are able to help some but the
major work was done by our daughter with her focus and hard
work. She is moving on to grad school but at some point she
will have to start repaying these loans. Do we want to burden
these young bright minds with loan payments that are so large
they will weigh them down financially for a large portion of
their young adult lives? Were these loans designed to help
students who don't come from families with large disposable
incomes? Or are they to be used as a way to make money off
our young people trying to reach their potential?
One of the good things President Obama did about this was he helped
people get into the Federal Direct Loan Program so they would no longer
be borrowing from banks at much higher interest rates. College is too
expensive. The States don't put enough money into colleges so that the
colleges don't charge such high tuitions. Tuitions have gone up like
this over the years. But at least we were able to make a big difference
on interest. This is our chance to do it again, and we shouldn't let
Jeff and his daughter down and others.
The other letter I will read is from Marcelline from Wilberforce.
I am 60 years old. I went back to school to get a job that
would not continue to destroy my physical health. My previous
job for companies like BP and Wal-Mart were devastatingly
hard on me all with little or no medical help. I also
returned in hopes of obtaining employment that will position
me to be gainfully employed for the next 15 to 20 years. I am
supporting my two grandchildren both are aspergers and my son
while he tries to gain a degree of his own. I see no
possibility of retiring before I die. I also see no
possibility of paying off my education before I die. When I
started my education I could justify the cost, but I have
seen it going up yearly to the point I see no way of paying
for it now, especially if interest rates continue to climb. I
cannot conceive how the young people will be able to repay
their debts. I am very concerned for them. The burden this
will place on them as they go forward is heartbreaking.
This is the story the Presiding Officer hears in Anchorage, in
Fairbanks, in Nome. I hear it in Toledo. I hear it in Lima. I hear it
in Mansfield. I hear it in Sandusky. It is incumbent upon us--it is a
moral question--not to load more debt on these young people so they can
develop their talents in a way that not only will help them
individually, not only will help their families but will help our
society prosper.
We know what the GI bill did in the 1940s and 1950s and 1960s. It not
only helped millions of service men and women and their families, it
also lifted the prosperity of the United States of America. We owe this
generation no less than that.
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 (Mr. Manchin). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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