[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 128 (Thursday, September 20, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6482-S6488]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SELF-CREATED RESULTS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I haven't been able to watch all the 
speeches by my friends on the other side of the aisle, but I have 
watched enough to understand what is going on. This has been a 
remarkable show of hubris or arrogance from the Republican side of the 
aisle.
  One after another, the Republicans have stood to complain about how 
the Senate hasn't gotten a lot done. The Presiding Officer has been one 
of the leaders in having a more effective Senate, because my friend, 
the Presiding Officer, has watched what the Republicans have done. We 
are going to do something about it. The Presiding Officer knows that, I 
know that.
  What they have done is the very definition of chutzpah. The nerve. 
What nerve. They are complaining about a result that they themselves 
created. They have created the fact that we haven't gotten anything 
done. They are good at it. A bill that would allow veterans to get 
jobs, they stopped it on a technicality. They have conducted filibuster 
after filibuster, blocking one bill after another, and then they 
complain the Senate can't pass anything when they are the ones holding 
things up. The record is pretty detailed and deep, and I am not going 
to cover it all today because, really, it is significant.
  I said here yesterday, I have been the leader for 6 years. I may be 
off 1 or 2, but I have had to file motions to overcome 382 filibusters 
in 6 years. I know the Senate has changed a little bit since Lyndon 
Johnson was the majority leader, but during the 6 years he was the 
majority leader, he had to file cloture once. To think that they are 
here complaining we are not getting

[[Page S6483]]

anything done when they are the ones who caused it? And we start from 
this point.
  I have to say, I appreciate the Republican leader being so candid and 
honest with the American people when he stood at the beginning of this 
Congress and said his No. 1 goal was to stop President Obama from being 
reelected. That is what he said. And they have legislated accordingly, 
stopping us from doing the most important things for this country. 
Measures to create jobs, they have stopped. Measures to stop jobs from 
being lost, they have stopped. They have done it so many times.
  How about this: We have lost approximately 1 million teachers, 
firefighters, and police officers because of Republicans stopping us 
from get things done, really hurting State and local government. So we 
over here thought it would be a good idea that we stop these 
significant layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police officers. We 
want to make sure it is paid for and we agree it should be paid for. So 
we said, Okay, no more layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police 
officers, and we are going to pay for it. How are we going to pay for 
it? Anyone making more than $1 million a year would have to pay a 
surtax of three-tenths of 1 percent. Every Republican voted against 
that.
  The Veterans Jobs bill I just talked about. The cyber security bill. 
The Pentagon has said the most important issue facing this country is 
cyber security. The National Security Agency: The most issue facing 
this country? Cyber security. We know, they know, the Republicans know, 
because they were down at the same demonstration I had of our 
intelligence agency showing what would happen if a cyber security 
attack took place in the Northeast just dealing with the power grid. We 
know it can happen.
  I have heard Senator Feinstein, the chairman of our Intelligence 
Committee, say several times it is not a question of if, it is a 
question of when. The Republicans blocked a cyber security bill, 
stopped it.
  They have conducted filibuster after filibuster, blocking one bill 
after another. They blocked a bill to stop outsourcing jobs--more than 
once.
  On all these TV ads that you see, we thought it would be kind of a 
good idea that the American people knew who was paying for these ads. 
But, no, twice they said let's keep them secret--Crossroads USA or 
whatever name they have there, all these names that sound so good. But 
I think we would be better served if people knew the ads were being 
paid by the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson from Las Vegas or Simmons 
from Texas who is boasting about giving $34 million to defeat President 
Obama. And that is what the Republican leader wants.
  On the passage of several small business jobs bills, one July 12, 
just a month or two ago; the motion to proceed to paycheck fairness, 
violence against women--they stopped us from going to conference on 
that. On April 16 they blocked a motion to proceed to a bill to reduce 
the deficit by imposing a minimum tax rate on high-income taxpayers, 
the Buffett rule, Warren Buffett. He wants to make sure he pays a tax 
rate comparable to his secretary's. That is what we wanted. They 
defeated that.
  They blocked many bills dealing with unnecessary tax subsidies for 
these large oil companies. They have held up hundreds of measures out 
of the Energy Committee--hundreds. It used to be we would pass those 
just matter-of-factly.
  Senator Stabenow had an amendment to decrease taxes on American 
businesses. She wanted to do that by extending expiring energy tax 
credits for energy that has created hundreds of jobs in America.
  They blocked the nomination for weeks and weeks of Richard Cordray to 
be the Director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. They 
blocked judge after judge. They blocked a motion to proceed to a bill 
to put workers back on the job while rebuilding and modernizing 
American infrastructure. It creates jobs.
  They blocked motions to proceed to a bill to keep teachers and first 
responders--in addition to the one I just talked about--and other ones. 
They blocked a bill to reauthorize the Economic Development 
Administration. This has been something we have done for 25, 30 years. 
They blocked it.
  We wanted to reduce the deficit by doing something about these 
outlandish subsidies we give Big Oil--blocked it. We were trying to do 
a bill to create jobs. We spent weeks because they wanted to dictate 
what women could do dealing with contraception.
  Then they have this little--this little deal with the House 
Republicans. If we work and are able once in a while to get something 
done over here, such as a postal bill to save our postal system, then 
the Republicans block it in the House. The farm bill--reduces the debt 
by $23 billion--they have this deal with the House and now they blocked 
that. China currency? The same thing; they blocked it over in the 
House.
  The record is very clear. The party of trying to defeat President 
Obama has done everything they can to make the economy look as bad as 
it can because they think if the economy is really bad, it is going to 
help them defeat President Obama.
  The middle class--we know how they feel about the middle class. That 
was exemplified by statements that came out in the last few days by the 
Presidential nominee.
  This morning, as I said, I wasn't able to listen to everything, but I 
listened to enough. One party stands for obstruction and the rich. The 
big lie--listen to this: How many times did we have the Republicans 
come to this floor and say: They have not passed a budget?
  I have served in this Congress for 30 years, and I have admired two 
people very much for their knowledge of certain things. One person I 
have admired dealing with the finances of this country more than anyone 
else is someone with whom I came to the Senate 26 years ago, Kent 
Conrad. Kent Conrad has come here and time and time again said: Yes, we 
did not pass a budget resolution because we did not need to. We passed 
a law. That is why the CR is going forward. We passed a law that set 
numbers for us.
  It is a big lie for them to come here and say we have not passed a 
budget. It is a lie. It is untruthful.
  My friend with whom we have served in Congress, we came the same day, 
the senior Senator from Arizona, I have said before, and I will say it 
again: I admire him. I admire his service to our country. But for him 
to come and say that the Senate is not working well because of the 
Democrats, that is one of the big lies.
  We have tried to legislate. They are holding up virtually everything 
we try to do, including the Defense authorization bill. I have been 
waiting for months for them to come to me with an agreement. This is 
part of the big game they are playing to try to make us look bad when 
they are the cause of it. They are the reason we have not done this 
legislation. We can't. We have spent weeks on matters that we would 
have done before in a matter of an hour or 20 minutes.
  Republicans are complaining about a result that they themselves 
caused. The Defense authorization bill--we are going to come back after 
the election, and we will get that done with their help.
  Here is the issue with Republicans, here is why suddenly they are all 
upset. They have been upset for some time, but really this week has 
been something that would upset nearly everyone because--we thought the 
Olympics were over, but yesterday we saw it in full go.
  We had Republicans running to break marathon records, sprint records 
to get away from their Presidential nominee because it makes it a 
little hard for them to have somebody running for President 
representing their party who says: I only have to worry about half the 
people in this country.
  We are going to continue to work to the best we can to move forward 
with the legislation we believe is important. We are going to come back 
after the election, during the lameduck. Hopefully, they will decide at 
that time maybe they have something better to do than try to make the 
President of the United States look bad.
  We are a very fortunate country. We have a two-party system that is 
the envy of the rest of the world. These parliamentary governments, 
they work for months and weeks and sometimes longer than that to try to 
form a government. We don't have to do that. We are a government of 
laws, and we have a system that works pretty well.

[[Page S6484]]

  But we know, based on some academic work that has been done--it is 
not just me talking. We have two of the foremost experts who have 
watched this country for more than 40 years--Thomas Mann from the 
Brookings Institute and Norm Ornstein from the conservative Enterprise 
Institute--who have said the problem with the government today is the 
Republicans. They said they have been here for 40 years and have never 
seen anything like it. I haven't seen anything like it, and I have been 
here 30 years.

  We used to work together. When I came to the Senate we had Republican 
Senators and Democratic Senators. We joined hands and we got things 
done. But now, because they are being led by someone who believes the 
most important thing to do is to defeat Obama, we are getting nothing 
done and they are following him like lemmings off the cliff.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, one of the greatest orators in the history 
of English-speaking people was Winston Churchill. I can't tell you how 
many times I have read and reread his speeches and heard his great 
efforts to summon the courage of the British people during World War 
II.
  In one respect the speech earlier this morning by Senator McConnell 
was Churchillian, in the tradition of Winston Churchill, because they 
once said to Winston Churchill: What do you think history will have to 
say about you? He said:

       I'm not worried about what history has to say about me 
     because I'm going to write the history.

  This morning Senator McConnell decided to write the history of the 
Senate session. Unfortunately, his version was a little bit different 
than the memory of most of us in terms of what has actually happened.
  This we do remember: In the beginning of the Obama Presidency, a 
short time after the President had been sworn in and asked to try to 
take this failing economy and put it back on its feet, when we were 
losing 750,000 jobs a month, when businesses were failing, when 
American families were losing one-third of the value of their savings, 
when the stock market was plummeting, when we ran the risk of a global 
fiscal crisis, when we were sending $800 billion to the biggest banks 
in America to save them from their own greed and stupidity--at that 
time the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, said: ``My highest 
priority is to make sure that Barack Obama is a one-term President.'' 
His highest priority.
  That is a fact. That is on the record. That is on tape if you want to 
see it. And he lived up to that in terms of his own ambition as the 
Republican leader.
  When the President came up with a stimulus bill to turn this economy 
around, we had three Republicans who would join us, three of them. What 
happened to those three Republicans?
  One of them, Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, was then threatened 
with defeat in the Republican primary for joining in a bipartisan 
effort to save the economy. He switched parties, came over to the 
Democratic side, and said: It isn't the Republican Party I remember. 
Another, Senator Snowe of Maine, announced her retirement a few months 
back and said: I can't take the partisanship and division. The third, 
Senator Collins, still survives. Those three were the only three who 
would stand up with the President to try to get this economy back on 
track.
  When it came to health care reform, after months of effort by Senator 
Baucus to bring in Republicans to craft the bill, Senator Grassley, who 
was leading the effort on the Republican side, went back to Iowa in 
August, had a town meeting and said: I am finished. No more bipartisan 
negotiation on health care reform. And they would not give us a single 
vote, not one vote to pass health care reform.
  The same thing was true when it came to Wall Street reform to put in 
oversight to avoid another fiscal crisis generated by the perfidy of 
greed on Wall Street.
  Time and time again the Republicans refused to stand with us. To my 
left is Senator Conrad of North Dakota. He has been our chairman of the 
Budget Committee. He put in a sincere, bipartisan, good-faith effort to 
deal with the deficit--with Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican of New 
Hampshire, a man who commanded respect on his side of the aisle, as 
Senator Conrad does as well. They came up with a notion. Here is what 
it was.
  We would create a commission that would investigate the deficit 
crisis, and if 14 of the 18 members of the commission voted to go 
forward it would come immediately to the floor for a vote.
  We had a lot of Senators who were cosponsoring that. Democrats and 
Republicans finally said that will break the logjam. Then we called it 
on the floor. I ask Senator Conrad, does my memory serve me correctly 
that the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, who was a cosponsor of 
this deficit commission, along with six other Republican Senators, 
changed their votes on the floor and defeated the very bill they had 
cosponsored to deal with our Nation's deficit?
  The Senator didn't hear that this morning, did he? All the speeches 
from the other side about dealing with the deficit. Perhaps Senator 
McConnell and those six other Senators, those remaining, would like to 
explain why they reversed course and said no; they didn't want to be 
part of the effort. But it happened. It happened for certain.
  As Senator Reid came to the Senate floor and explained, they have 
broken all records in the Senate for filibusters. Boy, I tell you what: 
If you have a cable TV at home and you have C-SPAN on it and you turn 
on the Senate, I know a lot of people across America are calling into 
the cable channel providers and asking for a refund. Why in the world 
do we have this channel where nothing happens except an occasional 
mention of a Senator's name during a quorum call? Does anyone know why? 
There were 382 filibusters on the Republican side; 382 delays in the 
Senate. What sort of issues are they filibustering? I just saw one this 
week. It was a veterans jobs bill. A veterans jobs bill was the subject 
of a 2-week filibuster. It was a bill which should have passed by voice 
vote. If every Senator who went back home for a Fourth of July parade, 
grabbed the flag and walked down the middle of the street and said how 
much they loved the veterans would have voted for it, we would have 
passed it. Instead, they filibustered it. It was one of 382 
filibusters.

  I am glad Senator Conrad is here to explain this whole budget 
resolution issue. He can do it better than anyone. I will tell the 
Senator I took a look this morning at the 30 Senators on the Republican 
side who got up to speak and about 10 of them talked about the fact 
that there was no budget, that we didn't have a budget this year, and 
we don't have a budget next year. I then looked at the votes on the 
Budget Control Act. Those same 10 Senators voted for the Budget Control 
Act, a law which controls the budget for 2 years.
  I am calling for an official investigation by the attending physician 
to see if there is something in the coffee urn in the Republican 
cloakroom causing amnesia so that these Senators would come to the 
floor and forget they voted for the Budget Control Act and make 
speeches like they didn't or never heard of it.
  Let me say something about entitlements. Senator McConnell spoke to 
the issue of entitlements. He is right; it is an important part of what 
we need to do to right this ship to deal with our deficit. It would 
have been part of the conversation for the Conrad-Gregg commission, 
which seven Republican Senators torpedoed, including the Republican 
majority leader. We can go through the bills, as the majority leader 
has, and talk about the efforts we have made.
  We have passed bills on a bipartisan basis. We passed a postal reform 
bill to ensure that the best postal service in the world survives. We 
passed it with a bipartisan vote--dead in the House.
  We passed a transportation bill. Senator Boxer and Inhofe put it 
together. It was a strong bipartisan vote to build the infrastructure 
of America. It passed in the Senate. It died in the House.
  We passed a farm bill with Senator Stabenow of Michigan and Senator 
Roberts of Kansas. It was a bipartisan farm bill that gave us a good 
architecture for the future of farm programs and reduced the deficit by 
$23 billion. We passed it on a bipartisan basis in the Senate. It died 
in the House of Representatives. The tea party faction in the House 
will not allow it to go forward.

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  Senator Reid also made the point earlier. What was the first 
Republican amendment on the Transportation bill? Think about this for a 
second. It was the first Republican amendment on the Transportation 
bill. They wouldn't let us move forward to that bill unless we 
considered an amendment which would reduce the opportunity for women 
across America to have access to family planning. That was on the 
Transportation bill. Now they are arguing that we are finding ways to 
slow down the Senate? The Blunt amendment was defeated, but it is an 
indication of the political gamesmanship that has gone on at the 
expense of the important bills such as the Transportation bill.
  The last point I wish to make is this: We know that if we are going 
to thrive in this country, the middle-class working families in this 
country need a chance.
  The Senators on this side of the aisle, as well as President Obama, 
want to give working and middle-income families a tax break. We passed 
a bill so they will have a tax reduction to help them as they struggle 
from paycheck to paycheck. We sent it over to the House of 
Representatives, where it is never going to be taken up for a vote. 
That is the sad reality.
  So as the Republicans came to the floor this morning and gave us this 
grand vision of when they were in control, they tried to rewrite 
history. Maybe Churchill is capable of doing that, but I would say the 
Republican Senators failed to meet that challenge this morning.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). The Senator from North 
Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. First, I thank my colleagues, Senator Reid, our leader, 
and Senator Durbin for their kind words. I very much appreciate those 
kind words. I also must say I am a little taken aback by what I heard 
earlier on the floor from some of my Republican colleagues because it 
truly does represent an attempt to rewrite history, the history I have 
lived in my 26 years in the Senate.
  I announced a little more than a year and a half ago that I would not 
seek reelection, so I don't have a political ox to gore. But I am here 
to report what I have seen after 26 years of service. Let me start by 
saying our Republican colleagues at the leadership level decided early 
on that their strategy to be successful was to stop things from passing 
in the Senate. It is very clear that has been their strategy. That is 
why we have seen more than 380 filibusters in this body, which is 
completely unprecedented in the history of the Senate.
  The Republican leader made it very clear years ago that his highest 
priority was to defeat for reelection President Obama. He did not say 
his top priority was to solve the problems of the country. He did not 
say his top priority was to get our economy back on track. He did not 
say his top priority was to address the deficits and debt of the 
Nation. He did not say his top priority was to improve the security 
position of the United States. He said his top priority was to defeat 
President Obama. Shame on him. That should never be the top priority of 
a leader in this body, Republican or Democratic. The top priority ought 
to be to help solve the problems the country confronts.
  I am a little cranky because many of my colleagues know my wife and I 
have a little dog named Dakota that is suffering from cancer. Last 
night we were up from 12:30 until 5:30 as he was bleeding internally. 
So I must say I am a little cranky after having been up most of the 
night, and I got a lot crankier when I heard colleagues say things they 
know are not true.

  When they say there is no budget for the United States, they know 
that is not true. How do I know it is not true, and that there is a 
budget? Because I remember what we voted on, and it is in writing. It 
is a law. It is called the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act 
passed last year and contained the budget for 2012 and 2013. Some say 
that is not a budget. Let's look to the language of the law itself and 
see what it says.
  Here is what it says: For the purpose of enforcing the Congressional 
Budget Act of 1974, including section 300 of that Act, and enforcing 
budgetary points of order in prior concurrent resolutions on the 
budget, the allocations, aggregates, and spending levels set shall 
apply in the Senate in the same manner as for a concurrent resolution 
on the budget.
  What they are trying to do is mislead the American people by saying 
we have not passed a budget resolution. What they failed to tell people 
is that instead of a budget resolution, we passed a budget law. What is 
the difference? A resolution is purely a congressional document. It 
never goes to the President for his signature. So instead of a 
resolution, we passed a budget law called the Budget Control Act. It 
set out spending limits not just for 2012 and 2013, it actually set out 
on the discretionary side of the budget limits for 10 years.
  In fact, the Budget Control Act, in many ways, is more extensive than 
any budget resolution could provide. It has the force of law, unlike 
the budget resolution that is not signed by the President. It set 
discretionary caps on spending for 10 years instead of the 1 year 
normally set in a budget resolution. It provided enforcement 
mechanisms, including a 2-year provision allowing budget points of 
order to be enforced. It created a reconciliation-like supercommittee 
process to address entitlement and tax reforms. It said if the special 
committee could not agree on reforming the entitlement programs and the 
tax system of the United States, there would be an additional $1.2 
trillion in spending cuts.
  Let's add it up. The Budget Control Act first cut $900 billion from 
the discretionary accounts over 10 years. Then it said if the 
supercommittee didn't reform the tax system and entitlement system of 
the country, there would be another $1.2 trillion cut from the 
discretionary accounts over the next 10 years. That is a total of $2.1 
trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years. That is the biggest 
package of spending cuts in the history of the United States. That is a 
fact.
  The Budget Control Act set the spending limits for 2012 and 2013 and 
further set limits for 8 years beyond that. So when they say there is 
no budget resolution, what they fail to tell people is there is a 
budget law.
  It is interesting if we compare and contrast what their side 
presented as their priorities in a budget because Mr. Ryan, their 
candidate for Vice President, came before the House of Representatives 
and laid out his budget blueprint. What does that do? First of all, it 
extends all the Bush-era tax cuts.
  Think about this. Here we have a circumstance in which the revenue of 
our country is at or near a 60-year low. The first thing the Ryan 
budget does is extend all the Bush-era tax cuts, even those for the 
very highest income. Then it says that is not enough for the wealthiest 
among us. So the Ryan budget, after extending all the Bush era-tax 
cuts, goes and provides another $1 trillion of tax cuts for the 
wealthiest among us.
  I have nothing against wealthy people. I hope all Americans have the 
opportunity to become wealthy; that would be my fondest hope. That was 
why I was drawn to public service. What could I do that would 
strengthen the economy of the United States? It has always been my top 
priority. It is what I truly believe is essential to our democracy. But 
in a circumstance in which we are borrowing 40 cents of every $1 we 
spend, and then to say the answer is more and more tax cuts for the 
very wealthiest among us and try to pay for it by shredding the social 
safety net that is critically important to those who are the least 
fortunate among us, frankly, I think that fails the moral test. I think 
that fails any moral test of government.
  The Ryan budget, which our colleagues have endorsed, would give, on 
average, those earning over $1 million a year an additional tax 
reduction of $265,000 a year.
  I know if I were listening to this I would say, How can it be that 
someone earning over $1 million can get a $265,000 tax cut, because 
that is about all they would pay in taxes. Remember, we are talking 
about the average for those earning over $1 million a year, so we are 
talking about not just people who earn $1 million a year but people who 
earn hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And the average tax cut 
provided in the Ryan budget for those folks is another $265,000 a year.
  What does Ryan do in order to offset that massive additional tax cut 
for the

[[Page S6486]]

very wealthiest among us? Well, here is an interesting quote from a 
former top economic adviser to Ronald Reagan, a man named Bruce 
Bartlett, who was a top economic adviser to Ronald Reagan. Here is what 
he said about the Ryan budget that our colleagues here have endorsed:

       Distributionally, the Ryan plan is a monstrosity. The rich 
     would receive huge tax cuts while the social safety net would 
     be shredded to pay for them. Even as an opening bid to begin 
     budget negotiations with the Democrats, the Ryan plan cannot 
     be taken seriously. It is less of a wish list than a fairy 
     tale utterly disconnected from the real world, backed up by 
     make-believe numbers and unreasonable assumptions. Ryan's 
     plan isn't even an act of courage; it's just pandering to the 
     Tea Party. A real act of courage would have been for him to 
     admit, as all serious budget analysts know, that revenues 
     will have to rise well above 19 percent of GDP to stabilize 
     the debt.

  Those are not my words. Those are the words of a top economic adviser 
to President Ronald Reagan.
  The Ryan plan is a monstrosity.
  If anybody seriously studies the Ryan budget they would have to 
conclude that Mr. Bartlett is correct, because Mr. Ryan cuts taxes in a 
very dramatic way for the richest among us. Let me be clear. The first 
thing he does is extend all the Bush-era tax cuts. Then, on top of 
that, he cuts the top rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. That provides 
over $1 trillion of additional tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. 
And they refuse to do anything to close the tax loopholes that are 
allowing certain wealthy people to avoid paying taxes in this country 
entirely.
  I have shown on the floor of the Senate many times a picture of a 
five-story building in the Cayman Islands called the Ugland House. The 
Ugland House claims to be the home of 18,000 companies. A little five-
story building in the Cayman Islands claims to be the home of 18,000 
companies. I say that is the most efficient building in the world. Can 
you imagine 18,000 companies operating out of a little five-story 
building down in the Cayman Islands?
  All those companies claim they are doing business out of that little 
building for a reason. They claim they are doing business out of that 
little building in the Cayman Islands because they don't want to pay 
taxes in the United States. So here is what they do, and it is very 
clever. Through paper manipulations, they show the profits of certain 
subsidiaries of their companies in the Cayman Islands rather than in 
the places where they actually earned the profits. Why would they do 
that? Because the Cayman Islands doesn't have a corporate income tax. 
So by showing their profits in the Cayman Islands, even though in truth 
they were never earned in the Cayman Islands--through accounting 
gimmicks they show their profits in the Cayman Islands and they aren't 
taxed. They avoid paying here what they legitimately owe here. What 
does that mean? That means all the rest of us get stuck paying for 
ourselves and them.
  I said earlier the Ryan budget fails the moral test, and it is not 
just my judgment that it fails the moral test. How can one justify 
cutting taxes dramatically for the wealthiest among us and then turn 
around and shred Medicare, which is what the Ryan budget did? The Ryan 
budget he initially proposed changed Medicare's finances over time so 
that instead of Medicare paying 75 percent of health care costs for 
seniors who are eligible, the Ryan budget, over time, would switch that 
so Medicare would pay 32 percent. To be clear, under the Ryan plan, we 
would wind up with a situation in which the majority of one's health 
care costs, if one is eligible for Medicare, would be paid by that 
person, not by Medicare. That is to make up for the massive tax cuts he 
gives the wealthiest among us.
  Here is what the Catholic bishops said. The Catholic bishops say the 
Ryan budget fails the moral test. I agree with the Catholic bishops. 
This is what they said in the Washington Post in 2012:

       A week after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said 
     that his Catholic faith inspired the Republicans' cost-
     cutting budget plan, the Nation's Catholic bishops reiterated 
     their demand that the Federal budget protect the poor and 
     said the GOP measure fails to meet these moral criteria.

  In any moral test that I know of in any religion, we don't take from 
those who have the least to give it to those who have the most. I don't 
know of any religion that practices that as an article of faith--that 
we take from those who have the least to give to those who have the 
most.
  Anybody who knows me knows I am pretty conservative. I come from a 
business family. I have a master's in business administration. 
Throughout my career, I have been someone who has been judged as 
fiscally conservative, someone who believes deeply in balancing 
budgets. I was the grandfather of the Bowles-Simpson Commission; served 
on it proudly. I was one of the 11 votes for its product--5 Democrats, 
5 Republicans, 1 independent.
  By the way, when our colleagues said this morning we haven't worked 
in a bipartisan way--well, I have spent 5 years working in a bipartisan 
way trying to get our debts and deficit under control. Senator Gregg, 
the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, and I proposed the 
Bowles-Simpson Commission. We served on it. We voted for it. I 
subsequently served in the group of six, three Democrats, three 
Republicans, who were given the assignment by our colleagues to come up 
with a plan to reduce the deficit. We worked for a year and a half to 
try to find a bipartisan solution. We have had the Biden group. We have 
had the supercommittee, all bipartisan efforts that have gone on for 
years to try to produce an agreement. So my friends saying there hasn't 
been an effort, that is not true.
  What is true is when our friends on the other side were in charge, 
they brought this economy to the brink of financial collapse. That is 
the truth. Anybody who doubts it can simply go back to the end of the 
Bush administration and see where the country was. The stock market was 
collapsing. The housing market was collapsing. The financial system was 
collapsing. That is what President Obama inherited. He did not create 
those crises; he inherited them. At the time President Obama came into 
office, the economy was shrinking at a rate of almost 9 percent a year. 
We were losing 800,000 jobs a month. Now the economy is growing at a 
rate of about 2 percent a year, and we are gaining about 200,000 jobs a 
month. That is a dramatic turnaround.
  So when they ask the question: Are we better off now than 4 years 
ago? Undeniably, we are better off. Undeniably, we are better off. We 
have gone from an economy shrinking at a rate of more than 8 percent to 
one growing at a rate of 2 percent. We have moved from a time when we 
were losing 800,000 jobs a month to a time when we are gaining about 
200,000 jobs a month. We have gone from a circumstance in which the 
stock market was plunging to a circumstance in which the stock market 
has about doubled during the time of President Barack Obama. President 
Obama inherited two wars, a war on terror, a financial system that was 
collapsing, a financial system that had seen, under the previous 
President, the debt double; foreign holdings of U.S. debt were 
tripling; and this President has ended the slide and has us going back 
in the right direction, and with precious little help from the other 
side.

  I ask the American people before they cast their votes to think back 
to the final days of the Bush administration. I will never forget as 
long as I live being called to an emergency meeting in this building 
with the Secretary of the Treasury of the Bush administration, the 
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the leaders, Republicans and 
Democrats, in the House and the Senate, and being told by the Secretary 
of the Treasury and the Bush administration and the Chairman of the 
Federal Reserve that if they did not act, they expected a financial 
collapse within days--a financial collapse within days. Those were in 
the final months of the Bush administration. That is what President 
Barack Obama inherited.
  The hard fact is that when our colleagues were in charge of 
everything--they had the House, the Senate, and they controlled the 
White House--they brought this country to the brink of financial 
collapse. That is a fact. Thank goodness this President, acting with 
this Congress, was able to draw us back from the brink, but we have a 
long way to go. We have a long way to go. It is going to take everybody 
working together to pull us out of the ditch completely.
  I have been part of major efforts for the last 5 years--bipartisan 
efforts--including Bowles-Simpson, the group of six; right now the 
group of six has been

[[Page S6487]]

expanded to the group of eight. We have been working nonstop, hundreds 
of hours of discussions, on a bipartisan plan--four Democrats, four 
Republicans--to be enacted when we return, to get America back on 
track. That is what is required here.
  What we saw this morning from our colleagues on the other side is not 
the answer; it is the problem. The same old tired political 
gamesmanship is not going to cut it. What we desperately need is 
Republicans and Democrats working together to solve America's problems. 
That is what we owe the American people. I very much hope when we 
return after this election that colleagues on both sides will be 
prepared to act in that spirit.
  I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am very proud to follow Chairman 
Conrad on the floor at this time. There is no person in the U.S. Senate 
who has worked harder on a budget compromise than Senator Conrad has. 
There is no person who has put out the hand of bipartisan friendship 
and cooperation more than Senator Conrad has. There is no person who 
has experienced more frustration of having that hand rejected and 
slapped away than Senator Conrad has, and there is no person who has 
contained that frustration and continued to work forward and seek 
resolution in a dignified way than Senator Conrad has.
  The Senate Republicans who took to the floor this morning to 
criticize Democrats for failing to pass a budget and deal with the 
impending sequester and tax cuts expiration failed to note that Senate 
Democrats have, in fact, passed a budget law and a bill that extends 
the tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small 
businesses. It is to protect the 2 percent and the 3 percent at the top 
of the income level that Republicans have refused to allow that bill 
protecting 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses 
from tax increases from going forward.
  Senate Democrats also support a balanced approach to replacing the 
sequester and reducing the deficit. What they didn't talk much about 
but which is very important in this discussion is the Republican Ryan 
plan for the budget.
  This past May, 41 of our Senate Republican colleagues voted in favor 
of a radical transformation of the America we know. And the Republican-
controlled House passed this budget--a budget that would devastate the 
middle class. The plan would end Medicare as we know it for future 
retirees. It would reopen the Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole 
that we closed for current retirees. It would slash investments that 
America's children depend on, from Head Start to Federal college aid; 
and it would give the average million-dollar earner a new additional 
tax cut of, on average, $285,000 each in that million-dollar-plus 
earner cohort.
  The blockade here that is preventing moving beyond the sequester is 
by Republicans, particularly in the House, refusing to proceed in any 
reasonable way and, instead, demanding these damaging radical cuts for 
the middle class.
  Let's look a little bit behind the curtain of campaign rhetoric and 
examine the harm--the personal real-life, real-person harm--that the 
Ryan budget would inflict on millions of middle-class families and 
retirees.
  In what is one of the extraordinary examples of ``say one thing, but 
do another'' rhetoric, Mr. Ryan, in his recent nomination acceptance 
speech, said that ``the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of 
the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is 
how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.''
  His budget, of course, visibly does exactly the opposite. It slashes 
taxes for the most well off, while decimating the programs on which 
struggling families and retirees rely.
  Do not take my word for it. Following the House passage of this Ryan 
budget, the Conference of Catholic Bishops said:

       Congress faces a difficult task to balance needs and 
     resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices.
       Just solutions, however--

  The bishops said--

     must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising 
     adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other 
     spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health 
     insurance and retirement programs. The House-passed budget 
     resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.

  That is what the Conference of Catholic Bishops said. I will state 
again: ``The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral 
criteria.''
  That is not me speaking. That is the Conference of America's Catholic 
Bishops.
  So let's start our look behind the curtain, the curtain of the budget 
that fails this moral test--that Governor Romney said was 
``marvelous,'' to use his word--let's start with the budget's tax 
theories.
  The Ryan budget would lower the top tax rates for both corporations 
and the highest earning individuals from 35 percent to 25 percent.
  According to a Joint Economic Committee analysis, this would result 
in an average tax cut of $285,000 for Americans earning $1 million a 
year and more. At the same time, middle-income taxpayers making between 
$50,000 and $100,000 would see their taxes go up--go up--by $1,300 
because middle-class deductions are stripped away to pay for the high-
end cuts.
  Ryan would also shift, at the corporate level, to a so-called 
territorial tax system, which would mean that companies that ship jobs 
and operations overseas would no longer have to pay any U.S. taxes on 
their overseas profits.
  Democrats have tried repeatedly to offer tax incentives to companies 
that bring jobs home to the United States. And nobody in this body has 
worked harder on bringing jobs home to the United States than the 
Presiding Officer, the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brown.
  Well, the Ryan plan would do exactly the opposite. It would tell big 
corporations that if they move their business operations overseas, they 
will never pay taxes on those again. The Ryan plan is really a jobs 
bill for China, for India, for Korea, not for America. It is an 
offshoring rewards act.
  In addition to those upside down tax changes that harm the middle 
class and raise their taxes to cut taxes for the highest earners in 
this country, in addition to its inducements to offshore more jobs 
instead of bringing them home, the Ryan budget would slash $2.9 
trillion from our health care programs. Beginning for workers who 
retire in 2023, Mr. Ryan would convert Medicare to a voucher system, 
which, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, would 
ultimately add an estimated $6,000 in annual out-of-pocket costs that 
our retirees, our seniors would have to fork over.
  It is hard to imagine how future seniors living on a fixed Social 
Security income will be able to maintain health care coverage with 
these substantial increases in out-of-pocket costs that Mr. Ryan's 
budget envisions.
  If the Republicans are saying they will not make the deal that spares 
us the sequester unless that deal puts an end to Medicare as we know 
it, holding Medicare hostage, well, it then takes some ``brass''--to 
use President Clinton's phrase--to say: We are for the sequester.
  The Ryan budget does not stop there. It would repeal the Affordable 
Care Act and take away access to affordable health insurance for 
millions of Americans of all ages. And, of course, repealing the 
Affordable Care Act hits seniors again by reopening that dreaded 
Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole that we worked so hard to 
close and that is closed over time in the Affordable Care Act.
  In 2011 alone, the Affordable Care Act helped nearly 15,000 people in 
my home State of Rhode Island save an average of $554 by beginning to 
close the doughnut hole--millions of dollars out of the pockets of 
Rhode Island seniors.
  That made a big difference for people such as Olive, who wrote to me 
from Woonsocket. Her husband fell into the doughnut hole last July. 
Thanks to the new law, Olive and her husband received a discount on 
their prescription drugs. They saved $2,400. If the Ryan budget passed, 
they would be stuck paying that full cost again: $2,400 right out of 
the pockets of Olive and her husband and into the pockets of the drug 
companies. Gee, who would be for that around here?
  In fact, under the Ryan budget, the average senior would be stuck 
with

[[Page S6488]]

$4,200 in additional out-of-pocket prescription costs--a huge transfer 
of wealth from America's seniors to the big drug companies.
  Repealing the Affordable Care Act would not just harm seniors, it 
would also mean that insurance plans would no longer have to cover 
young adults up to age 26 on their parents' plans. This moves over 3 
million young Americans--just getting out of college, still looking for 
that first job that has health insurance coverage--back on to the rolls 
of the uninsured.
  The radical Ryan budget would also hurt young people by slashing Pell 
grants, making college less affordable. Students and graduates are 
already struggling to pay a record trillion dollars that Americans now 
owe in outstanding student loans, and the Ryan plan would force 
students to take on even greater debt burdens.
  On top of these specific cuts, the Ryan budget takes an additional $1 
trillion in unspecified discretionary spending cuts. Domestic 
discretionary funding is the money that is used to keep the government 
operating each year--FBI agents investigating cases, Border Patrol 
agents working our borders, doctors and nurses treating veterans at the 
VA, employees mailing out Social Security checks, and many other 
important programs and functions.

  It is already at its lowest level as a share of GDP since the 1950s. 
It is hard to imagine any Federal investment--whether it is education 
or housing or highways or law enforcement, you name it--not being 
jeopardized by such Draconian cuts.
  That is why President Reagan's--President Reagan's--former economic 
adviser said about this Ryan budget plan:

       The Ryan plan is a monstrosity.

  Ronald Reagan's economic advisor said: ``The Ryan plan is a 
monstrosity.''

       The rich would receive huge tax cuts while the social 
     safety net would be shredded to pay for it. . . . It is less 
     of a wish list than a fairy tale utterly disconnected from 
     the real world, backed up by make-believe numbers and 
     unreasonable assumptions.

  If that is what Ronald Reagan's economic advisor thought about it, 
think what regular people might think about it.

       Ryan's plan isn't even an act of courage; it's just 
     pandering to the Tea Party.

  But that is what is being held hostage on this sequester.
  I hope when the election season is over, no matter who wins, that 
Republicans will work with us--without insisting on a monstrosity, 
without insisting on the end of Medicare--on a balanced and reasonable 
plan to reduce the deficit. With a record national debt, now is no time 
for more tax giveaways to billionaires, as Mr. Ryan proposes, but, 
rather, it is the time to ensure an America where everyone gets a fair 
shot, everyone pitches in their fair share, and we go forward as a 
country together, as we always have in our best days.
  I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Washington is 
recognized.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I caught some of the dog-and-pony show 
that Republicans put on this morning on the floor of the Senate, and I 
thought it was pretty indicative of their approach to this entire 
Congress--all politics, no participation. Someone must have reminded 
them this morning that they are 47 days away from an election and that 
for the last 624 days of this Congress, they have done nothing but say 
no.
  But I am here to say that an hour of speeches on the Senate floor 
cannot erase an entire Congress of obstruction. In fact, the 
Republicans' show this morning reminded me of a move I have seen many 
times before as a former preschool teacher and as a mom who has watched 
a lot of kids go through school. It reminded me how on the very last 
day of school before summer there was always one student who had not 
done their homework all year long, and on that last day they showed up 
on their best behavior, homework in hand, hoping to leave a good 
impression. They thought maybe this last-ditch effort could help them 
avoid a bad grade.
  Unfortunately, it does not work that way.
  So let me assure Republicans of one thing: Their record of 
obstruction and their refusal to compromise will not go away at the 
eleventh hour. One-minute speeches on the day before they go to face 
voters cannot paper over 100 filibusters. It will not change the fact 
that almost 2 years ago the Senate minority leader revealed that his 
No. 1 priority was--not working to get Americans back to work, it was 
not bringing our economy back from the brink, it was not ensuring that 
America remained a leader at home and abroad, no--to defeat President 
Obama, it was playing politics, just as we saw this morning.
  There has been, seemingly, no group of Americans--well, with the 
exception of millionaires and billionaires--who have been spared in the 
Republicans' efforts to achieve their goals--not our teachers, not our 
college students, not our farmers, not construction workers, not first 
responders, not even our Nation's veterans have been spared their 
efforts to destroy the work of this Congress.
  There was no better example of that than yesterday here on the floor 
of the U.S. Senate. The Veterans Jobs Corps bill that we brought to the 
floor included 12 provisions to help veterans find jobs.
  Eight of them. Let me repeat that. Eight of those provisions were 
Republican ideas. This bill was fully paid for. It was based on 
existing grant programs that are putting Americans to work. It would 
have allowed the veterans to serve their communities. It would have 
given unemployed veterans the self-esteem that a job provides. It would 
have allowed them to support their families and help ease that 
transition back home.
  That bill came at a time when one in four young veterans today is out 
of work. It came at a time when our military and veteran suicide rates 
are outpacing combat deaths and when more and more, as we all know, 
veterans are coming home today. The American Legion supported it. The 
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America supported it. The problem was, 
it seemed, President Obama supported it. So we know from everything we 
have seen and attempted on the Senate floor, no matter how good or bad 
of an idea, no matter which struggling American would benefit, it seems 
that if the President supports it, you can pretty much guarantee Senate 
Republicans will not.
  That is the legacy the Senate Republicans are going to take home to 
voters, the legacy that when middle-class American families needed 
their help the most, they refused to compromise to get things done; 
that when Americans were hurting, they put politics before people; that 
they set a goal of not participating, and they followed through on that 
at every single turn. No amount of snappy speeches is going to change 
that. No last-minute appeals for leniency will change that record.
  In fact, it is ironic that this morning all of the Republican 
Senators showed up on the floor because for the last 2 years, when the 
American people have needed them the most, they have been absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

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