[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 57 (Wednesday, April 24, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2909-S2911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        MARKETPLACE FAIRNESS ACT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I had a number of meetings yesterday with 
Democratic and Republican proponents of the Marketplace Fairness Act. 
This

[[Page S2910]]

is a piece of legislation that is overwhelmingly supported by Democrats 
and Republicans. I appreciate the remarks of the Presiding Officer 
yesterday on behalf of this legislation.
  Succinctly, what this legislation would do is level the playing field 
between online sellers and brick-and-mortar retailers. As everyone 
knows, we have had a lot of problems with the economy. But in Nevada we 
have been hit very hard. We led the Nation for 20 years with a vibrant 
economy. In the last 4 or 5 years it has been difficult. We are doing 
better now but we are not doing great. For lack of a better 
description, I was going to say it breaks my heart. I am not sure that 
is proper. But I feel very badly when I drive in Reno or Las Vegas and 
see these little strip malls with ``for lease'' signs. They would not 
be for lease if they had the ability to compete with these online 
sellers.
  As indicated yesterday on a number of occasions in presentations I 
heard made, people come to the retailers who pay money for brick and 
mortar. They will find a pair of shoes, they will find a coat they 
like, or whatever else, and they immediately walk out of there and go 
on line and do not pay the sales tax. That prevents that business from 
succeeding.

  The reason I mention this today, we could finish this legislation 
today, on Wednesday, and move on to the other bipartisan legislation. 
We have a small number of Senators who are holding this up, stalling. 
This has 50 Democratic votes and at least 25 Republican votes. I know 
many of my Republican colleagues want to attend--and I think that is 
appropriate; I wish I could--the opening of the Bush Library in Texas. 
Unfortunately, there are Senators who are playing procedural games that 
are going to prevent that from happening. I do not say this often. 
There is no chance they can prevail. We have three States basically 
holding up this legislation. For people to talk, you are coercing us to 
do something. We are coercing those States to do nothing. Zero. 
Nothing. We are just trying to make the playing field level.
  So I want everyone to understand, just a handful of Senators is 
preventing us from doing our work. We are going to finish this 
legislation this week. I know this sounds like me crying wolf, but this 
may be the time the wolf is really coming.
  We have a bipartisan bill we have to move to next work period. It is 
the WRDA, Water Resources Development Act, supported by one of the most 
liberal Members of this Senate, Barbara Boxer, and one of the most 
conservative Members, Senator Vitter. They have worked out a bill. It 
has been reported out of their committee. It is on the calendar right 
now. We are going to move to that.
  In addition to that, we have another bipartisan bill in the wings 
coming out, the agriculture bill. We need to complete those bills next 
work period, because we have to get to immigration. So everyone 
understand, this is not crying wolf. We are going to finish this bill.
  I spoke yesterday to Senator Enzi who has worked on this bill for 11 
years. I spoke to my good friend--and certainly Mike Enzi is my good 
friend; I do not mean to choose favorites here--Lamar Alexander. They 
both said we have got to finish this bill this week. We are going to do 
that. When I have requests from Dick Durbin and my Republican friends 
to move forward on this bill, we are going to move forward on it. If we 
have to be here Friday and Saturday, I am telling everybody we are 
going to finish this bill.
  We have a 3-week work period next time. We have to jam in WRDA and 
hopefully the ag bill so we can move before July 4 and finish the 
immigration bill which is going to take up quite a bit of time. We have 
too much to do when we return from our in-State work period.
  I have a lot to do. I have a conference. I am going to do some things 
there with Eric Cantor. We do not do things together very often, but we 
are going to talk about some issues people want to talk about. I want 
to be able to do that. It is not here in Washington. If I have to put 
that off, it would be a shame for me and Eric Cantor, and I think the 
people putting on the conference. But if that is what it takes, that is 
what it takes. I want to go home. So we are going to finish this bill.
  I am going to read an editorial from one of the world's leading 
newspapers. It says, ``Budget Cuts, Minus the Inconvenience.'' 
Headline: Republicans encourage a sequester affecting the poor, but 
they are furious about travel delays.
  Here is what it says. I am not editorializing, I am just telling you 
what they put in this newspaper editorial today.

       On Monday, after the sequester cuts forced the Federal 
     Aviation Administration to begin furloughs for air traffic 
     controllers, delays began to build up at airports around the 
     country. Travelers had to wait, but nothing delayed 
     Republicans from scurrying away from all responsibility. 
     Speaker John Boehner started using the Twitter hashtag 
     #ObamaFlightDelays, the latest effort in his party's campaign 
     to blame all the pain of the sequester on the Obama 
     administration while claiming all the credit for its effect 
     on reducing the deficit.
       ``Why is President Obama unnecessarily delaying your 
     flight?'' Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, wrote in a 
     message on Twitter. If the President wanted to, Republicans 
     said, he could easily cut somewhere else and spare travelers 
     any inconvenience.
       As it happens, the sequester law is clear in requiring the 
     F.A.A. and most other agencies to cut their programs by an 
     even amount. That law was foisted on the public after 
     Republicans demanded spending cuts in exchange for raising 
     the debt ceiling in 2012. Since then, the party has rejected 
     every offer to replace the sequester with a more sensible mix 
     of cuts and revenue increases. Mr. Boehner is so proud of 
     that strategy that he recently congratulated his party for 
     sticking with the sequester and standing up to the 
     president's demand for tax increases.
       But drastic cuts in spending carry a heavy price. 
     Republicans certainly don't want voters they care about--
     including business travelers and those who can afford to fly 
     on vacation--to feel it. They continue to claim that the $85 
     billion in this year's sequester can be covered by 
     eliminating waste, fraud, consultants, and the inevitable 
     grant to some obscure science or art project. And of course 
     to programs for the poor.
       You don't see any Republican hashtags blaming the president 
     for cutting housing vouchers to 140,000 low-income families, 
     which has begun. These vouchers are given by cities to 
     families on the brink of homelessness, and about half of them 
     go to families with children.
       There aren't any tweets about the 70,000 Head Start slots 
     about to be eliminated, which is forcing some school 
     districts to distribute these valuable services by lottery.

  This is not the editorial. The Presiding Officer's colleague, Senator 
Rockefeller--a wealthy man with this great name--as a young man went to 
West Virginia and fell in love with the poor because he was a VISTA 
volunteer, and he never left. He is now here in the Senate.
  Let's get to the editorial. I am sorry about that.
  Continuing:

       Or about the cuts to Vista [Volunteers in Service to 
     America], which is hurting the program that performs 
     antipoverty work in many States. Or the 11 percent cut in 
     unemployment benefits for millions of jobless workers.
       The voiceless people who are the most affected by these 
     cuts can't afford high-priced lobbyists to get them an 
     exception to the sequester, the way that the agriculture 
     lobby was able to fend off a furlough to meat inspectors, 
     which might have disrupted beef and poultry operations. And 
     what was cut in order to keep those inspectors on the job? 
     About $25 million from a program to provide free school 
     breakfasts.
       As bad as the sequester was, it was being made worse by 
     these special-interest demands for exceptions, as well as 
     politically motivated attempts to deflect the responsibility 
     for pain.
       The maneuvering shows the futility of trying to reduce the 
     deficit with crude and arbitrary cuts. Both Senate Democrats 
     and the White House have proposed budget plans that replace 
     the sequester with a much better mix of spending cuts and 
     revenue increases.
       On Tuesday, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, 
     proposed replacing the sequester for 5 months with unspent 
     money from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  This is what one of America's major newspapers said today that 
millions of people will have the opportunity to read.
  The sequester was designed as a tool to bring Democrats and 
Republicans together to reduce the deficit in a responsible way. By now 
we can all see that didn't work, and we can see that sequester's costs 
far outweigh the savings.
  As indicated in this editorial, these across-the-board cuts would 
cost, this year, 750,000 jobs--three-quarters of a million jobs. They 
will cost us investments in education that keep America competitive. 
They will cost millions of

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seniors, children, veterans, and needy families the safety net that 
keeps them from descending into poverty.
  Most of the headlines are focused on the hours the sequester has cost 
travelers in airports across the Nation. The frustration and the 
economic effects of those delays should not be minimized.
  The sequester could also cost this country, and humankind, a cure for 
AIDS, Parkinson's disease, or cancer. These arbitrary cuts have 
decimated funding for medical researchers seeking cures for diabetes, 
epilepsy, and hundreds of other dangerous and debilitating diseases.
  The National Institutes of Health has delayed or halted vital 
scientific projects and reduced the number of grants it awards to 
research scientists. Thousands of research scientists will lose their 
jobs in the next few months. Research projects that can't go on without 
adequate staffing will be cancelled altogether. Ohio State University, 
which is known for more than a good football and basketball team, is 
also one of the premier research centers in America. Grants for cancer 
research and infectious disease control have been axed. They are over. 
At the University of Cincinnati, which is at the forefront in research 
on strokes--a leading cause of death in the United States--scientists 
are bracing for some more cuts. Vanderbilt University and the 
University of Kentucky are accepting fewer science graduate students 
because of funding reductions. At Wright State University, scientists 
researching pregnancy-related disorders, such as preeclampsia, will 
lose their jobs. Boston University has laid off lab scientists, and 
research laboratories in San Francisco have instituted hiring freezes 
and delayed the launch of important studies. Grants to some of Harvard 
University's most successful research scientists were not renewed 
because of the sequester.
  The research I have talked about today--and these are only a few of 
them--saves lives and saves misery. These scientists are looking for 
the next successful treatment for Alzheimer's or the next drug to treat 
high cholesterol. They might never get the chance to complete their 
groundbreaking work or make their lifesaving discoveries because of 
these shortsighted cuts.
  We have seen the devastating impacts of these arbitrary budget cuts. 
Now it is time to stop them.
  Be prepared, everybody--the House is now working on another bill 
because we have the debt ceiling coming soon. They are working on 
another bill to make it even more painful for the American people.
  Last night I introduced a bill that would roll back the sequester for 
the rest of the year, and just like the editorial indicated, it is 
something we should do. The bill would give Democrats and Republicans 
time to sit down at the negotiating table and work out an agreement to 
reduce the deficit in a balanced way. It wouldn't add a penny to the 
deficit. It would use the savings from winding down the wars in 
Afghanistan and Iraq to prevent cuts that will harm our national 
security and our economy.
  Before the Republicans dismiss these savings, they should recall that 
235 Republicans voted to use these funds to pay for the Ryan Republican 
budget. They didn't consider it a gimmick when it served their own 
purposes.
  We can stop the flight delays and the pink slips. We can stop the 
devastating cuts to programs that protect low-income children, 
homebound seniors, and homeless veterans. We can stop the cuts to 
crucial medical research. But Democrats can't do it without 
Republicans' help.
  Republicans overwhelmingly voted for these painful, arbitrary cuts, 
and Republicans bear responsibility for their consequences. Remember, 
these cuts came about because of the debt ceiling they refused to move 
on until these devastating cuts came about, and Republicans bear 
responsibility for the consequences, from travel delays to cuts to 
vital programs. Now Republicans must accept that they have an 
obligation to cooperate with us to help stop these Draconian cuts and 
mitigate the consequences.

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