[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 18 (Thursday, January 30, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S611-S613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 IMPROVING THE PROVISION OF MEDICAL SERVICES AND BENEFITS TO VETERANS--
                           MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 297, 
S. 1950.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 297, S. 1950, a bill to 
     improve the provision of medical services and benefits to 
     veterans, and for other purposes.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following my remarks the time until 11:15 
a.m. will be equally divided and controlled dealing with flood 
insurance. At 11:15 a.m. there will be up to four rollcall votes in 
relation to amendments to that bill.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following those votes the recess which was 
originally scheduled until 2 p.m.--and that will still be the case, 
except I ask unanimous consent that on the passage of S. 1926, as 
amended, the votes start at 1:50 p.m., with all other provisions of the 
previous order remaining in effect.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. Additionally, we expect to receive momentarily the 
conference report to accompany the farm bill today, and we will work on 
getting an agreement to move forward on this today.


                      Retirement of Joel Breitner

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, here in the Senate we work closely with so 
many people, but no one do we work more closely with than the court 
reporters. They are right here in our face every time we talk, taking 
down a verbatim transcript of what we say, and they work extremely 
hard.
  We went through a period of time when we were working through all

[[Page S612]]

these nominations, and they went for days without going home. They had 
a cot in their office, and they never missed a beat.
  I always watch very closely the court reporters because my brother--
who is 22 months younger than I am--was a court reporter. He retired 
from doing that, but I watched him work so hard.
  Court reporting is extremely difficult. It is very intense. In court 
we rarely have court reporters who take what we call a daily. They will 
have a couple of court reporters during a trial and they will 
transcribe their notes sometime later. But here in the Senate they 
transcribe their notes now--immediately.
  The reason I mention that today is one of our reporters is going to 
retire. Joel Breitner has been here for three decades in the Senate. 
Prior to coming here, he was a court reporter. He has this designation 
now--as this young woman in front of me is reporting what I say--as an 
Official Reporter for the United States Senate.
  Joel began working here in this body in 1987, after having been a 
court reporter already for 23 years. During his time in the reporters 
office, he has witnessed both innovation and a lot of history. He was 
one of the first reporters to use computer-aided transcription, which 
is a modern miracle--it really is--because the stenographic notes at 
the same time they type them, are already translating into English. 
That isn't the way it used to be.
  I can remember my brother--and, of course, Joel, who was one of the 
first here in this body to use the computer-aided transcription and did 
what my brother did--you took down what people said with your machine, 
and then you would go back to your office, look over your notes, and 
transcribe them, and then either you would type them up or have someone 
do so. So it was a lot of work. It is still a lot of work, but it is a 
lot different than it used to be.
  He is one of the first, if not the first, in this body to use this 
computer-aided transcription, and it really helped modernize the Office 
of Official Reporters.
  He has reported historic events, countless numbers of them--President 
Clinton's first inaugural address, his impeachment. Over the years he 
has been a friend and resource to the Senate pages. Joel is a very 
nice, quiet person whom I will miss.
  When we cross--I always see them--I say: ``Saddling up again''--
putting on the heavy equipment they wear during the time they are here. 
They work very, very hard, and they transcribe every word we say. There 
are times I wish they hadn't, but they did.
  Mr. President, it is no surprise, with the affection that Joel has 
shown for the pages, that Jamie, one of his children, has been a Senate 
page.
  So I thank him on behalf of the entire Senate for his years of 
service not only to Senators but everybody, for his years of service in 
the reporters office, and I congratulate him on a very distinguished 
career. I wish him the best in retirement. I know he will enjoy 
spending more time with his children and with Carol, his wife of almost 
three decades.


                            working together

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I need to comment on part of what my 
Republican counterpart said. The President gave a good State of the 
Union Address to the country on Tuesday night. It was a dramatic 
speech, and he called upon us to work together. You would never know 
that from what the Republican leader said today.
  He also said, as President of the United States, he has the power to 
do things when the Senate finds itself bogged down, as we have been 
with countless filibusters. During the years I have been leader of the 
Senate, there have been more than 470 filibusters conducted by the 
Republicans. Is it any wonder the President is going to do some things 
administratively because of the logjam we have here? Hopefully we can 
do better than we have done. I hope that is the case.
  This country has been hurt by the constant obstruction we have had. I 
am surprised--but not too much--that my Republican colleague would say 
the President has to do something to help create jobs. One need only 
reflect on when President Obama took office. We were losing 700,000 
jobs a month at that time. But because of his patience and wisdom and 
the fact that he had a Democratic Senate and Congress for the first 2 
years of his Presidency, we were able to do some terrific things for 
the country.
  Since then, as we know, the Republican leader has said his No. 1 goal 
was to defeat Obama for the reelection, and that is how the Republicans 
have legislated. Over the last 3 years, they have done everything they 
could to stop the country from moving forward. They actually did it 
during the first 2 years he was President, but they didn't have the 
power to do much then except obstruct, and we had enough votes to 
overcome their obstruction.
  I don't know if my friend the Republican leader understands that in 
spite of his No. 1 goal to defeat the President that he was reelected 
overwhelmingly because the American people agreed with his view of the 
country.
  I am not going to go into more detail about how I believe my 
Republican colleague is wrong on what has happened with bogging down 
the Senate, but I will comment on one aspect of his presentation: 
Because of the U.S. Supreme Court case called Citizens United, there 
has been some really untoward stuff going on in the political world. We 
have two brothers who are actually trying to buy the country. Last year 
the Koch brothers made billions of dollars. They are spending their 
billions of dollars by going into State legislatures, Governors races, 
and secretary of state races on a State level, and, of course, spending 
huge amounts of money around the country in an attempt to defeat 
Democrats both in the House and the Senate.
  The Republican leader has long been an opponent of campaign finance 
reform. This has been part of his career. So it is no surprise that he 
opposes the administration's effort for greater disclosure. The abuse 
here is not the administration enforcing the law, but folks like the 
Koch brothers pretending to be social welfare organizations.
  The Presiding Officer has dedicated much of his life to improving the 
social welfare of people from his State. These social welfare 
organizations are extremely helpful for people who have problems. The 
Koch brothers are not a social welfare organization. They are plainly 
acting as a political organization. They are spending tens and hundreds 
of millions of dollars on political activities. They have not 
contributed to anything that deals with social welfare. Folks who act 
as political organizations should have to disclose where the money 
comes from.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, the Koch brothers hide all of their 
campaign efforts. They disguise themselves, with rare exception, as 
social welfare organizations. They have all these fancy names and go 
after people who are trying to improve the country.
  We have an important piece of legislation we are going to pass today 
to improve the ability of our country to prosper. The bipartisan 
measure called the flood insurance bill will protect the Nation's 
recovering housing market and save consumers money.
  I thank Senator Menendez, the chairman of the banking committee, and 
Chairman Landrieu, who is chairman of the small business committee. 
They have done a wonderful job--these two working together with Senator 
Isakson--with their leadership on this issue.
  I look forward to a strong bipartisan vote on this measure this 
afternoon. I would note that the bipartisan agreement to vote on a 
reasonable number of relevant amendments and on final passage of the 
flood insurance measure is exactly the kind of agreement that 
Republicans have rejected on other legislative priorities.
  For example, when Democrats offered to vote on 20 relevant amendments 
to a full offset extension of unemployment insurance a couple of weeks 
ago, the Republicans refused. Since then, 150,000 more Americans have 
lost emergency benefits that were helping them to stay above water 
while they look for work. In all, more than 1.6 million out-of-work 
Americans have lost benefits to help them put food on the table and gas 
in the tank so they can focus on their job search.
  I hope in the coming week Democrats and Republicans will be able 
reach a bipartisan agreement to have an up-or-down vote on the 
extension of unemployment insurance as well. I hope it is not again 
bogged down with obstruction. I am confident that we have the

[[Page S613]]

opportunity to do that, and we should do it. Millions of fellow 
Americans are counting on us to do this on an affirmative basis.
  While we work toward an agreement to restore unemployment benefits, 
the Senate will also, as I mentioned earlier, consider the farm bill 
conference report. America's farms and ranches are the most productive 
in the world. They support 16 million private sector jobs. Smart farm 
policies will help American farmers thrive. That is an important part 
of our work to keep the economic recovery rolling. The farm bill will 
create jobs and cut taxpayer subsidies and save $23 billion which will 
be used to reduce the deficit.
  I would also note that we have done an admirable job of reducing the 
debt. Do we need to do more? Of course we do. We have already reduced 
the debt during the Obama years by almost $3 trillion, and if we could 
get the Republicans in the House to agree on the bill we passed dealing 
with immigration reform, it would be another $1 trillion toward 
reducing the debt.
  I would also note, as I indicated earlier, that when President Obama 
first took office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. We have now 
created more than 8 million jobs. We need to do more and the farm bill 
will help that. The farm bill will create jobs and cut taxpayer 
subsidies and save $20 billion which will be used to reduce the debt 
and deficit. The bill includes important reforms to farm programs, and 
while this measure doesn't include as much funding for programs to 
reduce hunger as a number of us would like, it is a good compromise and 
it will protect needy families.
  Senator Stabenow from Michigan has been the chairman of this 
committee. She has worked so hard for years to get this done. We have 
passed it twice here in the Senate. We have struggled to get something 
done in the House, and we were finally able to get this done under her 
leadership.

                          ____________________