[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 14, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2994-S3017]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NOMINATION OF ROY K.J. WILLIAMS TO BE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF COMMERCE
FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
______
NOMINATION OF CARLOS ROBERTO MORENO TO BE AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY AND
PLENIPOTENTIARY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO BELIZE
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
proceed to consideration of the following nominations, which the clerk
will report.
The bill clerk read the nominations of Roy K.J. Williams, of Ohio, to
be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development; and Carlos
Roberto Moreno, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Belize.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 2
minutes of debate prior to a vote on the Williams nomination.
Mr. LEAHY. I yield back all time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, all time is yielded back.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination
of Roy K.J. Williams, of Ohio, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce
for Economic Development?
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 2
minutes of debate prior a vote on the Moreno nomination.
Mr. LEAHY. I yield back all time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, all time is yielded back.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination
of Carlos Roberto Moreno, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Belize?
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 5:15
p.m. will be equally divided between the two leaders or their
designees.
The time from 3 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. will be controlled by the
Republicans, and the time from 3:45 to 4:30 p.m. will be controlled by
the majority.
The Senator from Maryland.
Unanimous Consent Request--s. 357
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, as I think my colleagues know, this is
National Police Week. I know I express the sentiment of every Member of
this body who wishes to show their appreciation for the 900,000
Federal, State, and local law enforcement officers who literally put
their lives on the line every day to keep us safe. We cannot thank them
enough, but we can help them by our actions. In 2013 there were 105 who
lost their lives in the line of duty, so obviously this is a matter
that requires the attention of the Senate.
Let me cite the most recent casualty in the State of Maryland. On
August 28, 2013, Baltimore County police officer Jason Schneider, who
was only 36 years of age, was shot and killed while serving a search
warrant at a home on Roberts Avenue in Catonsville at approximately 5
o'clock in the morning. Officer Schneider was part of a tactical team
that had entered the house in search of a juvenile subject wanted in
relation to a shooting of the previous week. The entry team encountered
four subjects inside the house who attempted to flee. Officer Schneider
was pursuing a subject toward the rear of the house when another
subject attacked him and opened fire, striking him several times.
Despite being mortally wounded, Officer Schneider returned fire and
killed the subject. Officer Schneider is survived by his wife and two
children.
Unfortunately, that story was told 105 other times in 2013 with law
enforcement officers who lost their lives in the line of duty.
I have introduced legislation--S. 357--which provides for a national
blue alert. I think most Members are familiar with AMBER alerts. It
means the
[[Page S2995]]
rapid dissemination of information to help law enforcement. Well, a
blue alert would deal with an officer who has been assaulted, attacked,
or killed.
Law enforcement will tell us rapid dissemination is the most
important part of law enforcement. So it is critically important that
information be made available.
This is a bipartisan bill. I originally filed the bill with Senator
Graham, and I appreciate his help.
Senator Leahy has been a real champion. As chairman of the Judiciary
Committee, I can't thank him enough for his help with this legislation
and the work he has done on behalf of law enforcement.
Senator McConnell today in his leader time discussed that this week
is National Police Week and mentioned he is a cosponsor of the
legislation I am referring to and urged that this is the type of bill
we need to pass.
Senator Blunt is on the floor. I thank him very much. He has been a
real leader in regards to law enforcement issues and Blue Alert.
This bill passed with 406 votes in the House of Representatives. It
is a bill which provides for smart ways to help law enforcement. It is
endorsed and supported by a whole host of groups, including the
Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of Police
Organizations, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the
Concerns of Police Survivors, and the Sergeants Benevolent Association
of the New York Police Department. The list goes on and on. So we are
looking for a way we can not only express our appreciation to those in
law enforcement but we can tangibly do something to help.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent as if in legislative session
the Senate proceed to Calendar No. 194, S. 357, the National Blue Alert
Act; that the bill be read a third time and passed; and the motion to
reconsider be laid upon table, with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, per the Senate rules I have submitted a
letter outlining my reasons for objecting to this, besides it not being
paid for, and I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Maryland who,
just as he did when he was in the State legislature and has done every
single day since he has been in the Senate, has been supportive of law
enforcement and police officers. I am sorry there was an objection.
I spoke earlier to my dear friend, the Senator from Maryland, Mr.
Cardin. I told him that earlier today I chaired a hearing on the
Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program. The distinguished Presiding
Officer, the Senator from Delaware, was there, as were law enforcement
officers from Delaware.
During that hearing we heard from Officer Ann Carrizales of the
Stafford, TX, police department. This was some of the most powerful
testimony I have heard in my almost 40 years on that committee.
She was shot in the face and chest during a routine traffic stop last
year. She was saved by her protective vest. She returned fire and then
pursued the suspects for 20 miles and ultimately helped a neighboring
police jurisdiction apprehend the shooter--a determined police officer,
former Marine, mother, and wife.
We also heard from a police chief who will be staying here with law
enforcement during National Police Week. We talked about the
Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program, which Senator Ben
Nighthorse Campbell--who served in law enforcement, a Republican from
Colorado--and I first introduced, and for decades it has been passed
unanimously. It saves lives. It is not a luxury item.
Last week, I came to the Senate floor, seeking to do what this body
has done 3 times before, and that is to reauthorize the Bulletproof
Vest Partnership Grant Program. My legislation to renew this life-
saving program for another 5 years has the support of every Democrat in
the Senate. It is strongly supported by leading law enforcement groups,
and on a much more personal note, we know that vests provided by this
program have protected thousands of officers and spared their families
and loved ones from unspeakable grief.
Officers like Officer Ann Carrizales. If her story does not inspire
us all to support brave law enforcement officers by providing them with
the most basic protection, then I do not know what could. She brought
with her today almost 200 letters from her daughter's elementary
school, all calling on the Senate to act. One of the letters I have is
from her daughter MiKayla, talking about what her mother faced. This
was powerful testimony.
Unfortunately, my efforts to pass this important reauthorization were
blocked last week by a Republican Senator who seems to think that
bulletproof vests are a luxury item. Some Republican Senators also
believe that the Federal Government has no role to play in assisting
local law enforcement. I could not disagree more. We in Congress have
long supported local law enforcement because we have a duty to keep our
communities safe.
Today, during National Police Week, Senators who say they stand with
law enforcement should demonstrate their support and put real meaning
behind those words by supporting two important bills. All Senators
should support the passage of S. 933, the Bulletproof Vest Partnership
Grant Program Reauthorization Act of 2013. To date, this program has
enabled over 13,000 State and local law enforcement agencies to
purchase over 1 million vests. It we act today, this program could help
provide more vests to the law enforcement officers who protect us every
day. We should also pass the National Blue Alert Act, a bill sponsored
by Senators Cardin and Graham that would create a national alert system
when an officer is injured or killed in the line of duty. We can put
real meaning behind our rhetoric. These are commonsense bills and they
should be enacted without further delay.
Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent
the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 162, S. 933,
the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program Reauthorization Act of
2013; that the bill be read a third time and passed; and that the
motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action
or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. COBURN. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, we went through this 10 days ago, and I
gave a very long and detailed explanation of my objections to this
bill. I won't belabor that again. But again, we are at the process
where we owe $17 trillion, and we are spending money that we don't have
in areas that are far lower in priority than this issue.
I have no objection, and I think, in terms of bulletproof vests, this
is actually a great way to protect those who protect us. But again, as
I stated the last time we had this discussion, under the enumerated
powers this is the responsibility of the States and local communities.
On that basis I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am sorry for that because we will waste
more money in 1 or 2 weeks in Afghanistan and Iraq, than this would
cost for years--years--to protect American law enforcement, police
officers who protect us every day.
We ought to allow this matter to come to a vote and have everybody
vote yes or no. The Senator from Vermont would vote yes. I know the
Senator from Maryland would vote yes, and I know the distinguished
Presiding Officer from Delaware would vote yes, as would every single
Democratic Senator, and I believe a number of Republicans would.
We will give great speeches this week saying we stand with law
enforcement. Well, as some say, put up or shut up. Let's stand with
them. Let's pass this legislation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I wish to say a few words about National
Police Week. I am pleased to be able to cochair with the Presiding
Officer and the Senator from Delaware Mr. Coons the Law Enforcement
Caucus which we
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founded when we came to the Senate together. I am proud to be a
cosponsor of the National Blue Alert Act that Senator Cardin talked
about, and I would like to see that done. I think we can do things to
provide more safety and security for local police officers as we have
done for the fire grants, all those things that followed 911.
As I was listening, I was thinking about how much we benefit every
day from the Capitol Police. We walk by them in their positions
securing these buildings and standing in the way of harm, and we often
forget they are there for that purpose. When others are able to look
for a safer place to be, our police officers run to where the danger
is. They stand between us and that danger.
In the time I have been here, two of our Capitol police officers have
been killed in the building on duty, one just a few feet away from
where my office would be in the next Congress. They were there for us.
I remember on 9/11 leaving the building with every reason to believe
this building could be and perhaps was going to be an immediate target
to our enemies attacking us that day. I remember walking out of the
building as the Capitol Police were insisting we get out of the
building and looking over my shoulder and seeing they were all still in
the building.
So whether it is the police we see daily here, the police who serve
us in our communities, or the families who send their loved ones into
harm's way every day, this is an important time to recognize that
service, but also it should be an important time to think about what we
could do about it.
The National Blue Alert bill doesn't mandate that States create a
system. It simply provides that States could have access to a system
which would create an alert system so that when someone has harmed a
police officer, we make a maximum and immediate effort to see that
person is apprehended and eventually be called to pay the penalty for
what they have done.
We benefit from these people who again run to where the danger is,
who stand between us and that which creates danger for us as citizens.
Whether trying to go to the local grocery store, the local shopping
center or the school play, there is somebody in that community whose
job it is to make it a safer place than it would otherwise be.
I am pleased to have had a chance to work with the Presiding Officer
on so many issues. During National Police Week, I rise with and on
behalf of all of our colleagues to say thank you for those who stand to
defend and protect us here.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Net Neutrality
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the issue of net
neutrality. Right now there are people who are watching the floor of
the Senate streaming live on C-SPAN.org.
They might be engaged political junkies or maybe they need something
to help them take a nap. Let's face it; the action in this most
deliberative body can sometimes feel a little slow.
Now imagine just a few companies deciding that C-SPAN.org will be put
into a slow lane; that the public interest content streamed out to the
world will be sent out at an even more deliberative pace, while kitten
videos will get priority.
When people talk about net neutrality, that is what we are talking
about. Instead of open and free Internet where the billions of clicks
and links made by customers and entrepreneurs in their living rooms and
garages determine who wins and loses, it will be just a few companies
in a few corporate boardrooms deciding who gets into the express lane
and who falls behind in a traffic jam.
We need a truly open Internet because an open Internet has become the
world's greatest platform for innovation, job creation, and economic
growth. An open Internet enables freedom of expression and the sharing
of ideas across town or around the world. An open Internet is driving
economic growth in Massachusetts and throughout the United States.
Openness is the Internet's heart, nondiscrimination is its soul, and
any infringements on either of these features undermine the intent of
net neutrality.
The vitality of this free platform is at stake today because right
now our Internet regulators at the FCC are determining how they will
use its authority to keep the Internet open for business.
When the FCC first unveiled its new Open Internet proposal a few
weeks ago, the Commission contemplated whether to allow paid
prioritization. Under these proposed Internet rules of the road, fast
lanes could open to those who can pay, leaving others stuck in traffic.
The result: Consumers could be stuck in an online provider pileup when
a broadband provider decides to slow down a streaming of Netflix's
House of Cards or bring a high-speed Yahoo search to a crawl or block a
free online call to a friend abroad. But the worry goes far beyond
simply slowing down the videos we watch on YouTube.
Without a truly open Internet, startups and small businesses would
suffer, slowing our economy and job growth throughout Massachusetts and
around the country. No one should have to ask permission to innovate.
But with fast and slow lanes, that is precisely what an entrepreneur
will need to do.
Right now the essence of the Internet is to innovate and test new
ideas first. If an idea then takes off, the creator can attract capital
and expand. The Internet today is a level playing field where the
competition for the best in technology and ideas thrives.
Creating Internet fast and slow lanes would flip this process on its
head. Instead, an entrepreneur would first need to raise capital in
order to start innovating, because she would need to pay for fast-lane
access to have a chance for her product to be seen and to succeed. Only
those with access to deep pockets would develop anything new. Imagine
the stifling of creativity if startups need massive amounts of money
even to innovate. So consider an app developer or creator of a new
product in Boston or throughout the country. How will she reach
potential customers and viewers if her Web site is stuck on a gravel
path while those with access to capital whiz by on the interstate as
they flash their Internet E-ZPass? She won't reach her customers; only
those with money will.
If you don't believe me, consider the more than 100 tech companies--
including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Twitter--that
characterize broadband providers imposing tolls on Internet companies
as a ``grave threat to the Internet.'' Consider the 50 venture
capitalists who wrote to Chairman Wheeler last week and said that with
paid prioritization, ``an individual in a dorm room or design studio
will not be able to experiment out loud on the Internet. The result
will be greater conformity, fewer surprises, and less innovation.''
Less disruption--less creation of the next big idea. That would be the
end of the Internet as we know it today.
Unfortunately, I have seen this fight before. In 2006, when the open
Internet was under attack, I introduced the first net neutrality bill
in the House of Representatives. Today our battle to preserve an open
and free Internet wages on. That is why last week I joined with 10 of
my Senate colleagues to urge Chairman Wheeler to rethink paid
prioritization and to insist that he explore all options, including
reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service.
We need to put on the books the strongest open Internet rules as
possible, and if title II reclassification is the most effective way to
accomplish this goal, that is what the FCC should do because then it
would be treated as a common carrier service. That is how we treat
traditional phone service. That, in fact, is what the Internet has
become in the 21st century. You cannot live without it. We have to
treat it as such. To be connected in the 21st century, you need
Internet access. That is why, if needed--and it just might be--title II
will have to be the way to go.
As one of the primary authors of the 1996 Telecommunications Act--a
bill that unleashed competition and created hundreds of millions of
dollars in private investment--I know the FCC has both the power and
the responsibility to oversee the operation of broadband networks and
intervene in its efforts to preserve competition and safeguard
consumers. It is time for the FCC to use that power to protect the
tremendous potential of the Internet.
The Internet is a vital tool that helps businesses compete and
expand, pumping life into our economy. Again, after
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the 1996 act, $1 trillion of private sector investment went into
developing new companies online, into expanding the Internet. Why? The
government acted to make sure there was a level playing field in the
1996 act and then got out of the way and watched the competition
flourish in this chaotic new world of broadband. There was no YouTube.
There was no Google or Amazon. There was no Twitter. There was no
Facebook. It didn't exist. It could have existed before then but not if
we didn't have a flourishing Internet that was wide open for
competition and investment from the private sector.
That is why this decision by the Federal Communications Commission is
so important. It is understanding the very nature of this new
communications job-creating revolution that we have here. We must fight
to protect it.
I thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me this time, and I yield
back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
(The remarks of Mr. Barrasso pertaining to the introduction of S.
2339 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. BARRASSO. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. I would like to thank Senator Barrasso for his
leadership on this issue. As a longtime practicing physician before he
came to the Senate, he has provided great leadership and expertise and
is able to evaluate and comment so wisely on the important issue of
health care.
I thank the Senator.
Immigration
Today, Majority Leader Reid--the leader of the Democratic majority of
the Senate--and Senator Chuck Schumer came to the Senate floor to
demand that the House of Representatives pass their immigration bill.
They labeled Republicans as extremists for not giving in to their
demands. And they are correct about one thing: The House is not giving
in.
At this point in time, the House is refusing to yield to the pressure
of special interest groups and political lobbyists and Senate Democrats
to pass a bill that would be bad for America. It just will be bad for
America. So I think once again the special interests will lose and the
voice of the American people will be heard.
Senator Schumer said Republicans are xenophobes because they won't
pass his plan. Let's talk about what is extreme. A new report just out
revealed that this administration has released 36,000 criminal aliens
from ICE detention. Our Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers
receive them as prisoners from a State or Federal penitentiary where
they have been convicted of some criminal offense unrelated to
immigration, usually in a State court. 36,000 are now being released
into the general population.
This report found there were 193 homicide-type convictions, 1,153
sexual offenders, 303 kidnapping convictions, and 1,075 aggravated
assault convictions. These are serious crimes. If you will recall,
these criminals are the only group this administration says they are
the deporting. They don't deny that they are not deporting others who
violate our immigration laws. They promised they are faithfully
removing people who commit crimes unrelated to immigration. This report
proves that claim not to be so.
These dangerous offenders should be kept in custody. They should not
be released into the general population. We had a study of such
releases several years ago. The statistics showed that when a person
who entered the country illegally was released on bail, they didn't
show up for court. If they are willing to enter the country illegally
and a judge has them set for trial and he releases them on bail, we
then have an incredibly high number who don't show up for trial. This
was called catch and release and was roundly criticized. This is now
being done with immigrants who have serious criminal charges and
convictions.
Do you know what else is extreme? Extreme is trying to pass an
immigration bill that would double the flow of guest workers into our
country and triple the number of new permanent residents when 50
million working-age Americans are out of work. We have a very serious
unemployment problem. Is no one concerned about that?
It is not xenophobic, but it is compassionate to say we should focus
our attention on struggling and hurting American workers. It is not
xenophobic. It is our patriotic duty to defend the integrity of our
borders and enforce the long-established laws of the United States. It
is the oath we all took as Senators to defend the Constitution of the
United States. It is the oath the chief law enforcement officer,
President Obama, took. We have a duty to defend our citizens and our
people at a time when they are struggling financially. There is just no
doubt about it.
There was one group of people not referenced when Majority Leader
Reid and Senator Schumer talked earlier this morning. Do you know what
group it was? Completely omitted from the conversation was the American
worker. The American worker is not being discussed by amnesty
supporters in this debate. We know the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's view.
They would like more workers creating slack labor markets and lower
wages. We know certain special interest groups want more immigration.
We know certain politicians think this will be good for them
politically.
According to the Congressional Budget Office--our own professional
team that is selected in a nonpartisan way and gives us advice on the
ramifications of legislation we pass--has looked at the Reid-Schumer
bill that passed the Senate. According to CBO, the Senate Democratic
immigration bill--which was supported by a small number of Republicans,
but it is overwhelmingly a Democratic bill--would increase unemployment
while reducing wages. It would increase unemployment while reducing
wages of American workers for the next 12 years, and it will reduce the
per person wealth or GNP for the next 17 years.
If we bring in 30 million people over the next 10 years--as this bill
would do--it will triple the number that normally would be given legal
status in America. It will bring down the per person wealth and it will
bring down wages. Surely the U.S. Chamber of Commerce understands the
free market, do they not? Surely Senator Reid understands that, does he
not?
We were on a conference call yesterday regarding the American steel
industry. A large amount of steel is being dumped into America. What is
the impact of that? What is the concern? If we bring in more steel,
there will be lower prices for steel. If we bring in more cotton, there
will be lower prices for cotton. If we bring in more labor, it will
result in lower wages for American workers.
CBO told us that. There is no dispute about it. Yet we have Senators
who come to the floor and repeatedly say this is going to increase
wages. Give me a break. You can't just say something and think it is
going to make it reality when it is the opposite of reality.
Under current law, we are admitting more than 600,000 guest workers
each year. Guest workers come to America not to be citizens but just to
take jobs that someone contends we don't have enough workers. We grant
permanent residence to 1 million immigrants each year and perhaps
ultimately become citizens. That is the current law. Right now wages
are falling and it is serious, but this is the law that has been
established and that is what the nation has agreed to.
The bill Senator Reid maneuvered through this Senate would admit more
than 1.2 million guest workers each year, thereby doubling the number
of guest workers, and it will give permanent residency to 30 million
immigrants over the next 10 years and that is triple the normal rate.
Research from Harvard professor Dr. George Borjas--perhaps the most
preeminent student of labor, wages, and immigration in America--shows
that American workers lose more than $400 billion in wages each year
due to competition from low-cost workers from abroad. That is $400
billion in wages each year--not million but billion.
Dr. Borjas's research also shows that from 1980 to 2000--he did an
empirical study using the census, the Department of Labor, and other
official data--wages declined 7.4 percent for lower skilled working
Americans. These are the people who go out and work every day. These
are not people who have a college degree. I am talking
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about the working people in this country. Their wages declined from
1980 to 2000 by 7.4 percent as a result of this very large flow of
legal and illegal immigration.
There is no doubt--and my colleagues have to understand this--a vote
for the Reid-Schumer immigration bill is a vote to lower the wages of
American workers. Not only that, it will make it harder for Americans
to get a job, period. It appears the people who are hurt worst by the
Democratic immigration policies are young Americans, low-income
Americans, and minority workers.
According to Dr. Borjas's studies--and others--minority workers are
particularly damaged by high levels of immigration. This includes
Hispanics who have lawfully come to America. They are trying to get
started so they can make their way up. They would like to have a pay
raise, but their wages are also being pulled down by an extraordinary,
unjustified flow of labor that the economy can't absorb effectively. We
don't have jobs for them now. That is the problem.
I don't dislike people who want to come here. I know most of them are
good people who would like to advance themselves. But, as Senators we
have a responsibility to the citizens of our country and we need to
ask: Is this good for America? Can we absorb this number of people and
maintain decent wages or are we in a long term trend that will allow
lower and middle-income workers' wages to continue to erode? I think it
is a serious issue that we need to be honest about and I hope we will
do so. Young and low-income Americans are also hurt.
Senator Schumer says we should do the bidding of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce--buddying up with them now. He says there is a hijacking out
here, but it seems Mr. Schumer's party has been the one that has been
hijacked by special interests, and they have lost sight of whom they
claim to represent--working Americans. That is my charge and that is
what I say.
We have a generous immigration policy, and we need to make sure it is
enforced correctly and lawfully carried out. That is what the American
people have asked of us. They have demanded this from us. They want a
lawful system that we can be proud of and treats people fairly, where a
person fills out an application and lays out their qualifications.
Those qualifications are then evaluated on an objective basis, and the
best qualified person, the one who is most deserving, is then admitted
to the country. What is wrong with that? That is what Canada does. That
is what the UK does. That is what Australia does. There is nothing
wrong with such a policy. That is what we should be doing.
We should decide how many people the country can absorb and in what
wage categories before we admit huge numbers of people and certainly
before we double the number we presently bring in.
A number of Senators have complained on the floor of the Senate that
the tech industries can't find qualified Americans. We have all heard
that charge. I sort of accepted it at first, but in fact the data shows
something different and it is rather surprising. In fact, we have twice
as many STEM graduates each year as there are STEM jobs--science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Here is a recent paper by Professor Hal Salzman from Rutgers
University. He carefully analyzed data from the Department of Education
and the Department of Labor. He concluded that we first need to get
accurate data to truly inform policy decisions. If we are going to make
a policy decision about how large our immigration flow should be--not
to end it but how large it should be--shouldn't we have good data?
He says:
The first data to consider is the broad notion of a supply
crisis in which the United States does not produce enough
STEM graduates to meet industry demand. In fact, the nation
graduates more than two times as many STEM students each year
as find jobs in STEM fields. For the 180,000 or so annual
openings, U.S. Colleges and Universities supply 500,000
graduates.
They supply more than twice the number of graduates as we have jobs
for now, so I am a little dubious about these big business types
claiming they can't get enough people.
What about IT specifically? We hear some of our Silicon Valley
executives promoting any kind of immigration as long as they get more
IT workers.
Mr. Salzman says:
The only clear impact of the large IT guest worker inflows
over this decade can be seen in salary levels, which have
remained at their late-1990s levels and which dampens
incentives for domestic students to pursue STEM degrees.
Did you know that? IT graduates' salaries are stuck at 1990
levels. It is causing students in college to wonder if this is such a
great field to go into. In fact, the author says there are other fields
that do better. If that is true, does that change Senator Reid's view
of the legislation he jammed through the Senate and he is so proud of
and he is demanding the House pass? If that is true, if Mr. Salzman is
correct, will Senator Reid change his mind?
Then he goes on to say--and I agree with this line. He is talking
about all STEM graduates now:
If there is a [talent] shortage, where are the market
indicators (namely wage increases) . . . ?
So Mr. Donohue and friends at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who
believe in the free market: Why are wages down if we have a shortage of
workers? Why aren't wages going up?
Another businessman said recently:
There are 600,000 jobs in manufacturing going unfilled
today. This immigration bill can go a long way toward helping
us fill these positions.
Well, great Scott. I have seen instances where thousands of people
apply for just a few jobs. Does he have any interest, first of all, in
promoting sound national goals? Our goal as policymakers for the United
States of America should be to say: Wait a minute. You have jobs at
your manufacturing plant and we have to get unemployed people ready to
take them. Americans are on welfare and on dependency who need to go to
work. Give us a chance to get our people into those jobs first before
we start bringing in more foreign workers to take a limited number of
jobs.
From 2000 to 2013, the grim fact is that all net job gains went to
immigrant workers. Can you imagine that? That is what the numbers show.
Under the Democratic plan, this bill, if it were to pass the House, job
decline will accelerate.
From 2000 to 2013, the number of working-age Americans increased by
16 million. Yet the jobs for American workers--the number of American
workers actually working--fell by 1.3 million. That is why the
unemployment rate and the workforce dropout rate is so high.
But during that same period, 2000 to 2013, the number of working-age
immigrants increased by 8.8 million while 5.3 million immigrants got
jobs. So all the jobs created during this period of time have been, in
effect, mathematically speaking, taken by foreign workers. Is this
healthy? Isn't this one of the reasons why people are having a hard
time today?
There are 50 million working-age Americans who are not working today.
Wages are lower today than they were in 1999. Median household incomes,
adjusted for inflation, have dropped nearly $2,300 since 2009. We have
the smallest workforce participation in 36 years.
So I say to Mr. Reid and Mr. Schumer, I am glad to talk about this
issue. I am glad to talk about immigration, but we are going to talk
about what is in the interests of the American people. We are not going
to talk about your politics and your ideology and your special
interests. We are going to talk about what is good for America and what
is good for America is to get more of our unemployed working, to get
wages going up rather than down. I am not surprised they didn't talk
about workers and wages in their remarks when they demeaned people who
disagree with them and who oppose their great bill they drafted that
will not work.
We are not going to be scared off. We are not going to be intimidated
into handing over control of our immigration laws to a small group of
special interests who are meeting in politicians' offices and maybe
promising support. I feel strongly about this. I don't feel there is
anything wrong, morally or public policy-wise, to say we need to have a
lawful system of immigration we can be proud of. That is what the
American people have asked of us for over 30 years and Congress refuses
to give. Congress is not listening to the
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people. And we can do it. It is possible. I have been in law
enforcement almost as long as I have been in the Senate. I know this
can be done, if we have a leader who wants to see it done. But if the
President doesn't want to enforce the law and says he is only going to
enforce it against people who commit serious crimes, and we now find
out even those criminals aren't deported when they are caught, then I
think we have a deep problem. I think we can do better.
Let's don't go down this road of pushing, pushing, pushing, just pass
a bill, any bill--oh, we have to do it fast. That has been the message
all along. We have to ram it through, but this thing has been out there
in the public now for a long time. The mackerel has been in the
sunshine for a long time and it doesn't smell so good when it is
examined, and the American people are not prepared to eat it and they
shouldn't.
I thank the Chair and the Senate for giving me a chance to express
these concerns. I believe we need to put American interests first, and
when we do we will draft an immigration bill that is far different from
the one being promoted today.
I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
VA Health Care
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the unfortunate
allegations of mismanagement and neglect that have been leveled against
the Phoenix VA health care system.
By now we have all seen the headlines highlighting unsettling
allegations that veterans may be dying while awaiting care in Phoenix.
These revelations have come to light after whistleblowers in Arizona
have suggested that Phoenix VA officials were manipulating appointment
requests and waiting lists.
Recent reports suggest that some veterans may have been placed on an
unofficial waiting list outside of the VA's official electronic waiting
list, which exists to calculate how long a veteran has to wait for
care.
The alleged reason for the existence of this secret--or unofficial--
list was to keep officially reported wait times down and to disguise
longer actual waiting times. This apparently would help the Phoenix VA
save face and reflect more positively on the VA's system as a whole. As
a result, as many as 1,400 veterans' actual wait times may have been
significantly longer than what was reported by Phoenix VA officials.
Now the VA's inspector general's office has launched an
investigation, and senior officials with the Phoenix VA have been
placed on administrative leave.
At a recent hearing in the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, after
cautioning that there should be no ``rush to judgment,'' a senior VA
official indicated that after a preliminary review they found no
evidence of a ``secret list.''
Nothing would make me happier than to believe the allegations that
were leveled were just as a result of sour grapes from some unhappy
current or former employees. But, sadly, similar allegations
surrounding delayed care have also surfaced elsewhere in the country.
Just this week, CNN has reported that two VA officials in North
Carolina have been placed on administrative leave because of
``inappropriate scheduling.'' CNN also reports that a scheduler at a VA
facility in San Antonio suggested there had been some ``cooking [of]
the books'' there to hide lengthy wait times.
Will it be any surprise if more VA health care facilities share these
issues? We have all heard about the backlog of more than 300,000 claims
made by veterans to the Department of Veterans Affairs. This backlog
has resulted in a wait time for compensation for disability claims that
reportedly averages a dismal 5 months.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in greater numbers of
veterans seeking treatment in VA facilities. As more and more
servicemembers leave the Armed Forces, these numbers are sure to
increase.
Clearly, the VA is having a hard time providing adequate and timely
care to veterans. This is and should be a nationwide concern.
While backlogs are one thing, efforts to obscure or hide them is
something else entirely, and a disturbing pattern of allegations to
that end are coming into focus.
What is alleged to have gone on just in the Phoenix VA system demands
an honest, independent, and timely investigation. If these allegations
are confirmed, anyone behind an effort to cover up these wait times or
interfere with the truth coming out needs to be held accountable. Heads
should roll. Veterans and families impacted by any sort of neglect and
mismanagement in the Phoenix VA system deserve nothing less.
In addition, an apparent pattern of similar problems around the
country would suggest that Congress needs to ensure that its own role
in substantive, rigorous, and effective oversight has not been
blatantly ignored.
VA Secretary Eric Shinseki will be testifying before the Senate
Committee on Veterans' Affairs later this week to answer questions
about the ``state of veterans health care.'' Given what appear to be
pervasive failures at a growing number of VA health care facilities, he
will have more than a few questions to answer. I look forward to the
results from that hearing.
This situation cannot go on. In Phoenix and around Arizona people are
concerned. We are receiving a record number of calls to our office from
veterans who are concerned who want to tell their story of the care
they are receiving or not receiving on a timely basis. This is
something we cannot countenance in our oversight responsibilities here
in Congress.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. 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.
EXPIRE Act
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today the Senate will begin consideration
of the Expiring Provisions Improvement, Reform, and Efficiency Act,
otherwise known as the EXPIRE Act. This legislation has, so far, moved
forward in a cooperative, bipartisan fashion, and I am hoping that
spirit will continue here on the floor.
It seems that the new norm for tax policy around here is conducting
this ritual where tax provisions expire, we wait until the following
year to decide which ones to extend, and then we finally enact them
into law for 1 retroactive year and 1 prospective year.
When that happens, half of the benefit is more of a windfall rather
than an incentive. And, needless to say, this process causes great
uncertainty when businesses and individuals try to manage their taxes
and budgets.
I am not casting blame on anyone for this flawed methodology. Indeed,
both parties share responsibility for how the tax extenders process has
devolved over the years. I think the American people deserve better.
I share the view of many on both sides of the aisle--including both
chairmen of the tax-writing committees--that comprehensive tax reform
will be necessary to ensure long-term growth and prosperity in our
economy. When it comes to tax policy, that type of reform should be our
ultimate goal. Hopefully, if we can reform our Nation's Tax Code, this
process of extending certain provisions over and over will come to an
end. However, I am not naive.
Fundamental tax reform is unlikely to take place in the immediate
future. That being the case, Congress needs to work to address the tax
relief provisions that expired last year or will expire by the end of
this year, and we need to do so in a timely fashion.
The EXPIRE Act should serve as a starting point for temporarily
resolving the expired and expiring tax provisions. The Senate Finance
Committee voted to report the EXPIRE Act on April 3, 2014. It passed
through the committee by a voice vote. Not every member supported the
final bill, but
[[Page S3000]]
the committee process was, from the outset, constructive and inclusive
and allowed for the full participation of both Democrats and
Republicans. I give the distinguished chairman a lot of credit for
that.
I have to commend Chairman Wyden, who conducted a fair and open
debate on tax extenders during the Finance Committee markup. His
approach was a prime example of how the Finance Committee is supposed
to operate and, in my view, it should serve as a model for all of the
Senate committees in how they should consider legislation in their
various jurisdictions.
The process reminds me of a historical analogy with respect to the
chairman's home State of Oregon. Everyone knows about the Oregon Trail.
Thousands of pioneers started in Independence, MO, and traveled to
Independence, OR. They used covered wagons. In fact, the covered wagon
is part of Oregon's State seal. The pioneers followed the ruts that
previous wagons had cut.
Like those pioneers, the chairman has taken this tax extenders wagon,
following the bipartisan, inclusive ruts of the legislative trails
charted by previous chairmen of the Finance Committee. I hope we can
stay on this trail now that the bill is on the floor.
In the end, of the 55 or so tax extenders considered by the Finance
Committee, only two were not extended. Personally, I would have
preferred seeing a smaller number of extended provisions, continuing
the process we started in 2012 of reducing the number of tax extenders.
But, in the end, the final product represented the consensus views of
the committee, and I have been very pleased to work with Chairman Wyden
in the process.
As I said during the markup on the EXPIRE Act, as the committee has
considered these extenders package, Chairman Wyden and I have worn two
hats. We have represented the interests of our respective States and we
have also been brokers of the diverse interests of all of the members
of the committee. That has meant compromise. Compromise has meant some
outcomes that were likely not optimal from at least one of our
perspectives.
With the bill coming to the floor, we are wearing a third hat,
respecting the interests of our respective caucuses. Needless to say,
this can be difficult, but it is what we have to do. When we dive into
the list of these expiring tax provisions, we can easily see that this
package touches upon many facets of our economy from housing to energy
and from startups to larger corporations that are important to so many
industries and important in each and every State.
I am glad to see the research and development tax credit, which is so
important to businesses in my home State of Utah, included in the bill
reported out of the Finance Committee. I know there are other
provisions included in this package that are important to other States.
My hope is that the floor debate on this extenders package will
resemble the debate we had in the Finance Committee. That means a fair
and transparent process and an opportunity for Senators to offer
amendments.
The Senate is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the
world. Sadly, it is difficult to call it that these days unless one is
being sarcastic. I have been pretty sarcastic about it. A number of my
colleagues, led of course by our distinguished minority leader, have
come to the floor in recent months to talk about the degradation of
Senate rules and procedure that has taken place under the current
majority. They have done so with good reason.
On bill after bill the process is the same. The majority leader
brings a bill to the floor, immediately files cloture, even though
there is no desire to filibuster on our side, accuses the Republicans
of filibustering, fills the amendment tree, and blocks consideration of
any and all amendments.
There is a time to fill the procedural tree, but that is only after
full and fair debate and when it has carried on too long and the leader
finally decides we have to bring this to a close. But all too often,
every time we turn around, the leader has brought the bill to the
floor, filed cloture, as though we are filibustering when we are not,
and then fills the parliamentary tree so we cannot have amendments.
Of course, those steps are usually preceded by a short-circuited
committee process, wherein committee consideration of the bill is
either significantly abbreviated or passed entirely. This is not how
the Senate is supposed to operate. With this bill we have a chance to
do things differently.
As I have mentioned, the EXPIRE Act has already had full and fair
consideration in the Finance Committee. The bill was drafted in
consultation with all of the members of the committee. I was one who
helped make sure that happened. When we held a markup, all Senators
were allowed to offer amendments and receive votes on those amendments.
Why not continue that process, as we have in the past, on the almighty
floor of the Senate.
It is ridiculous the way the minority is being treated, and I think
even the majority Senators are being mistreated with the way this
outfit is being run right now. While I am satisfied with the way the
Finance Committee handled the tax extenders package, the vast majority
of Senators do not serve on the Finance Committee. That being the case,
most Senators have not had a chance to fully debate these tax
provisions or even offer amendments of their own, which they ought to
have the right to do.
They deserve that opportunity. I expect a number of my colleagues,
particularly on the Republican side, have amendments that would improve
this bill by helping to grow our economy and to create jobs. I have a
number of amendments I would like to offer myself. Over the next few
days I will be on the floor to talk about some of them. Let's have a
floor debate that is worthy of the Senate. This is not some itty-bitty
bill. This is a very important bill. It can set the trend for tax
reform that should come in the future.
Let's allow Members of both parties to offer amendments and have
votes on those amendments. Let's show the American people that Senators
know how to work together to solve problems for American businesses and
for our citizens. Too often the Senate devolves into yet another
partisan sideshow where politics are placed above progress.
As I said, it does not have to be this way. Once again, I am pleased
I have had this opportunity to work with my colleague Chairman Wyden to
move the EXPIRE Act forward. He has done a very good job. He deserves a
lot of credit for it. He does not deserve having that work stymied
because people do not have a chance to offer amendments on the floor of
the Senate.
My only hope is, now that the bill is on the floor, the Senate
Democratic leadership will follow his example and allow for a full and
fair debate of this legislation. To be honest with you, I do not know
what they are afraid of. Yes, there may be some amendments that are
tough to vote on, but that is part of the process. It is part of what
makes the Senate, when it functions right, the great body it can be.
I understand the majority leader wanting to preserve his side in the
upcoming election. I think our minority leader wants to preserve his
side and maybe add to it in the upcoming election. I understand these
are important considerations, but the rights of Senators on both sides
are to be considered here and ought to be given not just consideration
but given the respect the Senate should give to each and every Member
of the Senate.
I have to say I am very disappointed in what is going on around here.
I am not the only one. Virtually everybody is. I know some are
disappointed on the Democratic side as well.
One of the problems is that a high percentage of the Democratic side,
they have never been in the minority. They do not know what it is like
to have to fight for everything you can possibly get, but they are
going to be there someday, whether it is this election or some election
in the future. They are going to realize, for the first time, that you
do not break the rules to amend the rules. Those rules are important.
Frankly, they are going to realize this should continue to be the
greatest deliberative body in the world. Unfortunately, right now it is
not. It is not because of the leadership we have in this body. We have
to make those
[[Page S3001]]
changes. This is a bill to start on because this is a bill that I think
everybody is interested in. It is a very important bill. It is a bill
that has been labored on in the Finance Committee for quite a long
time.
It has taken years to get to this point. Certainly at markup it made
a lot of sense. Do I support everything in this bill? No. There are
some things I do not think should be in there. On the other hand, there
were some sincere colleagues who felt they should be in there. They
were able to prevail. I respect that. We ought to respect both sides.
Unfortunately, I think our side is being disrespected the way the
Senate is being handled today. It is time to stop it. This is a bill to
stop it on. This is the type of bill that both sides have to take great
interest in. This is a bill where we can set the tone for tax reform in
the future.
I think it is time to wake up around here and start letting the
Senate operate as the Senate should operate, as the greatest
deliberative body in the world.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask to speak as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Women's Economics
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, first of all, I wish to thank my
colleague Senator Warren, who is joining me on the floor. We are here
together to talk about a question that could not be more critical to
family budgets and to our economy as a whole; that is, what can we do
to break down the barriers that women still face in our workforce and
make sure women and their families have the fair shot they deserve.
This is a question I know Senator Warren cares very deeply about. She
has brought an enormous amount of leadership and focus to this debate.
I am very appreciative that she is here to speak. So I would yield to
her first and then I will finish speaking when she gets done.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Murray on the
floor to stand up for America's women because it is time for a tough
conversation about the economics of being a woman. I applaud her
leadership, and I am very pleased she is bringing the women of the
Senate to the floor today.
Women are working hard, earning their own way, and supporting their
families, but they are not getting the same pay, the same security or
the same respect. Take a look at the minimum wage. Two out of every
three minimum wage workers are women. Women make up about three-
quarters of all tipped minimum wage workers. A woman who works minimum
wage can work full time and yet she will not earn enough to keep
herself and a baby out of poverty. Minimum wage workers have not
received a wage increase in 7 years. This is bad for women and it does
not reflect America's value. CEOs got raises, managers got raises, but
the women who cook and clean and care for our children are still stuck
at the same $7.25 an hour they earned 7 years ago.
We could change this. If Congress would pass a bill to raise the
minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, more than 15 million women and their
families would have more economic security, but Republicans have
blocked this bill. They say they care about women, but they will not
help the women who earn minimum wage or consider equal pay for equal
work. I cannot believe I am saying this in 2014, but women still earn,
on average, only 77 cents to the dollar what their male colleagues
earn. Bloomberg analyzed the census data to find that in 99.6 percent
of jobs, women get paid less than men. That is not an accident. That is
discrimination.
Today, if a woman wonders if she is being paid the same as the guys
are getting, she can, in some jobs, get fired just for asking. This is
bad for women and it does not reflect America's values. We could change
this by passing Senator Barb Mikulski's Paycheck Fairness Act, a law
that would make sure women do not get fired just for asking what the
guy down the hall is getting paid, but Republicans have blocked this
bill. They say they care about women but will not help the women who do
the same work as a man but get paid less.
Consider health care. Before the Affordable Care Act was passed in
2009, some insurance companies charged women higher premiums simply
because they were women. Some insurance policies refused to cover
preventive services for women such as mammograms and cervical cancer
screenings. Pregnancy costs could be excluded and birth control
coverage could be left out. In other words, affordable women's health
care took a backseat to the profits of insurance companies.
But now we have the Affordable Care Act; women pay the same insurance
rates as men. We have the Affordable Care Act; women get free coverage
for mammograms and birth control. We have the Affordable Care Act;
women can worry a little less about whether health problems will land
them in bankruptcy.
Where are the Republicans? They want to repeal ObamaCare. The House
has now voted more than 50 times to repeal ObamaCare. The Senate
Republicans have come to the floor day after day to demand that
ObamaCare be done away with. The Republicans say they care about women,
but they will not help women pay for health care or get the full
medical coverage they need at a price they can afford.
Women are working hard earning their own way and supporting their
families. They are entitled to the same pay, the same security, and the
same respect as men. Policies such as these--minimum wage, equal pay,
and the Affordable Care Act--provide a measure of equality, better
security, and some basic respect. Republicans want to block or repeal
all three. Women are not asking for special deals. They just want a
fair shot at building lives for themselves and their families.
The women of the Senate, the Democratic women of the Senate, are
ready to fight the Republicans to make sure women across this country
have their fair shot.
I thank Senator Murray for her leadership in fighting for real
economic equality for women.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts again for all of
her extremely hard and important work to expand economic opportunity
and security for women and their families.
She has been an extremely important voice in this debate, and I am
delighted she is joining us today.
Yesterday I held a hearing on this topic in the Senate Budget
Committee. We invited a working mother, whose name was AnnMarie Duchon,
to testify about some of the challenges that she had faced. AnnMarie
told us that she loves her job at the University of Massachusetts-
Amherst, but since the day that she started, she made a lower salary
than her male counterpart who was doing the exact same job. They had
the exact same responsibilities. Both of them had taken a pay cut to
accept that job, and they both graduated from the same university in
the same year.
When AnnMarie found out that he was making more than she was--even
though they had the exact same resume, qualifications, and years of
graduation--she went in and asked for a raise. She was told that she
couldn't have one.
She stayed on that job and continued to work hard. It wasn't until
her husband's job was at risk that she started thinking about how much
those lost wages meant to her and her family.
She ran the numbers, and she found out that over the years she had
missed out on more than $12,000 in wages compared to her male
counterpart who was doing the exact same work.
AnnMarie and her husband are first generation college graduates. They
have a 5-year-old daughter who is in full-time daycare because both
AnnMarie and her husband have to work.
AnnMarie told us yesterday that when she realized her lost income
amounted to 1 year's worth of child care or 10 months of payments on
their mortgage or student loans, she said that was heartbreaking.
AnnMarie was ultimately able to go back and convince her employers--by
showing them the math--to give her equal pay.
But as we know, unfortunately, most women are not able to do that and
many don't even know that they are
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earning an unfair wage. That is a real loss, both for our families and
for our economy as a whole.
We heard what $12,000 could have meant for AnnMarie's household
budget, but women's contributions in the workforce have also made a
huge difference to our overall economic strength.
As working families have felt more and more strained by the rising
costs for everything from college tuition to childcare and health care,
and an economy in which the gap between those at the top and everyone
else seems to be getting wider and wider, women's economic
contributions have helped ease the burden.
Economist Heather Boushey, who also testified yesterday at our
hearing, found in a recent study that between 1979 and 2012 the U.S.
economy grew by almost 11 percent as a result of women joining our
labor force. As we think today about ways to support growth in the 21st
century, it is absolutely clear our country's economic success and that
of our middle-class families go hand-in-hand with women's economic
success.
So we have a lot more work to do because despite all the progress we
have made and all the glass ceilings that have been broken, women still
face barriers that are holding them, their families, and our economy
back.
Stories such as AnnMarie's--stories of women who received lower wages
for the same exact work as men--are still far too common. Because women
are more likely to be the primary caregiver in a family, the lack of
paid leave at most jobs means women today experience higher turnover,
lost earnings, and are more likely to be passed over for promotions
that would help them advance.
In addition, our outdated Tax Code works against married women who
choose to go back to work as a second earner because their earnings are
counted on top of their spouse's. They can actually be taxed at a
higher rate, and that deters some mothers from choosing to re-enter the
workforce, especially when you consider the high cost and lack of
access to high-quality childcare.
Those kinds of challenges are especially pronounced for women and, in
particular, mothers, who are struggling today to make ends meet. We
know that two-thirds of minimum wage earners are women. Their jobs are
disproportionately unlikely to offer any flexibility when, for example,
a child gets sick or needs to be picked up early from school. And their
earnings are quickly swallowed by costs associated with work, such as
childcare or transportation.
It is also important to note that our outdated policies
disproportionately affect women when it comes to their retirement
security because, on average, women earn less than men, accumulate less
in savings, and receive smaller pensions. Today nearly 3 in 10 women
over 65 depend on Social Security for their only income in their later
years.
All of my colleagues and I should be alarmed that the average Social
Security benefit for women over 65 is just $13,100 per year. Imagine
living on that. That is not enough to feel financially secure.
The impact of these barriers is increasingly clear. Over the last
decade the share of women in the labor force has actually stalled, even
as other countries have continued to see more women choosing to go to
work. Experts believe that a major reason for that is that, unlike in
many other countries, in the United States we have not updated our
policies to reflect our 21st century workforce and help today's two-
earner families succeed.
At a time when we need to be doing everything we can to grow our
economy and strengthen our middle class, that is not acceptable. Women
have to have an equal shot at success. First and foremost, that means
we need to end unfair practices that set women back financially.
We took a very good step forward with the Affordable Care Act, which
prevents insurance companies today from charging women more than men
for coverage--which they did before that Act. But we need to do more to
make sure women are getting equal pay for equal work.
My good friend and colleague Chairman Mikulski has led the way on the
Paycheck Fairness Act, which would provide women with more tools to
fight paycheck discrimination. Giving the millions of women earning the
minimum wage a raise--as Senator Warren just talked about--would also
go a long way toward that effort. Of course, we have to update our Tax
Code so that mothers who are returning to the workforce do not face a
marriage penalty.
In addition to expanding the earned income tax credit for childless
workers, the 21th Century Worker Tax Cut Act that I introduced would
provide a 20-percent deduction on the second earner's income for
working families with young children to help them keep more of what
they earned.
As we get rid of these discriminatory practices, we should also
recognize the challenges that working parents face, and we should put
in place a set of policies that help them at work and at home. A big
part of that is investing in expanded access to affordable, high-
quality childcare. When parents go to work, they deserve to know that
their child is safe and thriving while they are at work. There are many
steps that this Congress could and should take through our Tax Code and
by building on successful programs, such as Head Start, to help give
working parents the peace of mind they deserve.
Finally, we need to build on and strengthen Social Security with
policies that make it easier for women and their families to build a
secure retirement. There is, of course, a lot more that we can do in
addition, but I believe any one of those changes would have a real
impact.
As the Presiding Officer knows from our Budget Committee hearing
yesterday, AnnMarie testified and told us that she hopes when her
daughter enters the workforce, pay inequity will be just as much of a
relic as the days before the iPhone.
I could not agree more.
Acting to expand economic opportunity for women is the right thing to
do. It is part of our ongoing work to uphold our country's most
fundamental values. But as our country's recent history shows, it is
also an economic necessity--both for our families and for our broader
economy.
That is why it is so disappointing to see that when it comes to
issues affecting women. Some of our Republican colleagues are laser-
focused on turning back the clock. We saw this just yesterday when the
senior Senator from South Carolina came to the floor and tried to pass
an extreme bill that would severely limit women's reproductive rights.
Women today would much rather see Congress focusing on expanding
opportunity and helping working families than on getting in between a
woman and her doctor.
Over the next few months, we are going to see Democrats continuing to
fight for goals such as achieving pay equity, providing access to
affordable childcare, and raising the minimum wage--all of which would
move women, families, and our economy forward not backward.
I hope that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will be
willing to join us in this very important effort.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FLAKE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FLAKE. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Alexander and I be
permitted to engage in a colloquy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Production Tax Credit
Mr. FLAKE. We come to the floor today to call attention to the tax
extender bill currently being debated before the Senate. Included in
this legislation is a provision extending the wind production tax
credit, known as the PTC, for 2 additional years. This would be the
ninth extension of a supposedly temporary tax credit.
The PTC was first enacted in 1992 to jump-start the nascent wind
industry. It was meant to expire in 1999, 15 years ago. But this one-
time stimulus has turned into a never-ending tax subsidy that has been
extended eight times,
[[Page S3003]]
and the prospect for a ninth extension seems likely.
The PTC spends precious tax dollars subsidizing a very mature
industry and distorting our energy markets.
My friend from Tennessee, Senator Alexander, and I have been vocal
opponents of this Federal subsidy for years. Unfortunately, this credit
has survived under the canard that wind power is an infant industry in
need of Federal support.
With the PTC's expiration on January 1 of this year, wind producers
are once again igniting the rallying cry to continue their taxpayer-
funded handout.
I ask my friend from Tennessee, for those taxpayers who may not be
familiar with this use of their hard-earned dollars, what is the PTC
and why is it so valuable?
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Arizona for his leadership
over the years and for pointing out the flaws in this proposal. It
wastes money, it undercuts reliable electricity--like coal and nuclear
electricity--and, in my view, it destroys rather than saving the
environment.
But let's say exactly what we are talking about. This was a tax
credit that was first passed in 1992, as the Senator from Arizona said,
to help an infant industry. It has been renewed eight times. If you are
a wind developer, it pays you 2.3 cents for every kilowatt hour of wind
that you produce--which in some markets is about the cost of the
wholesale value of each kilowatt hour of electricity.
In fact, the subsidy is so great, sometimes in some markets, wind
producers can actually give away their electricity and still make a
profit. At other times--in the middle of the night in Chicago--they can
actually pay utilities to take their wind power and still make a
profit. That is what the wind production tax credit is.
As the Senator says, this is a mature industry. I support jump-
starting certain types of energy for a limited period of time.
But Steven Chu, President Obama's Nobel Prize-winning U.S. Energy
Secretary, in 2011 in response to my question--Is it a mature
technology?--said: Yes, it is a mature technology.
I would ask the Senator from Arizona, what is the justification for
spending over the next 2 years $13 billion of taxpayer money? It is the
most wasteful, conspicuous, taxpayer subsidy that I know of in
Washington, DC. It proves Ronald Reagan's statement that the only thing
in life that is eternal is a government program.
Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Senator. I don't think there is justification.
The justification that often is given is that we have to give some
kind of surety moving ahead, and people won't invest in this industry
if they don't know that the subsidy is there.
Again, this has been around since 1992. It was meant to expire in
1999. But it has been extended eight times. If anything is unsure, we
are creating that unsurety--or insecurity--when Congress simply goes
again and again and renews it.
The Senator from Tennessee had a great column in the Wall Street
Journal talking about part of the problem we have when we subsidize
this kind of industry and what that does to baseload power--nuclear and
coal--in the interim. Does the Senator wish to talk about that?
Mr. ALEXANDER. Yes, and I thank the Senator from Arizona.
The United States uses almost 20 percent of all the electricity in
the world, and we need electricity that we can rely on. We don't want
to flip the switch and have the lights not come on. We don't want to go
to work and have the generators not working. So we use a lot of
electricity, and that comes from baseload power. That is typically, in
our country, coal, nuclear, and now natural gas.
Wind is intermittent. It usually blows at night. Usually it blows
only about a third of the time, and you either use it or lose it. So
relying on wind power to run a country that uses 20 percent of all the
electricity in the world is the energy equivalent of going to war in
sailboats when nuclear ships are available.
Baseload power is undercut by this intermittent wind power because of
this subsidy. This subsidy is so large that wind developers can, in
some cases, give away their electricity and still make a profit. And in
some cases they pay the utilities to take their wind power, making the
baseload power that we need to rely on for the long term less
economical. This leads to the closing of nuclear plants and coal
plants.
Mr. FLAKE. In that same column, the Senator also talked about the
environmental impact. It is often thought that these renewables are all
the same in terms of their impact on the environment. But the Senator
points out where these need to be built generally, and they are not
your typical picturesque windmill somewhere in Holland but something
quite different.
He also mentioned what it would take to generate the same amount of
power that perhaps eight nuclear powerplants generate, what it would
take in terms of these wind units. Does the Senator want to talk a bit
about that?
Mr. ALEXANDER. Well, the Senator from Arizona is from the West and I,
of course, am from the East. In the Eastern United States, the wind
turbines really only work well on ridgetops. I live near ridgetops
around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. If we ran wind turbines
from Georgia to Maine along the Appalachian Trail, we would only
produce about the same amount of electricity that eight nuclear power
plants would produce. And we would still need the nuclear power plants
or the coal plants or natural gas plants to produce electricity when
the wind isn't blowing. We don't want to see those 20-story towers on
top of our ridgetops. You can see the blinking lights from 20 miles
away. I think they destroy the environment in the name of saving the
environment.
There are appropriate places for wind power, and it has an
appropriate place in the market. I would ask the Senator from Arizona,
isn't it time for wind to stand on its own in our marketplace and
compete with other forms of electricity?
Mr. FLAKE. Yes. And I want to point out as well that neither of us is
saying there is no place for wind energy.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Correct.
Mr. FLAKE. It is an increasing part of our energy load. In fact, the
most new capacity actually went to wind as a percentage of the current
output. There is an important place for it. It can and is being done in
environmentally sensitive ways around the country. But it is time for
the Federal subsidy to end.
The problem is, when we distort the market the way we do--when at
times you can actually pay a utility to take your power because that is
the only time the wind is blowing, at night, and still make a profit
from the Federal subsidy--there is a distortion in the markets we just
shouldn't have, and we ought to let capital flow where it is most
needed.
So neither of us is saying there is no place for wind energy, but
there is no place now or no reason to continue for the ninth time an
extension of this Federal subsidy for wind.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I would say to the Senator from Arizona, just to be
specific about this--negative pricing, as we call it--the opportunity
for a wind developer at, say, 3 o'clock in the morning in Chicago to
literally pay the utility to take the wind power, thereby causing the
nuclear plant or the coal plant to be less useful, is contributing--it
is not the whole reason, but it is contributing to the closing of
nuclear plants.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies said that because
of the low price of natural gas and this subsidy for wind, we might
lose as many as 25 percent of our nuclear plants in the next 10 years.
Nuclear power produces 60 percent of the carbon-free, sulfur-free,
nitrogen-free electricity--air pollution-free electricity. A number of
environmental groups have begun to point out their concern for what
would happen to our air, if we lost this important source of clean
generation of electricity.
This is just one more reason we should let wind take its natural
place in the marketplace. Wind is now 4 percent of all the electricity
that we produce. It was, as the Senator said, the fastest growing form
of generation, so let it compete. Let it go where it should go.
Offshore is another place it could go. But it is time to end the
subsidy and let wind stand on its own.
Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Senator.
Senator Alexander and I are introducing an amendment to the tax
extenders bill currently on the floor. This
[[Page S3004]]
amendment would simply strike that extension, do away with it
completely.
We also have another amendment as to when producers of wind energy
claim the subsidy right now, they can claim it now but not have the
clock start until they start producing. So if they do not start
producing for another 10 years, the end point of that subsidy is a full
20 years from now and taxpayers are on the hook much longer than was
anticipated. So this would simply say that the point at which the
subsidy begins has to be immediately so we won't go too far in the
future.
Those amendments will be introduced tomorrow, and we hope to be able
to debate those on the floor with this bill.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator for his leadership. And when we
talk about a 1-year or 2-year extension, it is important to note that
we are talking about the next 10 years. Let's say I qualify for the
production tax credit--I am a wind developer this year, which means I
get that credit for the next 10 years. That is why the 2-year extension
of the wind production tax credit really spends tax dollars over the
next 11 years when you count both those years. It totals $13 billion.
We throw dollars around so much here, it is hard to get a sense of how
much $13 billion is. In 2012 we spent $10 billion government-wide on
all of energy research. It would be much better to use these dollars to
reduce the debt or to use some of it for clean energy research. We need
low-cost, clean, cheap energy. In my view, energy research is a much
better use of taxpayer dollars, when they are available, than long-term
subsidies. After nearly twenty-two years and eight renewals, the wind
PTC has been around for far too long.
Ronald Reagan was right. I hope to prove him wrong on this one--that
the wind PTC finally comes to an end.
Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Senator.
I have just one other point. The second amendment, as I mentioned--
and the Senator mentioned that this 2-year extension leads to another
10 years in subsidies. Depending on when they actually start
production, it could be another 20 years. So it really distorts our
budget process, our appropriations and authorizations and everything
else, for a longer period of time than it should.
I thank the Senator for his work and look forward to hopefully seeing
these amendments debated.
I yield the floor, unless the Senator has any closing remarks.
Mr. ALEXANDER. No, I do not. I guess, in summary, after nearly 22
years, it is time for wind production to step out on its own in the
marketplace. Let's save $13 billion, and let's stop distorting the
marketplace and undercutting nuclear plants as well as coal plants, and
let's stop destroying the environment in the name of saving the
environment.
I thank the Senator from Arizona for his leadership.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the
Record following our colloquy an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal of
May 7, 2014, entitled ``Wind-Power Tax Credits Need To Be Blown Away.''
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From The Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2014]
Wind-Power Tax Credits Need To Be Blown Away
(By Lamar Alexander)
The U.S. Senate is poised to resurrect Washington's most
conspicuous, wasteful taxpayer subsidy--the wind-production
tax credit.
This giveaway expired in December. Yet on April 3 the
Senate Finance Committee gave it new life by approving a $13
billion, two-year renewal within a package of 55 ``tax
extenders.'' Once again, Washington is proving Ronald
Reagan's observation that ``the nearest thing to eternal life
that we'll ever see on this Earth is a government program.''
The wind-production tax credit was first enacted in 1992.
At the time, wind-power was considered a kind of ``infant
industry,'' needing help to bring its technology up to speed
and lead to lower costs. The tax credit has since been reborn
eight times, even though President Obama's Energy Secretary
Stephen Chu in 2011 said that wind power is a ``mature
technology.'' A mature technology should stand on its own in
the marketplace.
The 2.3-cent tax credit for each kilowatt-hour of wind-
power electricity produced is sometimes worth more than the
energy it subsidizes. Sometimes in some markets, for example
in Texas and Illinois, the subsidy is so large that wind
producers have paid utilities to take their electricity and
still make a profit.
The wind-production tax credit should not be renewed for
three principal reasons:
1. It wastes money. The proposed two-year extension would
cost taxpayers nearly $13 billion over the next 10 years,
according to the Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation.
In 2013, when Congress renewed the subsidy for one year, the
cost was nearly $12 billion over 10 years. This is more than
the federal government spends on energy research in one year.
A better use of taxpayer dollars would be to reduce the
ballooning federal debt or to invest in research to find new
forms of cheap, clean, reliable electricity. For example,
what about a substantial cash prize from the U.S. Department
of Energy for creating a truly commercial use for carbon
captured from coal and natural-gas plants? Such a discovery
would be the Holy Grail of clean energy--permitting the use
of coal world-wide to produce an abundant supply of cheap,
clean, reliable electricity to reduce poverty while
protecting the environment.
2. The wind subsidy undercuts reliable ``baseload''
electricity such as nuclear and coal. Let's say it's 3 a.m.in
Chicago. The wind is blowing, which it usually does at night
when consumers are asleep and don't need as much electricity.
Because of the subsidy, wind producers can pay utilities to
take their power and still make a profit.
But the electricity generated from coal and nuclear
plants--which are hard to turn on and off--becomes less
economical. As a result, utilities have an incentive to close
these ``baseload'' plants. Negative pricing tied to wind
power, along with the low price of natural gas, is causing
utilities to close nuclear plants. The Center for Strategic
and International Studies says that as many as 25% of our
country's 100 nuclear plants might close over the next 10
years.
On April 28, environmental groups, including the Center for
Climate and Energy Solutions and Nuclear Matters, announced
they held an event in Washington at the National Press Club--
that they were concerned about losing clean nuclear power,
which provides 60% of America's air-pollution-free
electricity. And, in a country that consumes 20% of the
world's electricity, relying on windmills when nuclear power
is available is the energy equivalent of going to war in
sailboats when nuclear ships are available.
These are the consequences of government subsidies that
pick winners and losers in the marketplace.
3. Wind-power subsidies destroy the environment in the name
of saving the environment. The wind turbines that generate
power in this country do not resemble the charming,
picturesque windmills that dot the Dutch landscape. Instead,
they are 20 stories high. Their blinking lights can be seen
for miles. Their noise disturbs neighbors. Their transmission
lines scar neighborhoods and open spaces.
In the Eastern U.S., onshore wind turbines work best on
ridge tops. You would have to stretch these giant windmills
the length of the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine,
to equal the power produced by eight nuclear-power plants.
And since wind turbines produce power only when the wind
blows (about one-third of the time), even if you built that
many windmills, you'd still have to build nuclear or other
power plants to produce reliable electricity for computers,
jobs and homes.
After nearly 22 years, eight resurrections and billions of
taxpayer subsidies, it's time to let the marketplace rule and
allow wind power to rise or fall on its own. Save our money,
save our nuclear plants and save our mountaintops.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, the so-called tax extenders bill is
the subject of discussion--55 provisions in the Tax Code to be extended
that have expired or are expiring. The wind production tax credit is
one of those. I hope the majority leader will do what the Senate should
do, which is to allow those of us who have amendments--like the Senator
from Arizona and I, who have offered two amendments related to the wind
production tax credit--to have our say on behalf of the people of
Tennessee and Arizona and the American people and to not impose the gag
rule on the American people, which has become the practice here in the
Senate.
The only reason we are really here is to have a say and to have a
vote on behalf of the people who have elected us. If an important bill,
such as the tax extenders bill, comes forward and we have a $13 billion
expenditure that Americans feel strongly about, we ought to have a
vote. We ought to have a say.
So I hope very much, as we move forward, the majority leader will
bring us back to the time when the Senate offered a chance to have a
vote, to have a say on behalf of the people of the United States. We
might not win our vote, we might lose our vote, but we will have had
our say.
This is the body in the American constitutional framework that has
been described in the most recent history of the Senate as the one
authentic bit of genius in the American system of government. That is
because we have to have consensus before we move ahead,
[[Page S3005]]
and you only govern a complex country such as this by consensus. That
is what 60 votes is about. That is what debate is about. We have gotten
far away from that--far away from that.
So this would be a good time to drop this notion of the gag rule on
the American people, this business of cutting off amendments, cutting
off debates, and say: We welcome amendments. We welcome debate. We will
vote them up, we will vote them down, pass them in a responsible way,
and we will go on to the next one.
So it is my hope that Senator Flake's amendments, which I am proud to
cosponsor--both of them--will be one of several amendments on the tax
extenders bill to be allowed a vote when that bill comes up.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Russia-Ukraine
Mr. NELSON. Madam President, a number of people have asked me to
comment about the situation since President Putin has moved
aggressively with regard to Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, which has
therefore brought about some retaliation of sanctions by the United
States against Russia.
We are now hearing comments--a number of troubling statements--coming
out of Russia by the Deputy Prime Minister, who has the responsibility
for defense and aerospace, regarding the U.S. development of rockets
that can again take Americans, on American rockets, to and from the
International Space Station. He has made a sarcastic comment, something
to the effect of, well, how do the Americans think they are going to
get to the space station--on a trampoline? And then most recently a
statement having been issued in his name that the Russian rocket
company will not sell the very efficient and very energetic Russian
rocket engine, the RD-180, to the United States for military purposes.
This is a very complex issue. It affects not only our military access
to space, it affects our civilian access to space. I will see if I can
dissect this in about 4 minutes, as a number of people have asked me
about this. This will be an issue, for example, next week in the markup
in the Senate Armed Services Committee of the Armed Services Defense
authorization bill.
First, let's go back and see the history. How do we have this
relationship with Russia and what is it?
In the midst of the Cold War, when there were the two super powers,
the Soviet Union and the United States decided to cooperate in space in
the civilian program. In the midst of the Cold War, a Russian Soyuz and
an American Apollo spacecraft--Apollo-Soyuz as it is known--
rendezvoused and docked, and the crews lived together in space for 9
days in 1975.
By the way, those two crews led by General Alexsei Leonov of the
Soviet Union and Gen. Tom Stafford, U.S. Air Force, NASA astronaut,
Apollo 10 that went to the Moon--they are close personal friends and
have seen each other over the course of the years many times.
In 1985 I had the privilege as a young Congressman to take a
delegation to the Soviet Union on the occasion of the 10th anniversary
of Apollo-Soyuz, with our Apollo astronauts joining in Moscow with the
Soviet cosmonauts. So there is a long history.
But now fast forward to, I believe, the year 1991 and the complete
destruction of the old Soviet Union. All the satellite states went
elsewhere. By the way, this was in August and September of 1991,
interestingly, after a delegation of American astronauts and Soviet
cosmonauts in April of 1991 all joined together out at Star City where
they train their cosmonauts, and then we all went in a Soviet military
plane out to Kazakhstan to the launch site on the occasion of the 30th
anniversary of the launch of the first human into space--a Russian,
Yuri Gargarin. A few months later, the Soviet Union disintegrated.
So the United States had a choice to make: All of those very bright,
very effective Russian scientists in their defense program and in their
space program--and often their civilian space program was directly
linked to their Soviet military program--where were all those
scientists going to go? We didn't want them to go to Iran, North Korea,
and China.
So I believe Senator Sam Nunn, a Democrat, and Senator Dick Lugar, a
Republican, led the effort to put together the Nunn-Lugar bill, which
started sending American assistance to try to stop the scientists from
fleeing into other hands and especially to corral all of the nuclear
weapons the Soviet Union had, and that was done very effectively.
Then when Russia opened its former Soviet closed doors, we found out
Russian scientists and engineers had manufactured this exceptionally
efficient and powerful engine, kerosene and LOx--liquid oxygen--called
the RD-180. As a result, we worked out a deal between American
aerospace companies and the Russian company Energomash, where instead
of these engines going all across the world, we were going to use them
together. So the United States through its rocket manufacturers--I
believe Pratt & Whitney--got the license to this and the plans to the
engine, but they also had an agreement that they would buy these from
the Russian rocket manufacturer.
Today that engine is a staple and necessary engine in our stable of
horses to get into space, both military and civilian, because it is the
main engines on what we use today, the Atlas V rocket. This is a proven
rocket. It has had an unblemished record, and that unblemished record
has been something close to, if not over, 100 straight flights without
a flaw. It is being planned in the future by Boeing to put a Boeing
spacecraft on top of that rocket for humans to go to and from the space
station. Another company called Sierra Nevada has created a smaller
winged spacecraft also for humans--not unlike the space shuttle but
much smaller--that will go on top of the Atlas V. They, along with a
third competitor, SpaceX, which has built its own rocket called the
Falcon 9, with its spacecraft the Dragon capsule--those three will
compete to see if one or all three will deliver humans--American and
Russian--to the International Space Station in the future instead of us
having to rely, after we shut down the space shuttle, on the only
manned, human-tested rocket to get us to and from the space station
now, which is the Soyuz, the Russian rocket that launches from
Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
If this isn't confusing enough, the Deputy Prime Minister--provoked
because the United States has responded to President Putin's
aggression--says he is going to stop selling the Energomash rocket to
the United States for military purposes.
The question is, Is he going to continue to sell that rocket engine
for civilian purposes--which I just outlined in this competition that
is coming up--and if this is accurate and it holds, what to do for the
United States?
We have several options.
First of all, we have a 2-year supply of these engines on the shelf.
If in 2 years we think the Russians are not going to continue to sell
this--and, by the way, this is a real jobmaker for Russians and a
moneymaker for them. The aerospace industry in Russia wants to continue
to sell this engine, but if the politics get in the way and they cut it
off, then what is the United States to do? We have to figure that out.
Right now there is a study going on in the Department of Defense as to
how we would handle it. We have a 2-year supply. One of the options
they will look at is stretching that out over time, putting some of
those payloads on other rockets. Some of those payloads can go on the
very successful Falcon 9, but there are heavier payloads that cannot go
on the Falcon 9 that could go on the Atlas V. But if the Atlas V is not
flying, they will have to go on a more expensive and heavier lift,
Delta IV Heavy. So we see how complicated this gets.
Then the question is, If they are not going to sell these engines for
military purposes, can we bank on it that they would sell these engines
for NASA civilian purposes? That is a big question mark.
So one of the issues in this DOD study is going to be can we
manufacture since we have the plans. We don't know the answer at this
point. It is an extremely complicated metallurgy process which they
have perfected in all of those years in the old Soviet Union. We would
have to start flat-footed, even though we have the plans,
[[Page S3006]]
and figure out how to do all the design equipment, all the processing
equipment, and then try to get the engines ready--and at some point
what would a follow-on engine look like?
That is about the best I can summarize the situation, and we are
going to have some major decisions to make, depending on what we see in
the DOD study.
First of all, we are going to have to know how we have assured access
to space for defense purposes for the national security of this
country.
Secondly, we are going to have to have assured access to space for
the civilian program so this incredible International Space Station
that we have built with 15 nations, including the Russians, who have
been a major part--how we are going to keep that operating and get
Americans to and from it because the Russians cannot operate the space
station by themselves.
In the first place, a lot of the Russian commands to their own
modules actually are commands that go through the Johnson Space Center
in Texas. Secondly, the Russians depend on all the electricity that is
generated on the International Space Station from the American
electrical systems. So we are going to have to continue to operate it
together. The Deputy Prime Minister implied that; that he would
continue to do that through year 2020, but the space station is going
to have a life--and should have--well into the decade of the 2030s.
These are the questions we are going to have to answer and they are
going to have to be answered in the near future. In part, some of them
are going to have to be answered next week as we start to mark up the
Defense authorization bill.
I wanted to give the Senate, and all of those in the press who have
been asking me, the best of what I could conclude at this point and
then we will see what develops. There was the new development, as I
mentioned yesterday, where the Deputy Prime Minister said they will not
sell the RD-180 to America for military purposes. If that holds, then
we have to swing into action pretty quickly.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
EXPIRE Act
Mr. CASEY. Thank you, Madam President. I rise to talk about the
legislation we are considering, the so-called EXPIRE Act, and we want
to make sure that as we are focusing on the policy--and I will get to
that in a moment--we highlight for emphasis that this was a measure
that came out of the Senate Finance Committee in a bipartisan fashion.
In fact, it was unanimous coming out of the committee.
We had a good discussion and debate about various tax provisions that
we wanted to extend for 2 more years, and because of that there was a
great interest in the subject matter. Rarely have we seen the kind of
bipartisan support that we have seen in the committee for these tax
provisions, and I think that bipartisanship will continue as we move
forward with the legislation on the floor.
The bill came out of our committee recently and it does enjoy
bipartisan support. I wish to concentrate on the small business
provision. As you know, if you went down the list of these extensions
of tax provisions generically known as tax extenders, you could cover a
huge array of subjects by virtue of the whole bill. I am going to focus
for a couple minutes on the small business provisions.
We often hear from small business owners--and I hear it all the time
in Pennsylvania and I am sure others hear it in their home States as
well--about the lack of certainty. Frequently, business owners say they
don't have certainty about where their business will go next because of
what Washington has not been getting done. One of the reasons it is so
important to get this bill passed in a bipartisan fashion--that alone
is a measure of certainty for folks seeing so much partisanship here,
but also giving a timeframe of 2 years helps alleviate uncertainty as
well.
It is an especially urgent issue when it comes to small business
owners. They don't often have the capacity to go out and hire a lot of
experts to help them with compliance, to help them understand or deal
with on a regular basis tax provisions or substantial changes in health
care and public policy. So having a measure of certainty is a
significant issue in the life of a small business owner.
All too often we minimize the impact of tax incentives by failing to
renew critical provisions in a timely manner. Business owners need that
basic certainty, which is why the work we have done on small business
issues is particularly significant. I am proud of the work Senator
Collins of Maine and I have done to introduce legislation which would
allow small businesses to plan for capital investment that is so vital
to job creation. This commonsense proposal would introduce certainty to
businesses, especially small businesses, increase economic activity and
the pace of job creation. A number of the provisions in the bill that I
have worked on with Senator Collins are in the EXPIRE Act, the
legislation we are dealing with on the floor.
I believe we have to create a favorable environment in order for
businesses to make investments that create jobs and grow the economy.
Small businesses are vital to our economy. That said, I am not sure we
often fully understand how significant an impact small business has on
the country, when we consider that small firms comprise more than 98
percent of all employers. Nearly half of the Pennsylvania workforce is
on their payroll, to get a sense of the dimensions, reach and scope of
small businesses in a State such as Pennsylvania, but of course that is
true across the Nation.
Small firms nationally employ just over half of the private sector
workforce, according to the Small Business Administration. Small
businesses also have led the charge to put America back to work.
According to the SBA, small businesses have created 64 percent of the
net new jobs over the past 15 years. Again, we sometimes don't fully
appreciate the impact of small business. The most recent monthly
employment report by the payroll processor ADP showed that small- and
medium-sized firms accounted for more than 80 percent of the job growth
in January of this year. So a short-term recent number of job creation,
small business is accounting for 80 percent of that, but even when we
look at a longer period of time, over the past 15 years, small business
is creating 64 percent of the net new jobs. So we need to do everything
we can in the Senate and the House to invest in strategies that will
help small businesses so they can grow and invest.
Unfortunately, many tax provisions affecting small businesses have
recently been enacted on an unpredictable and temporary basis. That is
an understatement. When we talk about certainty or uncertainty, this is
part of what we are talking about. This uncertainty directly and
substantially hinders economic growth and job creation. When businesses
don't know how their investments will be taxed, they cannot make long-
term planning decisions with confidence. You don't have to be a small
business owner to understand that it is especially difficult for a
small business owner to hire a legion of lawyers, accountants or other
professionals to help them. Sometimes a small business owner does
everything. You know the old expression ``chief cook and bottle
washer.'' They do everything. They don't have the luxury of hiring a
compliance team for every issue, and it is especially difficult in this
uncertain environment. So this uncertainty about tax policy
disproportionately harms these small businesses.
We often say these are the firms that are the backbone of the
American economy. Yet they don't have the luxury that larger firms do
to have a team of experts around them or a team they can retain. The
National Federation of Independent Business says that compliance costs
are 67 percent higher for small firms than larger ones. The Small
Business Administration claims that tax paperwork is the most expensive
paperwork burden on small businesses, at $74 an hour. So they are
paying $74 an hour in terms of tax compliance paperwork, and their
overall compliance costs are 67 percent higher than large firms.
This legislation includes several provisions intended to immediately
reduce the uncertainty about the Tax Code and encourage businesses to
grow and invest and hire. These measures have bipartisan support and
adopt proposals
[[Page S3007]]
from both parties. One measure includes a 15-year straight-line
depreciation schedule for restaurant leaseholds and retail
improvements. In April last year Senator Cornyn from Texas and I
introduced a bill that contains this provision which has bipartisan
support. If a restaurant wanted to add a new room with 5 or 10 tables
in a service space, that is a pretty big investment. They have to
build, grow, and spend a lot of money to do that. There is a
depreciation benefit provided to that business which historically has
been over the course of 39 years. Recently we shrunk that timeframe
down to 15 years. Instead of giving little, tiny slices of
depreciation, the benefit is more substantial over the course of 15
years, and the bottom line is we want it to stay at 15 years and not go
back to the 39 years. I am not sure what the benefit would be if
someone added a couple of tables to their restaurant in 2014 and had to
wait 39 years to reap that benefit.
So the legislation Senator Cornyn and I have would maintain that 15-
year cost recovery provision and make it permanent. The bill addresses
this, albeit for a 2-year timeframe instead of the current year. We
know this faster so-called cost recovery is directly reflected in the
company's bottom line and frees cash that can be used to expand
operations and hire more workers. It stands to reason if you have a
greater tax benefit, you have more dollars in your hand, so to speak,
and as a restaurant owner you can hire more workers in the near term.
So maximizing certainty within the Tax Code is an expressed benefit for
these small businesses.
A study from the National Restaurant Association found that
uncertainty over depreciation and other tax provisions forced
restaurants to forgo improvement projects that would have produced
approximately 200,000 jobs nationwide. I would submit that if that
number were cut in half it would be a significant number, but their
estimate is that in essence we are forgoing 200,000 jobs because of tax
uncertainty.
Another provision of the bill that we are debating and discussing
would make permanent the maximum allowable deduction under section 179,
expensing rules. Section 179 allows taxpayers to deduct certain capital
asset purchases in the year they make the purchase. This type of
expensing provides an important incentive for businesses to make
capital investments. Without it taxpayers would have to depreciate
those asset purchases over multiple years, getting a much more short-
term benefit because of that tax provision. This maximum allowable
deduction under 179 has changed three times in the past 6 years. That
is one of the best examples of uncertainty, when things keep changing
and the numbers keep changing. One year they can take advantage of one-
half million dollars of benefit if they bought new equipment, for
example.
What we want to do--I think what is the best policy is to set it at a
fairly high level, I would argue one-quarter of a million dollars----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2
more minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. CASEY. That is section 179,
and that is another issue addressed in the bill.
The third provision is the so-called bonus depreciation, which helps
businesses in much the same way the expensing rules do. The bonus
depreciation allows companies to expense half of the cost of qualifying
assets that they buy and put into service in the same year. I won't go
through all the numbers, but we have heard from companies across the
board about that provision as well.
Whether it is provisions that help restaurants, whether it is to help
businesses that want to make capital purchases, or whether it is
companies that benefit from another year of a tax benefit, this bill
allows us to give a measure of certainty for at least 2 years to these
businesses and especially those that are small businesses.
I believe this is one of those times where we can fulfill what a lot
of people have asked us to do. They have asked us on a daily basis to
work together to create jobs. This legislation, which is bipartisan, is
one way to come together in a bipartisan fashion to create jobs and
give certainty to help our small businesses and to work together--
Democrats and Republicans.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Health Care
Mrs. FISCHER. Madam President, I rise to give voice to the thousands
of Nebraskans who have contacted my office and continue to contact my
office with their concerns about health care.
In 2009 the President made all the Americans a promise. He said:
No matter how we reform health care, we will make this
promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you
will be able to keep your doctor, period.
Five years later, it is becoming clear that the President's assurance
won't hold true. Many of the millions of Americans who were forced to
sign up for ObamaCare-approved health plans are now having trouble
finding a doctor or hospital they like that will accept their new
insurance.
On May 12 the New York Times reported:
In the midst of all the turmoil in health care these days,
one thing is becoming clear: No matter what kind of health
plan consumers choose, they will find fewer doctors and
hospitals in their network--or pay much more for the
privilege of going to any provider they want.
Despite higher rates, new ObamaCare plans include fewer in-network
doctors and hospitals than the older health care plans. This diminished
access to health care is a serious problem for Americans who live in
rural areas with fewer primary care physicians, forcing some people to
drive hours just to see a doctor who will accept their insurance.
I have received letters, emails, and phone calls from over 18,000
Nebraskans who keep saying the same thing: The promises of ObamaCare
are not being kept.
For example, Karen and her husband from Kearney essentially lost the
doctors they had and liked when they received a notice in the mail
indicating that the health care providers they have relied on for years
will no longer accept this new insurance.
Here is another example my office received. Douglas, another
constituent from Kearney, wrote:
ObamaCare has done one thing, and one thing only, it has
threatened my wife and the life of my son.
He goes on to say:
Because of age, and the ACA, my son's doctors retired or
quit practicing, and also because of my son becoming an
adult, we had to find new doctors. We haven't been denied
insurance, but we have been denied doctors. We ended up
begging and pleading with doctors to care for my son. [We
were] turned down by nine or ten.
I offered a commonsense proposal called the FAIR Act. It would delay
the tax on the uninsured anytime the employer mandate is delayed.
ObamaCare is picking winners and losers. The big and powerful get help
while the vast majority of Nebraskans and millions of Americans are
left behind. My bill will level the playing field, giving all Americans
that ``fair shot.'' I hope we have the opportunity to debate and vote
on my commonsense bill here in the Senate.
I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
Mr. COATS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is not in a quorum call.
The Senator is recognized.
Mr. COATS. Madam President, according to a recent National Federation
of Independent Business study, ObamaCare and its tax increases will
result in the reduction of up to 285,000 private sector jobs. Let's say
they are wrong. Let's say they are exaggerating. After all, the NFIB
has not exactly been supportive of ObamaCare. Let's say it is 250,000
or 225,000. Let's say it is 200,000. I think that any piece of
legislation that causes one job to be lost is something we should take
a second look at, let alone 285,000 jobs.
Even though the administration has moved the goalpost more than 20
times in terms of how Obamacare is enacted, it clearly has hurt far
more than it has helped. The majority leader famously said that all the
stories that have been stated on this floor have been horror stories
that are not true, but these are
[[Page S3008]]
real stories. These are people who have contacted my office and talked
to me personally. They have written letters and sent emails. They are
simply saying: Here is my experience.
Once in a while I come to the floor so I can verbalize the
experiences of the people I represent.
Kelly from Fort Wayne, IN, received a letter from her insurance
company that said her provider would change her policy due to the
Affordable Care Act. Her new policy failed to cover her lifesaving
medication, increasing her monthly costs by over 400 percent compared
to what she had paid with her previous plan. She said: What am I
supposed to do? This medication I have is lifesaving. It is no longer
covered by my insurance plan. And the insurance company has indicated
that this is the result of the implementation of ObamaCare.
Bruce from Jasper, IN, had to drop his insurance policy and enroll in
a new plan that increased his monthly premium by 70 percent. Bruce
said: I can't afford this. I am paying a lot of money already. Seventy
percent. I thought the President said this won't cost me a penny more,
period. I am sure the President regrets using ``period'' because period
means final, no discussion, no debate--trust me, you won't have to pay
one penny more.
I talked to Bruce in Jasper, and he is paying 70 percent more.
Traveling across Indiana, I hear these stories from Hoosiers over and
over, men and women business owners who are reducing hours, laying off
hard-working employees, or closing the doors because of this law's
costly requirements. Most importantly, they are very seriously
considering dropping any employer-offered coverage whatsoever. They are
reducing their workforce, if it is possible, to below 29 hours a
workweek so they don't have to provide insurance.
At one national chain, they have stated publicly that they have put
all of their thousands of employees on 29-hour workweek schedules so
they don't have to subject them to the restrictions imposed upon them
under the ObamaCare act.
I don't know how many of these stories we have to share before we try
to make some reforms, replacements, or find positive solutions to the
problems we face. Republicans have met in caucus. We have some
alternatives. We would like to have them considered.
This leads me to my second point. It is clear now that we are not
going to be allowed to offer any solutions, any reforms, any changes to
any legislation as long as we are here in this session of Congress. We
have been allowed nine amendments in the last 10 months. The minority
in the House of Representatives has been allowed to offer over 125
amendments in the last 10 months.
People are saying: Wait a minute, I thought in the House the majority
rules.
They have a Rules Committee. They decide that maybe they will get one
amendment or two amendments. Don't expect to be able to offer
amendments if you are in the minority in the House of Representatives.
They say: We won the election. We are the majority.
That is how the House works. I served in the House. I served in the
minority for 8 years. I am trying to remember if I was ever allowed
amendments. Sometimes our caucus was allowed an amendment.
I came to the Senate and people asked: What is the difference?
I said: The difference is night and day. Any Senator can offer any
amendment to any bill at any time.
Then Democratic majority leader, George Mitchell, was following a
precedent that had lasted for more than 200 years. The greatest
deliberative body in the world deliberated. And, yes, we were here late
hours in the evenings sometimes when a Member said: Wait a minute, I
have one more amendment. That person was allowed to offer that
amendment. We spent many nights into the dark hours working through a
bill, but the process worked. That was honored by Republican leaders
and Democratic leaders. Only now, at this second iteration of mine--it
seems like a bad dream, actually--do we have a leader who has basically
said: I am not allowing you any amendments. I don't want to force any
votes.
That is not what the Senate was designed to be. That is not what it
has been traditionally. Yet here we are facing yet another piece of
legislation that looks the same as every other piece of legislation we
have been faced with this year. The majority leader will use a
procedure called filling the tree. The majority leader is using
procedures to shut down the minority, to gag us. It is a gag order by
the majority leader. He is basically saying: You don't have the
privilege under my leadership of representing the people in your State
who voted for you to come here to offer their wishes and their desires
and amendments to reform a piece of legislation. I am not giving you
that opportunity.
That is what the majority leader is saying over and over.
Now, if a Member is in the majority, I suppose he or she can get
their changes modified and moved into the bill that the majority leader
brings to the floor. But then he turns to the other side and says: You
don't count, none of you. All 45 of you, all 45 Republican Senators
here, don't count.
This is a Senate run by 55 people under the dictatorship of the
current majority leader, who simply has thrown a gag order on any
Republican because they are afraid to debate and vote on measures they
think might negatively impact them, even though they are many times
bipartisan-led amendments--amendments supported by Members on the other
side of the aisle.
We said: OK, he is turning down anything we offer, but what if we
offered it with the support of a Member from the other side?
He turns that down too, so he shuts down his own Members.
It is beyond my comprehension, having served here before and seen the
Senate under the leadership of Democratic leaders who caused this body
to function in a way where everybody had a voice. We didn't always win
our amendments. We were in the minority. We mostly lost our amendments,
but we had a chance to offer them. We had a chance to debate them and
to try to persuade Members to join us. Sometimes we were fortunate to
persuade those Members. Other times they were bills and amendments
fashioned together with Democrats and Republicans, brought to the floor
in tandem, voted on, and passed, and they were constructive changes.
Today, it is, shut up, sit down, don't offer amendments, I am not
giving you anything. It defies the history of this place, the tradition
of this place, and it has turned us into the world's least deliberative
body, not the most deliberative body. There is no deliberation here.
It appears the only way to change this is for the voters to go to the
polls and say: Let's get the Senate back to what it is supposed to be.
Let's get to a place where we are not afraid to stand up and take a
stand. Let's not be afraid to consider amendments and to say if it
passes, it passes, and if it loses, it loses, but at least Members had
the opportunity to state their positions and the opportunity to
represent the wishes of the people who sent us here.
We are sitting around here being able to do nothing--nothing--because
the majority leader said: You are in the minority. I am running this
place. It is a one-man show. I am throwing a gag order over all of you,
and we are shutting it down.
Now we are coming to the tax extenders. There are good provisions in
the bill, there are mediocre provisions, and there are some that
probably shouldn't be in there. But shouldn't this be debated? This
impacts our economy and impacts our future. There are many things in
the tax extenders bill that is coming before us--including research
credits and other things that stimulate the economy--some that I think
are good and some things that I think are bad. Shouldn't we have the
opportunity to try to support the good or eliminate the bad or at least
make an effort at that? Yet once again it hasn't happened yet. The
pattern has been laid. The majority leader will say: No, you are not
going to have any amendments. We are going to shut this down, and you
are going to do it our way.
Apparently, that is the way the majority leader has decided he is
going to run the Senate. He makes all kinds of false excuses as to why
he has to do what he does, but none of them hold water. I regret that.
I think it has turned this place into a dysfunctional
[[Page S3009]]
body, and I think the burden of responsibility for that falls directly
on the shoulders of the majority leader.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today, as my
colleague from Indiana has, because the same things he is hearing about
at home in Indiana--stories from real people and how their lives have
been impacted by the health care law--are stories I am hearing at home
every weekend in Wyoming.
I think it is astonishing that the majority leader would come to the
floor of the Senate and say these stories we are coming to the floor
with are made up, he said, out of whole cloth. These are real people in
our communities who have been impacted by the health care law in ways
that have been very detrimental to their lives, their livelihood.
People have had their hours cut. Their take-home pay is less. They are
finding they are having to pay a lot more for insurance. A lot of times
it is insurance they don't really want or need or will ever use but the
President says they have to buy. They have lost policies that have
worked well for them.
I got a recent email from a gentleman, a family in Powell, WY, a
community in Park County. He writes: Now that ObamaCare has been deemed
to be the most successful government program of all time, let me tell
you what it has done for retired middle-class Wyoming citizens like
myself.
Of course, he said he was not serious when he said ``the most
successful government program of all time.'' He probably heard the
President talking about it. He probably heard the President of the
United States tell Democrats who voted for this health care law to
forcefully defend the law and be proud of it. I haven't heard Members
who voted for this actually come to the floor to any degree to
forcefully defend and be proud of the law because they know the side
effects of the law have been devastating--devastating to families,
devastating to people and their paychecks, and devastating to health
care in this country.
So back to what my constituent from Powell, WY, said: Health care
premiums of nearly $2,000 a month.
The President said: Oh, no, premiums will drop by $2,500 a year.
This gentleman said: Health care premiums of nearly $2,000 per month,
scheduled to go to at least $2,000 or more per month in July--in
parentheses, ``unbelievable.''
He then says: Middle-class citizens like my wife and myself, not
qualifying for ObamaCare subsidies, having to consider becoming
lawbreakers by forgoing health insurance for ourselves or at least one
of us--in parentheses, ``probably myself because I am the healthier of
the two''--and paying the fine.
He then said: If we do No. 2 above--about disobeying the law and
paying the fine--we will have to look into seeking cheaper care outside
the United States, probably Mexico, for serious problems.
Is that what the President of the United States intended, to have
people seek care in Mexico because they can't afford the Obama health
care law and the mandates and all of the insurance that they don't
need, don't want, won't use, and can't afford? It is not what the
President promised the American people. He said if they like what they
have they can keep it. But, of course, that was deemed the lie of the
year.
So I guess that is how the American people view the President of the
United States now and can't really consider his comments to be
credible. So when he says forcefully defend and be proud of the health
care law, I think the American people realize that the President has
sold the law to them under false promises and the Democrats are clearly
not standing up and defending what they know is hurting their
constituents. The President is in his bubble, and he hears only what he
wants to hear. But I think Members on the Democratic side of the aisle,
who go home and listen to people, know these stories are true, unlike
what the majority leader says--that they are just made up.
The gentleman goes on to say: I could look into residence in another
State to see if health care insurance is available cheaper. I don't
know if it is or not, but I understand that Wyoming has the highest or
near highest health insurance premiums.
Then he ends by saying: Is this what Obama and the Federal Government
consider fair?
The President goes on TV and says that everybody ought to have a fair
shot. Is this what the President of the United States considers fair?
Is this what he means by a fair shot? People all across the country are
going to be asking themselves that question as they take a look at the
impact of this health care law on their own lives, their own families,
the ability to keep their doctors. We know many people have lost the
doctor they like in the sense that they can't go to that doctor. They
know they can't go to the same hospital. We know many were not able to
keep the insurance they had. We know many have had hours cut.
In an effort to try to help people who didn't have insurance, I think
the President of the United States and Democrats should not have hurt
so many individuals across the country, so many people who already had
insurance. There may be people who are newly insured, but there are
also people who are newly uninsured, and it is because of the
President's health care law. Are there side effects? You better believe
it. They are harmful. They are costly. Many families have been
devastated by the health care law.
I have another letter from a family in Lingle, WY. This is somebody
who knows I am a doctor, knows my record of treating patients around
Wyoming and working with families all across the State. She said: I
know you're interested in the number of people who are uninsured after
the rollout of the ACA. She said: My husband and I started
investigating the ACA in October. The Presiding Officer will remember
they opened the exchanges in October. The President, right before that,
said it was going to be easier to use than Amazon and cheaper than your
cell phone bill. She said: So we started investigating in October, and
we were finally able to establish an account in March.
That is what the American people think about the capability of this
government and this administration. You start working on something in
October, and you finally establish an account in March because of the
incompetence of a bureaucracy and an administration that says one
thing, does another, promises something, and delivers something very
different.
She said: We found that our premiums would be one-third of our annual
income--one-third of our annual income--with a $6,000 copay and a
$12,000 deductible.
Those are the numbers--one-third of their annual income, a $6,000
copay, a $12,000 deductible--and the majority leader comes to the floor
and says we are making this stuff up. These are letters from our
constituents, people who live in our States, people whom we see on
weekends when we go home.
She goes on to say: We have been uninsured for 7 years due to the
costs, which we are told is due to our age, even though we are in good
health. So as of today we are still uninsured.
So they started in October, finally established an account in March,
and as of the date this was written in April, they were still
uninsured.
She said: We don't have any idea what will happen if one of us gets
sick or has an accident. How will we pay the bills?
Then she finishes by saying: Keep fighting for the people of Wyoming.
As a doctor, you know what a precarious position we are in.
I wish the President of the United States and the majority leader
would realize what a precarious position they have placed the American
public in--an American public who knew what they wanted with health
care reform. They wanted the care they need, from a doctor they choose,
at lower cost. That is not what they got. They got more mandates, more
expensive care, higher deductibles, higher copays. Many people had
their policies canceled.
We know with the 30-hour work rule communities are cutting the hours
of workers so their take-home pay goes down. We are not talking about
businesses here, although it is happening in the business world as
well. It is also happening in communities--school districts that are
saying: Well, we are going to have to cut the hours of substitute
teachers, we are going to have
[[Page S3010]]
to cut the hours of the school bus drivers, of the coaches, of a number
of part-time workers. Why? Because of the health care law.
These are side effects of the law. They are harmful. They are
expensive. They have an impact on people's lives to a point that I
think the President wants to ignore because the President is hoping
people on his side of the aisle will forcefully defend and be proud of
a law that there is little to be proud of that really is not able to be
defended because the implications of the side effects have been
devastating to many, and especially to Americans who have gotten their
insurance canceled and find their only choice is more expensive
insurance, higher copays, and higher deductibles. But for families all
across the country, when a mother finds she cannot take her child to
that pediatrician--the one who has known that child since the baby was
born--now, because of the health care law, she cannot take her child to
that pediatrician, they cannot go to the hospital in their community;
they have to drive distances, instead, because of the health care law,
which was intended to help people but has ended up hurting, in my
opinion, more people than it has helped.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I rise to speak with regard to
ObamaCare. The good Senator from Wyoming made compelling points, as did
the Senator from Indiana before him.
What I would like to do is to start for a minute by reading from some
letters I have received from constituents in my State with regard to
ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act. These are from hard-working
people who are trying to figure out what to do about their health
insurance with ObamaCare in place. I think really those are the voices
that speak louder than any others--the voices of people from across
this great country who live in all of our States--and they are writing
to Members of this body and say: Hey, here is what I am experiencing.
So this is not just coming down and expressing an opinion on the
Affordable Care Act. This is what people are saying. This is what they
are telling us. I think it is very important we take the time to listen
and to understand the very real difficulties they are having with
something that is so vitally important to all of us, and that is health
insurance.
I would like to start by reading some of these letters. The first one
is from somebody who lives in the Fargo area. They start out:
I live in West Fargo and my Employer is based out of South
Dakota.
In 2011 I obtained my own Family Health Care Insurance due
to a job change and my new employer's Health Care coverage
seemed excessive. In doing this I found coverage as follows:
So they signed up for a policy that is an 80/20 copay, with a $1,000
deductible, with a $4,000 out-of-pocket maximum, with monthly premiums
of just over $800--$809. That was provided through Blue Cross Blue
Shield.
The individual goes on to write:
At the time this was more than $300 less costly than my new
employer's monthly premium for similar coverage.
I recently received a notice from [Blue Cross Blue Shield]
that my coverage will be discontinued on May 1st, 2014 due to
the Affordable Care Act.
So they received a notice that their insurance is being discontinued
due to the Affordable Care Act.
Listed below are the options which are most similar to my
current coverage:
Now, instead of an 80/20 copay, it is a 70/30 copay, so the copay is
higher. There is a $2,000 deductible. So instead of a $1,000
deductible, that doubled. Now it is a $2,000 deductible. There is a
$9,000 out-of-pocket maximum, compared to what this individual had
before, which was a $4,000 out-of-pocket maximum. So it more than
doubled the out-of-pocket maximum. There is a monthly premium of
$1,625. That is compared to an $809 premium. So the premium doubled. So
for a higher copay, for a higher deductible, for a higher out-of-pocket
maximum, they are paying double the premium. If they wanted to go to
another policy, it was an even higher deductible.
The individual goes on to say:
We are NOT eligible for Tax Credits because my employer
offers affordable health coverage.
So because the employer offers a policy, this individual is not
eligible for any tax credits.
At this point my best option is to obtain my employer's
health coverage. However Open enrollment is not until August
2014.
So the individual has to wait until August.
My HR department along with my current Insurance Specialist
has contacted [Blue Cross Blue Shield] and asked that this be
considered a ``Life Changing Event'' so I can join the
employer plan by the May 1st deadline. They will not classify
it as such. I asked if I could pay some type of early sign on
fee. They indicated that is not an option.
So if I cannot join my employer's plan, my BEST options for
coverage are those options listed above--
The ones I just read--
which are at best a 37% increase--
``[A]t best a 37% increase''--
in monthly premium with a 110% or more increase in deductible
and out of pocket max.
So let me say that one more time. This individual's best options now
with the Affordable Care Act are a 37-percent increase in the monthly
premium, with a 110-percent or more increase in the deductible and the
out-of-pocket maximum.
Then the individual finishes:
Do you see my frustration?
This is just one of the letters we have received, but it is
representative of so many others.
How can that be an affordable care act? How is that affordable care?
Here is another one.
My insurance premium tripled for less coverage. I thought
our insurance was supposed to stay the same if we had it. . .
. Please put a stop to it! It isn't right to make people pay
for something they may not be able to afford. I already had
health insurance! I also send money to my sister to help with
her baby. Now I won't be able to do that.
That is another letter--a real person, a real situation.
Here is one:
To Our Elected Representatives; We petition you not as
Democrats, Republicans, Independents or members of any
special interest group, but as concerned taxpayers. We urge
of all of our elected representatives to vote against this
administration's health care plan. The nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the cost will
be more than $1 trillion over 10 years and we know from
experience that it will cost far more than any government
estimate.
Well, these stories go on, and I know I have colleagues who are
waiting to speak, as well, during this time slot. So rather than
continue to go through these letters--and I have many more; I brought
more than I anticipated reading today--I will come back again and read
some more of these.
But I want to conclude with what I believe is the right approach, and
I think it is something Republicans are talking about and have been
talking about and will continue to talk about. So when we come down and
say the Affordable Care Act is not working, do not just take our word
for it. Listen to the people from across this country who are writing
to us and telling us their very real stories. Sometimes you hear: Well,
but you don't have a solution. That is wrong. We do. We absolutely have
a solution, and we have talked about it over and over on this floor and
in every other venue where someone is willing to listen.
We need to implement a comprehensive approach, and we need to do it
on a step-by-step basis so people understand it and know exactly what
we are putting in place. It needs to be an approach that empowers
people to make their own choices--their own choices--about their health
care insurance and their health care providers. Again, I want to repeat
that: They choose their own policy and their health care providers.
It includes market-based reforms that promote competition, that will
help increase choice, not reduce choice, and competition that will help
bring prices down, not see them continue to spike higher. It includes
aspects such as tort reform, to reduce the cost of health care. It
includes allowing insurance companies to sell policies across State
lines. It includes expanding health savings accounts, so individuals
can combine high-deductible health care policies with a tax-deductible
savings account. It includes reform of Medicare and Medicaid, to give
States more control and to encourage the kind of reforms that will
improve service, improve outcomes, and reduce costs.
That is the kind of approach that truly serves the American public.
That
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is the kind of approach we will continue to work, on behalf of the
citizens of our respective States in this great Nation, to put in
place.
With that, I see my esteemed colleague from the great State of
Mississippi is in the Chamber. I yield for the good Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, my impressions of the so-called Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act are that it is too costly, too
complex, and too intrusive.
Small business owners in my State have been particularly vocal about
having to choose between making payroll or paying the increasing costs
of insurance.
Many small business owners would like to provide health insurance for
their workers but are finding the premium costs are just too expensive.
A small business owner in Hattiesburg, for example, who in the past
paid 100 percent of the premiums for his employees was recently
informed of a 21-percent increase in these costs. He is having to
choose between reducing staff or shifting the health insurance costs to
his employees.
Another constituent from Southhaven reported to me that his son's
work hours were cut to fewer than 30 per week so that his employer
would not be forced to purchase insurance coverage. With his hours
reduced, he cannot afford the private insurance that he had hoped to be
able to purchase.
The administration has struggled to implement several of the health
care law's mandates. Billions of dollars have been spent on a flawed
enrollment system that has not made significant progress in reducing
the number of uninsured Americans. The stories I have heard from my
State confirm for me that the Affordable Care Act is an unfixable and
expensive mess, and it should be repealed.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. RISCH. 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. RISCH. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about a
case involving ObamaCare and an Idaho resident. She has asked me to
state her case. It is one of many such cases that I have. I did not
pick this one because it is the most egregious or anything else. I
picked it because this is an effect that ObamaCare is having on
ordinary American people, people who deserve better, people who deserve
a government that will help them and will leave them alone when leaving
alone is the right thing to do.
She writes to me and says that her husband's company will no longer
be offering health insurance next year. Of course, that is the result
of ObamaCare. We have all heard the reasons why many companies are
abandoning offering health care to their employees. Be that as it may--
and there is a lot of reasons for that, none of which are good--these
people are caught in this spot.
Right now, through her husband's business, they are paying $700 a
month. They get 80-percent coverage for that $700 a month. Their
deductible is $2,500 each. They are told, through the exchange, through
which they have shopped in Idaho, that the new coverage they are going
to get is going to cost them $1,400 a month. So that is exactly double
what they are paying now.
One would think you would get double benefits, right? Wrong. Because
of the government involvement in this, instead of 80-percent coverage,
they are going to get 70-percent coverage. Instead of a $2,500
deductible, they are going to have a $5,000 deductible.
Well, who are these people? They are ordinary, regular American
people. They are 60 years old. They do not qualify for a tax subsidy.
They tell me that now the cost of their health insurance is going to be
three times what they are paying for the cost of their house. They told
me: Senator, we are not extravagant people. We live in a 1,400-square
foot house. We do not take vacations, never bought a new car, raised
our kids, and saved for their educations. Both of us went to college.
They talk about how they taught their children to pay their taxes and
to work hard and be contributing members of society.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time controlled by the Republicans has
expired.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown.) The Democratic whip.
Mr. DURBIN. How much time do we have on the Democratic side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democrats control the next 45 minutes.
College Affordability
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, this week Democrats are going to
continue the conversation about college affordability. I was joining
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jack Reed of Rhode Island,
Al Franken of Minnesota and many others--in fact, 24 others, to
introduce the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act.
Why are we talking about student loans? Ask working families; ask
their kids why we are talking about it. Because there is more student
loan debt in America today than there is credit card debt. It is huge.
It is growing. If you finished college a few years back like me and had
a student loan that worried you, you would not believe what students
are facing today.
The average student coming out of college: $25,000 in debt. Imagine
sitting down at the desk in the college admissions office at age 19 as
they push the papers across the desk to you and ask you to sign up for
$10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 in loans so that you can start your class
on Monday. There you sit with $20,000 in loans to start your class on
Monday. You are 19 years old.
Wait a minute. Mom and dad have to cosign them with you. That is not
unusual. So now it is a family debt. I had a press conference in
Chicago on Monday. This wonderful woman came in and told the story
about how she and her husband with two sons were determined to get them
both through college. But she has not been able to do it. Do you know
why? Because the first son took 5 years. She and her husband had to
borrow the money to get him through school--good schools. But it is so
much debt for their family that they cannot even consider allowing
their other son to start college yet. He is waiting for his turn.
That is where we are in America today when it comes to college
education. If you did not happen to be wealthy or so smart that you get
everything paid for, and you are stuck in the middle with working and
middle-income families, you are facing debt challenges families have
never seen in the history of the United States.
There are 1.7 million Illinoisans--that is more than 10 percent of
our population or almost 15 percent of the population of the State of
Illinois--who have outstanding student loan debt--15 percent. That is 1
out of 6, 1 out of 7 people in my State with student loan debt.
Nationally, there are 40 million borrowers with more than $1 trillion
in student loan debt. On the average, graduates of the class of 2012
left with $28,000 in debt. But the individual debts are often much
higher. I have had students whom I have invited to come to my Web site
and tell me their story. It is heartbreaking.
These students have debt of over $100,000 with a bachelor's degree.
God forbid they went to one of those for-profit colleges or
universities. You know the ones I am talking about. They are the ones
that absolutely inundate you with advertising.
You cannot get on a CTA train or bus in Chicago without getting hit
between the eyes with all of these for-profit colleges, for-profit
schools. The biggest ones: The University of Phoenix, Kaplan, DeVry,
just to mention a few. It is a different category. These are not the
public colleges and universities. They are not even private colleges
and universities. They are for-profit schools.
Believe me, they make a profit. What is the difference between for-
profit schools and community colleges, the University of Illinois,
DePaul University, Georgetown University? The difference is this. As a
category, for-profit colleges and university have 10 percent of the
high school graduates going to school, like the ones I mentioned. But
they receive 20 percent of the Federal aid to education. Why? They are
so darned expensive. That is why. The
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students who sign up for these schools--these glamorous schools with
all of the marketing--end up signing up for more debt than you can
imagine--twice the debt of students that go to most other schools.
But here is the kicker. Here is the one the for-profit colleges and
universities do not want to talk about: 46 percent of all the student
loan defaults or student loan failure to pay off their loans--46
percent of them--students from for-profit colleges and universities.
Set that aside for a minute. As awful and scandalous as that is in
this country--the exploitation of these students and their families by
schools which many times offer worthless diplomas, worthless degrees,
and absolutely no ticket to a job--as bad as that is, let's talk about
the bigger picture, 90 percent of the other college students and what
they are facing.
They are borrowing money right and left. They are sinking themselves,
and many times their families, more deeply in debt than they ever
imagined, and they have no idea what they are getting into. You see,
student loan debts are not like other debts. It is not like you
borrowed money for a house, a car, a boat or a temporary loan to get
by. Student loan debt is one of the few debts in America not
dischargeable in bankruptcy.
What does that mean? No matter how bad things get for you or your
family, no matter what economic tragedy comes your way, if you end up
in bankruptcy court and try to clear the table and start over, you will
never, ever be able to discharge your student loan debt.
Oh, there is an extreme circumstance when you can. It is so extreme
it almost never happens. So a student loan debt is a debt for a
lifetime. You will either pay it off or you will carry it to the grave.
They actually execute--these debt collectors--on grandmothers on Social
Security. I am not making it up. Grandma wanted to help her
granddaughter. She cosigned a student loan. The granddaughter dropped
out of school, never paid back the loan, defaulted. They went after
granny's Social Security check on the student loan. That is what we are
talking about.
That is why we have to change it. That is why the Democrats have come
forward on this side of the aisle. We are waiting for our first
Republican to join us, to do something about refinancing college debt
in America, to at least bring down the interest rates, to allow
students to consolidate their loans at lower interest rates, so that
they will pay less in interest.
That poor family I told you about from Chicago where the mother came
and testified, they could not let the second son start college because
they had never paid off the debt on the first son and could not see how
they would. Year after year they were churning thousands and thousands
of dollars into payments all retiring interest and not retiring the
principal. The interest just keeps piling up. God forbid you miss a
payment. It is awful.
The bank on students refinancing bill, which Senator Elizabeth
Warren, Jack Reed, and myself are bringing to this floor, will help
current borrowers take advantage of what we have in low interest rates
right now. Those with Federal loans can refinance at the lower rate,
the same rate as students who are taking out their first loans this
year: 3.86 percent for undergraduate Direct Loans; 5.41 percent for
graduate loans; 6.41 percent for PLUS loans taken out by the student's
parents.
Now, you are going to say: Those are not rock-bottom interest rates.
Believe me, they are a bargain in every category here against what
these students are facing today in paying off old debt. Many students
will find their interest rate on their loan cut in half. What does it
mean? Those of us who borrowed some money in life to buy a home or buy
a car, a change in the interest rate of 3 or 4 percent gives you a
chance to finally start reducing the principal. That is what we want to
do, so that this debt can be put behind these people.
Those who have private loans, many of which have sky-high interest
rates, few protections for borrowers, at least in the version of the
bill we have introduced, can refinance into Federal loans with lower
rates and stronger consumer protections. You ought to hear what these
collection agencies do to students and their families when they do not
pay on these loans. You think you have had some problems on the
telephone with people calling and harassing you. They never quit. They
need their money. They want their money. They will not let you go no
matter what your circumstances.
This bill will allow young people to lower their payment by hundreds
of thousands of dollars a year. They have a chance to actually get
ahead on their debt. What is more, the bill we are offering is fully
paid for. Here is how we pay it. You know the name Warren Buffett,
third or fourth wealthiest man in America. I happen to know him. He
comes by and has lunch with us from time to time and talks about
business and investments.
But the one thing he wanted to talk about the most was something that
he thinks is fundamentally unfair. Do you know what it is? Warren
Buffett came in here and said: Why is it that Warren Buffett, the
billionaire, has a lower income tax rate than his secretary?
Why? It is not fair. And it isn't fair. Because when profits in
life--his income in life--come from capital gains, it is treated at a
lower tax rate than ordinary income, which his secretary receives.
So Warren Buffett has said: For goodness' sake, I shouldn't pay a
lower tax rate than my secretary.
So we put in what is called the Buffett rule, so there will be at
least a minimum income tax charge for millionaires so they pay at least
as much of an income tax rate as their secretaries. Does it sound
radical? I don't think so. I think it sounds reasonable and so does Mr.
Buffett.
We take the revenue that comes in from charging the millionaires--
that we just talked about under the Buffett rule--and we apply it to
the refinancing of college debt. That is how we achieved this. That is
how we get it done.
This bill would help people such as Grace Steging. She is from
Champaign and just recently wrote me a letter. She took out a $33,000
Federal student loan to get a degree in special education, and she is
just completing her first year as a teacher in a low-income school
district in Central Illinois. In her letter she said: ``I am shocked
and distressed at the way my student loan debt continues to multiply
even through I graduated a year ago.''
She tells me she made her payments faithfully each time every month,
but even so her payments continue to rise as the interest rate accrues.
It is a shame that even with a degree from a respected school and a
good, secure job, Grace can't save money and she can't keep up with her
student loans. She wrote and said:
Senator, I am not a banker or a businessperson, I was born
to teach. . . . Shall I teach my students to follow their
dreams or to follow the money?
It is a good question. Reasonable borrowing has always been part of
getting a higher education for many Americans. I know this story
personally because I was a beneficiary.
The National Defense Education Act was passed in this Chamber in
1958, when Congress was scared to death. Scared by what? Scared by a
basketball-size satellite that the Russians had launched called
Sputnik, and it was beeping as it went around the world. We thought it
was the end of life as we knew it because we knew the Russians had the
bomb. Now they were in outer space and we weren't--1957.
So this Chamber met with the House and said we have to do something.
One of the first things we are going to do, we are going to get more
Americans in college. We need better trained, better educated Americans
to fight the Soviets and to make sure we don't lose the space battle.
Along came the National Defense Education Act, and it opened the door
for me to borrow the money to go to college and law school and pay it
back over 10 years with 3 percent interest.
I paid it back. I didn't think I could because it seemed like a huge
amount of money at the time. I will not tell you the amount because it
will date me, but I will tell you today students don't face the same
circumstances. The debt they face is so dramatic.
Jon and his wife from Chicago recently contacted my office. They both
went to great, not-for-profit public
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schools for their undergraduate studies. Jon went on to law school. His
wife went on to medical school.
Jon is a first-year lawyer in a firm. His wife is in her second year
of medical residency. They received good educations from respectable
schools and now they have jobs in their fields.
Let me tell you what else they have. They have a combined student
debt, Jon and his wife, of $300,000 on student loans. They pay $1,300 a
month in student loan payments. Thankfully, they will participate in
the Federal income-based repayment program, which moderates their
payments, but here they are, just starting out, maybe with a family and
a $300,000 debt.
How can they buy a house? They have explored it. No bank will come
near them to even loan them the money for a house. That, to me, is what
is disgraceful--not only that these students end up coming out of
school in debt, they are postponing their lives. They are postponing
marriage, children, homes, and cars.
Many of them are moving right back in with mom and dad in that
basement apartment, because dad just came out of retirement to help
them pay off the loan. I am not making this up. These are real stories
that I run into.
One of the other ones I mentioned earlier, Hannah Moore--or at least
I want to make a reference to Hannah Moore. I spoke about her on the
floor. She is from Chicago and what a sweet young lady. She made a
fatal mistake. She went to one of these for-profit colleges in Chicago
called the Harrington College of Design--great advertising if you have
seen it. Do you know what her reward for pursuing the American dream by
seeking a college education at this for-profit school was? It was
$124,570 in student debt, much of it in private loans for what is
basically a worthless--worthless--diploma from a for-profit college.
Her story isn't unique. I just saw her last Monday and her debt has
gone up. It is now over $150,000. This poor, attractive, smart, and
determined young woman doesn't know where to turn. Her life looks like
a brick wall when she looks ahead. I think she is 30, maybe 32.
Can you imagine. This is what she has in store, having thought she
did the right thing, went to that college and got this degree which she
thought was worth something. It turned out it wasn't.
The Federal Reserve Bank in New York warns us student debt isn't just
a student problem, it is a national problem. It threatens Americans in
terms of investing in our future, investing in homes, investing in
businesses, and it even threatens their future retirement security.
Hannah's father had to come out of retirement to help pay off the
bills.
In addition to last week's refinancing proposal, Senators Warren,
Jack Reed, and I have several proposals to address student debt and
college affordability, a bill that would give colleges financial
incentives not to overload students with debt.
We have also introduced the Student Loan Borrowers' Bill of Rights
Act. I think there ought to be an open, complete disclosure to students
about the debt they are getting into. If there is a better alternative,
taking government loans that you can consolidate at a lower interest
rate as opposed to a private loan which rips you off with a high
interest rate--some of this is very basic.
Senator Harkin and I introduced a bill to bring better coordination
and focus to Federal oversight for for-profit colleges and
universities. It is called the Proprietary Education Oversight
Coordination Improvement Act. It is a long title for a bill that
basically is trying to come to grips with the scandalous behavior of
for-profit colleges and universities.
For too many young Americans, the promise of a fair shot at
affordable college education has become a long shot. That is not the
American way. We want to have an educated generation prepared to lead
this country. They cannot do that saddled with debt and going to
worthless schools.
It is time for this generation to step up, allow these students to
refinance their debt to get their lives back in order and to start
looking ahead with some promise and hope and get their parents out from
under the debt burden they assume with their kids. Stop the rip-offs
that are coming from these for-profit colleges and universities and put
an end to some of the rip-offs, even by semigovernment agencies.
All of these things have to come to an end, and it will only happen
if we do it--and it will only happen if we do it on a bipartisan basis.
I hope my colleagues, particularly on the other side of the aisle,
will join our efforts.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Tax Extenders
Mr. COONS. I come to the floor to speak about a real opportunity that
we have this week in this Congress and in this Senate to come together
in a bipartisan way to adopt measures that will actually create jobs
and help grow our economy.
This week we are considering tax extenders, a package of bills that
can do a lot of good for the middle class, our economy, and our Nation.
Together, various proposals in the tax extenders would spur investment
in manufacturing, clean energy, and innovation, make it easier for
families to afford a home or to send their children to college, open
career pathways for veterans, and bring investments in jobs to
communities in need. They recently passed by a voice vote out of the
Finance Committee in the Senate, sending an important signal that we
can come together, Democrats and Republicans, to move our economy
forward.
I mentioned innovation and manufacturing in particular as two of the
policies this broader package helps promote. I would like to discuss
two important bipartisan policies in this package, bills that have been
rolled into the extenders package that can do a lot of good for
startups and for innovative small manufacturers and for firms that
invest heavily in the research and development that is needed to yield
groundbreaking discoveries and steadily grow manufacturing employment
in the United States.
R&D, research and development, is the cornerstone of any competitive
company, and I would suggest country. In the 21st century for us to
have and sustain an innovative economy, it is certainly the cornerstone
of our Nation's future. That is why, for a number of years, bipartisan
majorities in Congress have supported the R&D tax credit so innovative
companies are incentivized to keep investing in critically needed R&D,
in new ideas, and in new products, but there has long been a problem
with the structure of the R&D credit. It doesn't reach early stage
startup companies, those that are most innovative and those that have
the greatest promise to grow.
As the GAO has reported, over half of the current R&D credit goes to
firms making over $1 billion. Although they are important as well, it
has become clear we are missing an opportunity to incentivize the most
innovative, smallest startup companies, especially in manufacturing, an
industry that I know invests a huge amount in R&D but has had a
challenging environment competitively and globally in the past decade
because the R&D credit is a credit and not a tax--and is a credit only
if you have a tax liability, only if your company is profitable. A
preprofitable company can't access it.
If you are a small business that pays AMT, while there are many
credits you could claim, the R&D isn't one of them, even though it is
so important to our commitment. This leaves out firms at the early
stage, where they are facing the highest risk of failure but who are
also the kind of technology-focused, early stage, high-growth, high-
potential businesses that have generated more net jobs than any other
area of our economy in this century.
These firms, that are sometimes called gazelle firms, are young
innovative businesses with the potential to explode in size and create
hundreds or thousands of jobs. Think of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in
a California garage starting what would become Apple or think of Rick
Birkmeyer or Ray Yin in Delaware, my home State.
Rick Birkmeyer is an entrepreneur who has started a number of
successful biotech companies in the Delaware region. He is someone with
a reputation as a leader in his field. Even so, raising capital for a
new startup venture is always a challenge. Rick today is the founder of
CD Diagnostics, a leader in biomarker research and biochemical
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test development that makes tests to tell if a joint is infected or
merely irritated. These tests would help orthopedic surgeons determine
if surgery is needed and avoid a great deal of expensive and sometimes
unnecessary exploratory procedures. The company is only a few years old
and began with one employee. Today they have 82 and believe they will
have well over 170 in just 2 more years.
Exponential hockey stick-like growth such as this is great, but if he
and his company were able to use the R&D credit before they reach
profitability, they would be able to hire more people, grow more
quickly by investing in equipment, and get products to market faster.
Another young Delaware company that would benefit from the tax credit
is ANP of Newark, DE. I sat next to its CEO Ray Yin at the Wesley
College graduation this weekend, where he gave the keynote address.
Ray's company, ANP, began with just one employee--him. Today it is a
leader in making nanotherapeutics and in biodefense technology that is
affordable, wearable, and easy to use, whether testing against
biochemical agents in the war setting or food-borne illnesses or water
contamination at home.
Both of these two companies make terrific, compelling, technology-
based products, have managed their cash well, and are great examples of
how to run a startup. But for each of them they went through a very
demanding period from their first capital investment to when they had
reliable revenue coming in. That is often called the valley of death or
the gap between launch and sustainability. They would be farther along,
more mature, and more robust if they had been able to access the R&D
credit with their early expenditures.
Over the past few years I have been working diligently with a group
of fellow Senators, Republicans and Democrats, to find ways that we
could work together to reshape and target a portion of the R&D credit
to make it accessible to these sorts of early stage companies.
I want to give particular credit to Republican Senator Mike Enzi of
Wyoming, who has been tireless and thoughtful. We have not always
agreed--we come from quite different political perspectives--but his
investment of time and thoughtfulness in crafting the final outcome of
the Startup Innovation Credit Act is worthy of thanks and a compliment.
Senator Schumer on the Finance Committee has helped move the R&D
credit revision forward into the tax extenders package.
Manufacturing Jobs for America is a broader initiative that more than
26 Senators have participated in that includes more than 33 bills. This
bill, the Startup Innovation Credit Act, is one of them, one of many
bipartisan bills that can help manufacturers to grow, can help them to
invest, and can help them get through a critical, early stage period.
Mr. Pat Roberts, Republican Senator of Kansas, has also worked with
me, as well as with Senators Enzi and Schumer, on a revision to the R&D
credit that isn't available to firms, mostly small businesses, that pay
the AMT, so we changed that as well. Both of these provisions have been
adopted into the tax extender package.
I also wanted to mention the first one I referenced, the Startup
Innovation Credit Act, was also supported and has been moved forward
with contributions by Senators Rubio, Blunt, Stabenow, Moran, and
Kaine.
This is a terrific way for us to find a path forward for companies
that are still too early in their development to pay employment taxes
but to use a fix that allows them to claim the R&D credit against
employment taxes when they aren't yet paying income taxes.
This kind of credit has been used before in States such as Iowa,
Arizona, New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. And they have been
game changers--helping new firms to open their doors, to hire more
workers, and to keep their doors open. By allowing companies to claim
the R&D credit against either the AMT or their payroll tax obligations,
we don't pick winners and losers and we don't focus on a specific area
of the economy or technology. What we are doing instead is supporting
any private sector firm that invests in research and development. It
means cash in the pockets of small startup companies, which can make a
critical difference, especially when financing and credit are tight.
Together, these bipartisan proposals can do a lot to put more
Americans to work today unleashing the innovations that will create the
jobs of tomorrow. I believe the Federal role in research and innovation
is fundamental. It is also bipartisan.
I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their
partnership and collaboration. I specifically thank the chair of the
Finance Committee Senator Ron Wyden for his leadership in ensuring that
the tax extenders package is available for us to consider now on the
floor, that these provisions were included, and for his support for
moving forward on these vital job-creating proposals.
Now let's work together in this Chamber to move across the finish
line and get the job done so America can get more of our best people to
work.
I thank the Chair.
Supporting Law Enforcement
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to recognize the men and
women of law enforcement across this Nation in the annual police week
ceremonies. From last night's candlelight vigil to tomorrow's wreath-
laying ceremony, we here in the Capitol offer our gratitude, our
thanks, and our support to the men and women of law enforcement and
their families.
I wish to comment for a few moments today on how difficult it was
earlier today to be a Member of this body as two different Senators,
who are strong supporters of law enforcement, came to this floor in an
attempt to move forward important pieces of legislation only to have
that effort blocked.
Earlier today Senator Patrick Leahy, the President pro tempore and
the chair of the Judiciary Committee, came to the floor to seek
unanimous consent to move forward the Federal bulletproof vest
partnership reauthorization bill that came out of the Judiciary
Committee, and Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland came to the floor to seek
unanimous consent to move forward with the bipartisan Blue Alert bill.
I am a cosponsor of both bills. Both have very broad support within the
law enforcement community, and both are bipartisan bills. Yet, in each
case, one Senator--one Senator--objected to our proceeding to
consideration of these bills.
I want to share with those of us here in the Chamber that earlier
today, at a hearing in the Judiciary Committee considering again the
value and the impact of the Federal bulletproof vest partnership, we
had a chance to hear from Officer Ann Carrizales from Texas, who gave
riveting, moving testimony about how a bulletproof vest, provided to
her by her smalltown department in Texas, saved her life when she was
shot at point-blank range in a routine traffic stop very early in the
morning. Today her husband would be a widower and her daughter an
orphan were it not for this vital Federal-State-local partnership that
has provided more than 1 million bulletproof vests over the many years
it has enjoyed broad bipartisan support.
With us this morning were two Delaware Capitol police officers,
Sergeant Mike Manley and Corporal Steve Rinehart. With them as well was
Chief Horsman of the capitol police department. Both of these brave
officers were on duty in the lobby of the New Castle County courthouse
last year when a gunman entered the chamber and started firing at
random. They were both shot, and they both survived because of
bulletproof vests provided to them in part through this Federal-State
partnership.
We cannot let down the men and women of law enforcement. We should
not let partisan politics and ideology in this Chamber prevent us from
moving forward in a bipartisan way to deliver the officer-safety
investments and improvements that have already cleared the Judiciary
Committee, that already have bipartisan support from both sides of the
aisle, and allow one individual to continue to hold up these important
bills.
It is my call to my colleagues that we work tirelessly together to
make sure we overcome this needless obstruction and move forward this
week to honor the service and sacrifice of those 268 law enforcement
officers whose names have been added to the memorial this year and the
hundreds of
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thousands of others who even today, even tonight will be on patrol
keeping America safe.
I thank the Chair.
With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MURPHY. 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. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to
20 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Crisis in Ukraine
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, one of the protagonists of Leo Tolstoy's
epic ``War and Peace'' is the iconic Russian general Mikhail Kutuzov.
Kutuzov was brought out of retirement to be the commander in chief of
Russian forces during Napoleon's invasion, and his unorthodox strategy
confounded and frustrated his superiors and his underlings alike. He
becomes convinced, as Tolstoy depicts, that Napoleon will lose the war
by overextending his army. He believes by playing the long game he will
exhaust and defeat the seemingly invincible, unstoppable French army.
Tolstoy creates a fictionalized version of Kutuzov, of course, but
one of the most famous passages from ``War and Peace'' is worth
repeating here today. Speaking of those who doubt his strategy, Kutuzov
says:
Patience and time are my warriors, my champions.
Again, quoting from the book:
He [Kutuzov] knew that an apple should not be plucked while
it is green. It will fall of itself when ripe, but if picked
unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree is harmed, and your
teeth are set on edge. Like an experienced sportsman, Kutuzov
knew that the beast was wounded, and wounded as only the
whole strength of Russia could have wounded it.
Whether or not this famous Russian general ever shared this exact
sentiment, it is representative of a time when the Russians better than
anyone on Earth knew how to play the long game. How times have changed.
Over the past few weeks, I have listened in agony to my Republican
friends criticizing the Obama administration for having no coherent
policy regarding the current crisis in Ukraine. I come to the floor
today to rebut that argument and also to add a few suggestions on how
the administration's policy can be enhanced.
I certainly understand the Republicans' frustrations. News of the
ongoing daily drama in Ukraine dominates the national news. Russia
seems omnipresent, manipulating events on the ground by the hour, and
there clearly has not been a proportional pound-for-pound response from
the United States or the collective West. This frustration is fed by
memories of the Cold War--obsolete, even ancient memories given how
fast the world has changed since 1991. But the President's critics,
fueled by these largely irrelevant memories, insist that when Russia
acts, we must meet fire with fire--crippling unilateral sanctions
immediately, lethal arms for Ukrainian military, new missile capacity
in Eastern Europe.
The problem is that this is a strategy for 1964, not 2014. Russia
simply doesn't matter to us in the same way it used to. They are a
secondary world power whose power is diminishing. Their demographics
are catastrophic, their economy can't survive the inevitable global
energy revolution, and their endemic corruption is going to rot their
society from inside out. The invasions of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine
are signs of Russian weakness, Russian insecurity, not Russian
strength.
Last fall, two former Russian Republics, Georgia and Moldova, refused
Russian overtures to join their nascent economic union and inked
preliminary agreements to join the European Union. Ukraine, at the last
minute, bowed to Russian bullying and refused to ink the same deal, but
it set off a series of events that pushed Russia's man in Kiev out of
office.
In a panicked reaction, Russia invaded, and the consequences have
been devastating. Russia's economy is in free fall, with nearly $70
billion of capital leaving the country in just the last few months
alone. No major institutional investors will touch Russia today with a
10-foot pole. To make matters worse, Russia has been kicked out of the
G8 and generally has become an international pariah, not allowed at the
table with major powers. Russia is increasingly isolated at the United
Nations. And things are going to get even worse as the Europeans use
this crisis as a wake-up call to make themselves truly energy
independent of Russian energy and also to reinvigorate NATO.
In ``War and Peace,'' Kutuzov goes on to say this of his critics:
They want to run to see how they have wounded it. Wait and
we shall see! Continual maneuvers, continual advances! What
for? Only to distinguish themselves! As if fighting were fun.
They are like children from whom one can't get any sensible
account of what has happened because they all want to show us
how well they can fight. But that's not what is needed now.
The story of ``War and Peace'' and the Russian-French war is not
entirely a useful parallel to the current crisis in Ukraine or to the
proper response of the United States. What is needed now is much more
than just patience and time. But our response needs to be proportional
to our Nation's national security interests, not proportional to
Russia's actions in their backyard. That is why the administration is
right to strongly support this new Ukrainian Government without
overreacting in a way that could compromise our relationship with other
nations or make the situation worse, not better, on the ground in
Ukraine.
I would like to take a few minutes this evening to lay out what a
coherent, thoughtful approach to the crisis might look like and how, in
fact, the actions of the Obama administration largely follow this
pretty simple outline.
First, as Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenuk has been quick to
tell visiting dignitaries, the most important help the United States
can provide is economic assistance, conditioned on necessary reforms to
show the Ukrainian people that a Western-oriented government can
deliver prosperity to their country.
Russia has effectively invented a new form of warfare that is based
on gradual provocation, where Putin uses psychological methods,
intimidation, bribery, and propaganda to undermine resistance so that
firepower is rarely needed to get his way. But of course these tactics
only work on vulnerable countries with weak economies and a
susceptibility to Russian overtures of economic overlordship and
corruption. So the best way to repel Russian provocations is to
strengthen the Ukrainian economy and government institutions both for
the short and long run. The $1 billion in loan guarantees authorized by
Congress and the $17 billion loan approved by the IMF and brokered by
the United States are an important part of that process, and the
conditions imposed--which include a floating exchange rate, steep
increases in gas tariffs, and budget reductions over the next several
years--represent some of the tough medicine necessary to get Ukraine
back on its feet.
The United States hasn't sat on the sidelines when it comes to
economic aid to Ukraine. We have led from day one, and the results are
impossible to deny.
Second, let's recognize what military assistance makes sense and what
military assistance does not make sense. It makes sense to shore up our
treaty obligations in Eastern and Central Europe by positioning more
troops in places such as the Baltics and Poland and Romania. Just in
case the Russians were thinking of trying to use these types of
destabilizing tactics in NATO countries, make them think twice. But
remember that Ukraine is not a NATO ally; we have no obligation to
defend their sovereignty, and it is totally unrealistic and indeed
irresponsible to think that we can make up for decades of military
neglect and mismanagement inside Ukraine with a few million dollars of
aid today.
Ukraine doesn't need more small arms. Their problem isn't that they
don't have them; their problem is that they don't know how to shoot
them. There is no way the Ukrainians can effectively utilize more
sophisticated weaponry like anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery. The
only way they could do that is with military advisers standing side by
side with Ukrainians, and there is really no appetite here in the
United States to commit personnel to a ground war in Ukraine.
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To be clear, I don't offer these cautions because of a danger of
provoking Russia with an influx of U.S. arms. Russia is going to do
what Russia is going to do in Eastern Ukraine regardless of what small
investment the United States makes today in Ukraine.
But I do worry that since any lethal assistance from the United
States would have little to no effect on the ability of Ukraine to
repel a Russian invasion, a Russian victory over the Ukrainian army,
backed by U.S. weapons, would then be sold by Putin to his public as a
Russian military triumph over the United States. That is a truly bad
outcome, but that shouldn't stop us from more quickly delivering
nonlethal support to help bolster the Ukrainian military in the short
term--reasonable support such as body armor and communications
equipment--that balances our limited direct interest in Ukraine with
our humanitarian interest in saving lives. There is a middle ground
between just sending a handful more MREs and sending tanks or automatic
weapons, and we have had ample time to explore those options.
Over the medium and longer term we need to work with Ukraine to
rebuild its military institutions that were neglected for so many years
by its leaders who were pilfering from the state rather than providing
for the country's defense forces.
Third, focus, focus, focus on the May 25 elections. The Russians
occupy dozens--not thousands--of buildings in Eastern Ukraine. They
have no hold or influence on other sections of the country near and to
the west of Kiev.
As part of the international effort, the United States has committed
millions of dollars and thousands of hours of manpower into making sure
the May 25 election is held in a free and fair manner. The Russians
will likely do everything possible to stop this election from coming
off. As of today they effectively have no straw man in the race, and so
more likely than not the result will be a victory for a free, whole,
sovereign Ukraine and a damaging blow to Russia's claims that Ukraine
can't govern itself. Our State Department representatives in Ukraine
are working feverishly to help Ukraine conduct this election, and we
have helped deploy unprecedented resources from the OSCE to make sure
Russia cannot dislodge this election from occurring. That is American
leadership happening right now on the ground in Ukraine.
Fourth, let's be crystal clear on what will lead to the next logical
level of U.S. sanctions, which would be industrywide, sectoral
sanctions against the Russian economy. We have moved deliberately so
far because, wisely, President Obama has desired to move in relative
concert with our European allies. But it is increasingly clear to me
and to many others that Europe is simply not prepared to move at the
pace necessary to send a strong message to Russia about the
consequences of their continued aggression.
So having primarily mounted a defense of the administration's policy
in Ukraine so far today, I would make one additional, significant
suggestion for amendment of this policy. I believe the highest levels
of American foreign policy leadership, from the President, to the Vice
President, to the Secretary of State, should make it clear today to
Russia, right now, that if the May 25 elections do not occur in a free
and fair manner, we will hold Russia--and only Russia--responsible
because if not for their interference, there can be no explanation for
why these elections could not come off properly.
Further, we should make it clear that if the May 25 election is not
allowed by Russia to be conducted according to OSCE electoral
standards, the United States will immediately impose sectoral sanctions
on the most important Russian industries, including but not limited
to the Russian banking, energy, and raw materials sectors.
Hopefully, significant Russian interference in the elections would
prompt Europe to act with us in order to protect our most important
democratic values, but we can't wait for them any longer. Let's make it
totally, completely, unequivocally clear today that if the May 25
election doesn't occur, the United States will move toward industry-
level sanctions against Russia.
This is and can be a coherent, thoughtful U.S. strategy toward the
crisis in Ukraine: Support Ukraine economically. Strengthen NATO. Don't
overreact with reckless military aid to the Ukrainians. Do everything
possible to make the May 25 election a success. Be clearer than current
policy on what will trigger sectoral sanctions by the United States.
And then act if Russia doesn't listen.
I get it that this isn't all my Republican colleagues desire when it
comes to U.S. policy toward Ukraine, but overreacting to this crisis is
just as bad, if not worse, than doing nothing. I was in Kiev at the
very beginning, standing on stage at the Maidan with Senator McCain,
urging the Ukrainian people to demand more from their government. I was
here, advocating for a robust U.S. response to support these
protesters. I believed, as I still believe, the United States should be
playing an active role in this crisis, and I was making this argument
before anyone else in this Chamber. But this isn't the Cold War. This
is a fight in Russia's backyard, and the cold hard reality is that the
stakes are just simply greater for Moscow than they are for us. And the
world is no longer organized around who is with the United States and
who is with Russia. The foundational paradigms of global security now
are about who has nuclear weapons and who doesn't. Who is allied with
the Shia and who is allied with the Sunni. Where are the Islamist
terrorists organizing and who is helping them.
I don't mean to say that unchecked Russian action doesn't have global
consequences. It does. China, for instance, is certainly watching to
see if nations pay a price when they reset their borders through
aggression rather than through diplomacy. But we ultimately won the
Cold War by playing the long game. We knew that if we held true to
democratic and free market values, the world would notice that an
alliance with us was far more beneficial than an alliance with the
Soviet Union. That, in fact, is the very reason for the current crisis.
The Ukrainian people revolted because they saw the value of a Western
economic and political orientation. We didn't need to use intimidation
or bribery or little green men; we just showed them that our stuff is
better.
Of course, the irony is that the Russians used to be the kings of the
long game. Kutuzov let Napoleon march into Moscow after clearing out
the city and leaving only about 10,000 people behind. He strung out the
French army and left it ultimately helpless.
We don't have to resort to the drastic tactics of this old savvy
Russian general. There are actions we can take and have taken to
support Ukraine and send a message to Russia. But we shouldn't
overinflate our national security interests in this crisis. We simply
do not need to win every battle to win the war. And this body, the U.S.
Senate, built by our Founding Fathers to see and play the long game for
America, should understand this fact. We aren't the Russians in 1812.
We must engage in a robust policy toward Ukraine that is much more than
simply time and patience, but that doesn't mean there aren't some
important lessons to be learned.
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. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
EXPIRE Act
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to pass
the tax extenders package that the Senate Finance Committee put forward
which would reinstate a number of tax provisions to help with job
creation and to especially help homeowners and workers get back on
their feet.
Yesterday I spoke to United Egg Producers which consists of a group
of many family farmers and some larger farmers. My State is No. 2 in
the country in egg production, second only to the State of Iowa. I
talked to Tom Hertzfeld, Jr., and his son Jordan, who are third and
fourth generation egg farmers in Grand Rapids, OH, a community not too
far from Toledo in northwest Ohio.
The farm has been in the family since 1959. They produce about
100,000 dozen eggs every day. It is a technical business. The eggs go
from the chicken to
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the carton and then into the customers' hands. The production equipment
requires major investment. So when farmers like Tom need to buy new
equipment, build new barns, and acquire more property, they should be
able to accelerate their writeoffs. Bonus depreciation and section 179
gives our small businesses the capital to invest in tools that are
important for them to expand, hire people, and make their communities
more prosperous.
As we help existing businesses expand, we need to focus on reviving
industries, especially manufacturing. We know wealth is created when we
make it, mine it or grow it. We do all three of those in a significant
way in my State. Ohio is the Nation's third largest manufacturing
State, only behind California, which is three times our population, and
Texas, which is twice our population.
The new markets tax credit will help revitalize communities hit hard
by shuttered factories by leveraging tens of billions of dollars in
private investments. We know what the new markets tax credit has done
for development in areas that are generally a little poorer than most.
We want to be able to target manufacturing too, and that is what our
Manufacturing Communities Investment Act does. Last year, for instance,
in Portage County, the community of Streetsboro lost 300 jobs after
Commercial Turf Products shut its doors. Under the Manufacturing
Communities Investment Act, the city could access financing to bring
new manufacturing businesses back to Streetsboro.
For those workers who have lost their jobs and benefits, the health
coverage tax credit, or the HCTC, needs to be extended. The HCTC
preserves a program that Ohioans--such as the Delphi salaried retirees
who worked hard and played by the rules--know, understand, and trust.
Extending the tax credit for 2 years is fiscally responsible. We
should improve the HCTC and make it permanent, as I have proposed in
the legislation that I have introduced with Senators Rockefeller,
Stabenow, Hirono, and Donnelly. At the very least we should renew this
critical tax credit.
Earlier this year I traveled across Ohio and met with homeowners such
as Hattie Wilkins from Youngstown, OH. She was laid off, fell behind on
her mortgage, and began the foreclosure process. Her bank--because it
was in their interest too--forgave the $35,000 she still owed, but
Hattie and thousands of homeowners across the country face higher taxes
if we don't move to extend the Mortgage Forgiveness Tax Relief Act.
In many ways it is a phantom income. If it is a short sale or they
get a principal reduction--as I was discussing with Ohio realtors
today--the homeowners never really get the money for it, but they are
hit with the tax bill as if they had gotten that income. We have
extended this tax forgiveness, if you will, in the past because Members
of both parties recognize there is still a critical need for it.
All of these items--as part of the tax extenders package--help create
jobs, put money in homeowners' pockets, pay for health insurance, and
allow people to stay in their homes. As I said, it also creates jobs
and is good for our communities. It is important that we pass the tax
extenders package as soon as possible in this Chamber.
I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________