[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 121 (Wednesday, July 30, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5076-S5080]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BRING JOBS HOME ACT
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of S. 2569, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2569) to provide an incentive for businesses to
bring jobs back to America.
Pending:
Reid amendment No. 3693, to change the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 3694 (to amendment No. 3693), of a
perfecting nature.
Reid motion to commit the bill to the Committee on Finance,
with instructions, Reid amendment No. 3695, to change the
enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 3696 (to (the instructions) amendment
No. 3695), of a perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 3697 (to amendment No. 3696), of a
perfecting nature.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 1
hour of debate equally divided and controlled between the two leaders
or their designees.
The assistant majority leader.
Mr. DURBIN. I am going to be joined shortly on the floor by Senator
John Walsh of Montana and Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, who are
going to speak to the bill that is pending before us.
Until they arrive I wish to set the context here. We are trying to
create incentives in the Tax Code to bring good-paying manufacturing
jobs back to the United States, to incentivize companies that will
bring jobs from their overseas facilities back into our country and put
Americans to work. How we pay for it is we reduce the current subsidies
which we give to American companies to ship jobs overseas. Pretty
simple.
So the vote really comes down to the question of whether Democrats
and Republicans in the Senate want to create an incentive in the Tax
Code to keep jobs--good-paying jobs--in America, to build the workforce
in America so that they have a future, and to discourage shipping
American jobs overseas. I don't know what the debate is about. I don't
know what Republican can go to a town meeting in any State in the Union
and argue that this is not a good
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idea. It is a very important idea, and it is one that we want to use to
repopulate the United States with good-paying jobs and hard-working
families getting the kind of money they deserve.
We are in the midst of a debate now--a national debate that has
touched the State of Illinois--about something called inversion. Most
people are not familiar with that term. It is a situation where, at
least on paper, an American company moves its headquarters and
operations to a foreign country to avoid paying American taxes. We have
major companies that are doing that. Some are considering making that
move. The President spoke to it last week, and I think the President
hit the nail on the head. It isn't a question of whether it is legal;
it is a question of whether it is right.
Is it right for a pharmaceutical company that is dependent on the
Federal Government to build their company, build their products, and
build their profitability, to walk away from their tax responsibilities
in America? You don't put a successful drug on the market unless it
starts with research, and most research begins with our government. The
National Institutes of Health, for about $30 billion a year, does basic
research that leads to new discoveries, new drugs. Those efforts of
basic research are converted into pharmaceuticals and drugs that are
then developed by these private companies.
When the private companies think they have finally found the right
combination, they have to submit their drug to the Food and Drug
Administration, which is a regulatory agency in Washington that tests
their drug to make sure that it doesn't harm people and that it
performs as promised. It takes some time. It takes a lot of taxpayer
money. But when the Food and Drug Administration then hands down its
decision that your drug is safe to go on the market, you have just
received the most amazing endorsement possible in the world for a
drug--that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved it for
sale in the United States of America. That is a ticket to success and
profitability, but that isn't the end. You have to protect your right
in that drug, and to protect it you go to the U.S. Patent Office and
make sure there is a registration that protects your legal right to
make a profit on that drug and keep others from duplicating it at your
expense.
Look at the process that led to the profitability of these
blockbuster drugs--National Institutes of Health research, taxpayer
funded; Food and Drug Administration approval, taxpayer funded; Patent
Office protection, taxpayer funded.
Now major pharmaceuticals are saying: Well, it sure would be nice to
stay in America, but what we are going to do is move our corporate
headquarters to a European country or perhaps to the island of Jersey--
which I am not sure I could find on the map--and in doing so, we won't
have to pay as much in Federal taxes to America.
Is that ingratitude? It certainly is. You have used all these Federal
agencies to become profitable, and now you walk away from your Federal
tax responsibility.
There is another side to this coin. When these companies invert and
move overseas, the tax they don't pay is a burden shifted to other
American companies and other American taxpayers. They are getting off
the hook for American taxes, but they are pushing the burden on to
others.
We have to come to grips with the reality that many major companies
are using global commerce and global opportunities at the expense of
America. We have to encourage good-paying jobs in this country and
companies that stay in this country. In our Tax Code we need to reward
American-based companies headquartered in America, with their jobs in
America, paying a good wage, good benefits, and veteran preferences.
Give them a break in the Tax Code. Don't subsidize companies that want
to move their jobs overseas.
The bill before us gets to that basic question: Should our Tax Code
incentivize bringing jobs back from overseas or should it incentivize
and encourage shipping jobs overseas? It is a simple vote, and I hope
it is overwhelmingly positive and bipartisan when it comes before us.
We know our country can grow with the right encouragement because we
are lucky. For those of us who were born here, we were born into one of
the strongest democracies in history. We were born into an economic
system that creates opportunity for those who are educated and trained
and strive to improve themselves. We also know we have a responsibility
here in the Senate, in the House, and in the White House to create a
tax climate and an economic climate for that kind of growth. That is
what we are trying to do with this bill--give a fair shot for American
companies so they can bring jobs home and be incentivized and rewarded
to do it and discourage the companies that do just the opposite.
I think this is a front-and-center issue. Good-paying jobs are the
key to restoring the middle class in America--something I think is long
overdue to create an incentive for people who are struggling to see at
the end of that rainbow the chance to raise a family in a good
neighborhood and a good church and parish and a good State that really
helps America.
I will be supporting this measure before the Senate this morning.
I yield the floor and suggest that during the quorum call the time be
equally divided between Democrats and Republicans.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Returning Austin Tice
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to make some remarks about the
ongoing humanitarian crisis that is occurring on our southern border in
Texas. I have spoken on this subject a number of times. Before I do
that, I would like to say a word about a decorated U.S. Marine Corps
veteran, an award-winning journalist, and a courageous seventh-
generation Texan by the name of Austin Tice.
In 2012 Austin went to Syria as a civilian. He went to report on the
brutal civil war that has now claimed the lives of more than 170,000
Syrians, caused a huge refugee crisis in Turkey, Lebanon, and in other
countries in that region and has destabilized that entire region.
Austin was a strong believer in the freedom of the press and the
importance of letting his fellow countrymen know what was happening in
the Syrian civil war.
During his time in Syria his works were published in The Washington
Post and the McClatchy News, among other news outlets.
On August 14, 2012, he was kidnapped and no one has heard from him
since. His family is understandably concerned about his well-being and
his whereabouts. It has been nearly 2 years and his family and friends
still have no idea where he is, who is holding him or what they might
want in exchange for his freedom.
I once again call on the Obama administration to do whatever they
can, through the resources the Federal Government has, to locate and
safely return Austin Tice to his family.
I say once again to Austin's family: We have not given up. We will
never give up until we find your son and bring him safely home.
Border Crisis
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, 1 month ago President Obama gave an
interview with ABC News in which he was asked about the massive influx
of unaccompanied minors--mainly from Central America--who are crossing
the southwestern American border, most notably into Texas where we have
seen 57,000 unaccompanied children since October.
Unless any of my colleagues think this problem will just go away, let
me remind everyone some of the projections are that if we don't do
anything to deal with the causes or deal with the remedy to this
growing humanitarian problem, it will get worse. Indeed, some estimates
are that as many as 90,000 unaccompanied minors will come this year
alone, and the number could well rise to 145,000 next year. That would
tend to track the historical trend we have seen--both the combination
of the impression that the Obama administration is less than serious
about enforcing our immigration laws, as well as this loophole in the
2008 human trafficking law that is being exploited by the cartels which
is helping
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them make money. This is part of their business model because they
charge by the head, by the child, by the person, and then they bring
them through these smuggling corridors from Central America, through
Mexico, into South Texas. It is a great business model for them.
The problem is it is a horrific experience for the immigrants who
subject themselves to the tender mercies of the cartels that care
nothing about them as human beings. They rape the women, kidnap the
migrants, and then hold them for ransom. We know--because of the perils
of that journey on the top of that train called The Beast--that many
immigrants are severely injured, some losing limbs, and others are
killed or die from exposure as a result of the process from Central
America.
I say to my colleagues who think doing nothing is an option that
people are losing their lives, people are being injured, and women are
being assaulted. These migrants are being held for ransom and
kidnapped. It is not compassionate to allow this to continue, but that
is what illegal immigration looks like in 2014.
For those people who come into the country legally, they obviously
don't have to turn themselves over to the cartels--these transnational
criminal organizations that traffic in drugs and people. These drug
cartels are despicable and they will prey on these migrants and those
who want to come to the United States. As long as it happens outside of
the legal system, they are going to continue to be victimized.
About 1 month ago the President said: ``The problem is that under
current law, once these kids come across the border, there's a system
in which we're supposed to process them, take care of them, until we
can send them back.''
That is what the President of the United States said 1 month ago. Of
course he was referring to a 2008 law that I referenced earlier and has
been talked about a number of times. This was a law that was passed by
essentially unanimous consent and acclimation. It was a human
trafficking law, but unfortunately what we didn't know at the time is
that the creative minds of the cartels would learn to exploit a
loophole in the law, which treats migrants, particularly unaccompanied
children, from contiguous countries differently than we treat migrant
children coming from Mexico.
Specifically what happens is they are released after being processed
by the Border Patrol, and they are given a notice to appear at a future
court date. They are then released into the custody of a family member,
many of whom are not legally present in the United States themselves.
What we have seen from experience is that many of them don't show up
for their court hearings. We don't have sufficient resources committed
to make sure people do appear, so they melt into the great American
landscape and have essentially succeeded in coming to the United
States--outside of our legal immigration system--and staying here. As
long as this loophole continues to exist, they will keep coming.
The President was referring to this human trafficking statute that
has become an effective magnet for illegal immigration, and it is not
just children who are taking advantage of it. I talked to the Secretary
of Homeland Security yesterday morning. We have seen a huge surge in
parents with young children as well. They are exploiting the same
loophole because we don't have adequate detention facilities to keep
them safe pending any court hearing and pending repatriation back to
their country of origin unless they have a valid claim for asylum or
some other claim for immigration relief.
The loophole that is in the 2008 law is effectively part of the
cartel business model. We have colleagues who believe the compassionate
response is to do nothing to close that loophole, and I hope they will
come to understand it is the opposite of compassion to allow this
loophole to exist and allow the cartels to continue to use these
children and other migrants as a commodity by smuggling them into the
United States.
This situation has also overloaded the capacity of many of our local
communities that have big hearts and want to treat these migrants,
particularly the children, with compassion, but they have become
overwhelmed. We have seen, as these children have been warehoused in
other parts of the country, many communities are starting to feel the
backlash. While people have big hearts and believe we ought to try to
help people in need, particularly children, they realize that
ultimately they are the ones who will have to pick up the tab for
health care, education, and the like.
They are also concerned about whether they will actually be able to
assimilate these immigrants, which has always been the American way,
and the way we have done that is through legal immigration and an
orderly immigration process which complies with the rule of law.
We are a nation of immigrants and we should be proud of that, but we
should not be proud of this uncontrolled flow of people coming into the
country, exploiting this gap in the 2008 law, making money for the
cartels, and exposing these migrants to horrific treatment, some of
whom don't even make it here. We should not consider that compassion;
it is not. It is the opposite of compassion. We ought to try to do
something to fix it, and we have it within our capacity to do so.
Earlier this week the White House Domestic Policy Council Director
Cecilia Munoz said the administration was ``absolutely interested'' in
reforming this law to create an efficient repatriation process for the
unaccompanied minors. Good for them. I hope that is the case, but
unfortunately I get the sense that the people who understand this gap
in this 2008 law--this flaw or this loophole--have not been able to win
the argument with the political folks at the White House who don't want
to be seen repatriating these children back to their home country
because they are worried about the upcoming election.
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson has repeatedly emphasized
to me in private as well as publicly the need to change this law and to
establish a more efficient system of removal to one's home country.
To be sure, there are going to be valid claims for asylum. If someone
is a victim of human trafficking, they can get a T visa, they call it,
so they can cooperate with law enforcement in the United States. If you
are like the young boy whom I saw in McAllen, TX, 2 weeks ago--I asked
him where his parents were. He said they were dead. That young boy
could qualify for a special immigrant visa as a minor child having been
abandoned or who is an orphan. So there are ways valid claims for
relief can be processed, but right now these claims are not being made
because people are just melting into the great American landscape, and
they keep coming.
So Jeh Johnson understands this, Cecilia Munoz said she understands
this, and the President has said he understands it, and it has also had
bipartisan support. The senior Senator from Missouri Mrs. McCaskill has
acknowledged this issue, the senior Senator from Delaware, who happens
to be chairman of the Homeland Security Committee Senator Carper, and
the junior Senator from West Virginia Mr. Manchin have all publicly
acknowledged it, as well as Democratic representatives in the border
district in Arizona, and the No. 3 Member of the House Democratic
leadership. All of them have acknowledged what the problem is and what
we need to do to fix it.
Let's review: President Obama described the border situation as a
crisis, and I agree with that; it is. He described the 2008 law, which
I have talked about, as a problem, which it is. Some leading
Republicans and leading Democrats and senior members of the
administration believe that reforming this 2008 law is part of the
solution and would help resolve the crisis, which it would. They called
upon Congress to make the necessary changes, which we should.
At a time of intense political gridlock in Washington, we actually do
have some bipartisan agreement on what we need to do to help address
the problem. Yet none of these critical reforms can happen in the
Senate unless the majority leader allows a vote on the bill I
anticipate will come over from the House which will contain a solution
to this problem. We have seen a bipartisan group of political leaders
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contend it is necessary, if we are actually going to address it, but so
far my impression is the majority leader is not going to allow us to
have that vote.
Indeed, the majority leader, the majority whip, and the chairman of
the Judiciary Committee have all said they reject the need for changing
this 2008 law that I have described. The majority leader has gone so
far as to say the border is secure. It may look secure from Nevada,
where he is from, but it is not secure in Texas, where I live, and it
just defies reality.
I wish the majority leader and the President would actually come
visit the border. I wish they would visit these processing centers,
meet these children, and congratulate the Border Patrol for doing a
great job under very difficult circumstances, but so far they have
declined. I hope they will reconsider.
Ms. Collins, the Senator from Maine, is getting a bipartisan codel to
go down to McAllen on Friday, and I look forward to accompanying her on
that trip. But if people can make that one trip--at least one trip--
they would learn for themselves that the border is not secure.
This isn't a trick. Sometimes I get the feeling that some of my
friends in the Senate think we are going to always claim the border is
insecure, so we are never going to do the other parts of immigration
reform that they want to do or that need to be done. As a matter of
fact, in 2011 the President notably said: Well, people won't be
satisfied until we create a moat and fill it full of alligators. He
ridiculed those who said the border is not secure. Yet last year alone
414,000 people were detained on the southwestern border, 414,000 from
100 different countries--100 different countries--most of them
admittedly from Mexico and Central America and South America.
But people should come visit in Falfurrias, TX. They have a Border
Patrol stop there where many migrants are let out of the vehicle by
their coyote, which is a human smuggler, and forced to walk around this
checkpoint in 100-degree-plus weather. Colleagues will find that some
of them die from exposure. People can imagine coming from Central
America or South America and coming in that hot weather under those
conditions. Some of them literally die. So the Border Patrol has
established rescue beacons, they call them, where if the immigrant says
``I have to get some help,'' they can actually hit the button on this
rescue beacon, and the Border Patrol will come and find them and make
sure they get some medical care. Those rescue beacons are in English,
they are in Spanish, and they are in Chinese. I assure my colleagues
there are not many native Chinese speakers in Brooks County, TX.
The point is, to anybody who will listen, the border is not secure.
It is a national security challenge in addition to our other issues.
I ask people to talk to GEN John Kelly, who is head of Southern
Command, who says right now 75 percent of the illegal drug traffic
coming from Central and South America into the United States--they have
to sit and watch because they don't have the adequate resources to stop
it. It is the same cartels that are smuggling those drugs that are the
criminal organizations that are smuggling the people. They are
trafficking in human beings, and they will transport any commodity, any
weapon, any person, anything into the United States as long as they can
make money off of it. It is just the way they do business.
It is enormously frustrating to hear the majority leader declare the
border is secure in spite of the facts and in spite of the bipartisan
acknowledgment that we need to fix this 2008 loophole in order to help
solve this problem. But there are people who have shown some courage,
people such as Secretary Johnson and others, other Democrats who have
said, despite the majority leader's pronouncement that we should
actually do something, we should actually solve the problem, and we
have it within our ability to do that.
I wish to particularly acknowledge the courage of my friend and
colleague Henry Cuellar from Texas. He is a proud blue dog Democrat, as
he reminds me almost every time I see him, and he has partnered with me
in bipartisan bicameral legislation that would actually fix this flaw
in the 2008 law. If we could just get a vote on it here in the Senate,
maybe we would have a chance to fix the problem and do what the
President acknowledged was the problem in the first place.
I am hopeful we can achieve a breakthrough, but we have about 2 more
days that we will be in session before the August recess. My
constituents back home don't understand why in the world we would leave
without fixing this problem, without addressing this humanitarian
crisis, because they see the numbers as we see the numbers. They are
going to continue to grow and the crisis will get worse unless we act
in a sensible way.
The only way we are going to get that breakthrough is if we get some
leadership here in the Senate and the majority leader allows a vote on
either what the House is going to send us on Thursday or allow an
amendment, which I am proud to offer, which has broad support here in
the Senate.
But leadership requires more than just giving a speech or an
interview and then heading off to the next fundraiser. It requires
thoughtful, persistent engagement and a willingness to spend political
capital.
We know all of this is controversial. We get that. But it strikes me
that when you are getting attacked from the right and the left, that
means you are probably doing something that could at least have the
potential for being a bipartisan consensus, which, as we know, is the
only way anything gets done here because none of us get everything we
want. I would love it if I could get everything I want, but that is not
democracy. That is not our system. That is not our constitutional form
of government.
I hope the President would tell the majority leader that he believes
this 2008 law is a problem, as he said a month ago on ABC News, and I
hope he will offer support for his own Secretary of Homeland Security,
who I know understands the nature of the problem, but unfortunately I
fear he is being outvoted by the political advisers at the White House,
not the people making public policy.
The folks in my State and particularly in the region of South Texas
and the Rio Grande Valley are watching and waiting and hoping that
Washington will act to resolve this ongoing crisis. But we can't act
unless the majority leader allows us to act. That is the nature of this
institution. He won't allow a vote unless President Obama steps up and
leads in order to do what he has acknowledged is the right thing to do
and what we must do in order to address this problem.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Medicare Anniversary
Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I wish to speak very briefly about
Medicare.
Before 1965, as the Presiding Officer and many others in the Chamber
know, nearly half of America's seniors had no health insurance at all.
Medicare made certain that seniors had access to affordable health
care, and it has lifted millions out of poverty in this country.
Seniors earn their Medicare benefits; they are not given to them.
Seniors earn their Medicare benefits through a lifetime of hard work
because, as we know, for all of our working lives a portion of every
single paycheck is deposited and is guaranteed for benefits for when we
turn 65. This is a bedrock commitment. We pay into it and it should be
there for all of us when we reach the age of 65.
Today we celebrate the 49th anniversary of Medicare, but I encourage
my colleagues to hold the balloons and cake because over the past few
years what we have seen down the hall in the House of Representatives
is a group of House Members who try to continually chip away at the
promise of Medicare. They want to turn Medicare into a voucher system.
They even tried to raise the eligibility age.
These proposals in effect shift the cost on to those who can least
afford to pay it. They will increase out-of-pocket expenses for our
seniors on benefits such as wellness visits, cancer screenings, and
lifesaving drugs. These plans will allow insurance companies to cherry
pick who they want to cover, setting off a premium spiral that would
leave sicker seniors with higher premiums and higher costs, leaving
many American seniors without the care they need and the protection
they have earned.
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These proposals we see coming out of the House of Representatives
undermine the integrity of the program. I think it is important for us
in the Senate to not allow them to put the health and financial
security of our seniors in jeopardy. That is why I have introduced the
Medicare Protection Act. It is a responsible commonsense solution. It
prevents budget schemes that would reduce Medicare benefits and
restrict eligibility, and it sends a strong message that Medicare
should not be dismantled, privatized, or turned into a voucher system.
The promise of Medicare is one we must keep. The Senate should pass
the Medicare Protection Act. I ask that we keep Medicare strong and
affordable for today's seniors and for future generations.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I applaud and commend my friend the Senator
from Arkansas. This is very visionary legislation. I support what he is
doing, and we are going to do everything we can to move forward on this
legislation. We would do it more quickly except we have a few problems
with people over here. So we are going to do our best.
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