[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6489-6490]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          THE IRAQ RESOLUTIONS

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I have not had a whole lot to say in the 
Senate about the process, the various proposals, and even the substance 
of the Iraq resolutions. But it obviously is a very troublesome issue 
for me.
  One of my concerns is the process. How bad could we possibly look as 
an institution? We can't come to an agreement on how to have a full 
debate and votes. Everybody says we will agree to this but not that, 
and it goes back and forth. For the life of me, I cannot understand why 
we cannot have some clear identification of some different approaches 
to this issue and have debate and vote on them.
  The majority leader has to understand he cannot dictate what 
amendments the Republicans are going to offer and the substance of 
those amendments or resolutions, if you will, any more than we can 
dictate that to the Democrats. It has to be a fair process. I think 
that can be worked out. I know our leaders are talking--and I wish them 
the best--so that we can have debate and a vote on different approaches 
and move on to other issues.
  My second problem is, how many iterations is this going to go 
through? I remind my colleagues that the election is over. It was last 
year. All we have been doing in the Senate is political partisan 
positioning, all sound and fury, achieving nothing. What is the score 
in the Senate? 0 to 0. Democrats haven't gotten anything done. Not one 
bill of any substance that we have passed has been signed into law, 
except a continuing resolution, which we acknowledged had to be done to 
keep the Government operating and, frankly, because we didn't do our 
work like we should have on that issue last year. That is all. It is 
all about positioning.
  There is one other score that is the worst of all: Democrats, 0; 
Republicans, 0; American people, 0. We have to figure out a way to quit 
finding what we can disagree about and find some things we can work 
together on for the good of the people.
  Regarding this Iraq issue, on the one hand, we say we want to 
succeed. On the other hand, you have the out-of-Iraq caucus saying get 
out of there, set deadlines, and withdraw the troops. We say we are 
giving General Petraeus our total confidence with a unanimous approval 
in confirmation. He is there trying to get the violence calmed down and 
to do a better job and get an opportunity for their Government to do 
what it needs to do, have economic development. So while we are saying: 
Congratulations, we all vote for you and wish you will succeed, we are 
over here doing things that could potentially undermine his ability to 
get them done.
  You might say: Oh, well, that is not really what is at stake with the 
Iraq resolutions. Remember, to show you what positioning is going on, 
today, let's say we come to the conclusion that we are going to have 
two or three different votes and we will finish at some point this 
afternoon on the latest iteration of the Reid positions and we will 
move on to the budget. Well, the problem with that is we have already 
been told this will be back on the supplemental appropriations--the 
emergency appropriations to fund the needs of our men and women in 
uniform. We are being told: By the way, we are going to put this 
restrictive language on the funding resolution. So we are going to 
revisit this issue the week after next.
  I think what we are doing is the worst of all worlds. We have had 
nonbinding resolutions to express the sense of the Senate, which is a 
misnomer in itself. Then, now we finally come to what would be 
statutory language in a joint resolution by Senator Reid, which has 
deadlines and begins a process of Congress micromanaging a war.
  We have tried it before and it didn't work, or it led to what some 
people consider a disaster. For us to state some opinions is one thing, 
but it has gone beyond that now. This is going to have an effect. I 
don't think there is a lot of language or a lot we can do that can 
positively affect what is going on in Iraq right now, but there is a 
lot we can do that will negatively affect it.
  So I think to start setting deadlines and having the Congress trying 
to micromanage what is going on in Baghdad--we cannot even manage the 
process. How are we going to manage a war? Even the New York Times--and 
I don't usually quote them because most of the time I disagree with 
everything they have to say--is raising questions about the different 
resolutions and what would be the effect of what we are trying to do in 
the Congress about Iraq.
  The Economist, I think the world's most respected magazine, said 
there is actually progress being made. General Petraeus is doing some 
things that have made a difference. Maliki and the Government there are 
beginning to make some decisions. We say meet your benchmarks, but as 
progress is being made, we say: If you don't do it like we have 
outlined, we are going to begin to just withdraw.
  Mr. President, I wish my colleagues--all of us on both sides of the 
aisle--would think seriously about what we are doing in Iraq.
  Then also, of course, we are going to go to the budget resolution 
next week. I have been through a lot of budget battles. Again, we are 
going to fuss and we are going to fight and we are going to have lots 
of amendments and we will have a vote-arama, which is the worst 
exhibition imaginable. We will vote on 25 amendments in a row probably 
every 3 minutes and have no idea what we are voting on. We will finish 
it up, and what effect does it have? None. The President doesn't sign 
it. We treat our own budgets about the same as we treat the President's 
budgets: We ignore them. We trash them a while and then throw them out 
in the street and do what we want to do.
  I do think the budget is going to be the beginning of an opportunity 
for the American people to have buyer's remorse about what they have 
done with the Congress. This is going to be sort of a typical budget 
debate. The headline again in the New York Times is: ``Senate Democrats 
offer spending plan but no way to pay for it.''
  I think in theory you can say Republicans always want to cut taxes, 
and they don't want to worry a whole lot about the effect that has on 
the deficit, although I believe if we cut taxes in the right way, we 
get more revenue.
  I also think we all better take a look at what has been the effects 
of our tax

[[Page 6490]]

policy and our budgets on the economy. The economy is good. Do we have 
some problems in the energy area and health care? Yes. We ought to do 
something about those issues. But overall, we have had economic growth. 
Revenues are pouring in.
  So what is the budget I am looking at going to do? I think Senator 
Conrad is a very serious chairman of the Budget Committee. I know he 
would like to do more than he is going to be able to do. I know he 
would like to do entitlement reform. We know it has to come. We will 
not belly up to that bar this year or next year. Maybe something will 
occur and we will do it in 2009.
  This is going to be a budget where there is more domestic spending, 
less defense spending, and tax increases. That is what is going to 
happen. That is what always happens. We may not be a whole lot more 
responsible with a Republican budget, but this is your basic Democratic 
budget, and we are going to see it next week. We are going to describe 
it as one of smoke and mirrors. It assumes the tax cuts are going to be 
extended into the future, but it doesn't come up with any way to pay 
for them. Under the new rules, we are going to have pay-fors. If you 
increase spending, you are going to have to pay for it, or if you have 
tax cuts, you are going to have to pay for them, but it doesn't say how 
that is going to occur.
  I do think we are at a critical juncture. We have gone through the 
opening, trying to get used to how we run the institution with new 
management. We haven't done it well. I am going to mark it off as the 
early phases of a new Congress and feeling our way forward. But when we 
get through positioning, I hope we are going to find a way to do some 
things together. We should have immigration reform. We need it. I know 
``comprehensive immigration reform'' has gotten to be a dirty word, but 
I do think we have to deal with it in a broad way. It has to deal with 
legal immigration, illegal immigration, and we are going to have to 
have a temporary worker program. We have to find some way for people to 
have a pathway to citizenship.
  We have to address health care in America. Health care has become so 
expensive and, in many cases, not accessible. Why can't we work 
together on that issue?
  Energy--the energy situation in America is a national security risk 
and an economic risk. Some people say: Oh, we can fix it by raising 
mileage standards for automobiles, CAFE standards. Some of us--I am in 
that group--think we don't have to produce less or get along with not 
having more oil and gas and nuclear power and everything else. I think 
we can have more of everything. Let's see if we can't find a way to 
come together and maybe do both in a responsible way.
  I appreciate the opportunity to talk about these issues this morning. 
I hope we can come to an agreement on how to proceed on Iraq, and I 
hope we can finish it by sundown tonight and then move on to the 
obligatory vote on the budget, which will be a waste of time, next 
week, and then maybe we can get serious about what we do in the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Obama). The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, what is the floor situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in a period for morning 
business. Democrats control the next 30 minutes.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I yield myself 
approximately 10 minutes.
  First, I wish to respond for a few minutes to my colleague, the 
Senator from Mississippi, the Republican whip. We have been in session 
less than 70 days. We have already been spending more time on 
legislation than the Congress led by the other party last year. Last 
year, we were in session less time than the Maryland General Assembly. 
We only voted 108 days.
  Now we have been in session 70 days. We have had a robust work 
schedule. Our colleagues in the House have passed significant 
legislation. What takes them 1 day takes us 2 weeks. It takes us 2 
weeks not only because parliamentarily and constitutionally we are the 
more deliberative body, but at the same time it has been the 
obstructionist tactics of the other party that has prevented us from 
being able to move our legislation.
  Nevertheless, thanks to the determination of our majority leader, the 
Senator from Nevada, Mr. Reid, we have been able to pass ethics reform. 
The American people wanted us to clean up our own act before we cleaned 
up Government and, man, have the Republicans left us a lot to clean up: 
the Walter Reed scandal, the Attorney General scandal, the national 
security letter scandal--scandal after scandal after scandal. We came 
saying we weren't going to be seeking investigations, but now their 
reckless incompetency is forcing us to do that.
  Then we pushed to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. It 
has been 5\1/2\ years since the dastardly attack on the World Trade 
Center, and it has taken us forever to implement these recommendations.
  So when the other party criticizes us for not doing the people's 
business, maybe if they get out of the way with their obstructionist 
tactics and let us move ahead with an agenda that is bipartisan, we can 
get the job done.
  Too often, when all is said and done within the Senate, more gets 
said than gets done. So before people throw rocks, remember those who 
live in a glass house might end up being shattered to bits themselves.
  Let us do our work. Every time we turn around, Harry Reid has to file 
another cloture motion. Why? Because they threaten filibuster. So, 
hello, don't criticize us.

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