[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 21470-21480]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 3288, which the clerk will 
report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3288) making appropriations for the 
     Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban 
     Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, we are again here on Monday afternoon 
talking about a very important bill that came to the floor last 
Thursday. That is the investment in infrastructure, transportation, and 
housing across the country. We have many issues important to many 
Members who want to get this bill passed and to the President as 
quickly as possible so we can move forward. My colleague from Missouri 
and I have worked very hard to put the bill together. We are here this 
afternoon ready and waiting for our colleagues to offer amendments so 
we can get to final passage. I know the majority leader wishes us to 
finish this fairly quickly. We have a number of appropriations bills we 
want to complete before the end of September deadline. So we ask our 
colleagues to get their amendments up, and we will move through them as 
quickly as we can.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I echo what the chairman of our 
subcommittee, the Senator from Washington, has said. We have had it out 
now. We have had this bill out. It has been on the floor since 
Thursday. We had Friday and the weekend to look at it. A number of my 
colleagues, many on this side of the aisle, have talked about offering 
amendments. I hope they will be ready to bring those amendments down. I 
think one or two are going to be offered this afternoon so we can have 
votes scheduled at 5:30, as the majority leader has suggested. It is 
not only the majority leader, it is the Senator from Washington and I 
who are urging people to come down. This is a very important bill. 
Everybody has transportation needs, concerns, and issues. Housing is 
such a significant challenge right now, given the situation in the 
financial markets and the situation with housing. We have many people 
who are dependent upon federally supported housing. We need to make 
sure we have the funds made available to take care of their needs.
  We have special needs projects such as the VASH program for veterans 
with assisted housing that the Chair and I have entered into. That is 
very important for bringing our service men and women home and giving 
them the right kind of accommodation. All of these things are in the 
context of significant financial problems in the Federal Housing 
Administration. FHA, if you read the papers, is at a crisis point. I 
have described it as a ticking timebomb. Regrettably, I think that is 
still an accurate calculation. We have funds to provide to HUD and to 
the Secretary of HUD, to the IG and others, to deal with problems 
before they become more serious. So we need to get this bill passed.
  I hope our colleagues would bring their amendments forward. We will 
only be able to vote until 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. We would 
appreciate them bringing as many amendments as they can forward before 
then, this afternoon and tomorrow, so we can go about the business of 
conferencing with the House, getting a measure that will get to the 
President so he can sign it and put these critically important funds to 
work.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JOHANNS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2355

  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I ask that amendment No. 2355 be called 
up.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Johanns] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2355.

  Mr. JOHANNS. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

   (Purpose: Prohibiting direct or indirect use of funds to fund the 
     Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN))

       After section 414, insert the following:
       Sec. 4__. None of the funds made available under this Act 
     may be directly or indirectly distributed to the Association 
     of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an amendment 
pertaining to ACORN, otherwise known as the Association of Community 
Organizations for Reform Now.
  Records will indicate that ACORN has received $53 million in Federal 
funds--taxpayer money--since 1994. In the current transportation and 
housing appropriations bill, ACORN is eligible to add to that number, 
to receive millions more in taxpayer funds from several different 
accounts and purposes. It could receive money through mortgage 
counseling, it could receive money through CDBG, community development 
block grants, and it could receive money from the Neighborhood 
Stabilization Program.
  The people of Nebraska sent me to Washington to protect them from 
waste and fraud and abuse, and they asked me to change the status quo. 
I take that responsibility very seriously. That is why my amendment 
would prohibit one more penny--one more penny--of taxpayer money from 
going to ACORN in the transportation and housing appropriations bill.
  The recent news surrounding ACORN is alarming, at a minimum. In fact, 
it is outrageous. Last week, Miami-Dade prosecutors issued arrest 
warrants for 11 ACORN employees. The employees are charged with 
falsifying voter registration cards. A total of 1,400 voter 
registration cards were turned in, and 888 of those cards were found to 
be a fake. This means almost three-quarters of the voting cards were 
fraudulent. Then, damaging news surfaced regarding hidden videotapes at 
the Baltimore and Washington, DC, ACORN offices.

[[Page 21471]]

You will not believe this: They feature ACORN employees offering advice 
on illegal activities, including tax evasion, prostitution, and fraud. 
Today we find out that a different ACORN office--this time in 
Brooklyn--also offered advice on the same topics. I would suggest, 
obviously, this is a pattern of very rotten behavior. Well, the alarm 
bells are rightly going off.
  The Census Bureau notified ACORN on Friday that it is severing all 
ties with the group for all work having to do with the 2010 census. 
Notwithstanding the fact that is long overdue, I applaud them for that 
action.
  The Census letter pulled no punches, and I am quoting:

     . . . it is clear that ACORN's affiliation with the 2010 
     Census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general 
     public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and 
     may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, 
     negatively impacting 2010 Census efforts. Unfortunately, we 
     no longer have confidence--

  ``We no longer have confidence''--

     that our national partnership agreement is being effectively 
     managed through your many local offices. For the reasons 
     stated, we therefore have decided to terminate the 
     partnership.

  Some may even say today, as amazing as this would sound, that the 
recent events are isolated, that they are not a fair and accurate 
representation of ACORN. How you could say that I am not sure, but to 
these defenders, I urge them to read the 88-page incriminating report 
published in July by the minority staff of the House Committee on 
Oversight and Government Reform. It is entitled--and, again, I am 
quoting, and I have the report here--``Is ACORN Intentionally 
Structured as a Criminal Enterprise?''
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Executive Summary of 
that report be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government 
              Reform, Darrell Issa (CA-49), Ranking Member

      Is ACORN Intentionally Structured as a Criminal Enterprise?


                          I. Executive Summary

       ``We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever 
     lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial 
     or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, 
     virtuous, and independent elections''--President John Adams, 
     Inaugural Address, 1797.
       The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now 
     (ACORN) has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systemic 
     fraud. Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides 
     behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to 
     conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, 
     to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan 
     political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate.
       Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and corruption raise 
     the need for a criminal investigation of ACORN. By 
     intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 
     tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer 
     and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities. 
     Since 1994, more than $53 million in federal funds have been 
     pumped into ACORN, and under the Obama administration, ACORN 
     stands to receive a whopping $8.5 billion in available 
     stimulus funds.
       Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 
     43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex 
     structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use 
     taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political 
     purposes, and to distract investigators. Structurally, ACORN 
     is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from 
     accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and 
     compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for 
     every bad act.
       The report that follows presents evidence obtained from 
     former ACORN insiders that completes the picture of a 
     criminal enterprise.
       First, ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged 
     in self dealing, and aided and abetted a cover-up of 
     embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder 
     Wade Rathke.
       Committee investigators have established that a violation 
     of corporate duties led to gross abuses of tax laws and other 
     federal regulations. According to documents obtained from 
     insiders, ACORN was made aware of its lax management 
     structure but chose to ignore the problems and continue a 
     cover-up of criminal activity. By refusing to report Dale 
     Rathke's embezzlement of $948,607.50 as an excess benefit 
     transaction, ACORN appears to have violated the Internal 
     Revenue Code. ACORN's cover-up of the embezzlement for more 
     than eight years would also constitute obstruction of 
     justice.
       Second, ACORN has committed investment fraud, deprived the 
     public of its right to honest services, and engaged in a 
     racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce.
       Committee investigators have documented ACORN's use of 
     charitable contributions against donor intent, typified by 
     ACORN's secret transfer of donor funds to recover losses due 
     to embezzlement. Moreover, ACORN comingles the accounts of 
     federally-funded affiliates with politically-active 
     affiliates and lacks sufficient oversight to safeguard 
     taxpayer and donor interests, even though it receives 
     millions of federal dollars.
       ACORN's purposeful lack of quality control translates into 
     the employment of convicted felons and other suspect persons. 
     Through a strategy of providing financial incentives to 
     employees who meet voter registration quotas, ACORN conducts 
     voter drives that routinely produce fraudulent registrations. 
     In fact, ACORN's employment practices have the intentional 
     effect of encouraging voter registration fraud while linking 
     criminal culpability to the lowest-level employees rather 
     than the directors who contrive the illegal schemes.
       To date, nearly 70 ACORN employees have been convicted in 
     12 states for voter registration fraud, though no federal 
     charges have been filed against ACORN's directors. In fact, 
     Pennsylvania judge Richard Zoller--after holding a low-level 
     ACORN employee liable for election law violations--noted that 
     ``somebody has to go after ACORN.''
       Third, ACORN has committed a conspiracy to defraud the 
     United States by using taxpayer funds for partisan political 
     activities.
       Committee investigators have unearthed documentation that 
     ACORN and its affiliates conducted meticulous research that 
     fed aggressive campaign initiatives designed to elect 
     Democratic candidates in targeted races. ACORN forged both 
     formal and informal connections with former Illinois Governor 
     Rod Blagojevich, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and President 
     Barack Obama, among others. Each of these campaigns received 
     financial and personnel resource contributions from ACORN and 
     its affiliates as part of a scheme to use taxpayer monies to 
     support a partisan political agenda. These actions are a 
     clear violation of numerous tax and election laws.
       Documents contained in this report reveal ACORN's political 
     agenda. ACORN's 2005-2007 Strategic Plan states that ``just 
     as important as . . . mobilizing existing progressive voters, 
     ACORN and similar groups actually create new progressive 
     voters.'' In the same document, ACORN acknowledges that its 
     ``issue campaigns play the dual role . . . of attracting new 
     members, and educating or politicizing existing members.'' 
     One particular issue where ACORN claims success is ``fighting 
     key elements of the national Republican program.''
       In other documents, ACORN affiliates take credit for the 
     election of former-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. In the 
     2006 year-end report of ACORN affiliate Service Employees 
     International Union (SEIU) Local 880, efforts to elect 
     Blagojevich and advance partisan political agendas are called 
     ``flawless.''
       Labor organizations, unions, and other tax-exempt entities 
     stretched Chicago-style political manipulation and back room 
     schemes beyond Illinois to other state-wide and national 
     campaign efforts. In the State of Ohio, where ACORN directors 
     drafted a political plan contained in this report, overt 
     partisan goals are enumerated. The ACORN Ohio Political Plan 
     states: ``ACORN will target three competitive Ohio 
     congressional districts as well as a half dozen state rep 
     seats nested within the districts. Our electoral work will 
     mobilize and educate voters [and] our paid professional 
     canvass will execute tightly managed Voter ID and GOTV 
     canvasses moving our core constituency of base and swing 
     voters to the polls to vote for the candidates who most 
     closely align with a progressive Working Families Agenda.''
       Moreover, documents provided by former ACORN employees and 
     contained in this report demonstrate the degree to which 
     ACORN and ACORN affiliates organized to elect President 
     Barack Obama in 2008.
       Fourth, ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal 
     Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor, in 
     addition to violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
       Committee investigators have tracked ACORN's numerous 
     failures to comply with federal laws that required the 
     payment of excise taxes on excess benefits to Dale Rathke. 
     SEIU Local 100--under the direction of ACORN founder Wade 
     Rathke--filed bogus reports with the Labor Department in 
     order to conceal embezzlement. ACORN violated the overtime 
     and record-keeping provisions of FLSA. All of these 
     fraudulent acts would constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C. 
     Sec. 1001 by presenting false documents to the United States 
     government.
       Fifth, ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an 
     illegal transaction between related parties in violation of 
     the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
       Committee investigators have concluded that ACORN plundered 
     employee benefits and violated fiduciary responsibilities 
     under ERISA by relieving corporate debts through prohibited 
     loans to a related party. Moreover, ACORN affiliates lack 
     independent

[[Page 21472]]

     control of their own assets and maintain shoddy accounting 
     practices that serve to hide ACORN's secret and illegal use 
     of monies.
       ACORN conspired to conceal information concerning 
     prohibited transactions from its board in violation of its 
     corporate charter. ACORN's termination of board members who 
     sought to uncover its illegal activities perpetuates a cover-
     up at the expense of adherence to its own bylaws.
       The evidence contained in this report proves that ACORN's 
     stated purpose to promote grassroots civic participation has 
     been perverted through fraudulent and illegal acts. The 
     weight of evidence against ACORN and its affiliates is 
     astounding. This syndicate of tax-exempt organizations has 
     coordinated and implemented a nation-wide strategy of tax 
     fraud, racketeering, money-laundering and manipulating the 
     American electorate.
       Scrutiny is essential to lift a dark cloud of suspicion 
     from nonprofit community organizations; to bring to justice 
     the responsible parties who have heretofore been shielded 
     from prosecution by ACORN's obscure organizational structure; 
     to protect the American system of democratic self-government 
     from manipulation and disruption; and to free our political 
     climate from the choke of corruption that threatens to 
     strangle free and fair elections.

  Mr. JOHANNS. According to the report:

       Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 
     43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex 
     structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use 
     taxpayer and tax exempt dollars for partisan political 
     purposes, and to distract investigators. Structurally, ACORN 
     is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from 
     accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and 
     compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for 
     every bad act.

  There is a history here, and it is a sad history. In 1998, an ACORN 
employee was arrested for falsifying voter registration forms. In 1999, 
Philadelphia authorities found hundreds of fraudulent registration 
forms by ACORN. In October of 2008, the pattern continues. ACORN's 
Nevada offices were raided by Federal agents, and in 2009 their Las 
Vegas field director was charged with voter registration fraud. In May 
2009, seven ACORN employees were charged in Pittsburgh for voter 
registration fraud.
  I cite this sad, tragic history because the events of the last week 
were not isolated, and I do not believe it was accidental that this 
video caught ACORN employees delivering the same message in different 
cities. They magnify a troubling, systemic, and criminal pattern. In 
fact, they serve as a public window into an organization that is 
besieged by corruption, by fraud, and by illegal activities, all 
committed--all committed--on the taxpayers' dime. Mr. President, I 
would suggest to you, if we had the capability to ask every taxpayer in 
America: Is this how you want your money spent, we would have a nearly 
unanimous count saying: Absolutely not.
  At a time when we are experiencing record deficits and the economy is 
struggling every day to get back on its feet, how in the world can 
anyone come to this floor of the Senate and say: I want to cast my vote 
to continue to fund this organization with taxpayer dollars, hard-
earned dollars by American families, when so many questions of 
legitimacy reign? I think the answer to that is simple. I do not see 
how anybody could cast that vote. To do so, in my judgment, would 
ignore the proof, and it would also ignore our responsibility to 
protect taxpayers from waste and fraud and abuse. I would go so far as 
to say that I respect that some of my colleagues believe the work done 
by ACORN in some communities might be valuable. But I would 
respectfully suggest that the problems riddling this organization, in 
office after office, cannot and should not be trivialized. This is an 
opportunity for the Senate to stand up and say: Enough is enough, just 
as the Census Bureau did.
  As Judge Richard Zoller said, after holding an ACORN employee liable 
for election law violations:

       Somebody has to go after ACORN.

  Well, I suggest today, on the floor of the Senate, that ``somebody'' 
is each and every U.S. Senator. That ``somebody'' is each Senator, who 
now has the ability to come to the floor and say to the taxpayers back 
home: We will not tolerate this any longer. Until a full investigation 
is launched into ACORN, no taxpayer money should be used to fund its 
activities. A vote in favor of my amendment is a vote in favor of the 
taxpayer and a vote against the status quo.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to speak as in morning business for up to 25 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                             Fiscal Update

  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, building on a series of speeches I have 
given over the past few years and in the tradition of a former Member 
of this body, Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, I hope to 
provide my colleagues and the American people with regular updates on 
our catastrophic national debt. Unfortunately, given the lack of action 
to address this coming tsunami, I believe President Obama and Congress 
need to be reminded of the fiscal realities in which we find ourselves. 
Senator Hollings came down to the Senate floor every few weeks with a 
poster updating the national debt, and today I renew his tradition, and 
I will continue it until we do something about this unsustainable 
financial crisis.
  One of my grandchildren's favorite stories is ``The Emperor's New 
Clothes'' by Hans Christian Anderson. In the tale, an emperor goes 
about the land wearing a nonexistent suit sold to him by a new tailor 
who convinced the monarch the suit is made of the finest silks. The 
tailors--two swindlers--tell the emperor that the threads of his robes 
will be so fine that they will look invisible to those dimwitted or 
unfit for their position. The emperor and his ministers, themselves 
unable to see the clothing, lavish the tailor with praise for the suit 
because they do not want to appear dimwitted or incompetent.
  Word spread across the kingdom of the emperor's beautiful new robes. 
To show off the extraordinary suit, a parade was formed. People lined 
the streets to see the emperor show off his new clothes. Again, afraid 
to appear stupid or unfit, everyone pretends to see the suit. It is 
only when a child cries out ``the emperor wears no clothes'' does the 
crowd acknowledge that the emperor is, in fact, naked.
  Much like the emperor, America's elected leaders know we face a 
fiscal train wreck, but we are choosing to ignore our current economic 
reality. I am here to tell my colleagues and President Obama, the 
emperor has no clothes and we are naked in terms of dealing with our 
deficits and national debt.
  As shown right here on this chart, get the book out. I am sure you 
have it. Read it. That is where we are right now. The irony is that the 
American people know we are naked, and they are coming to Washington to 
let us know we are naked, and so does the rest of the world, and our 
credibility and our credit today are at risk.
  I have this chart, what I refer to as the ``Wheel of Misfortune.'' 
This lays out quite clearly what our national debt is today.
  One of the reasons I ran for the Senate back in 1998 was I wanted to 
come to Washington and reduce the national debt and balance budgets, 
which is something I did as the mayor of the city of Cleveland and 
something I did as Governor of the State of Ohio.
  When I came to the Senate in 1999, our gross national debt stood at 
$5.6 trillion or 61 percent of the GDP. Today, as you can see from the 
chart behind me, the gross national debt is nearly $11.8 trillion. I 
understand the President is going to ask us to increase our debt limit 
to $12 trillion and, quite frankly, I believe he is going to be asking 
us to raise the debt limit to more than $12 trillion.
  This is an increase of more than 100 percent in 10 years. Much of 
this increase has come recently. In fact, from

[[Page 21473]]

2008 to 2009 alone, the Federal debt will increase 22 percent, boosting 
the country's debt-to-income ratio--our national debt as a percentage 
of GDP--from 70 percent last year to 86 percent this year. We haven't 
seen this kind of GDP debt since the Second World War. It was 65 years 
ago during the Second World War that we saw these kinds of numbers.
  By the way, this does not include our unfunded Medicare and Social 
Security obligations which the Peterson Foundation recently tagged at 
$56.4 trillion. This is the equivalent of a $483,000 debt per American 
household or $184,000 for every man, woman, and child in America today. 
Those are unfunded liabilities.
  It doesn't take an economist to realize our course is unsustainable. 
President Obama and this Congress are fully aware of this reckless 
fiscal path. Yet they continue to spend and borrow, spend and borrow. 
Our Federal Government is the worst credit card abuser in the world. We 
talk to our kids about not abusing their credit cards. What kind of 
example do we set? You know what. We are putting the tab on the credit 
of our children and grandchildren.
  Like the boy who cried ``the emperor has no clothes,'' the American 
people see through this sham. There were a bunch of them here this 
weekend who saw through the sham. A recent poll conducted by the 
Peterson Foundation showed that after their personal job, the most 
pressing concern of Americans is the national debt. Americans are 
cutting back, folks, in their own family. They are making tough 
decisions. They know they haven't been living within their means.
  Some people are saying: Why are they paying attention to this 
finally? Well, they are finally realizing in their own families they 
need to redo the way they are doing things, and they are asking 
themselves: Why isn't our Federal Government doing the same thing we 
are doing in our households? It is no wonder they are looking at 
government's reckless spending with disapproval and wondering why we 
are not doing the same thing they are doing. They are mad as hell, and 
they aren't going to take it anymore.
  The media is also finally starting to pay attention to this issue. 
Recently, the Washington Post ran an article by Fred Hiatt, their chief 
editorial writer, acknowledging that our long-term fiscal path is 
unsustainable, as well as an editorial taking the administration to 
task for lacking a plan on how to start digging our economy out of this 
fiscal crisis.
  Additionally, Newsweek published an article by Fareed Zakaria where 
he outlines what he describes as ``the disease of modern democracy: the 
system cannot impose any short-term pain for long-term gain.'' We are 
unwilling to pay for it or do without.
  The first one, this Newsweek article, is called,

       There is a Silver Lining.
       The crisis has forced the United States to confront bad 
     habits developed over the past few decades. If we can kick 
     those habits, today's pain will translate into gains.

  The other is a Washington Post article entitled ``No Laughing Matter. 
Why the U.S. Needs to Get Serious About Long-Term Budget Deficits.''
  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed 
in the Congressional Record the articles to which I previously 
referred.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From Newsweek Magazine, Oct. 20, 2008]

                        There Is a Silver Lining

                          (By Fareed Zakaria)

       Some of us--especially those under 60--have always wondered 
     what it would be like to live through the kind of epochal 
     event one reads about in books. Well, this is it. We're now 
     living history, suffering one of the greatest financial 
     panics of all time. It compares with the big ones--1907, 
     1929--and we cannot yet know its full consequences for the 
     financial system, the economy or society as a whole.
       I'm betting that, in the end, the world's governments will 
     win this battle against fear. They have potentially unlimited 
     tools at their disposal, especially if they act in concert. 
     They can nationalize firms, call bank holidays, suspend 
     trading for weeks, buy up debt and equity, and renegotiate 
     home mortgages. Most important, the American government can 
     print money. All of these tools have long-term effects that 
     are extremely troublesome, but they are nothing compared with 
     the potential collapse of the financial system. And 
     Washington seems to have recognized that it must do whatever 
     is required to shore up that system. Big questions remain. 
     What will it take to stop the fall? How costly will it be? 
     How long before the rescue plan starts to have an effect? But 
     at some point, the panic that gripped world markets last week 
     will end. Of course, that will not mean a return to growth or 
     a bull market. We're in for tough times. But it will mean a 
     return to sanity.
       Amid all the difficulties and hardship that we are about to 
     undergo, I see one silver lining. This crisis has--
     dramatically, vengefully--forced the United States to 
     confront the bad habits it has developed over the past few 
     decades. If we can kick those habits, today's pain will 
     translate into gains in the long run.
       Since the 1980s, Americans have consumed more than they 
     produced--and they have made up the difference by borrowing.
       Two decades of easy money and innovative financial products 
     meant that virtually anyone could borrow any amount of money 
     for any purpose. If we wanted a bigger house, a better TV or 
     a faster car, and we didn't actually have the money to pay 
     for it, no problem. We put it on a credit card, took out a 
     massive mortgage and financed our fantasies. As the fantasies 
     grew, so did household debt, from $680 billion in 1974 to $14 
     trillion today. The total has doubled in just the past seven 
     years. The average household owns 13 credit cards, and 40 
     percent of them carry a balance, up from 6 percent in 1970.
       But the average American's behavior was virtue itself 
     compared with the government's. Every city, every county and 
     every state has wanted to preserve its many and proliferating 
     operations and yet not raise taxes. How to square this 
     circle? By borrowing, using ever more elaborate financial 
     instruments. Revenue bonds were backed up by the prospect of 
     future income from taxes or lotteries. ``A growing trend is 
     to securitize future federal funding for highways, housing 
     and other items,'' says Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute. 
     The effect on the projects, he points out, is to make them 
     more expensive, since they incur interest payments. Because 
     they ``insulate the taxpayer from the cost''--all that needs 
     to be paid now is the interest--they also tend to produce 
     cost overruns.
       Local pols aren't the only problem. Under Alan Greenspan, 
     the Federal Reserve obstinately refused to inflict any pain. 
     Russian default? Cut interest rates. Worried about Y2K? Cut 
     rates. NASDAQ crash? Cut rates. The economy slows after 9/11? 
     Cut rates. Whatever the problem, the solution was to keep the 
     money flowing and goose the economy. Eventually, by putting 
     the housing market on steroids, the strategy created problems 
     too large to untangle.
       The whole country has been complicit in a great fraud. As 
     economist Jeffrey Sachs points out, ``We've wanted lots of 
     government, but we haven't wanted to pay for it.'' So we've 
     borrowed our way out of the problem. In 1990, the national 
     debt stood at $3 trillion. (That sounds high, but keep 
     reading.) By 2000, it had almost doubled, to $5.75 trillion. 
     It is currently $10.2 trillion. The number moved into 11 
     digits last month, which meant that the National Debt Clock 
     in New York City ran out of space to display the figures. Its 
     owners plan to get a new clock next year.
       ``Leverage'' is the fancy Wall Street word for debt. It's 
     at the heart of the current crisis. Warren Buffett explained 
     the problem in his inimitable way on ``The Charlie Rose 
     Show.'' ``Leverage,'' he said, ``is the only way a smart guy 
     can go broke . . . You do smart things, you eventually get 
     very rich. If you do smart things and use leverage and you do 
     one wrong thing along the way, it could wipe you out, because 
     anything times zero is zero. But it's reinforcing when the 
     people around you are doing it successfully, you're doing it 
     successfully, and it's a lot like Cinderella at the ball. The 
     guys look better all the time, the music sounds better, it's 
     more and more fun, you think, `Why the hell should I leave at 
     a quarter to 12? I'll leave at two minutes to 12.' But the 
     trouble is, there are no clocks on the wall. And everybody 
     thinks they're going to leave at two minutes to 12.''
       If there is a lesson to be taken from this crisis, it's a 
     simple and old rule of economics: there is no free lunch. If 
     you want something, you have to pay for it. Debt is not a bad 
     thing. Used responsibly, it is at the heart of modern 
     capitalism. But hiding mountains of debt in complex 
     instruments is a way to disguise costs, an invitation to 
     irresponsible behavior.
       At some point, the magical accounting had to stop. At some 
     point, consumers had to stop using their homes as banks and 
     spending money that they didn't have. At some point, the 
     government had to confront its indebtedness. The United 
     States--and other overleveraged societies--have now gotten 
     the wake-up call from hell. If we can respond and change our 
     behavior markedly, this might actually be a blessing in 
     disguise. (Though, as Winston Churchill said when he lost the 
     election of 1945, ``at the moment it appears rather 
     effectively disguised.'')

[[Page 21474]]

       In the short term, all the solutions to the current crisis 
     require that governments take on more debts and larger 
     obligations. This is inevitable and necessary. But that 
     doesn't mean we should, as some noted economists advocate, 
     stimulate the economy with more tax cuts. That would be only 
     one more way to keep the party going artificially--like 
     asking a drunk to go to AA next year, but in the meantime to 
     have even more whisky. A far better stimulus would be to 
     announce and expedite major infrastructure and energy 
     projects, which are investments, not consumption, and 
     therefore have a much different effect on the country's 
     fiscal fortunes. (They are not listed separately in the 
     federal budget, but that's just bad accounting.)
       In the medium and long term, we have to get back to basics. 
     Households, for instance, should save more. Governments 
     should put incentives in place that make such savings more 
     likely. The U.S. government offers enormous incentives to 
     consume (the deduction of mortgage interest being the best 
     example), and it works. We have the biggest houses in the 
     world, the thinnest flat-screen TVs and the most cars. If we 
     were to tax consumption and encourage savings, that would 
     also work. Regulations on credit-card debt should be revised 
     to ensure that people understand the risks and costs of these 
     instruments. Moving in this direction would be good for 
     families and for the government as well.
       Wall Street will also need to change. Paul Volcker has long 
     argued that the recent spate of financial innovation was 
     nothing of the kind: it simply shuffled around existing 
     resources while contributing few real benefits to the 
     economy. Such activity will now be reduced significantly. 
     Boykin Curry, managing director of Eagle Capital, says, ``For 
     20 years, the DNA of nearly every financial institution had 
     morphed dangerously. Each time someone at the table pressed 
     for more leverage and more risk, the next few years proved 
     them `right.' These people were emboldened, they were 
     promoted and they gained control of ever more capital. 
     Meanwhile, anyone in power who hesitated, who argued for 
     caution, was proved `wrong.' The cautious types were 
     increasingly intimidated, passed over for promotion. They 
     lost their hold on capital. This happened every day in almost 
     every financial institution over and over, until we ended up 
     with a very specific kind of person running things. This 
     year, the capital that remains is finally being reallocated 
     to more careful, thoughtful executives and investors--the 
     Warren Buffetts . . . of the world.''
       Volcker has also argued that the highly complex financial 
     system was not nearly as stable as people believed and that 
     far-reaching efforts were needed to regulate and stabilize 
     it. Now these issues will get attention at the highest level. 
     The fear on Wall Street is that a Democratic administration 
     would overregulate. But look at who is advising Barack 
     Obama--Buffett, Volcker, former Treasury secretaries Robert 
     Rubin and Larry Summers. It is more likely that what will 
     come from their efforts will be a better-regulated financial 
     system that, while producing less-extravagant profits, will 
     be more stable and secure.
       The financial industry itself is likely to shrink, and 
     that's not a bad thing, either. It has ballooned dramatically 
     in size. Curry points out that ``30 percent of S&P 500 
     profits last year were earned by financial firms, and U.S. 
     consumers were spending $800 billion more than they earned 
     every year. As a result, most of our top math Ph.D.s were 
     being pulled into nonproductive financial engineering instead 
     of biotech research and fuel technology. Capital expenditures 
     went into retail construction instead of critical 
     infrastructure.'' The crisis will stop the misallocation of 
     human and financial resources and redirect them in more-
     productive ways. If some of the smart people now on Wall 
     Street end up building better models of energy usage and 
     efficiency, that would be a net gain for the economy.
       The American economy remains extremely dynamic and 
     flexible. Even now, the most surprising data continue to be 
     how resilient the economy has been through all these shocks. 
     That will not last, especially if the panic persists. But 
     even so, it highlights the fact that the U.S. economy has 
     underlying virtues and, after a tough recession, will 
     probably recover faster than many can now imagine. The rise 
     in emerging-market economies, which have been powering global 
     growth, will not vanish overnight, either.
       A new discipline would benefit America in a more general 
     sense, too. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 
     United States has operated in the world with no constraints 
     or checks on its power. This has not been good for its 
     foreign policy. It has made Washington arrogant, lazy and 
     careless. Its decision making has resembled General Motors' 
     business strategy in the 1970s and 1980s, a process driven 
     largely by a vast array of internal factors but little sense 
     of urgency or awareness of outside pressures. We didn't have 
     to make strategic choices; we could have it all. We could 
     make blunders, anger the world, rupture alliances, waste 
     resources, wage war incompetently--it didn't matter. We had 
     more than enough room for error--lots of error.
       But it's a different world out there. If Iraq cast a shadow 
     on U.S. political and military credibility, this financial 
     crisis has eroded America's economic and financial power. In 
     the short run, there has been a flight to safety--toward 
     dollars and T-bills--but in the long run, countries are 
     likely to seek greater independence from an unstable 
     superpower. The United States will now have to work to 
     attract capital to its shores, and manage its fiscal house 
     better. We will have to persuade countries to join in our 
     foreign endeavors. We will have to make strategic choices. We 
     cannot deploy missile interceptors along Russia's borders, 
     draw Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, and still expect Russian 
     cooperation on Iran's nuclear program. We cannot noisily 
     denounce Chinese and Arab foreign investments in America one 
     day and then hope that they will keep buying $4 billion worth 
     of T-bills another day. We cannot keep preaching to the world 
     about democracy and capitalism while our own house is so 
     wildly out of order.
       It's a fundamental American belief that competition is 
     good--in business, athletics and life. Checks and balances 
     are James Madison's crucial mechanisms, exposing and 
     countering abuse and arrogance and forcing discipline on 
     people. This discipline will be painful for a country that 
     has gotten used to having it all. But it will make us much 
     stronger in the long run. If we can learn the right lessons 
     from this crisis, the United States will once more be playing 
     by its own rules. And that cannot be bad for us.

                [From the Washington Post, June 5, 2009]

                           No Laughing Matter

       The Obama administration inherited from its predecessor 
     both a tanking economy and a huge federal budget deficit. 
     Under the circumstances, it cannot be faulted for increasing 
     the deficit in the short run, because a mammoth recession 
     called for fiscal stimulus. Thus, it is neither surprising 
     nor irreversibly dangerous that the total federal debt held 
     by the public looks as if it will reach 57 percent of gross 
     domestic product by the end of fiscal 2009 on Sept. 30--well 
     above the previous four decades' average of about 40 percent. 
     What is more alarming is that, barring major spending cuts or 
     tax increases, President Obama's budget could drive that 
     figure to 82 percent by 2019, according to the Congressional 
     Budget Office.
       We are already getting a taste of the problems that could 
     develop if the president and Congress do not address this 
     soon. Since the end of last year, the interest rate on 10-
     year Treasury notes has gone up from 2 percent to over 3.5 
     percent. That number is within historical norms; indeed, 
     Treasury rates probably had been artificially depressed 
     during the financial panic of the fall. But the spike, which 
     will cost the government tens of billions of dollars, also 
     reflects mounting investor concern--at home and, especially, 
     abroad--about the U.S. fiscal situation. If government 
     borrowing costs continue to accelerate, they could kill 
     economic growth for years to come.
       It was a sign of the times that Treasury Secretary Timothy 
     F. Geithner had to travel to Beijing this week to reassure 
     China, the world's largest holder of Treasury debt, that 
     lending money to the U.S. government is still a wise thing to 
     do. Mr. Geithner insisted that, ``in the United States, we 
     are putting in place the foundations for restoring fiscal 
     sustainability.'' To be sure, China doesn't have many good 
     alternatives to parking its massive trade surpluses in 
     dollars. But it does have some, including commodities and the 
     debt of more fiscally prudent European governments. In a 
     moment that all Americans should consider a wake-up call, Mr. 
     Geithner was met with laughter when he told a group of 
     Chinese students that their country's assets were ``very 
     safe'' in Washington.
       The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, was 
     considerably more decorous than the Chinese students in 
     testimony before Congress on Wednesday but, in essence, only 
     slightly less skeptical. ``Even as we take steps to address 
     the recession and threats to financial stability,'' he said, 
     ``maintaining the confidence of the financial markets 
     requires that we, as a nation, begin planning now for the 
     restoration of fiscal balance.''
       Mr. Bernanke did not say explicitly that there is no such 
     plan in Mr. Obama's budget--at least not according to the 
     CBO, whose estimates of the president's budget show annual 
     deficits lingering indefinitely above 4 percent of GDP. Nor 
     did he point out that Congress has yet to come up with 
     credible financing for the president's desirable but 
     expensive health-care proposal. He did not say that Mr. Obama 
     and Congress have done nothing so far to deliver on the 
     president's pledge of entitlement reform. But if the Fed 
     chairman had said those things, he would have been absolutely 
     right.

  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, now is the time to take the first step 
toward fiscal responsibility and making good on our promises by 
enacting meaningful, comprehensive tax and entitlement reform. The 
recent pay-as-you-go legislation passed by the House isn't going to get 
the job done. We know that. This Band-Aid relies on smoke and mirrors 
and exempts the

[[Page 21475]]

2001 and 2003 tax cuts, patching the alternative minimum tax, updating 
physician payments in Medicare, and modifying the estate tax. It is 
intellectually dishonest. Even the Budget Committee chairman in the 
Senate, Senator Conrad, calls this pay-go that came out of the House 
insincere. If Congress is going to reenact statutory pay-go, then it 
should apply to everything, not just to what is convenient.
  We need real comprehensive reform. I am pleased to say it appears as 
though President Obama is finally starting to get it. In an interview 
with the Washington Post, President Obama endorsed the idea of creating 
a commission where--here is what he said:

       Everything is going to be on the table when it comes to 
     examining our tax and entitlement systems and presenting 
     long-term solutions to place the United States on a fiscally 
     sustainable course.

  He went on to say:

       What you end up having to do in terms of structural reforms 
     realistically is you probably have to set up some sort of 
     commission or mechanism that reports back with the prospect 
     of maybe locking in a pledge for action, post election.

  I know we have talked about this on occasion, about this commission 
and setting it up and trying to get the administration to commit to it 
so we can let the American people know we are sincere about doing 
something about this debt and balancing our budget.
  For the past three Congresses, I have been calling for such a 
commission. This Congress, I am proud to say, Senator Lieberman has 
joined me as an original cosponsor to create the commission now.
  Similar to the BRAC process, the Save America's Future Economy 
Commission--we call it SAFE--would break the legislative logjam in 
Washington by creating a bipartisan, bicameral committee to draw up 
policy prescriptions for the government's long-term budget shortfalls 
that would then go before Congress on an up-or-down vote. The 
legislation is similar to legislation introduced by Congressmen Jim 
Cooper and Frank Wolf in the House, and today they have 69 cosponsors. 
It is vital--it is vital--to ensuring the solvency of entitlement 
programs for future generations.
  It is my understanding that Pete Peterson and David Walker of the 
Peterson Foundation have endorsed this legislation along with the 
Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institute, the Business Roundtable, 
and a host of other former CBO Directors who said it is time for us to 
do something about the problem, and they understand we will not get it 
done with the regular order of business. We have to have a commission 
come back with a recommendation, put it on a fast track, send it to the 
House, send it to the Senate, and let us either vote up or down as we 
do with the commissions we have set up on closing bases.
  I am sure many of my colleagues are familiar with this legislation. I 
know David Walker has met with both Republican and Democratic 
legislative leaders or directors regarding this legislation.
  Continuing down our current path, folks, is unsustainable. It is 
unsustainable, and it is immoral. For too long we have clothed 
ourselves in economic falsehoods, pretending they would protect us from 
the harsh economic realities. Folks, time is running out. The world 
sees that the emperor, in fact, has no clothes. I am calling on 
President Obama to follow through on his comments about the need for a 
commission and support the SAFE Commission Act.
  OMB Director Peter Orszag has understood our fiscal crisis in the 
past and called for the creation of an entitlement commission, but 
since joining the administration he has stopped pushing for a 
commission, instead focusing just on health care reform. The bottom 
line is health care reform is but one of the major issues that needs to 
be addressed to respond to our fiscal crisis. We must also reform the 
Tax Code to encourage personal savings, investment, job creation, and 
economic growth. A lot of Americans are not aware of this fact, that we 
spend $240 billion a year paying our taxes; that is, to pay for 
professional help and keeping track of all of the papers we need to 
have when we prepare to pay our Federal income tax.
  I think the current health care debate in Congress is a perfect 
example of why a piecemeal approach doesn't work. If we dealt with the 
fiscal crisis, it would be a lot easier for us to deal with health 
care.
  There is a new poll out just today, AP, that says half of Americans 
are more concerned about tackling our debt than our health care reform, 
education, and climate change. Did my colleagues hear that? Over half 
of them say deal with the fiscal crisis. The reason I believe we are 
having such a darn difficult time dealing with health care and why we 
are not going to pass any kind of climate change legislation is that 
the people of this country know we have a fiscal crisis and they want 
us to contend with that before we deal with these other issues.
  I think the American people know we can't afford the health care 
system we now have, and we must find a way to be more responsible. 
Think of this: We spend $2.2 trillion on health care in this country. 
The Medicare trust fund will be insolvent in 2017, and we have to 
reform the way we pay physicians under the program, which experts say 
will cost us $280 billion over 10 years. Furthermore, the States are 
already overburdened by the cost of their Medicaid programs.
  We gave the States $87 billion in the stimulus bill. I can tell you 
in ordinary circumstances, many States usually come to Washington with 
a tin cup. I can guarantee you that the Governors of this country are 
going to be down here with a large bathtub asking us to fill it because 
of the problems they confront.
  In other words, they can't now take care--well, they can now because 
they got the $87 billion, but once that runs out, they are going to be 
down here saying: We can't handle the current system as it is. How can 
we expand Medicaid when we can't take care of the Medicaid Program we 
now have? With the financial crisis we have in this country, we have to 
be careful of taking on something we can't afford, particularly when we 
can't afford to pay for what we already have.
  I am surprised that in the President's speech last week he didn't 
talk about the fact that by 2017--everybody needs to understand this--
the money coming in for Medicare would not be adequate to take care of 
the people who are out there who are eligible for Medicare. It is part 
of what I call that unfunded liability I talked about earlier.
  The Peterson Foundation recently commissioned an in-depth health care 
study conducted by the Lewin Group, and I urge my colleagues to take a 
close look at this analysis and see the principles the Peterson 
Foundation lays out to determine a fiscally responsible health care 
reform bill.
  I am not the only one calling for Congress to be fiscally responsible 
when considering health care reform. In order for health care reform 
legislation to be fiscally responsible, it must, one, pay for itself 
over a 10-year period; two, not add to the deficit beyond a 10-year 
period; three, bend the cost curve down to reduce health care spending; 
and four, significantly reduce current unfunded obligations. That is 
what we should be talking about.
  President Obama and Congress must act. We all came to Washington to 
serve, and we have a moral responsibility to leave this place better 
than what we found it. How will we look our children and grandchildren 
in the eye knowing we have mortgaged their future at a time when we 
know they are going to have to work harder than we have to maintain the 
standard of living we enjoy.
  God has blessed me with three children and seven grandchildren. I am 
constantly worried about what kind of America they are going to be 
living in. I know darn well the competition we face today worldwide is 
a lot more fierce than anything I experienced during my life here. I 
know because of that competition they are going to have to work harder. 
They are going to have to work smarter. It would be very cruel for us, 
on top of that, to lay this terrible burden on their shoulders and say: 
We weren't willing to pay for it or do without, so you take care of it. 
It is your problem. You handle it.

[[Page 21476]]

  I was pleased to hear President Obama echo this last Wednesday during 
his joint session of Congress, the same sentiment I have just made. He 
stated--and I quote the President of the United States:

       I understand that the politically safe move would be to 
     kick the can further down the road--to defer reform one more 
     year, one more election, one more term. But that is not what 
     the moment calls for. That is not what we came here to do. We 
     did not come here to fear the future. We came here to shape 
     it. I still believe we can act, even when it is hard.

  President Obama's words ring true in light of the fiscal challenges 
we face as a nation today. And they should get the first priority. 
Until we start on a commission, Congress, the administration, the 
American people, and the world will know the Emperor has no clothes. We 
are naked in terms of realizing and dealing with our fiscal crisis. Now 
is the time to act.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Missouri.


                    Amendment No. 2355, as Modified

  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Johanns 
amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 2355), as modified, is as follows:

(Purpose: Prohibiting use of funds to fund the Association of Community 
                 Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN))

       After section 414, insert the following:
       Sec. 4__.  None of the funds made available under this Act 
     may be distributed to the Association of Community 
     Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or its subsidiaries.

  Mr. BOND. 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. BOND. 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. BOND. Madam President, I rise today to support the amendment 
offered by my colleague from Nebraska, Senator Johanns. He has proposed 
an amendment to end taxpayer funding for the Association of Community 
Organizations for Reform Now.
  We cannot allow taxpayer funds to support groups engaged in repeated 
voter registration fraud activities, and now their repeated assistance 
for housing, tax, and mortgage fraud.
  I recognize--and let's be clear about it--that ACORN has helped 
counsel homeowners through the recent mortgage meltdown. Doubtless, 
they have helped good people find affordable housing solutions. But 
that cannot outweigh the numerous and repeated abuses of taxpayer 
dollars allowed to occur in their name.
  In my home State of Missouri, several ACORN workers in Kansas City 
admitted to voter registration fraud. There have been other 
investigations throughout the State. Unfortunately, ACORN vote fraud in 
Missouri is not isolated. ACORN workers in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, 
Michigan, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, 
Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Nevada have all been associated with 
fraudulent voter registration activities.
  This long list shows this is not a problem of a handful of rogue 
employees but, regrettably, an endemic systemwide culture of fraud and 
abuse. Now we have disgusting and unacceptable video footage of ACORN 
housing workers counseling on how prostitutes might circumvent mortgage 
applications, tax law, and child endangerment laws. Again, this 
despicable behavior is not isolated to one rogue employee but has 
occurred repeatedly in Washington, Baltimore, and New York.
  For those who say that minority and low-income advocates are being 
picked upon, I say the causes of expanding housing and voting 
opportunities and wise counseling and assistance to those who need help 
are too important to be allowed to be sullied by such a morally 
fraudulent organization. The tireless volunteers and underpaid staffers 
toiling to help the impoverished and disenfranchised do not deserve to 
have their reputation pulled down by the organization they work for 
which cannot put an end to these abuses. All taxpayers deserve to know 
their hard-earned tax dollars are not going toward voter, housing, 
mortgage, or tax fraud assistance.
  Congress has the opportunity to end this relationship now. I am 
hoping we will be able to vote this afternoon, and I urge my colleagues 
to support the Johanns amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of an 
amendment by my good friend, Senator Mike Johanns, that would prevent 
our taxpayer dollars from being directed to the Association of 
Community Organizations for Reform Now, more commonly known as ACORN. I 
also want to commend the Census Bureau's recent decision to cut all 
ties with ACORN.
  Simply put I am very pleased with this decision, which was announced 
late last week through a letter from Census Bureau Director Robert 
Groves to ACORN's National Headquarters. As I met with Dr. Groves in my 
office just last week, I raised this very issue and expressed my 
disappointment, along with the disappointment of many of the Utahns I 
represent, that ACORN would have any association with such an important 
and historic event such as the 2010 Census.
  Anyone who knows me, knows that I am always supportive of reasonable 
efforts to ensure that taxpayer funds are not used for unlawful 
activities, particularly when those activities may be construed to be 
partisan in nature. That is why I have followed this particular issue 
so closely throughout the year and raised the issue directly with 
Director Groves.
  In fact, as next year's census quickly approaches, I continue to work 
with Census officials at the Commerce Department on all levels. As all 
Utahns are keenly aware, the Decennial Census requires precision and 
uniformity--both of which I am closely monitoring as the Census moves 
forward.
  To that end, I am hopeful that the Census Bureau will ensure that all 
Americans are counted fairly and accurately, with the privacy of the 
individual always in mind. I applaud Director Groves and his decision 
for the Census Bureau to cut all ties with ACORN. I am pleased that he 
listened not only to my concerns, but also to the concerns of thousands 
of Utahns and Americans from across country who have expressed severe 
disappointment with ACORN's involvement in the 2010 Census. Personally, 
I feel ACORN should not have been involved in the 2010 Census in the 
first place. However, I recognize Director Groves' decision as an 
important step toward an accurate and fair count and look forward to 
assisting in additional efforts toward that same end in the near 
future.
  While I am encouraged by the recent actions by the Census Bureau, I 
believe it is critical to adopt Senator Johanns' amendment so we can 
know with certainty that partisan political organizations like ACORN 
will not be underwritten with taxpayer dollars.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 5:30 
p.m. today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Johanns 
amendment No. 2355, as modified; that no amendment be in order to the 
amendment prior to the vote; and that there be 2 minutes of debate 
prior to a vote in relation to the amendment, with the time equally 
divided and controlled in the usual form.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, with that, there will be a vote at 5:30 
this afternoon, and if any other Senators wish to come to the floor to 
speak to their amendments, we are

[[Page 21477]]

here ready and waiting for them to do that.
  With that, 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. KAUFMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KAUFMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 25 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Financial Abuses

  Mr. KAUFMAN. Madam President, tomorrow is the first anniversary of 
the Lehman Brothers collapse, the largest bankruptcy in United States 
history. Lehman's failure sent shock waves throughout the entire 
country.
  The resulting financial meltdown plunged the American economy into 
the most severe recession since the 1950s. Credit markets froze, 
investor confidence collapsed, stock prices crashed, and millions of 
Americans lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings.
  Lehman brought about its own demise. Once the Nation's fourth-largest 
investment bank, Lehman allowed a culture of recklessness to engulf its 
firm.
  But the blame for this downward spiral and for the consequences to 
millions of Americans does not end with Lehman. At a time when banks 
were taking on unprecedented risk, our regulatory agencies were taking 
their referees off the field.
  The SEC, like other regulatory agencies, has made many mistakes in 
recent years: from failing to monitor the credit rating agencies and 
permitting the banks to increase their capital-leverage ratios to as 
much as 30- or 50-to-1 to buy up what turned out to be toxic assets, to 
removing the uptick rule without putting anything effective in its 
place and failing to put in place systems to monitor and adjust its 
regulations as the markets rapidly evolved.
  Our Nation has paid dearly for these mistakes.
  In response, we have vowed to shine a light on Wall Street, to enact 
financial regulatory reforms, to push for clearer and enforceable laws, 
to strengthen our oversight agencies--all in an effort to prevent 
history from repeating itself and to rebuild the credibility of and 
investor confidence in our markets.
  But our actions have not yet followed our words.
  President Obama has proposed a new financial regulation plan that 
would enforce stricter capital and liquidity requirements for 
investment banks, revamp the disjointed regulatory system, and impose 
higher standards for risky products like credit default swaps.
  I applaud President Obama's efforts to address the regulatory 
problems that devastated our economy and I look forward to working with 
my colleagues to create a systemic risk regulator, to regulate 
derivatives effectively, and to ensure consumer financial protections.
  But we cannot simply react to problems after they have occurred. We 
must also adopt a forward-looking approach to regulation that 
recognizes manipulation and wrongdoing while it is happening and stops 
it in its tracks.
  Because of the damage that was done to our economy by the prior 
financial scandals, the regulatory agencies and Congress need to catch 
up and redress prior mistakes--while at the same time focus on current 
questionable market practices before new problems arise.
  Since I became a Senator in January, I have been spending much of my 
time in Congress asking questions and promoting regulatory solutions to 
current questionable practices on Wall Street. And I have stressed 
repeatedly the need for the SEC to step forward as a strong and 
determined cop on the beat.
  I believe that democracy and fair markets are the foundation of our 
American society.
  They are both based on the notions of equality and fairness--the idea 
that all Americans have an equal opportunity to succeed.
  For markets to have credibility and investors to have confidence, 
Congress and the SEC must act urgently to restore a level playing field 
for investors.
  If investors don't believe the markets are fair, they won't invest in 
them. It is as simple as that.
  Fairness may be an ever-changing and elusive concept when it comes to 
the financial markets, but it must be defined and then defended by the 
regulators. Where abuses continue in our financial markets, those 
abuses must be addressed through clear rules with teeth and through 
tough enforcement.
  Otherwise, we will be left with two financial markets: One market for 
huge-volume, high-speed players, who can take advantage of every 
loophole for profit, and another market for retail investors, whose 
orders are seemingly filled as an afterthought without any special 
priority.
  For example, since March, I have worked with a bipartisan group of 
Senators to push the SEC to do more about abusive or so-called 
``naked'' short selling.
  When Lehman Brothers began to go down, many believe naked short 
sellers drove it into its grave, profiting handsomely by manipulating 
the price of Lehman's stock down, down, down.
  The SEC will be holding a roundtable on September 30th to discuss 
pre-borrow requirements and centralized ``hard locate'' system 
solutions that I and other Senators have proposed. I strongly urge the 
Commission to propose new rules addressing these issues and to begin to 
elicit serious comments about their effectiveness.
  At the very least they should set up pilot programs to test how they 
might work.
  Otherwise, if the SEC does nothing, I am concerned that when the 
conditions for profitable naked short selling reoccur, there will be no 
enforceable rules to stop it, and the SEC will be unable to punish 
those who undertake it, just as the SEC has yet to punish anyone for 
the naked short selling events of last year.
  More recently, several questionable market structure issues have come 
to light, threatening market fairness in ways we are only beginning to 
understand.
  Wall Street has undergone a radical transformation in only the last 
few years. Only a few years ago, powerful trading organizations, like 
the New York Stock Exchange, handled over 80 percent of all 
transactions. Today, the market is currently heavily fragmented and 
dominated by high-frequency traders.
  According to research by the Tabb Group, there are now over 50 
trading venues in the United States. Technologically advanced high-
frequency trading firms now represent over 61 percent of the daily 
trading volume in stocks.
  Institutional investors prefer to trade in dark liquidity pools, 
which arguably violate the spirit of rules that require fair and non-
discriminatory access to quotations.
  These innovations, from market fragmentation to high-speed electronic 
trading, have produced benefits, including increased liquidity, 
narrowed spreads, and lowered commissions for most investors.
  But while competition and innovation have flourished, the fundamental 
fairness of our markets cannot be taken for granted.
  Actions by the SEC over recent decades have had the unintended 
consequence of producing markets that now seem to favor the most 
technologically sophisticated traders, sometimes at the expense of 
ordinary retail investors. Moreover, competition for market trading 
volume among market centers now includes questionable practices such as 
liquidity rebates, flash order offerings, co-location of servers, and 
other inducement arrangements with broker-dealers and other market 
participants.
  Congress, the SEC, and the public they serve need to stand back and 
better understand what has happened. Even for the skilled insiders, it 
is all very complicated and opaque, and the challenge we face is to 
understand the benefits, costs, and risks of these developments to 
long-term investors, in a market environment very different from just 5 
years ago.

[[Page 21478]]

  This is why I recently called on the SEC to undertake a comprehensive 
review of a broad range of market issues, analyzing the current market 
structure from the ground up before piecemeal changes built on the 
current structure add to the potential for execution unfairness.
  I am concerned that questionable practices threaten to further erode 
investor confidence in our financial markets and that our understanding 
and regulatory capability have not kept pace with those changes.
  To her credit, SEC Chairman Schapiro, for whom I have great respect 
as well as for the urgent tasks she confronts in this challenging era 
for the Commission, has begun such a review and has agreed to broaden 
it.
  In her letter responding to my concerns, she too recognizes the 
trade-offs between liquidity and fairness, as well as the importance of 
standing up for the interests of long-term investors.
  She wrote: ``If . . . the interests of long-term investors and 
professional short-term traders conflict, the Commission previously has 
emphasized that `its clear responsibility is to uphold the interests of 
long-term investors.' I firmly agree that the Commission's focus must 
be on the protection of long-term investors.''
  Alan Greenspan, the former Fed Chairman, in commenting on the fixed 
income markets, learned this lesson too late: technological 
developments without effective regulation do not always lead to the 
best interests of investors.
  He wrote: ``All of the sophisticated mathematics and computer 
wizardry essentially rested on one central premise: that enlightened 
self interest of owners and managers of financial institutions would 
lead them to maintain a sufficient buffer against insolvency by 
actively monitoring and managing their firms' capital and risk 
positions.'' The premise failed in the summer of 2007, the former Fed 
Chairman said, leaving him ``deeply dismayed.''
  We are all deeply dismayed, and we do not ever want to be so dismayed 
again.
  So while recent developments in the equity and options markets are 
very different from what happened in the fixed income markets, Congress 
must exercise its oversight capacity to lay out the issues and ask the 
tough questions about high-frequency trading and recent market 
structure issues.
  High-frequency traders have many tools at their disposal that give 
them significant advantages over regular investors.
  The first is speed. In order to receive information as quickly as 
possible, high-speed firms place their computer servers right next to 
the exchanges. Co-locating allows them to receive information a few 
milliseconds before the rest of the world. Because every millisecond is 
critical in the world of high-frequency trading, firms are willing to 
pay millions of dollars annually for this advantage.
  Information on price movement and market trends is routed directly to 
electronic algorithms, designed by top engineers to make trades 
automatically.
  These programs rely on the rapid acquisition of information in order 
to read the markets and execute trades instantaneously, sometimes as 
many as 1,000 times in a single second.
  To prevent abuse, the SEC must ensure ``fair access'' for co-located 
servers at the exchanges and a method of allocation that does not 
disadvantage retail orders.
  Another advantage for insiders in this new system, arises from what 
are known as market latency disparities.
  Market fragmentation appears to permit high-speed traders to use the 
disparities in time, place, speed, and price to advantage themselves 
over unsuspecting investors.
  Let me read from a recent article in The Economist magazine entitled 
``Rise of the Machines.'' ``High-frequency traders attempt to uncover 
how much an investor is willing to pay--or sell for--by sending out a 
stream of probing quotes that are swiftly cancelled until they elicit a 
response. The traders then buy or short the targeted stock ahead of the 
investor, offering it to them a fraction of a second later for a tidy 
profit.''
  While the cost to each individual might be slight, the Tabb Group 
estimates that high-speed stock traders banked about $8 billion in 
profits last year. Let me repeat: $8 billion with a ``b.'' How much of 
this profit came from legitimate practices that benefited all 
investors, and how much of it was a toll paid by the average investor?
  We all know the old adage, that it is easier to steal a penny or two 
from 100 million people than to steal a million dollars from one 
person.
  We need to know if high-speed traders are proving this to be true in 
our markets every day.
  Some market practices have also introduced potential conflicts of 
interest into the marketplace. For example, trading venues offer 
rebates to investors who post limit orders, which bring liquidity to 
their exchange, and charge for market orders, which take liquidity out 
of the exchange. Some broker-dealer firms direct a sizable majority of 
their order flow to the exchanges that offer the highest payments and 
lowest fees.
  In theory, best execution is always the first priority, as 
regulations clearly state that even if the customer's order is routed 
to a market that does not have the best price, it must be rerouted to 
the market center that does.
  I am concerned that regulators are outmatched by the rapid advances 
in high-speed trading. In a highly fragmented system where millions of 
trades take place in a microsecond, the ability to measure and enforce 
so-called ``best execution'' may be a vain hope.
  The so-called Rule 605 forms, which purport to measure execution 
quality, are woefully outdated. The first column for time for execution 
reads ``0-9 seconds.'' In a gap of 9 seconds, prices can change 
significantly. In a world of 50 market venues, with structural latency 
issues being targeted by an entire industry of high-frequency traders, 
millions of trades reaping millions of dollars can take place before 
retail investors and the regulators who protect their interests can 
comprehend what happened.
  We need to ask if regulators are looking through the wrong end of a 
telescope when they should be using a microscope.
  Average investors must now wonder if their orders are being routed to 
a venue because it offers the best execution quality for them, or 
because it leads to the most revenue or lowest transaction fees for 
their brokers.
  Liquidity rebates paid by the exchanges have increased trade volume 
and thereby provided added revenue for exchanges.
  Most of the traders who capitalize on rebates are high-frequency 
traders who execute millions of low-risk trades a day. These market 
participants are not investors. Rather, they step in between buy and 
sell orders, trade on both sides of a security, and cash in on double 
the rebate.
  Let me again read from The Economist: ``Another popular HFT [high-
frequency trading] strategy is to collect rebates that exchanges offer 
to liquidity providers. High-frequency traders will quickly outbid 
investors before immediately selling the shares to the investor at the 
slightly higher purchase price, collecting a rebate of one-quarter of a 
cent on both trades.''
  Some argue that such innovations add needed liquidity to the market. 
But high-speed traders mainly target the most frequently-traded stocks.
  Liquidity is light and spreads are wide on many lower-volume stocks. 
We must rigorously examine the degree to which rebates actually bring 
liquidity to the marketplace where it is needed and help the market 
function properly.
  I have discussed a variety of questionable practices that deserve and 
I hope will receive a searching examination by the SEC and by Congress.
  While some of these innovations have produced benefits, they have 
also created wide disparities between high-speed traders and average 
investors. We do not have a clear accounting of all the costs and 
benefits of these recent market structure changes.
  Under the current system, until empirical data shows up to dispel our 
concerns, we have little reason to believe

[[Page 21479]]

average investors can compete with the high-speed traders they are up 
against.
  We must question whether certain broker-dealers are acting in the 
best interests of their customers, under cover of flawed regulation and 
antiquated enforcement techniques. At the same time, we have dark 
trading platforms that are insufficiently monitored by regulators and 
which undermine public price discovery.
  Moreover, unlike specialists and traditional market-makers that are 
regulated, some of these new high-frequency traders are unregulated, 
though they are acting in a market-maker capacity.
  They have no requirements to ``maintain a fair and orderly'' market. 
They trade when it benefits them.
  If we experience another shock to the financial system, will this 
new, and dominant, type of pseudo market maker act in the interest of 
the markets when we really need them? Will they step up and maintain a 
two-sided market, or will they simply shut off the machines and walk 
away? Even worse, will they seek even further profit and exacerbate the 
downside?
  Because our rules and regulations are so inapt, most of the practices 
I've mentioned today are still legal, but they are not fair.
  It used to be that steroids were not banned by Major League Baseball. 
In fact, they were great for business. The game's biggest sluggers hit 
home runs at an unprecedented rate, enthralling fans in the process. 
But the game was tainted, the competition was unfair, and the power was 
not genuine. Eventually, the game suffered a crisis of legitimacy.
  High-frequency trading, while not illegal, may operate in ways that 
undermine the legitimacy of our financial markets. In order to restore 
investor confidence, we must effectively regulate unfair performance-
enhancers. We must shine a light on dark pools, conduct a searching 
examination of high-frequency trading strategies to ensure they are not 
manipulative, ban flash orders, and give regulators the tools they need 
to ensure that broker-dealers are acting in the best interests of their 
clients.
  I know as well as anyone the benefits of free markets. I know that 
technology, innovation, and competition are critical components of 
economic growth. But we must balance those interests, against the 
values of fairness and equal opportunity. We must bring back a level 
playing field, encourage long-term investment, and help our economy 
grow.
  I am not here today, to stand in the way of progress. I do not wish 
to return to a horse-and-buggy system.
  High frequency trading and the ``Rise of the Machines''--as The 
Economist called it--are here to stay.
  I don't want to ban them. I don't want to slow them down.
  Simply put, technological developments should not control our 
regulatory destiny; rather, our regulatory agencies should ensure that 
technological progress everywhere bring benefits to long-term 
investors. And where the interests of the two are in conflict, our 
regulators must stop the practices of professional short-term traders 
that harm the interests of long-term investors.
  The market structure rules themselves should not enshrine or permit 
illicit advantages that a careful review, a surgeon's scalpel, 
electronically constructed solutions, and effective enforcement can 
end.
  Neither should needed solutions that protect investor interests, like 
reinstatement of some form of the uptick or bid test--or the need for a 
``hard locate'' requirement to end naked short selling once and for 
all--remain unused primarily in deference to the desires and 
convenience of high-frequency traders.
  For our part, we in Congress need to undertake a fundamental review 
of the oversight responsibilities we give to regulators, examining 
whether they have adequate tools to carry out these responsibilities.
  We have become complacent in thinking that continually updating our 
body of regulations is enough, when in reality we perhaps have failed 
to provide regulators with the necessary tools they need to observe 
these complex financial institutions.
  So on this anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, I conclude by 
saying I look forward to working with my colleagues, not only to 
address the financial crises of the past, but also to scrutinize and 
begin to correct the financial abuses of the present, so we can avoid 
the problems of the future.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JOHANNS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Madam President, at 5:30, in a few minutes, we are going 
to vote on the pending amendment, which is an amendment to bar ACORN 
from receiving any money from the appropriations bill we are 
considering. I spoke earlier today, so I will only speak a couple of 
minutes.
  I wanted to come to the floor again to underscore the importance of 
this vote and to underscore the history that brings us here today to 
take this action. The history is a sad one.
  On September 9, 2009, Miami-Dade prosecutors issued arrest warrants 
for 11 ACORN employees. The employees are charged with falsifying voter 
registration cards. A total of 1,400 voter registration cards were 
turned in, and 888 of those were found to be fake. That means that 
almost three-quarters of those cards were fraudulent.
  Late last week, damaging news surfaced regarding hidden videotapes at 
the New York, Baltimore, and Washington, DC, ACORN offices. What is the 
feature on these videotapes? They feature ACORN employees offering 
advice on a number of illegal activities, including tax evasion, 
prostitution, and fraud--all with taxpayer dollars.
  Finally, the Census Bureau notified ACORN on Friday in a letter that 
it was severing all ties. The Census Bureau has had a bellyful. They 
severed all ties with this group having to do with the 2010 census. 
Here is what they said in the letter:

     . . . it is clear that ACORN's affiliation with the 2010 
     Census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general 
     public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and 
     may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, 
     negatively impacting the 2010 Census efforts.

  The letter goes on:

       Unfortunately, we no longer have confidence that our 
     national partnership agreement is being effectively managed 
     through your many local offices. For the reasons stated, we 
     therefore have decided to terminate the partnership.

  According to a report published in July by the minority staff of the 
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, again quoting:

       Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 
     43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex 
     structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use 
     taxpayer and tax exempt dollars for partisan political 
     purposes, and to distract investigators. Structurally, ACORN 
     is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from 
     accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and 
     compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for 
     every bad act.

  It doesn't stop there. In 1998, an ACORN employee was arrested for 
falsifying voter registration forms. In 1999, Philadelphia authorities 
found hundreds of fraudulent registration forms by ACORN. In October of 
2008, ACORN's Nevada offices were raided by Federal agents and in 2009 
their Las Vegas field director--their field director: unbelievable--was 
charged with voter registration fraud.
  In May 2009, seven ACORN employees were charged in Pittsburgh for 
voter registration fraud.
  To date, nearly 70 ACORN employees have been convicted in 12 States 
for voter registration fraud.
  The events of the last week are not isolated. We have only caught 
them. As Judge Richard Zoller said, after holding an ACORN employee 
liable for election law violations:

       Somebody has to go after ACORN.

  Madam President, I suggest this afternoon that ``somebody'' is each 
and every Member of the Senate. Until a

[[Page 21480]]

full investigation is launched into ACORN, no taxpayer money should be 
used to fund their activities. A vote in favor of my amendment is a 
vote in favor of the taxpayer and against the status quo.
  I will just wrap up by saying, if somehow we could bring the 
taxpayers of America to the Senate floor and ask them: Do you want your 
taxpayer dollars to continue to fund this organization, with this kind 
of history, with the videos that have been just released, 
overwhelmingly, taxpayers would say: Absolutely not.
  This is our opportunity to stand up against an organization that does 
not deserve the trust of the American people.
  Madam President, 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. JOHANNS. 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. JOHANNS. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the 
pending amendment and I yield back all time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to 
be.
  The yeas and nays are ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd) 
and the Senator from Maryland (Mrs. Mikulski) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), 
the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from New 
Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the 
Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. 
Vitter).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. 
Graham) would have voted ``yea.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 83, nays 7, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 275 Leg.]

                                YEAS--83

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brown
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Chambliss
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     LeMieux
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--7

     Burris
     Casey
     Durbin
     Gillibrand
     Leahy
     Sanders
     Whitehouse

                             NOT VOTING--9

     Burr
     Byrd
     Coburn
     Graham
     Gregg
     Hutchison
     McCain
     Mikulski
     Vitter
  The amendment (No. 2355), as modified, was agreed to.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I 
move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                            Vote Explanation

 Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, had I been present, I would 
have voted in favor of amendment No. 2355 offered by Senator 
Johanns.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, my counterpart, Senator Bond, and I 
have been on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon, Thursday evening, 
Friday, and this afternoon and into the evening today. We are waiting 
for Members to bring their amendments to the floor.
  For the information of all Senators, there will not be votes after 3 
o'clock tomorrow, as everybody knows. We intend to finish this bill by 
Wednesday. So there is not a lot of floor time tomorrow.
  If anyone has an amendment, offer it tonight. We will set up the vote 
for tomorrow or Wednesday. Again, we intend to finish this bill by 
Wednesday. So do not expect that your amendments will have time after 
that.
  Again, I ask Members who have amendments to bring them to the floor 
and offer them so we can get them considered and up for a vote.
  Again, it is going to be a short week. We need to get the bill done 
by Wednesday. We ask everybody to please consider that and come and 
offer their amendments so we can get this bill moving.
  Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I rise to offer for the record the 
Budget Committee's official scoring of H.R. 3288, the Departments of 
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies 
Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2010.
  The bill, as reported by the Senate Committee on Appropriations, 
provides $67.7 billion in discretionary budget authority for fiscal 
year 2010, which will result in new outlays of $51.8 billion. When 
outlays from prior-year budget authority are taken into account, 
discretionary outlays for the bill will total $134.5 billion.
  The Senate-reported bill matches its section 302(b) allocation for 
budget authority and is $8 million below its allocation for outlays. No 
budget points of order lie against the committee-reported bill.
  I ask unanimous consent that the table displaying the Budget 
Committee scoring of the bill be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

  H.R. 3288, TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED
                    AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010
  [Spending comparisons--Senate-Reported Bill (in millions of dollars)]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     General
                                          Defense    Purpose     Total
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senate-Reported Bill:
    Budget Authority...................        174     67,526     67,700
    Outlays............................        174    134,287    134,461
Senate 302(b) Allocation:
    Budget Authority...................  .........  .........     67,700
    Outlays............................  .........  .........    134,469
House-Passed Bill:
    Budget Authority...................        174     68,647     68,821
    Outlays............................        174    134,411      4,585
President's Request:\1\
    Budget Authority...................        174     68,696     68,870
    Outlays............................        174    134,829    135,003
 
   Senate-Reported Bill Compared To:
 
Senate 302(b) allocation:
    Budget Authority...................  .........  .........          0
    Outlays............................  .........  .........         -8
House-Passed Bill:
    Budget Authority...................          0     -1,121     -1,121
    Outlays............................          0       -124       -124
President's Request:
    Budget Authority...................          0     -1,170     -1,170
    Outlays............................          0       -542       -542
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ For comparison purposes, Pesident's requested level is adjusted to
  remove $39.45 billion in proposed BA that continues to be classified
  as transportation obligation limitations.
 
Note: Table does not include 2010 outlays stemming from emergency budget
  authority provided in the 2009 Supplemental Appropriations Act (P.L.
  111-32).

  

                          ____________________