[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 497-508]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      INCREASING THE STATUTORY LIMIT ON THE PUBLIC DEBT--Continued

  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 3302

  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I wish to talk a little bit this afternoon 
about the amendment which Senators Conrad and Gregg have proposed and 
which we will be voting on next week. Both of these Senators are very 
well versed, as the chairman and ranking member of the Budget 
Committee, in fiscal policy and in the types of reforms everyone is 
looking for to get a handle on the deficit and the debt this country is 
facing. So it is with some trepidation that I oppose an amendment the 
two of them would offer.
  I hasten to say that both are respected Members of this body who 
approach problems with principle in mind, and in this particular case, 
having talked to Senator Gregg, I know the idea that only by working 
across the aisle with each other and compromising can we hope to deal 
with the most vexing problem that seems to face this body; that is, how 
to deal with the problem of deficit and debt.
  Having acknowledged their good will, however, I have to respectfully 
disagree with the approach they take in their commission. I do it for 
basically three reasons.
  First, I have never found either the House or the Senate in a 
position where they were anxious to cut spending and thereby save 
taxpayer money. I have, on the other hand, seen an effort to raise 
taxes every time we seem to get into a deficit situation. It seems it

[[Page 498]]

is always easier to gather in more taxpayer money than it is to stop 
spending money they have already sent us. The problem with that is, it 
is no longer money they have sent us, it is money we have borrowed from 
other people such as China, for example. That borrowing has costs, 
foreign policy costs as well as interest costs. We eventually have to 
pay it back. Because we have borrowed so much, the Chinese are saying 
we better be careful about how much we have borrowed, and they will 
have to increase interest rates. There is a point at which you cannot 
be a great nation by being in debt to all the folks around the world.
  It is not as if we haven't collected enough taxes. We are now at 
something akin to 23 or 24 percent of our gross domestic product on 
Federal spending. It used to be 18.5 percent or so. It is clear, 
therefore, it is not tax revenues that are the problem. It is spending 
that has gotten out of control. We know that from all these statistics 
a lot of us have been talking about relative to the budget last year 
and the debt ceiling that needs to be raised presumably next week. We 
wouldn't have to raise the debt ceiling by almost $2 trillion if we had 
been more restrained in our spending.
  To put it in perspective, before I move on to the next point, the 
President's budget last year called for more debt in the 5-year period 
of that budget than all the debt that had been accumulated by every 
President of the United States from George Washington through George 
Bush. Think about that for a moment. In 220 years of history, take all 
the debt, including World War I, World War II, the Civil War, pile it 
all up, and this one budget included more debt than that. We double the 
debt in 5 years, triple it in 10 years. That is not responsible. And it 
is not for a lack of Federal revenues. It is not because we are not 
taxing the American people enough. It is because we are spending too 
much. The American people believe that. They understand it. I think it 
is one of the messages from the Massachusetts election.
  When you have a commission that can make recommendations to the 
Congress that we have to, in effect, abide by, that permit either an 
increase in taxes or a reduction in spending to solve the problem, it 
is pretty clear to me which direction we will end up going. We don't 
have the courage to reduce spending so we increase taxes.
  Second, our rules are premised on a fallacy. Unfortunately, I believe 
it will drive the commission because of this fallacy. The fallacy is, 
all the money in the country belongs to the U.S. Government and, 
therefore, if we reduce taxes somewhere, we have to make up that 
reduction in tax revenues somewhere else, either by raising taxes 
somewhere else or cutting spending. Of course, we never cut spending. 
So the idea is you have to raise taxes somewhere. If I want to give the 
American people a tax break by reducing their taxes, I should have the 
right to do that. Congress should be making the rules. We should have 
the right to say: We are going to reduce your tax burden. But under 
existing rules, unless you have 60 votes for a permanent change such as 
that--and even then it is difficult because of our scoring rules--any 
revenue that is lost because of an action we take in reducing taxes has 
to be made up somewhere else in some other way. It has to be offset.
  What that generally means is, since we don't find ways to cut 
spending around here very often, you raise taxes over here to make up 
for the tax revenue lost over here. If I want to reduce the capital 
gains tax by 5 percent, for example, or to give a real-life example, I 
want to reduce the estate tax--and Senator Lincoln and I want to do 
that--I can't do that without ``paying for it.'' We just want to reduce 
the estate tax so that people when they die, their heirs will not have 
to pay as much estate tax. No, you can't do it. You have to make up the 
revenue that you would lose. It is one of the reasons why we don't cut 
taxes around here very much. Because it is hard to find offsetting 
revenue that is acceptable to people.
  To carry this a little further, Senator Lincoln and I would simply 
like to repeal the estate tax. That is not going to happen. So we have 
agreed to a compromise in which we would have a $5 million unified 
credit; that is to say, that is the amount that is exempt from the tax 
and that is per spouse in a family. It would be indexed for inflation 
and then anything that remains above that in the estate would be taxed 
at the rate of 35 percent. That costs a certain amount of money, 
according to the budget scorers. I am not sure how much. Let's say $80 
billion. We have to figure out a way to pay for that. So the question 
is, Is there some other place where we can raise revenue? Ordinarily, 
raising revenue means raising taxes. We don't want to do that. So we 
are relegated to the kind of political games, such as maybe phasing it 
in over time, because it doesn't cost as much if you bring the rates 
down over time, where you gradually increase the unified credit over 
time. That is how we got to the crazy situation we are at today, where 
we had the rate go down over a period of 9 years and then this year it 
went to zero. But next year it goes right back up to 55 percent. So the 
rules we have around here create crazy policy. Yet we are stuck with 
it.
  I am afraid a commission that has the ability to both make tax 
revenue increase recommendations as well as spending reductions will 
not only focus a lot on the taxing side, because it is very hard for 
Congress to reduce spending, but also will be bound by the same rules 
so we will never get tax cuts anymore. Because every time you want to 
decrease a particular tax over here, you will have to raise taxes over 
here. I think we should start from the premise that the money in the 
country belongs to the people. It is their property. The government 
should not take it unless it needs to and unless the people acquiesce 
through their representatives. If Congress decides it wants to take 
less money from the people, for example, so they will have more money 
to invest in small businesses to create jobs and put America back to 
work again, we ought to be able to do that without saying: We are going 
to give you a tax break here, but we are going to have to raise your 
taxes over here by an equivalent amount. If the money belongs to the 
people, we wouldn't have a rule such as that. I think it is very 
elitist and very wrong to essentially start with the proposition that 
the money belongs to Washington so you can never give it back to the 
people without recouping it in some other way. That is the second 
reason why I think this is not a good idea.
  Third, we should be focusing on spending reductions. Everyone talks 
about not spending as much. Yet we have increased spending dramatically 
over the years. One of the reasons why is because our constituents want 
lots of things. If a particular special interest asks for some 
spending, there tends to be political support for that. The opposition 
to it being spread over all the people, in effect being everyone's 
problem, is no one's problem. So you have in spending bills here 
Members who put earmarks in bills or request certain spending, and 
there is a constituency for that. By the way, when I talk about special 
interests, I am not necessarily talking about bad people. Every family 
in America is represented by some special interest. You have veterans 
in the family, and you have the veterans groups supporting them. Does 
anybody think those are bad special interests? If you have farmers, 
they belong to the Farm Bureau. That is not a bad special interest, but 
they may be coming to Washington asking for something specific.
  I was visited today by the head of the police department and fire 
department in my city of Phoenix. Both of them are represented by 
groups in Washington. They are not bad special interests. There are a 
lot of special interests in the country. Because the government is so 
big and so powerful, a lot of what they do consists of persuading 
Washington it should engage in one policy or another because that is 
where all the power is, that is where the money is, and so they have to 
hire lobbyists to come back here. We listen to those special interests. 
Who pays the bill? Our constituents, the taxpayers, who don't have many 
representatives back here.

[[Page 499]]

  There are groups, such as the National Taxpayers Union, for example, 
that keep track of how much money we spend around here. They rate 
Senators based on how much they spend.
  Citizens Against Government Waste is another one. But they are pretty 
general, and they are not specific such as a lot of the special 
interests. What you end up with is a big push to spend money and not 
much of a push to save it.
  When colleagues of mine, such as my friend Tom Coburn or my colleague 
from Arizona, John McCain, come to the floor and criticize earmarks in 
bills, spending they don't think is necessary, they are criticized. Why 
don't you play the game? Why are you creating such a stir? Senator 
Coburn has an amendment we will be taking up next week that says let's 
at least get rid of a whole group of programs that a commission in the 
United States has decided are duplicative and not necessary. I have 
forgotten how many child nutrition programs we have or special 
education programs or job training programs. Probably many more than 
can efficiently spend taxpayer money to do the good things they are set 
up to do. But we never seem to get around to putting more efficiency 
into the system.
  I think it was Ronald Reagan who said the closest thing to 
immortality in the United States is a government program. They are easy 
to create but hard to get rid of.
  When you make deals that if you will just say we will solve the 
deficit problem, we will save money over here if you will raise taxes 
over here--I mentioned Ronald Reagan; I will mention him again. That 
was the deal he cut with Tip O'Neill and the Congress at the time. We 
got the tax increases, but we didn't get the savings. One of the things 
Ronald Reagan always said he regretted was being so naive as to make a 
deal assuming that if he agreed to raise taxes over here, Congress 
would agree to make savings over here. It is hard to do. Congress very 
rarely does it.
  Another problem is, raising taxes for the purpose of raising revenue 
has two problems with it. No. 1, we don't end up saving money. We just 
end up spending it on new things. No. 2, it affects behavior from 
taxpayers in a negative way. If you raise taxes on businesses, for 
example, they will not hire as many people. They will not be able to 
invest as much money in their business. They will probably not make as 
much money. If they don't make as much money, what happens to their tax 
liability to the government? It goes down, not up.
  On the other hand, frequently--and this has been demonstrated 
especially with taxes that have a direct relationship to revenues such 
as the capital gains tax--if you reduce the tax, business activity 
increases, producing more revenue for the government to tax, and 
Federal revenues actually go up. This is not true with all taxes, but 
it is true with some taxes. I mentioned capital gains.
  If you have a high capital gains rate today and businesses are told 
the rate is going to go down next year, do you think you are going to 
see a lot of assets sold this year? You will have hardly any economic 
activity unless it is absolutely necessary. But on January 1 of next 
year, when the rate goes down, you will see all kinds of activity 
because the rate at which that activity is taxed is reduced. By the 
same token, if you have a rate that is low today and you say it is 
going to go up tomorrow, you will see a lot of activity today but not 
much tomorrow. That economic activity is what produces revenue, which 
is what the government taxes. As I said, ironically or paradoxically, a 
lower rate generates more revenue to the Treasury.
  That is what happens when you reduce the capital gains rate.
  I believe if the President were to announce tomorrow he is asking 
Congress to pass legislation to send to him that would fix the marginal 
income tax rates, the dividends rate, the capital gains rate at exactly 
where they are right now, for, let's say, a period of 5 years, the 
certainty that would create--even though some of those rates are too 
high, in my opinion; let that go--the certainty that would create 
because the rates would be known for a period of 5 years--and these, by 
the way, would be the so-called Bush tax cut rates so they would be 
much lower than they would be if they were allowed to go back up 
again--if the President were to do that, I think he would see the stock 
market skyrocket the next day. He would see job creation that would be 
incredible because businesses would know their taxes are not going up, 
that they could afford to hire people, and they would do so.
  On the other hand, when you leave the tax rates in question or hint 
they are going to go up or, in fact, ensure they are going to go up--as 
they did under the health care bill, for example--it is no wonder 
businesses do not create jobs. In the health care bill, we actually 
have a couple payroll tax increases. All tax increases hurt business 
and hurt their ability to invest more and to hire more people, but a 
payroll tax is a direct tax on jobs. It says: The more people you hire, 
the more taxes you are going to pay; the more people you keep on your 
payroll, the higher your tax liability is going to be.
  There is one provision that says, if one of your employees leaves and 
gets a subsidy for the insurance exchange, you have to pay an 8- to 10-
percent payroll tax on all the rest of your employees. That is a job 
killer. Another tax raises, by just under 1 percent, the Medicare 
payroll tax. That is a job killer.
  So there is a relationship between job creation and taxes, economic 
activity and, therefore, revenues to the Federal Treasury and tax 
rates. Tax rates and taxes are not the same thing. You can reduce tax 
rates and actually collect more taxes. Again, it sounds paradoxical, 
but it is true. Think of this analogy: When you go to the store just 
before Christmas and they slash their prices by 40 percent, they are 
not doing that to go out of business. They are still making money. They 
make more money on the volume that increases because a lot more people 
come into the store--even though they have reduced the cost of each of 
the items--than they would if they increased the cost of the items. I 
guarantee you, if they raised their prices just before Christmas, their 
competitors would be reducing their prices, not so they would make less 
money but so they would get more people in, they would have more 
volume, and they would end up making more. That is what happens when 
you reduce certain tax rates when you are the Federal Government. You 
actually increase your revenue.
  So I am very reluctant to support a commission which I believe will 
undertake to reduce our deficit by raising tax rates. It is not good 
for job creation. It is not good for the economy. It is not good for 
families, of course. Ironically, I do not even think it is good for the 
Federal Government, but I mostly do not think it is because, at the end 
of the day, we always have the courage to talk big about cutting 
spending, but we do not do it.
  I will close with this. The last budget increased the funding for the 
departments of government dramatically at a time when we are in a deep 
recession. Families are having to cut their budgets. Yet you go to the 
Department of Agriculture, and I think it was a 23-percent increase or 
26-percent increase, about the same for the Department of State and so 
on. I think the average was over 12 percent. Only the Defense 
Department took a hit.
  I think that says something else we need to be very careful of. It is 
one thing for a commission that is not elected by the people to have 
the specific goal of reducing the deficit. It is quite another to have 
the perspective of all the matters Members of Congress have to pay 
attention to in making decisions that offset each other or that take 
into account the needs across the entire spectrum of government.
  It would be very bad, indeed, if we were not able to factor into our 
decisions, for example, the need to increase Defense spending next 
year. Because it got hit last year, it is going to have to be 
increased. I daresay, I hope and I almost predict the administration 
will find a way to increase in its budget this year Defense spending 
because it

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cannot be sustained at the level it is. Yet if we were having to cut 
spending across the board, that would be difficult to do.
  That is what we are elected to do as Members of the House and the 
Senate. As hard as that job is, we should be doing it to adequately 
represent our constituents. I understand the argument we need some help 
sometimes, and, frankly, I support some alternatives to what I am 
talking about. Senator Sessions and Senator McCaskill, for example, 
have an amendment which I support because it focuses on spending. It 
starts with the 2010 budget, which is more than I would like to start 
with, but at least it says spending has to be constrained relative to 
that budget.
  I think there will be another amendment that relates to spending 
which focuses on other ways to save money. Senator Brownback, for 
example, similar to Senator Coburn, has talked about trying to end 
duplicate programs or Departments or agencies or programs or 
commissions whose job is finished and we do not need them anymore, for 
example. Those are the kinds of things I think we need to look at, and 
we can save big money if we do.
  The final point I wish to make is, some say: Well, isn't this a 
little bit like the health care commission that would reduce Medicare 
spending? The answer is, there is a similarity at least in concept. The 
idea in the health care commission, though, is to reduce spending 
primarily by reducing what we pay doctors and hospitals and other 
health care providers. That is a tough way to reduce Medicare spending 
and still provide the services our senor citizens deserve.
  The way it should be done is to find the so-called waste, fraud, and 
abuse--and that is easier said than done. No one denies it is there. 
But we have had decades to get to the problem, and if we could, we 
would be doing it right now. I have no doubt if President Obama knew he 
could save $100 billion by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, he 
would have gotten about the job by now, and he would not be waiting to 
see what kind of provisions we put in a health care bill before 
starting the job.
  The private sector cannot afford to waste that much money. Federal 
bureaucrats, as hard as they work, do not have the responsibility. It 
is somebody else's money. It is everybody else's problem. It is not my 
problem. In the private sector, they cannot afford to do that. It is 
one reason the insurance companies get criticized, because they have 
people making sure they do not pay claims that should not be paid, and 
sometimes they are criticized for that kind of activity. Their 
administrative costs are a little bit higher than the government's 
because of that. They hire people to make sure they do not have a lot 
of waste, fraud, and abuse. So the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse 
against the insurance companies is pretty low, and they are able to 
stay in business as a result.
  With the Federal Government, you have the sort of ``Did you ever wash 
a rental car?'' syndrome, where it is somebody else's money, you do not 
have to be as careful about protecting it, and, as a result, there is a 
huge amount of money lost in government programs, such as the Medicare 
Program, for example.
  The amendments Senators Sessions and McCaskill are presenting and, I 
believe, Senator Brownback and some others will be presenting are going 
to focus on how we can actually save money in the way I am talking 
about, rather than cutting services, because that is the wrong way to 
save money, if they are essential services, as the Medicare services 
are. That is the distinction between those two items that I think is 
important to draw.
  So the bottom line: The people who are proposing this commission idea 
are very well motivated and I respect their position. Reasonable people 
can differ about the wisdom of what they are proposing. I would prefer 
to, first, focus on whether we could actually reduce spending with a 
little help from a commission or some other kind of group, depending 
upon which of the amendments you want to adopt that actually identifies 
where we can save the money and force us to act upon that. I would 
rather do that first than to start out with the proposition that we can 
do it through tax increases because that is a sure way to hurt economic 
recovery, prevent job creation, take more property and freedom from the 
American people and, potentially, in the long run, provide for less 
revenue to the Federal Government.
  A friend of mine always likes to say: There is a rate. Well, there 
are two rates, he says, at which the government collects exactly no 
revenue: zero and 100. It is true. If you set a very high tax rate, you 
are going to get very little of whatever it is you are taxing. If you 
want economic activity that represents economic growth in this country 
and a high standard of living and a lot of job creation, you cannot 
achieve that by imposing a lot of taxes, even if you were not worried 
about the deficit. The way to solve that problem is to stop spending 
money rather than trying to take more money from the American people.
  Madam President, I 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. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                    Today's Citizen United Decision

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I want to share a few thoughts at this 
time about the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal 
Election Commission, which was announced today. Some comments were made 
about the decision in the Judiciary Committee earlier today, and some 
of those comments were critical of the decision. I just want to say 
that I think it is a sound decision, a decision that is consistent with 
our Constitution and the first amendment.
  I know sometimes people are irritated by seeing ads on television. I 
know politicians are not happy when people run ads against them. But 
this is a free country. We are not immune to criticism and people 
seeking to promote their point of view throughout our Nation. I think 
the Supreme Court's opinion today deals with the reality of free speech 
that simply is not going away.
  In Citizens United, the Court overruled two recent precedents that 
had themselves undermined and were inconsistent with this Nation's long 
tradition of protecting political speech. In doing so, the Court 
recognized that political speech is protected by the first amendment 
regardless of whether the speaker is an individual or is acting in 
corporate form. Over the years, there have been some dubious arguments 
made under the first amendment, such as arguments that pornography, and 
even child pornography, are protected under the free speech clause; 
however, there can be no doubt that the Founding Fathers, when they 
wrote the Constitution, contemplated the protection of people's right 
to have robust a political debate. There can also be no doubt that 
robust political debate includes criticizing political candidates when 
they are running for office.
  The decision today was an interesting matter. It shows how far some 
congressionally passed laws reach. The decision may indicate that 
sometimes these bills reach farther than we intended for them to reach 
when we wrote them. For example, the Citizens United case revolved 
around a film that was critical of one of the main candidates in the 
2008 Presidential election. A group called Citizens United produced the 
film, and they wanted to broadcast it; however, under the recent so-
called bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, it was illegal for Citizens 
United to broadcast the film during the 30 days before the election 
because the group had received money from U.S. corporations. Citizens 
United became the plaintiffs in a lawsuit and, eventually, the question 
of whether Congress could constitutionally prohibit them from 
broadcasting the film wound up before the Supreme Court.
  I think Chief Justice Roberts, correctly summed up the holding of 
today's opinion in his concurrence. We

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will probably talk more about it in detail as we go forward and have a 
little more time to examine it, but he says:

       Congress violates the First Amendment when it decrees that 
     some speakers may not engage in political speech at election 
     time, when it matters most.

  Or, as Justice Scalia characterized today's holding in his concurring 
opinion:

       A documentary film, critical of a potential presidential 
     candidate is core political speech, and its nature as such 
     does not change simply because it was funded by a 
     corporation.

  We hear speech that irritates and frustrates us a lot of times, but 
we have to put up with it because it is a free country in which we 
live. I would not want anyone putting a film like the one at issue in 
Citizens United out against me, but it is a free country, and I don't 
think it is justified to say that Americans who come together in some 
corporate body can no longer speak.
  I will just add that the current administration has been a bit 
insensitive about this matter. We had the incidents earlier in the year 
when an insurance company published material to people they insured 
that pointed out criticisms of the health care bill. The administration 
tried to get a federal agency to threaten them with a loss of business 
if they didn't stop expressing an opinion. The insurance company was 
engaged in a business impacted by the bill. The people they were 
communicating with bought this kind of insurance coverage. I think they 
had every right as free Americans to send out a notice that said: This 
is not good for our company or for you, we think.
  They are not allowed to do this? They are going to be threatened by 
the White House with punishment if they communicate to the people with 
whom they do business? That is no little matter. We have to get our 
heads straight. The first amendment protects speech--real substantive 
speech--about important issues, issues like health insurance and who is 
going to be elected President. And it protects them regardless of 
whether the speaker is an individual or whether the speaker is acting 
in corporate form.
  Justice Scalia dissented in McConnell v. FEC, a 2005 case that was 
reversed by the court's opinion today, and Justice Scalia has a knack 
for going straight to the heart of the matter. In that dissent he 
wrote:

       In the modern world, giving the government power to exclude 
     corporations from the political debate enables it effectively 
     to muffle the voices that best represent the most significant 
     segments of the economy and the most passionately held social 
     and political views.

  He goes on to say:

       People who associate--who pool their financial resources--
     for purposes of economic enterprise overwhelmingly do so in 
     the corporate form; and with increasing frequency, 
     incorporation is chosen by those who associate to defend and 
     promote particular ideas--such as the American Civil 
     Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association, parties 
     to these cases.

  I agree with Justice Scalia. We cannot allow the government to 
suppress speech simply because it is near an election time and 
corporations have given some money to put it on. I think that is not 
healthy. In fact, I think our whole approach to constricting and 
limiting people in pooling their money and running ads is clearly in 
conflict with the first amendment.
  I would just say this: The Supreme Court made it clear that all the 
limits we have placed on corporations giving to political campaigns 
were not struck down. That is a separate issue, I suppose, but the 
issue the Supreme Court decided in its opinion today is a very 
important one. We have had a debate on this issue for a long time. We 
have roared about it in this Senate for many years, and people have 
passionately argued about the first amendment and whether some of our 
laws mean an evisceration of it.
  I used to say in my speeches that I just don't think it is right to 
tell an American, or even a group of Americans who come together in 
corporate form, that they can't buy an ad, even on the eve of an 
election, and say that Jeff Sessions is bad for our business, bad for 
our State, bad for our Nation, and ought to be thrown out of office. It 
can, perhaps, be a problem sometimes--if someone took out an ad like I 
just described I might think it is a problem--but the balancing test we 
use is the plain language of the first amendment, and it says that the 
right to free speech shall not be abridged. That right is important. We 
incur great danger when we say: Well, you can talk, but we are not 
going to let you make a political message 30 days before the campaign. 
You can contribute but only under our rules. A clear case can be made 
that the law at issue in Citizens United favored political incumbents. 
It gave an advantage to politicians already in office, who have an edge 
in obtaining individual, ``hard money'' contributions. I myself am an 
incumbent--I myself have been fortunate enough to receive many such 
contributions--but that does not change the clear mandate of our 
Constitution. I think the Supreme Court's opinion should be respected 
for the fact that it takes the text of the first amendment very 
seriously. The opinion addresses very fundamental questions about what 
power politicians in Washington have to constrict the right of 
Americans, either individually or corporately, to defend their interest 
and speak out. That freedom is fundamental to the preservation of our 
Constitution.
  Think about it. The New York Times. What is the New York Times? Is it 
a corporation? Yes, it is. Can the New York Times run an editorial 
every day saying they don't like this party or they don't like this 
Senator and criticize them repeatedly? Why, sure they can. But can Ford 
Motor Company defend its interests? Can it run an ad and say: We are 
getting a little bit tired of the Federal Government giving another $3 
billion to General Motors Acceptance Corporation and we don't get any 
money from the Federal Government to help Ford Motor Credit. Under the 
law the Supreme Court was dealing with in Citizens United the answer 
was no. That was wrong, and it threatened our Constitution. Under our 
constitution people ought to be free to push back and defend their 
interests, whether they do it individually or through a corporation. 
Otherwise, I think it allows us in Washington to appropriate power to 
ourselves--the power to benefit one another and avoid being criticized 
for it. I think that is the exact opposite of the robust political 
debate the Founding Fathers intended.
  That is my two cents' worth. I think the case is one of significance. 
It is one we have debated here for so long. I know Senator McConnell, 
the Republican leader, has been so eloquent and consistent for probably 
15 years in debating this issue. In many ways, this opinion validates 
some of the principal constitutional arguments he made.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. BURRIS. Madam President, for the past few days I have heard a 
number of my colleagues come to the floor to discuss whether this 
Congress should vote to raise the limit on the national debt. As this 
debate has unfolded, I am beginning to hear a familiar refrain from my 
friends on the other side of the aisle. Instead of offering 
constructive criticism or original ideas of their own, my Republican 
colleagues keep returning to the same irresponsible politics and empty 
rhetoric that got us into this mess in the first place. They seek to 
shift the blame and hold Democrats responsible for the failed policies 
that led us to this point.
  The American people remember who really is responsible. In 2001, at 
the end of the last Democratic administration, our country enjoyed a 
$236 billion budget surplus with a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion 
over the next decade. But then Republicans took control of the Congress 
and the White House. Were they good stewards of the surplus left to us 
by the Clinton administration? Were they? Did they spend only what 
America could afford? Were they responsible with our pocketbook? After 
all, the decade is over. I ask, so where is the $5.6 trillion surplus?
  It is nowhere to be found. Republicans squandered our surplus by 
spending wildly on massive tax breaks for the wealthy and the special 
interests. They tried to place the blame on President Obama, but the 
reality is that

[[Page 502]]

this President inherited a massive deficit of $1.3 trillion on the day 
he took office last year. Now, as we try to clean up the mess we have 
inherited, our Republican friends are trying to pass the buck. They 
seem to be more interested in scoring political points than making 
sound policy.
  Who is going to be hurt if we don't extend this debt? We are all 
going to be hurt. It is not going to be Democrats who are hurt. It is 
not going to be Republicans. Every American is going to be hurt.
  We need to raise the debt limit so that America can avoid the 
economic catastrophe that would be created if the United States 
defaulted on its debt. If we fail to take action now, our Nation's 
credit would be undermined, our economy would be further weakened, and 
important programs, such as Social Security and veterans' benefits, 
would be at grave risk. Raising the debt limit is the only responsible 
course of action at this time. It would not authorize one penny of new 
spending, but it would allow us to pay the bills we have already 
incurred. We ate the meal. We had the dinner. Now we have to pay the 
check.
  I am asking my Republican friends to join us on this measure. I am 
asking them to take responsibility for the mess they helped create and 
to be a part of the solution, rather than leaving other people to clean 
up their mistakes.
  During the years when they were in control, Senate Republicans voted 
seven times to increase the debt limit. They refused to pay for major 
initiatives. They cut revenues and increased spending. It did not take 
a financial expert to recognize that this was just plain irresponsible. 
So when our Republican colleagues talk about fiscal responsibility, 
they are talking about an issue on which they have absolutely no 
credibility. Their record simply does not match their rhetoric. This 
demonstrates yet again that they do not have a plan to solve the 
economic challenges they helped create.
  I believe it is time to move forward. Let's be honest with the 
American people. Let's work together to solve this problem rather than 
hiding behind the same irresponsible policies that got us here in the 
first place.
  I call on my friends across the aisle to join us in passing this 
measure. This should not be a partisan issue. We all have a 
responsibility to keep this Nation on the road to economic recovery, 
and if we do not extend this debt ceiling, what will the consequences 
to the American people be? It is essential that we get an extension of 
this debt ceiling and that we pass this legislation and that we be 
responsible as we go forward in our programs and policies of spending 
so that we will not have to be back here time and time again talking 
about raising the debt ceiling. We must get it under control at this 
time because if we do not, a catastrophe could be overwhelming and we 
may not even recover from it.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burris). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                          Global War on Terror

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as the Senate reconvenes in a new 
calendar year, it is hard not to notice that many of the toughest 
challenges we face in 2010 have been with us for a long time. Among the 
toughest and most persistent of these is the ongoing global war on 
terror. More than 8 years have now passed since September 11, 2001. Yet 
we are reminded every day of the need to remain as vigilant now as we 
were in the weeks and months after that terrible day.
  This fact was recently brought home to us in a vivid way when a 
Nigerian-born terrorist attempted to kill nearly 300 innocent people in 
the skies over Detroit on Christmas Day. What could have been a 
terrible tragedy became instead an urgent reminder to remain focused--a 
wake-up call, if you will.
  But even before Abdulmutallab boarded the plane, many Americans had 
already begun to wonder whether we had become too slack over the past 
year in the fight against terrorism.
  And who could blame them? Time and again, the administration has made 
decisions that suggest a pre-9/11 mindset of prosecution over 
prevention--decisions which have left most Americans scratching their 
heads and concluding that some of the administration's priorities are 
dangerously out of whack. Most Americans did not understand why the 
administration was in such a rush to close Guantanamo, for example, 
before it had a plan for dealing with the dangerous detainees who were 
held there. Most did not see why classified memos detailing 
interrogation techniques that had saved American lives were made public 
and thus available to the very people we are trying to keep from 
harming us. And most recently, most people were shocked again when we 
treated the Christmas Day bomber not as a potentially rich source of 
intelligence for stopping future attacks but as a common criminal who 
needed a lawyer. We should have gotten every bit of information we 
could have about this man's plans, his connections, and his cronies in 
al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula. Instead, the administration placed a 
higher priority on reading him his Miranda rights and on getting him a 
lawyer.
  Even more outrageous is the administration's plan for getting 
information out of the Christmas Day bomber, offering him a plea 
bargain and a hope he will talk. These are just some of the signs that 
when it comes to prosecuting the war on terror, the administration has 
caused the pendulum to swing too far in the wrong direction.
  No one denies a balance must be struck between preserving civil 
liberties and protecting the homeland. No one wants to sacrifice one 
for the other. But in many cases, all that is involved is a simple 
question of judgment. When a judgment call has to be made, our 
priorities should be clear: Keeping Americans safe should always--
always--win out.
  Over the past year, the administration has grappled with these 
questions. It sought to find the right balance. In some cases, it has 
gotten it wrong. In others, it has been quite sensible. The President 
was clear and convincing, for example, when he explained our goals in 
Afghanistan last December--to deny al-Qaida a safe haven, to reverse 
the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to control population 
centers, and to strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security 
forces and government so that they can take the lead and take 
responsibility for Afghanistan's future. The President had it exactly 
right. But Americans know that in this fight, in the global war on 
terror, getting the strategy partly right will only lead to partial 
success. As the attempted Christmas Day bombing showed all too plainly, 
partial success isn't good enough.
  So today I would like to discuss some of my own impressions of how 
our mission is going in the place where the attacks of September 11, 
2001, were launched, and to describe the mission within the broader 
context of the global war that extends to places such as Yemen and to 
our own borders because success in one place overseas could easily be 
undermined by neglect in another, and success in both could still be 
undermined by neglect at home. We simply cannot prevail in this fight 
if we treat the various elements of it as separate events or if we fail 
to restore the proper balance between safety and civil liberties.
  As the years wear on, it is easy for some to forget why we are still 
committing young men and women to fight in far off places such as 
Afghanistan or why our national security interests demand that we 
prevail. That is why it is important for us to recall that al-Qaida and 
other extremists were at war with the United States long before the 
attacks of 9/11.
  The World Trade Center had been attacked 8 full years before the 19 
hijackers destroyed it on September 11, 2001. The Khobar Towers bombing 
in 1996 killed 19 U.S. military personnel and injured hundreds more. 
Thousands

[[Page 503]]

were injured and hundreds were killed, including a dozen Americans, in 
the East Africa Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998. 
That same year, Osama bin Laden declared that ``the judgment to kill 
and fight Americans and their allies, whether civilian or military, is 
an obligation for every Muslim who is able to do so in any country.'' A 
year before 
9/11, al-Qaida attacked the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors and injuring 
dozens more.
  So 9/11 may have been the day we realized the consequences of 
inaction, but the pattern of attacks leading up to that day is 
undeniably clear. From the first days after 9/11, our strategy has been 
the same: to deny al-Qaida and its affiliates sanctuary and to deny 
them a staging ground from which they could plan or launch another 
attack on U.S. soil. This is why we resolved shortly after 9/11 to rid 
Afghanistan of the Taliban which had harbored al-Qaida and its leader 
Osama bin Laden.
  We had early successes in that effort. By November 2001, the Taliban 
had been driven from Kabul. Soon after that, an international body met 
to name an interim government in Afghanistan to be led by its current 
president, Hamid Karzai.
  But despite that early success, al-Qaida's senior leadership was able 
to find a safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas, and a few years later 
it had regained enough strength to once again pose a serious threat to 
the United States. Meanwhile, the Taliban had reestablished its 
headquarters in Pakistan and gained enough strength as a result of 
inadequate Afghan security forces and poor governance to return to 
Afghanistan and to risk success to our mission there.
  By last year, the situation had grown so perilous that our then 
recently appointed top general in Afghanistan, GEN Stanley McChrystal, 
issued a report stating that our failure to gain the initiative and 
reverse the momentum of the Taliban within 12 months could make 
defeating the insurgency impossible. It was largely as a result of that 
assessment that the President agreed last year to send 30,000 more 
troops to Afghanistan.
  Earlier this month, I and some of my colleagues had the opportunity 
to visit Afghanistan and Pakistan to assess the situation on the ground 
firsthand. Among other things, we saw progress in the crucial southern 
provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. Although still in the early phases, 
General McChrystal's plan to clear these areas of Taliban, hold 
terrain, control the population, build Afghan security forces, and 
establish a viable government for future and long-term stability shows 
early signs of success, not unlike the kind of success during the surge 
in Iraq.
  The Taliban continues to put up a fight. As recently as last week, 
Taliban leaders accused NATO forces of defiling the Koran, a charge 
that led to major protests in Garmsir. This Monday, the Taliban 
demonstrated its lethality when it launched an attack against the heart 
of the government in Kabul. But the bottom line is this: Our commitment 
and that of our partners has given Afghanistan and its government a 
chance to succeed. While ultimate success is far from certain, every 
member of our delegation was impressed with the quality of the people 
we have sent to Afghanistan and with the strategy that General 
McChrystal has put in place.
  Pakistan must do its part. The ultimate success of our mission in 
Afghanistan depends upon the continued efforts of the Government of 
Pakistan to fight extremist networks in the tribal areas. Over the last 
year, Pakistan has waged aggressive campaigns in the Swat Valley and in 
South Waziristan. After meeting with the Pakistani Army's chief of 
staff and with Prime Minister Gilani, we concluded they genuinely 
believe their national interests will be served in defeating the 
Pakistani Taliban. Still, action against the Quetta Shura, the 
leadership of the Afghan Taliban harbored just across the border in 
neighboring Pakistan, isn't likely to occur until the Pakistanis are 
convinced--convinced--that the United States has the endurance to 
remain committed in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and to defeat the 
Taliban in Afghanistan as well. In this regard, the leaders we spoke to 
in both countries were clearly troubled by the Obama administration's 
announced deadline of July 2011 for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
  We saw firsthand on our trip that the fight in Afghanistan and 
Pakistan is difficult, and the situation is fragile. But complicating 
matters even further is the resilience and determination of al-Qaida 
and its affiliates, and we must not fail to appreciate all the 
implications of this. In this regard, the administration showed a 
shocking lack of common sense when it failed to treat the Christmas Day 
bomber as an enemy combatant, instead reading him his Miranda rights 
and giving him a lawyer.
  As I said earlier, in my view, the administration has on a number of 
instances struck the wrong balance over the past year between safety 
and civil liberties. Its preference for prosecuting a terrorist like 
the Christmas Day bomber in civilian courts shows a dangerous 
preoccupation with prosecution over prevention, just as its hasty 
decision to close Guantanamo showed a preoccupation with symbolism over 
security.
  But whether it is Guantanamo, interrogation memos, or prosecuting 
terrorists in civilian courts, many of the administration's priorities 
in this fight appear to be dangerously misplaced. Take the case of 
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Here is the man who admits to planning the most 
catastrophic terrorist attack in U.S. history--nearly 3,000 people dead 
on our own soil in a single day. Yet once in court, he will enjoy all 
the rights and privileges of an American citizen. Classified 
information may be compromised, as it has been many times before in 
such cases. The consequences are easy to imagine.
  Trying KSM in a civilian court makes even less sense in light of the 
fact the administration has decided to prosecute other foreign 
terrorists in a military commission, creating a baffling scenario in 
which those who target innocent people in the homeland are treated 
better than those who attack a military target overseas.
  The administration also needs to ensure that our intelligence 
professionals and men and women in uniform are free to gather 
intelligence from detainees wherever they are captured. A U.S. marine 
assigned to a NATO-led security and development mission in Afghanistan 
shouldn't have to release or turn over a captured terrorist within 96 
hours, as is now the case, nor should the Christmas Day bomber be 
treated as a common criminal at home when the nation where he met his 
al-Qaida handlers, Yemen, is actively pursuing al-Qaida in the Arabian 
Peninsula.
  The intelligence community must be able to gather information from 
detainees in a way that is lawful and which protects American lives. 
Equilibrium between safety and civil liberties must be restored, and 
currently it is not, in my view. A plea bargain for a terrorist who 
tried to blow a plane out of the sky on Christmas Day? It is wrong to 
think that al-Qaida would not use a civilian courtroom in New York or a 
long-term detention facility inside the United States for the same 
recruiting and propaganda purposes for which they have used other 
courts and Guantanamo in the past. This fact alone eliminates the 
administration's only justification for closing Guantanamo--that it was 
some kind of recruitment tool.
  We need a place to send terrorists like the Christmas Day bomber--and 
that place is not a civilian courtroom or a prison in the Midwest. Once 
here, these terrorists will enjoy new legal rights, including, quite 
possibly, the right to be released into our country, as one Federal 
judge previously ordered with respect to a group of detainees from 
GTMO.
  The war on al-Qaida will continue for years to come. In order to 
prevail, we must not only remain focused on the threat but also reliant 
on the reasonable tools that have served us well in the past. For 
example, now is not the time to experiment with the PATRIOT Act. We 
should clearly reauthorize its expiring provisions rather than 
eliminate one of them, sunset another, and

[[Page 504]]

tinker with those that remain, as the administration or some of its 
congressional allies propose.
  As we continue to pursue this global network, we will rely more 
heavily on intelligence personnel, a point that was recently 
underscored by the December 30 suicide attack that killed seven CIA 
employees in Afghanistan. We mourn the loss of these brave Americans. 
Their sacrifice, along with the attempted Christmas Day bombing and the 
recent plot to attack the New York subway system, reminds us that the 
threat from al-Qaida and other extremists to our homeland has not--I 
repeat, not--diminished.
  But in its eagerness to distinguish its own policies from those of 
the past, the administration has gone way too far. The reaction to the 
attempted Christmas Day bombing offered conclusive proof. Hoping that 
terrorists are incompetent is not enough to defeat them; and showing 
more concern about their Miranda rights than the right of Americans to 
be safe suggests a fundamental and dangerous shift in the priorities 
since 9/11.
  The good news is this: The administration is doing the right thing in 
Afghanistan. If it recognizes some of its errors in the broader fight, 
there is good reason to hope historians will look back on 2010 as the 
turning point not only in our fight with the Taliban but also as the 
year in which America achieved a balance in the war against al-Qaida.
  Soon we will have an opportunity to make a good first step in the 
direction of bipartisan balance. Once the Congress receives the war 
funding request from the Defense Department and the administration, the 
Senate can demonstrate a new unity of purpose by quickly considering 
this legislation. This would signal our resolve not only to Americans 
but to our allies and to our forces in the field. This is not too much 
to hope for, and it is not too much to expect. Bipartisanship is not 
always easy to come by in Washington, but in the war on terror it is 
necessary, and in my view it is achievable.
  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. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              the economy

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight for two purposes. One is to 
talk about the state of our economy, the challenges we face but also 
the obligations we have to address those challenges, and, secondly, to 
speak for a couple minutes tonight about our brothers and sisters in 
Haiti and, in particular, children in Haiti.
  Let me start with our economy here at home. We got word today in 
Pennsylvania--this is a newspaper story, an AP story, 3:52 p.m. The 
headline on this very brief story from the wire services is as follows. 
I know it cannot be read from that distance. But the headline is: ``Pa. 
Jobless Rate Up, Jobs at Most Scarce in Decade.''
  It says:

       A new report says that jobs in Pennsylvania were harder to 
     find in December than they have been in more than a decade.

  It goes on to talk about the unemployment rate jumping up four-tenths 
of a percent, to 8.9 percent. That is disturbing in a lot of ways. 
First of all, not just the rate, because sometimes when we look at the 
unemployment rate, it does not tell the whole story. Sometimes it 
undercounts the people who are not looking for work, and sometimes the 
numbers do not make sense.
  What it means in real terms, in numerical terms, I should say, real 
people, it means that in Pennsylvania, there are well more than half a 
million people out of work. I cannot even imagine what those numbers 
look like proportionally, when you have States where the unemployment 
rate is 10 percent, 11 percent, 12 percent, and even higher in some 
States.
  So it is bad enough in a State such as ours when you have 8.9 
percent, what that translates into in terms of real life, real 
families, and the horrific impact of this recession. I cite that 
number, several of those numbers for a very basic reason. A lot of 
folks around here are looking for messages from the recent election in 
Massachusetts or they are looking for messages from the election of 
this past November.
  I do not think you need to go very far or do a lot of election 
analysis to know one of the central and overarching messages I have 
heard in Pennsylvania--and I am sure others have as well--and that 
message is this: The American people want us to focus on job creation 
right now. They do not want to hear about some long-term plan, a 
multiyear plan to create jobs. They want us to put on the table, to 
enact into law, strategic, short-term, effective job creation 
strategies that will have the effect of incentivizing small businesses 
to hire more employees.
  The idea that I and others in the Senate have is a job creation tax 
credit. If you are a small business--in this case we drew the line at 
100 or less; I know that is not often the dividing line--if they 
qualify, they get a 20-percent tax credit; higher than 100 employees, a 
15-percent tax credit.
  That kind of targeted and specific strategy for 1 year--this is a 1-
year bill we are about to introduce--will have that effect. It is one 
of several things we have to do on job creation.
  We have to have strategies, for example, that have as their intended 
target the positive impact on small business. All across Pennsylvania--
and I think this is true across the country--it is not just the 
question of the unemployment rate going up and joblessness increasing, 
it is small business owners--I do not care where they are from--coming 
to us and telling us: Please help us with obtaining access to credit. 
There is no way a small business can grow if they cannot borrow. Our 
whole system is predicated on borrowing money so you can invest in a 
new plant and equipment, borrow money so you can hire another employee 
or two or three or more.
  If they do not have access to credit, this economy cannot create jobs 
and grow jobs at a fast enough pace. So that has to be our focus. We 
also have to understand, as best we can from the distance of Washington 
and the security we feel here, most people in the Federal Government 
and certainly individual Members of the Senate do not have to worry 
about health care. They have it. They do not have to worry about a 
paycheck. They are getting that.
  But even in those secure circumstances, we have to do everything we 
can to understand what real people are up against, what they are up 
against every day when they wake up in the morning. Even if they have a 
job, sometimes the costs that are impacting their budget, the costs of 
paying for health care, the costs of higher education, the costs just 
to make ends meet in their daily lives have never been more tested, 
never been more of a severe challenge.
  So part of it is enacting job creation strategies, but that is not 
enough. Part of it is also speaking directly to the needs and the 
concerns and the anxiety and the sense of insecurity a lot of Americans 
feel. That is our No. 1 obligation.
  I think, in addition to that, we should pass health care legislation. 
We do not know how that will happen in light of the new political 
realities here in Washington. But I think we need to do that as well.
  But no matter what happened in the elections, no matter what happens 
on the issue of health care, job creation has to be the No. 1 priority, 
second to none, in terms of the work we do here in Washington.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this very brief 
wire service story about the unemployment situation in Pennsylvania.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           PA Jobless Rate Up, Jobs at Most Scarce in Decade

                 [From the Associated Press, Jan. 2010]

       Harrisburg, PA. (AP)--A new report says jobs in 
     Pennsylvania were--harder to find in December than they have 
     been in more than a decade.

[[Page 505]]

       The state Department of Labor and Industry said Thursday 
     that statewide unemployment jumped to 8.9 percent last month.
       The October rate also was 8.9 percent, the highest level in 
     25 years, before dipping to 8.5 percent in November.
       The department says employers eliminated about 8,100 jobs 
     in December, leaving Pennsylvania with fewer than 5.6 million 
     jobs--the lowest level since September 1999.
       The state's unemployment rate is below the national average 
     of 10 percent. Among the 10 most populous states, only Texas' 
     rate is lower.

  Mr. CASEY. Let me conclude this part of my remarks by speaking for a 
couple minutes about what we have done in this past year: The Recovery 
and Reinvestment Act, known by--as many things are here--the acronym 
AARA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Those two words in 
the middle are very important, the word ``recovery'' and the word 
``reinvestment'' because that is the intended effect of that 
legislation. It was the right legislation--not perfect but the right 
legislation--at the right time at the beginning or the early months of 
2009.
  But there are a lot of Americans who believe it is not being 
implemented fast enough. The jump-starting effect of the spending, 
whether it is on infrastructure or energy efficiency or investments in 
education, investments in health care, tax cuts for 95 percent of the 
American people, which was in the recovery bill, that all of that is 
not moving fast enough.
  So one of the jobs we have, in addition to new strategies on job 
creation, is to implement, at a faster pace, at a faster rate, the 
recovery bill. I also believe we should remind ourselves that the 
recovery bill was not a 10-month bill. We are in about the 10th month 
right now.
  But the spending that will create the jump-start of a positive 
economic effect is supposed to take place over 2 and 3 years, depending 
on the program, depending upon the initiative. So one of the things we 
have to do is push the recovery bill aggressively to make sure those 
investments, whether they are recovery, getting our economy out of the 
ditch, so to speak, and moving down the road or whether they are 
expenditures that relate to reinvestment, reinvestment in people 
skills, reinvestment in their opportunities to have higher education, 
reinvestment or investment, in some cases, in people's ability to 
recover from this recession, unemployment insurance, COBRA health 
insurance extensions, food stamps. All those are critically important 
to our recovery.
  For those who say: Well, I do not like when we spend money on 
unemployment insurance or food stamps--we get that criticism from folks 
once in a while--they should understand there is no comparison, at 
least according to the economist Mark Zandi, there is no comparison 
between tax cuts for wealthy folks versus unemployment insurance, food 
stamps, and other strategies in terms of their positive impact on the 
economy.
  By one measurement that Mark Zandi pointed to, bang for the buck, if 
you spend a buck on unemployment insurance or spend a buck on food 
stamps, you get a return above $1.50, you get as high as $1.60 to $1.70 
in return. You cannot say that, according to his analysis, with regard 
to some of the tax cut policies we have seen here.
  So investments in vulnerable Americans who are trying to recover from 
the recession--food stamps and unemployment insurance being the two 
best examples--those investments actually have a return to the taxpayer 
as well.
  So what do we need to do? We have to focus on job creation. When we 
focus on that legislation, it should have a couple component parts or 
elements. First of all, stabilizing that safety net for vulnerable 
Americans which I just spoke of. Secondly, supporting small business in 
a very direct and targeted way. Investing and investing more in 
infrastructure, including broadband infrastructure, which is another 
kind of knowledge infrastructure and, finally, building a clean energy 
economy. If we continue to do that, we will create jobs, we will keep 
our environment clean, we will reduce our dependance on foreign oil and 
literally make us more secure from a national security standpoint.
  I think a major part of job creation, in the short term, has to be a 
job creation tax credit.


                            HAITIAN ORPHANS

  Mr. President, over the past week, we have witnessed the immense 
destruction that the earthquake in Haiti and its subsequent aftershocks 
have wrought on the Haitian people. Old and young, rich and poor, weak 
and strong, no matter who you are, this earthquake has brought 
heartache and sadness to numerous lives.
  First, I want to send my condolences to the people of Haiti and their 
family and friends around the world who lost loved ones in this 
tragedy. I also want to send my condolences to our brave men and women 
in the U.S. Embassy who also have lost loved ones, but who are 
continuing to help the people of Haiti and Americans in Haiti in the 
midst of this natural disaster. These individuals represent the very 
best of what America encompasses.
  I am proud that as soon as this earthquake struck our southern 
neighbor, the U.S. Government as well as the American people galvanized 
their resources to ensure that resources were delivered for people who 
have lost everything.
  Today, I come to the floor to speak about a specific population that 
has been and will continue to be affected by this disaster, the most 
vulnerable population of all, Haitian orphans. Before the earthquake, 
these children were looking for families, for people to love them and 
for people to love. This quest has not changed; however, their tenuous 
situation in life only further deteriorated after the earthquake. While 
I know that everyone has suffered so much, these children are without 
the natural protection that parents provide. Therefore, it is our duty 
to be their voice and to make sure that if they survived the earthquake 
that they also survive this critical period of time while resources are 
trying to be delivered and a sense or order is trying to be restored.
  This weekend several of my constituents have contacted me about their 
concern for this most vulnerable population. One constituent wrote:

       Senator Casey:
       I am writing on behalf of our friends, Michael and Monica 
     Simonsen who have been in the process of adopting their son, 
     Stanley Hermane (DOB: 4/9/2008), from Haiti since August 
     2008. Stanley was brought to Petit Anges de Chantal orphanage 
     when he was only two months old. He was severely malnourished 
     and covered in scabies. They have visited him in Haiti three 
     times, each time bringing supplies and donations to the 
     orphanage. The resources are scarce under normal 
     circumstances and with the current crisis, there is a genuine 
     concern that the children will not survive.
       I am writing to request that you support initiatives 
     created to help expedite the adoption process for children 
     who already have completely committed U.S. approved families 
     waiting at home. Expediting the process will not only secure 
     their safety but will free up already scarce resources for 
     children orphaned by this disaster.
       Senator Casey:
       After years of personal investment there, Jamie and Ali 
     McMutrie, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have brought 30 
     children almost through the entire adoption process to 
     anxiously waiting families here in America. Almost.
       The recent earthquake of January 12th has destroyed their 
     orphanage leaving Jamie and Ali to sleep outside on the lawn 
     with all their children. With food and water in short supply 
     and rioters all around, the clock is ticking for you to do 
     something.

  I am happy to report that Jamie and Ali McMutrie, who help run the 
BRESMA orphanage in Haiti, were able to evacuate 53 of their orphans 
and united them with their American adoptive parents earlier this week. 
However, Jamie and Ali were not able to bring back all 150 children at 
their orphanage home. Many people across the nation like Michael and 
Monica Simonsen are still waiting to know that their child is safe and 
many orphans like Jamie and Ali's orphans who remain in Haiti still 
need food, clean water and a safe place to stay until they can complete 
an adoption process.
  This Monday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they 
would use their authority to extend humanitarian parole to Haitian 
orphans already in the adoptive process

[[Page 506]]

with an American family. I commend the Department of Homeland Security 
and the State Department's Office of Children's Issues for making this 
policy decision and I fully support their desire to assure that the 
best interests of these orphans are put first.
  However, I am very concerned that when the Department of Homeland 
Security announced its decision to provide humanitarian parole, there 
was no plan at that time to ensure a safe and orderly process by which 
eligible orphans could be processed and evacuated.
  I continue to hear reports that orphanage directors in Haiti are 
going to the U.S. Embassy and while some are being admitted others are 
being turned away. Some of these orphanages are more than 125 miles 
away. I am concerned for the safety of the 600-700 orphans that this 
announcement affects. They may be harmed trying to get to the embassy, 
and if they are okay on that journey and even succeed in obtaining 
travel documents, they may be harmed when they are told to wait back at 
the orphanage until a plane is available. I am also hearing from 
American families so desperate to ensure their child is safe that they 
are trying to make their way to Haiti. We don't need more chaos in an 
already chaotic situation.
  I along with some of my colleagues have called on the State 
Department and USAID to set up safe havens for orphans, which will 
provide food, water and protection for all orphans as well as time to 
ensure that those orphans who are eligible for humanitarian parole are 
processed and evacuated in a timely manner. This is just one idea; 
however, in the absence of an alternative plan, more and more children 
will continue to show up at the Embassy's gate.
  Therefore, I ask the administration to implement a plan to ensure 
that these 600-700 orphans are safely and efficiently processed and 
evacuated to be united with their awaiting adoptive parents, and that 
we work with the international community and other NGOs on the ground 
to ensure the safety of all orphans until they can be placed in loving 
homes. Again, I thank the U.S. governmental officials who have been 
working around the clock trying to ensure the safety of these orphans 
and all those affected in Haiti.
  ``Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his 
unfailing love.'' Lamentations 3:32. In this time of darkness, I 
believe that Haiti can emerge in a better place. And I am grateful that 
our country will be a friend with Haiti in this endeavor.
  Similar to a lot of Americans, I am not surprised but heartened and 
proud by the response of the American people, a tremendous outpouring 
of generosity. People in America from all walks of life recognized 
immediately that the people of Haiti, in the depths of an incalculable, 
an indescribable horror and tragedy, in the depths of that, the 
American people showed their generosity, they showed that they 
understand that our Haitian brothers and sisters are just that, they 
are part of the family, the human family, and they are our brothers and 
sisters.
  The most vulnerable member of that family, in most instances--maybe 
not in every instance in every family but most of the time--will be a 
child. We are seeing unforgettable imagery and video of young children 
being rescued in Haiti, surviving for days at a time in the rubble and 
the horror they have been living through. Thank goodness so many people 
have invested in ways to save those children.
  But what we still have to do a better job on is making sure that if a 
Haitian child is in the adoption process, is in the pathway, so to 
speak, to being adopted, we have to do everything possible, in addition 
to the obvious safeguarding, to provide that child with security, 
physical security and food and water and medicine and medical treatment 
and, in addition to that, that we provide, as expeditiously as 
possible, a process for their adoption and ways to make it possible for 
them to be adopted, that the adoptive parent or guardian can have that 
assurance but also so that child can be well on the way to being 
adopted.
  We do not quite have that yet in terms of what the Federal Government 
can do and should do. I had a call late this afternoon with Secretary 
of State Clinton, who should be commended for her work, in a broad way, 
with regard to the response to the tragedy in Haiti but, in particular, 
her concern and her actions that she has taken to make sure these young 
children are taken care of. I will not go into all the details now, but 
let me cite in summary fashion that a number of my colleagues in the 
Senate and I have called upon the State Department and USAID to set up 
safe havens which will provide food, water, and protection for all 
orphans, as well as time to ensure that these orphans in Haiti who are 
eligible for what is called humanitarian parole--those who are on the 
way to being adopted through the process--that those who are eligible 
for that process, humanitarian parole, are indeed evacuated and 
processed in a timely manner.
  This is just one idea, one way to help. In the absence of an 
alternative plan, more and more children will continue to show up at 
the American Embassy. It is vitally important that happen.
  I commend the work of our government at various levels in terms of 
what they have been doing to respond to the challenge posed by these 
orphans and their circumstances. I know in our home State of 
Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell and Congressman Altmire worked very hard 
to bring some of these children back to Pennsylvania. I commend them 
for the effort they put forth. For all these reasons, there is plenty 
of evidence to show that the American people understand that these 
individuals, these families, and especially these children are God's 
children. We have to be cognizant of that as we go forward with sound 
policies in the days ahead.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first let me say to my colleague, Senator 
Casey, his comments about the nearly unspeakable tragedy that has 
occurred in Haiti strike all of us in a very poignant way. I have been 
to Haiti. It is one of the poorest regions in the world. We have people 
in Haiti living in unbelievable poverty. Fly to the airport and near 
the airport is an area called City Soleil. It is a slum of nearly a 
half million people living in desperate conditions. The entire country 
of Haiti has suffered such immense difficulties for so long. The people 
of Haiti are wonderful people. To be visited now by this great tragedy 
with an unbelievable loss of life that will exceed 200,000 people is 
heartbreaking to me, and I know to all Americans who watch this tragedy 
play out on television as volunteers are digging through rubble and, in 
some cases, finding people still alive and, in most other cases, 
finding a lot of people who have lost their lives.
  The American people are a people full of great generosity, and that 
expression of generosity in the form of contributions to organizations 
that are there helping these people is something that is very 
important. All of us can be proud of the generosity of this country and 
what is now happening in the outpouring of support.


                           CHAIRMAN BERNANKE

  Mr. President, I rise to briefly explain why I am going to vote 
against the nomination of Mr. Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal 
Reserve Board. Mr. Bernanke has been serving as Chairman of the Federal 
Reserve Board. I will be the first to say I think there are things that 
Mr. Bernanke has done that are very important to this country. He 
steered our country in a very difficult circumstance. There was a time 
when our economy could have completely collapsed, which would have been 
devastating. It was teetering on the precipice of that. Mr. Bernanke 
and others made decisions, some of which I thought were good decisions.
  It is the case that Mr. Bernanke worked for the previous 
administration that in many ways created circumstances that took us to 
that cliff or near the cliff with economic policies. I will talk about 
that for a moment. But when Mr. Bernanke became Chairman of the Fed, I 
understood that his background fit fairly well what we were going 
through, and I think he did

[[Page 507]]

some things that should be commended and supported. I have told him 
that I supported a number of these actions that were very important.
  One of those actions was to open, for the first time in history, the 
window at the Federal Reserve Board to extend credit directly from the 
Federal Reserve Board to the biggest investment banks in the country. 
It has always been the case that FDIC-insured banks, commercial banks, 
would have a window at the Fed to go get direct loans from the Fed, but 
it has never been the case that the investment banks were able to do 
that. During this great crisis, Fed Chairman Bernanke and the Board of 
Governors opened that window for direct lending from the Federal 
Reserve Board to the investment banks.
  I wasn't critical at that moment. I didn't come to the floor and 
express criticism. I don't know exactly what they saw that persuaded 
them to do that. But some months later, I sent, along with nine of my 
colleagues who signed the letter, a letter, dated July 31, to Chairman 
Bernanke and said: The Federal Reserve Board took action to allow all 
of the major investment banks in the United States to effectively 
access direct lending from the Federal Reserve Board for the first time 
in history.
  Down in the letter I say: We now urge you to release the names of 
financial institutions that have received the emergency assistance and 
how much each has received. The American taxpayers' funds were put at 
risk, and we believe the American people deserve information about the 
Federal Reserve Board's bailout activities to determine how much and 
what kind of funds were used, and so on.
  We received a letter back from the Chairman of the Fed in which he 
said: Publicly releasing the information on the names of borrowers and 
amounts borrowed under the Federal Reserve Board liquidity program 
could seriously undermine our liquidity programs. He essentially said: 
I don't intend to tell you, and I don't intend to tell the Congress or 
the American people.
  It is interesting to me that a Federal judge last year ordered the 
Fed to release the names of the institutions that received the 
emergency financial assistance from the Federal Reserve Board and the 
amount of the assistance. A Federal judge said to the Fed: You must 
release that information to the American people. The judge in this 
case, which was an FOIA case, found that the Federal Reserve had 
``improperly withheld agency records.'' The judge said that the Fed's 
argument that borrowers would be hurt if their names were released was 
``conjecture without evidence of imminent harm.'' But the Fed went 
ahead to appeal the judge's ruling and, therefore, it has been stayed.
  The American people are now in a situation where their Federal 
Reserve Board said for the first time in history: We will give the 
biggest investment banking institutions direct access to loan money 
from the Federal Reserve Board, and we don't intend to tell anybody who 
got it, how much they got, or what the concessions or prices were. We 
don't intend to give anybody that information.
  I find that completely untenable. I just am not going to vote for the 
nomination of a Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board who says to 
Congress and the American people: Yes, we opened that window. We 
decided to do direct lending to the biggest investment banks, which, by 
the way, steered this country right into a huge wreck. Take a look at 
what and who caused this financial wreck that cost this economy $15 
trillion in wealth. American families had lost $15 trillion in wealth.
  The Federal Government had either spent or lent or committed $12 
trillion to bail out particularly Wall Street and the biggest firms on 
Wall Street. All of those biggest firms on Wall Street, I believe, and 
even those that are now the healthiest firms that are experiencing 
record profits and are preparing to pay out record bonuses of somewhere 
around $120 to $140 billion, those firms would not have survived. They 
would have gone under were it not for the help of the American people 
through their government.
  The question for the Federal Reserve Board from the Congress and the 
American people is: What did you do? How much did you do? What was the 
collateral? Under what conditions? We need to know.
  The Chairman of the Fed said he supports transparency. If that is the 
case, show us a little transparency. How is it that someone can 
possibly argue that telling us now that they gave $200 billion here or 
$1 trillion there to firms that are now showing record profits and 
preparing to pay the biggest bonuses, how can that possibly injure 
those firms? In fact, many of them have apparently paid the TARP funds 
back, let alone the direct loans from the Federal Reserve Board.
  My only point is simple. I don't have a beef against Ben Bernanke 
personally. I kind of like him. I met him a number of times. I think he 
steered us through some tough times and probably made some good 
decisions at the right time. I also have some differences with him on 
economic policy and monetary policy. But I have a very big difference 
on this question. This question is controlling for me. If the Federal 
Reserve Board believes it has unlimited capability to decide it will 
change the rules on everything, open a direct lending window and give 
it to the biggest investment houses in the country, and they don't 
intend to ever tell any of us what they did or why or how; they don't 
intend to disclose any of it, that is not what I call open government.
  That is not something that is written in the Constitution. It is not 
something that this Congress should tolerate.
  This Congress should say to Mr. Bernanke: Your nomination is here in 
front of the Senate. We will act on it as soon as you provide the 
information Senators have requested of you--by the way, the information 
that a Federal judge has already ordered that you disclose. As soon as 
you comply with that, then your nomination shall have a vote in the 
Senate.
  I wanted to explain in more detail my response to people who had 
asked me what I was going to do on the nomination. That gives adequate 
explanation.
  I also wanted to comment briefly that the President today said 
something quite extraordinary, and I want to compliment him for it. I 
know he is walking into a thicket of trouble because a whole lot of big 
interests are going to gang up on these proposals. Let me tell you the 
two proposals the President offered that make a lot of sense.
  No. 1, he said big financial institutions that are too big to fail 
are too big. That is pretty simple. If they are too big to fail, they 
are just flat out too big. We ought to stop this concentration because 
too big to fail means no-fault capitalism. If they run themselves into 
trouble, the taxpayer picks up the tab. The taxpayer bails them out. 
That is what too big to fail means.
  The President says no more. Let's get rid of that too-big-to-fail tag 
and let's decide that if they are that big, let's stop this 
concentration.
  The President also has indicated that we ought to have financial 
institutions that are not trading in derivatives on their own 
proprietary accounts. I wrote a piece in 1994, 15 years ago, that was 
the cover story for Washington Monthly magazine. The piece I wrote was 
``Very Risky Business.'' I believe at the time there was $16 trillion 
of notional value of derivatives in our country. I said what is 
happening is outrageous. We have taxpayer-insured banking institutions 
that are trading on derivatives in their own proprietary accounts, 
putting taxpayer money at risk. It is flat out gambling. I said they 
may just as well have a craps table or a Keno table in their lobby. Oh, 
they can still call it a bank, but it is a casino.
  Fifteen years ago, I wrote that article. The fact is, we have gone 
through this unbelievable collapse of the economy--$15 trillion of 
wealth lost by the American people--and we still have these 
institutions trading on proprietary accounts. The President says it 
ought to stop. I agree with him.

[[Page 508]]

  The President also says we ought to separate, as Paul Volcker 
suggests, the FDIC-insured commercial banking institutions from the 
investment banks over here. They were put back together. I said on the 
floor of this Senate 10 years ago--five, six, eight times--and gave 
long speeches predicting that if you do this, if you fuse together 
commercial banks and investment banks, you are headed for trouble. I 
said on this floor: Within a decade I think you are going to see 
massive taxpayer bailouts. People have asked me: How did you find the 
crystal ball? I just guessed. But I worried that if you put this 
together, this is a bargain for trouble, this is asking for trouble. 
Ten years later, we have seen this unbelievable collapse.
  The President is right; and it takes courage for him to say it--let's 
decide to separate investment banking from commercial banking. Paul 
Volcker has talked a lot about that, and he is right about it. So I 
know what is happening.
  I just saw, in CongressDailyPM: ``Banks Kick Off Effort Against 
Volcker Rule.'' ``A furious lobbying effort among large banks was set 
off today by President Obama's announcement that he will push a rule 
forcing them to choose between being a commercial institution or an 
investment bank that focuses primarily on trading for its own 
profits.'' The President dubbed this plan the ``Volcker Rule.''
  I met with Paul Volcker in my office recently. I have talked with him 
at some length about this. Paul Volcker is dead right, and so is the 
President. This is going to provoke an unbelievable battle here. I 
understand that. There is a lot at stake. The big interests--they want 
to keep doing what they are doing. The big investment banks, at the 
moment--you take a look at their balance sheet. They are not, by and 
large, loaning money to the interests in this country that desperately 
need it. They are trading on proprietary accounts and making a lot of 
money trading. The fact is, if they are still too big to fail--and they 
are--that is called no-fault capitalism, and it is our risk, not 
theirs.
  None of them would be around anymore had the U.S. Government not 
stepped in to provide a safety net. Now they are telling us: Well, 
these changes the President and others suggest, they are radical 
changes. No, they are not. They are changes that go back to the future 
in many ways. They are changes that go back to a period--1999--before a 
piece of legislation that was passed by the Congress to decide: Let's 
put together these big old holding companies and put everything into 
one. One-stop financial shopping, they said. Compete with the 
Europeans. We will put up firewalls. It turned out they were made of 
tissue paper and the whole thing collapsed.
  I just say I think the President has made the right call. It is 
gutsy. It is going to provide a big fight around here. But it is not a 
secret, perhaps--given my history and what I have said in opposing the 
kinds of things that were done 10 years ago that set us up for this 
fall--it is not surprising that I fully intend to support the 
President's effort. I think it is critically important to get our 
financial system reformed and done right.
  Then, it is important to do one other thing; and that is have 
regulators who do not brag about being willfully blind. We had a bunch 
of folks in here for a bunch of the last decade who said: Do you know 
what? We have decided to take this important government job--in any 
number of these regulatory areas--and we are proud to say we are 
probusiness. What does that mean? We are proud to say we are at the 
SEC, we are at this agency or that agency, and you all do whatever you 
want. We won't look. We won't watch.
  In fact, some of them were so incompetent that even when people--
whistleblowers--came and said: Bernie Madoff is running a Ponzi scheme, 
even when somebody told them what was going on, they did not have the 
guts or the time or the intelligence to investigate it.
  But being willfully blind ought not be something to boast about 
anymore. Going forward, we want effective regulation. Regulation is not 
a four-letter word. The lack of regulation caused this crash in many 
ways and cost trillions of dollars to American families.
  I am not suggesting overregulation. I am saying when you have certain 
areas that are regulatory in this government, to make sure the free 
market system works, and works well, when people commit fouls in the 
free market system in this area of competition, you need to have 
somebody there with a whistle and a striped shirt to blow the whistle 
and say: That's a foul. If you do not have that, the system does not 
work and the system gets completely haywire. That is what happened in 
the last decade. That is not a technical term, that haywire issue. But 
we have the right and the opportunity to get this right now, and I say 
to the President, good for you. This proposal is the right proposal.
  Then, let's see, in the weeks ahead and the months ahead: Whose side 
are you on? I say to those in public service on these issues: Whose 
side are you on? Are you on the side of the big investment bankers who 
helped steer us into the ditch that involved substantial wagering and 
gambling here, and then we pick up the tab because it is no-fault 
capitalism on too-big-to-fail issues? Or are you going to stand up for 
the American people here and decide you have to put this back in place 
the right way? I hope we will have enough support to follow the 
President's lead on this issue.
  Let me just make one final comment. I understand the need for a 
financial system that works. I admire bankers who do banking the old-
fashioned way: take deposits and make loans and do underwriting in 
between, looking in somebody's eyes to say: You want a loan? What is it 
for? Let me evaluate that. Can you repay this loan? That is 
underwriting. That is the way it works. The Presiding Officer, I know, 
ran a bank and understands that.
  We need a good financial system. You even need investment banks. I 
know one of my colleagues once said: Investment banking is to 
productive enterprise like mud wrestling is to the performing arts. 
Well, that was tongue in cheek. But we need investment banks to take 
the riskier investments out there. But our investment banking system 
went completely off the map. We need good commercial banks that are 
capitalized. We need investment banks. All of that is important. We 
need to get it right. I do not mean to denigrate all finance because 
finance is very important in this system to help this free enterprise 
system work, to help people who want to start businesses and hire 
people. That is very important for our country.
  So we will have that debate in a longer fashion in the weeks ahead.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and I 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. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________