[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13619-13643]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          AMERICAN JOBS AND CLOSING TAX LOOPHOLES ACT OF 2010

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the House message on H.R. 4213, which the clerk 
will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate 
     amendment with an amendment to H.R. 4213, an Act to amend the 
     Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend certain expiring 
     provisions, and for other purposes.


[[Page 13620]]


  Pending:

       Reid motion to concur in the amendment of the House to the 
     amendment of the Senate to the bill, with Reid amendment No. 
     4425 (to the amendment of the House to the amendment of the 
     Senate to the bill), in the nature of a substitute.
       Reid amendment No. 4426 (to amendment No. 4425), to change 
     the enactment date.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.


                         Unemployment Insurance

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, in the Rose Garden on Tuesday, President 
Obama stood with three long-time job seekers and reminded us that out-
of-work Americans want to find work, and no one here, of course, 
questions that. I hear every day from Arizonans who look for a job day 
after day, week after week. They are just getting by.
  I realize that few things can be more frustrating and demoralizing 
than struggling to find a job and that the effects of unemployment for 
families are deep and severe.
  President Obama would have the American people believe congressional 
Republicans have been blocking an extension of unemployment benefits in 
order to make some political point. He accused us of this again on 
Tuesday and claimed we are refusing to help out-of-work Americans.
  I wish to set the record straight. This is not a dispute about 
extending unemployment benefits. There is broad bipartisan agreement 
that we should do that. Republicans have voted several times in the 
past to extend benefits. I have.
  The dispute, rather, is over who should pay for those benefits. 
Should we finance this $34 billion obligation in the short term with a 
loan from a foreign government and pass the tab on to our kids and 
grandkids or should we pay for it now by cutting other Federal 
spending? That is the question. It is a matter of who is going to pay 
for the benefits we provide to people.
  I do not think we should be sending that tab to our kids. I believe 
we should pay it now. This is our generation. This is our problem 
today. We have an obligation to help take care of our fellow citizens 
when they are in time of need. We should find a way to pay for that. 
Our kids and grandkids are going to have their own problems in their 
day. We do not need to compound those problems by adding our 
obligations to those that they will need to deal with.
  Republicans have offered an array of constructive solutions to the 
problem, proposals to pay for what we are spending, including using 
unspent money from the President's failed stimulus package. Almost half 
that money remains available.
  We have tried five times to pass an extension of unemployment 
benefits that does not add to the debt. But our Democratic colleagues 
have repeatedly rejected our proposals. So the principal they are 
defending is not the need for unemployment insurance extension, it is 
that they will not pass a bill unless it adds to the debt. They will 
not pass a bill to extend unemployment benefits unless it adds to the 
debt.
  The extension likely would have passed weeks ago if Democrats had 
simply agreed to pay for it now by cutting other Federal spending. In 
this $3 trillion budget that we have, obviously, there are plenty of 
places for us to find the offsets. Our national debt has been increased 
again and again during this recession. That creates long-term burdens 
for everyone--the employed, the unemployed, and generations to come.
  While President Obama argues that we have increased the debt in the 
past to pay for other items, I will note that we were not in the middle 
of a debt crisis back then, for one thing. I suggest we pass a bill 
that is paid for now and recalibrate efforts to encourage private 
sector job creation.
  As unemployed Americans know, while unemployment benefits provide a 
lifeline, they are only a temporary fix. They are not a substitute for 
new private sector jobs. I will venture a guess that everybody who is 
unemployed today would much rather have a job tomorrow than another 
check from the government for unemployment benefits.
  So what do we do to create jobs and get the economy moving again? 
Well, you do not do it by borrowing more money. The President's job-
creation initiatives have been a bust. Since his enormous stimulus bill 
passed in February of 2009, the private sector has lost over 2 million 
jobs.
  While there has been some anemic economic growth since the recession 
started, employers are still clearly reluctant to hire. That probably 
has to do with the reality that businesses, both small and large, look 
down the road. They see massive tax increases beginning next year, on 
top of all the new regulations imposed by this administration.
  They hear about a proposed national energy tax and proposed new pro-
union policies. So they are reluctant to take a chance on the future 
because of all the uncertainty and the burdens we have already placed 
upon them. The key to job creation, and thus helping unemployed 
Americans, is having stable and sound policies in place for employers 
to make long-term decisions.
  More spending, taxing, regulating, and debt are not the answers. I 
would hope we can find a way to extend unemployment benefits without 
asking our children to pay the tab for this generation's problems.
  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. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Water Quality

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has 
dominated the headlines since April 20. Because of that tragedy, we are 
more aware than ever of the important role great water bodies and the 
rivers that feed them play in our economy, our environment, and even 
our sense of who we are as a people.
  Late last month, the Environment and Public Works Committee reported 
out a number of bills addressing America's precarious water resources. 
The committee approved a bill to hold BP accountable for the 
devastation it has caused to the people and the ecosystem of the gulf.
  As all of America has seen in the morning newspapers and nightly news 
accounts, the current $75 million limit on oilspill liability damages 
represents a very small fraction of the actual costs of the damage done 
by BP. Senator Menendez's bill, S. 3305, which the committee adopted, 
will make sure that BP is legally bound to honor its pledge to pay all 
legitimate claims. I am proud to be a cosponsor, and I look forward to 
the adoption of this legislation by the full Senate.
  As we do everything we can to make sure the BP Deepwater Horizon 
disaster is not a knife through the heart of the Gulf of Mexico's 
ecosystem, we know that other great water bodies are also suffering. We 
are responding to those troubled waters as well. The Puget Sound, 
Columbia River Basin, Great Lakes, Long Island Sound, San Francisco 
Bay, and, yes, the Chesapeake Bay, are each special and iconic, yet 
each is threatened by degraded water quality.
  Marylanders know from our experience with the Chesapeake Bay, just as 
the residents of the gulf are demonstrating for all Americans, that the 
health of these water bodies is critical to sustaining regional 
economies, plant and animal species, our cultural heritage, and our 
treasured way of life that has been passed on from generation to 
generation. The National Academy of Public Administration has 
recommended ``making large-scale ecosystem restoration a national 
priority.''
  Large ecosystem programs, from Long Island Sound to the Great Lakes 
to Puget Sound, are addressing some of the Nation's most complex water 
resource management challenges. For this reason, EPA's strategic plan 
prioritizes protecting these ecosystems

[[Page 13621]]

as a complement to their core, national water quality programs.
  The Water and Wildlife Subcommittee that I chair has devoted 
considerable time to the Chesapeake Bay and, more recently, to the 
other water body bills.
  I thank Chairman Boxer for her strong support on these bills, for her 
help in shaping the legislation, and for marshaling these bills through 
the full Environment and Public Works Committee.
  Throughout my career in public service, I have had no greater cause 
than to save the Chesapeake Bay. There has not been one dramatic 
incident that has killed off our fisheries, oyster beds and crab 
populations, so we have not seen the same sustained attention to lives 
and traditions ruined as we are witnessing in the gulf today.
  That does not mean it isn't happening, family by family, across my 
State and my region. I have seen it and I am committed to doing 
everything I can to make sure the bay and the economy and ways of life 
it sustains don't die away.
  The Chesapeake Bay encompasses 64,000 square miles. Its watershed is 
home to more than 17 million people, with tributaries in Delaware, 
Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the 
District of Columbia.
  Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama have called it a national 
treasure.
  The Chesapeake is the economic, historic and cultural center of the 
region, providing commercial waterways, important fisheries, and 
countless recreational opportunities.
  The first English settlers in the New World came here; Captain John 
Smith's original voyages of discovery in 1607 first mapped its borders. 
The capital cities of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the United 
States sit upon its major tributaries.
  Since 1983, the Chesapeake Bay Program has undertaken a largely 
voluntary effort to restore America's largest estuary. This State-
Federal partnership program has provided innovative leadership and 
remarkable scientific understanding of the restoration effort.
  In recent years, however, it became apparent that voluntary efforts 
to restore water quality to the Chesapeake and its tidal segments would 
be unsuccessful.
  The basin States agreed that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
would be responsible for developing a basin-wide pollution reduction 
program. The Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load, TMDL, would 
address all segments of the Chesapeake Bay and tidal tributaries that 
are identified on the currently applicable lists of impaired waters by 
nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment of the Chesapeake Bay States under 
section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act.
  It is against that backdrop that I introduced S. 1816, the Chesapeake 
Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act. The purpose of S. 1816 is to 
amend the Clean Water Act to improve and reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay 
Program authorized in section 117 of the Act.
  The bill has four primary objectives:
  1. Establish a deadline of 2025, along with appropriate milestones, 
for all restoration actions to be implemented throughout the Chesapeake 
basin that will lead to attainment of water quality in the Chesapeake 
Bay and its tidal segments; 2. Assure that the basin States, as 
delegated authorities under the Clean Water Act, be given maximum 
authority and flexibility to meet the restoration pollution limits 
through ``watershed implementation plans'' that each State designs for 
itself; 3. Require that the Federal Government be an active partner in 
the restoration effort, by developing the overall pollution reduction 
targets on a State-by-State basis through the Chesapeake Bay TMDL; 
implementing the terms of the Presidential Executive Order; paying 
local stormwater fees; and providing clear and meaningful 
accountability for the basin States; 4. Provide the States, 
municipalities, developers, and especially agricultural producers with 
significant new tools and financial resources to meet the restoration 
demands within the 15-year time frame contained in the legislation.
  The bill authorizes a number of new grants programs, including two to 
assist local governments manage polluted stormwater and three to assist 
the agricultural community manage nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment 
pollution. Grants programs for States are expanded and a number of 
independent reviews of the program's implementation and progress are 
required over the next 15 years.
  I am proud that the Environment and Public Works Committee reported 
out this bill on a voice vote, without a single Senator expressing 
opposition.
  In fact, each of the individual great water bodies bills that the 
committee considered was adopted in a similar nonpartisan fashion.
  S. 1311, Gulf of Mexico Restoration and Protection Act, was 
introduced by Senator Wicker and it addresses the long-standing issues 
facing the gulf that predate the oil spill disaster that has dominated 
headlines.
  S. 3550, Columbia River Basin Restoration Act of 2010, is a bill 
jointly developed by the junior Senator from Oregon, Mr. Merkley, and 
the senior Senator from Idaho, Mr. Crapo. This bipartisan legislation 
will address one of America's great river systems.
  S. 3073, Great Lakes Ecosystem Protection Act of 2010, has several 
bipartisan sponsors, including Senator Levin and Senator Voinovich, who 
have worked for years to protect the Great Lakes, which hold 20 percent 
of the fresh water on the Earth.
  S. 3539, San Francisco Bay Restoration Act, sponsored by California 
Senators Feinstein and Boxer, will help direct the restoration of that 
essential estuary.
  H.R. 4715, Clean Estuaries Act of 2010. Senators Whitehouse and 
Vitter worked together on a substitute version of this House bill. It 
will reauthorize the program that supports the 28 estuaries around the 
country that are part of the National Estuaries Program.
  S. 2739, Puget Sound Recovery Act of 2009, sponsored by the Senators 
from Washington State, Ms. Cantwell and Mrs. Murray, addresses the 
restoration of this water body, which borders two nations.
  S. 3119, Long Island Sound Restoration and Stewardship Act, sponsored 
by New York Senator Gillibrand, will help with the recovery of this 
body of water which serves millions of residents of New York and 
Connecticut.
  Each of the restoration efforts takes a somewhat different approach 
to deal with the specific concerns of that region.
  This is as it should be. Each of these great water bodies is unique, 
and each deserves its own restoration strategy developed by its own set 
of stakeholders.
  I am proud of the work done by dozens of Senators from both parties 
who have contributed their time and legislative expertise in drafting 
and supporting these Great Water Body bills.
  These bills prove that we can work together on substantive 
legislation in a constructive, bipartisan fashion. They prove that we 
can say ``yes'' to bipartisanship, ``yes'' to meeting America's need 
for clean waters, ``yes'' to locally driven restoration strategies, and 
``yes'' to a bright future for some of the most iconic places in 
America.
  Mr. President, I look forward to the opportunity to bring all of 
these fine bills to the Senate floor for adoption.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. 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 Senator from Michigan is recognized.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I wish to take a few moments to talk 
about what is currently happening in the Senate, in my judgement, 
representing a State with now the second highest unemployment rate in 
the country--Michigan. We are glad not to

[[Page 13622]]

be No. 1, but we sure would like to be No. 50. We have an awful lot of 
people right now who are waiting for us to complete action on extending 
unemployment insurance benefits.
  I continue to be appalled at the lengths to which the Republican 
minority will go to stop people who are out of work from getting some 
help. We are in a situation where we finally, after eight different 
votes and weeks and weeks of trying, had enough votes to overcome a 
filibuster. As we all know, that takes 60 votes. I am very grateful to 
our Republican colleagues from Maine for joining with us to make that 
happen. We had a vote yesterday that was a supermajority vote. We know 
extending unemployment benefits is going to pass because we had 60 
votes to overcome a filibuster and the vote on the actual bill only 
takes 51.
  We know we have the votes, but under the procedures of the Senate, 
technically, unless there is a bipartisan agreement, we have to wait 30 
hours before we can actually vote. It used to be that once we secured 
the votes of a supermajority, then everyone would agree: OK, the votes 
are there, and they would agree to yield back time so we would not have 
to wait; we could go on to something else.
  That is not what is happening now. While people in Michigan and 
around the country are waiting, trying to figure out: OK, can I pay the 
rent tomorrow, can I get gas for my car to look for another job 
tomorrow, can I put food on the table tomorrow, what is going to happen 
on Monday, what is going to happen on Tuesday--while people are 
waiting, we have nothing happening on the floor of the Senate. We are 
just burning time, 30 hours of time. In my judgment, it is just mean, 
because when we look at what has to happen yet--we will pass the bill. 
We know we are going to pass the bill. It has to go back to the House 
and then to the President for signature. This, at least, is the 
difference between families getting some help on Friday so they can 
feed the kids for the weekend or whether they are going to have to wait 
until Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. For a lot of folks, for a lot of 
us--we have a salary, we have a job--that may not seem like much. For 
over 2.5 million people in this country who have lost their insurance 
benefits--and these are insurance benefits. You pay in when you are 
working to get some temporary help if you lose your job through no 
fault of your own. Mr. President, 2.5 million people think waiting from 
Friday to Monday is a big deal. They, in fact, think Thursday and 
Friday is a big deal. We have a situation that, frankly, I cannot 
characterize any other way than saying it is just plain mean.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Ms. STABENOW. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from Michigan. 
Her State more than any State in the Nation has been hit harder by this 
recession and high employment. I am sure, as I have found and the 
Presiding Officer has found back in Illinois, that many of these people 
who are out of work are desperate; that in the Senator's State of 
Michigan, it has been rough for a long time.
  I wish to ask the Senator from the State of Michigan, for those who 
may not follow where we are at this moment in the Senate, if she could 
help refresh my recollection. Is it not true that we tried three or 
four times to get the Republicans to go along in a bipartisan way to 
extend unemployment benefits to those who lost their jobs through no 
fault of their own so they could keep their families together while 
they are searching for work?
  Isn't it also true that this historically has been something where we 
put the party labels aside and say: This is an American emergency, just 
like a tornado hitting Chicago or Springfield, IL, or flooding hitting 
some part of Michigan; that we will stand behind the people of our 
country, the 8 million unemployed people who are struggling to get back 
on their feet? Isn't it true that historically we have done this 
without this kind of political rancor and argument?
  Finally, yesterday, when we got the breakthrough--we have our new 
Senator from West Virginia, Carte Goodwin, who came in to succeed the 
legendary Robert C. Byrd. He cast the deciding vote, with two 
Republican Senators, I might add, who richly deserve credit for it. At 
that point, we could have moved forward to send these unemployment 
benefits, give these people in Detroit and Chicago peace of mind, and 
instead the other side of the aisle is insisting that we burn 30 hours 
off the calendar and even consider amendments on such issues as the 
immigration law in Arizona, the future of the estate tax--all these 
unrelated issues. Is it true that is where we are in this moment of 
time, where there are no votes taking place on the floor of the Senate?
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I say to our distinguished leader in the 
Senate--and I thank him for his advocacy--he is exactly right. We have 
waited--I am not sure now if it is 10 or 11 weeks--trying to extend 
unemployment benefits. We have had multiple votes. We finally get the 
votes through all kinds of different means. We finally get the votes 
yesterday, and it is unheard of that we would be in this spot, after 
getting a supermajority of 60 people and after having this go on as 
long as it has. It is unheard of. Never before with a Democratic or 
Republican President have we ever seen this, but now we are stuck 
again, and I don't understand why. I cannot fathom the motivation of 
why the folks on the other side of the aisle, the leadership on the 
other side of the aisle, would say: Let's wait another 30 hours, which 
for most people means it is on into next week, and most people have 
already been without that little bit of $250 or $300 a week. We are not 
talking about a lot of money.
  Mr. DURBIN. That is right.
  Ms. STABENOW. But it is a difference between having a roof over your 
family's head, food on the table, and not. So now we are pushing into 
next week.
  Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator would yield for a question, through the 
Chair.
  I have a chart given me by my staff that says in my home State of 
Illinois--and the State of the Presiding Officer--137,600 people in 
Illinois have had their unemployment benefits cut off because of the 
filibusters on the Republican side, and our numbers show 104,000 people 
in Senator Stabenow's State of Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. That is right.
  Mr. DURBIN. Not to mention the State of the Republican minority 
leader, Kentucky, with 32,200 people who have had their unemployment 
benefits cut off.
  I would say to the Senator from Michigan that I am contacted by these 
families, and they describe to me what life is like when they lose that 
$250-a-week check and they are out of work. First, they exhaust their 
savings, then they start putting off paying bills, and then they pray 
to God they don't get sick because they have lost their health 
insurance. Then comes the day of reckoning. One lady called and said: 
They are cutting off my gas to my home, and the electricity is next. 
Another said: I am 1 month away from moving out of my little efficiency 
into my car. That is where I am going to have to live.
  That is the reality of life, and that is while these people are 
looking for work. Imagine those burdens--and anyone facing them would 
be preoccupied by them--at the same time trying to dress up nicely, put 
on a happy face, and fill out the forms to find a job.
  I ask the Senator from Michigan what she is finding with these people 
who have been cut off from basic unemployment benefits because of the 
Republican filibuster.
  Ms. STABENOW. Well, you are exactly right. I also hear, on top of 
that, about people who have done what we have told them they should 
do--they should go back to school and get retraining. So they go back, 
and the only reason they can actually afford to go back to school to go 
through one of the job training programs is that small check that has 
allowed them to have a little income for their family while they do 
what we have told them to do, which is to get a different skill to go 
into a different career and then hope there will be a job there.

[[Page 13623]]

  I have had so many e-mails from people not only about losing their 
homes and what is happening to their families but that they have had to 
drop out of school. Well, how does it make any sense, when we are 
trying to make sure people are productive in the workforce and are able 
to find a job that people are dropping out of school because of this as 
well?
  Mr. DURBIN. Let me ask this question of the Senator, through the 
Chair.
  I have had heard an argument from the other side of the aisle that 
says these checks make people lazy; that they don't go out and look for 
work. With $250 a week, they take it easy.
  These aren't the people I am talking to in Illinois. I would ask the 
Senator from Michigan, who sees thousands of people who have been out 
of work for long periods of time, what she thinks about this Republican 
argument that unemployment checks make people lazy.
  Ms. STABENOW. Well, people in Michigan are extremely offended by 
this, and I am very offended on their behalf. The people we are talking 
about have never been out of work in their lives. They are mortified. 
The idea of having to go get food assistance is unbelievable to them. 
These are people who built America. They built the middle class. It is 
not their fault Wall Street had the crisis.
  We had the good fortune to be with the President signing a bill that 
will change that, but it is not their fault what happened. It is not 
their fault there was recklessness on Wall Street and then the 
financial system collapsed so small businesses can't get loans and 
manufacturers can't get loans.
  It is not their fault we went through a decade of policies where the 
previous administration was not enforcing trade laws so our jobs went 
overseas. It is not their fault they find themselves in this economy. 
So they are saying to me: I want to work. Hey, I want a job. I don't 
want to extend my unemployment benefits. Give me a job.
  That is what we are focusing on too. I say to the distinguished 
Senator from Illinois, one of the things I find doubly insulting about 
wasting this time is that the legislation we are trying to get to is a 
small business bill so small businesses can get loans to hire people. 
So we are trying to create jobs and, instead, all this time is being 
wasted on an effort just to try to help people get by.
  Mr. DURBIN. Let's get to the hot-button issue--the deficit. Because 
every Republican who comes to the floor tries to explain why we should 
change the rules when it comes to unemployment compensation, why we 
should deny to millions of Americans that basic unemployment check to 
get by while they are out of work, by saying it is all about the 
deficit.
  I would ask the Senator from Michigan if she would reflect on the 
fact that many of the same Republican Senators making that argument 
were Senators who, when they had a chance under the previous President, 
added to our deficit by waging two wars without paying for them, who 
added to our deficit by giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in 
America without paying for them, and in fact doubled the debt of the 
United States in 8 years' time with that economic policy and those 
decisions.
  These same Republican Senators--such as Senator Kyl of Arizona--now 
argue that if we give more tax cuts to the wealthy people in America 
and take that money out of the Treasury and add it to the deficit, it 
doesn't count because tax cuts for wealthy people don't count when it 
comes to this deficit discipline they want.
  I ask the Senator from Michigan: How do you reconcile this; that all 
of a sudden now this is all about a deficit, which the Republican 
Senators virtually ignored for 8 years while we reached the stage of 
today.
  Ms. STABENOW. Well, the Senator is absolutely correct. That is the 
fundamental question. It goes to a question of values and priorities. 
We will never get out of deficit with over 15 million people out of 
work, and that doesn't count people working two or three or four part-
time jobs or who are underemployed. If people aren't back to work, 
aren't able to purchase as consumers, aren't able to contribute, we 
will never get out of deficit, which is why we start with jobs in the 
beginning.
  But to add insult to injury, we hear that giving another round of tax 
cuts to the only part of the American public that has dramatically 
increased its income--those who are at the very top; the top 1 and 2 
percent--doesn't matter if it adds to the debt. Adding to the debt for 
tax cuts for wealthy people doesn't count, but changing the rules, such 
as we have never done before, and focusing on helping out-of-work 
people does count. That counts. We can't do that, if it is somebody who 
is out of work. But we don't worry at all about deficits when it is 
helping the privileged few.
  I can't imagine that. That is not the America I know and the majority 
of Americans care about right now.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would say to the Senator from Michigan, by way of a 
question in closing, that it would seem to me a person who is 
unemployed, who doesn't get the basic check they need to survive and is 
forced to live in their car, that is a more compelling argument to me 
than giving a tax break to someone who needs to buy a newer car. That 
is what is being argued on the other side of the aisle. It is a 
complete mismatch of priorities.
  What I struggle with is the notion of how many times the Senator and 
I have been called on, as Members of the House and Senate, to stand by 
some part of America that is struggling--farmers who are struggling 
because of drought or flood, people who are victims of flood and 
tornadoes or our friends in the Gulf of Mexico whose lives are changed 
because of BP. How many times have we said, as an American family, we 
stand together? When it comes to something as basic as food on the 
table and utility bills for the poorest people in America because they 
are out of work--when there are five unemployed people for every 
available job--why in the world our Republican friends want to take it 
out on them at this point in time I don't understand.
  If there is anything this Congress should do, it is to rally behind 
those who have lost their jobs and are worrying about losing their 
jobs--those working part time, the Senator just referenced, and who 
want to work full time. If we can't stand together as a Senate behind 
those families, I think we have lost something very basic. I know I had 
to put that in the form of a question, so I am going to hazard a guess: 
Does the Senator?
  Ms. STABENOW. Well, I absolutely agree. I wish to thank the Senator 
for his continuing leadership and passion on this issue.
  I would simply say, if over 15 million people out of work in this 
country isn't an emergency, I don't know what is. Those are the folks 
we are fighting for right now--the people who want to work, the people 
who have been part of this great middle class in our country and who 
now find that slipping through their fingers because of a global 
economy, where we have not understood the rules should be fair, where 
we have had policies put into place that affect only the privileged 
few, with the theory that it will trickle down to everybody else.
  You know what. I wish it had. I wish the policies of the former 
President and my friends on the other side had worked. I don't want 
people to be out of work. If trickle-down economics would work, I would 
celebrate it. But my folks are still waiting for the trickle down. They 
are still waiting. Instead, what is happening to them is they have lost 
their jobs or they are finding themselves with fewer hours or they are 
finding themselves in a situation where they are working two jobs, 
three jobs just trying to hold it together. I mean I have seen numbers 
that show almost half the families in Michigan have somebody in their 
immediate family who has lost their job.
  The idea of saying that somehow that is all because people are lazy, 
well, I would not say the words I would truly like to say, but I would 
just say that is a bunch of bunk--the idea that somehow Americans who 
have worked all their lives and are caught up in this are somehow just 
lazy. But this goes to a broader pattern that is extremely

[[Page 13624]]

concerning to me, and it is the difference in world view and how we 
view what should happen and what is important in our country.
  When we had a bill in front of us--the President just signed it 
today--to put back some commonsense regulations on Wall Street so there 
are no more big bailouts and consumers can get good information to be 
able to protect themselves and their 401(k)s and their savings and to 
be able to address all the jobs--the 8 million jobs lost since the 
financial crisis started over a year ago--and when we have a bill on 
the floor that takes on the big banks, the big bonuses, the 
recklessness of some on Wall Street, our colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle vote no. Almost every single one of them sided with the 
big banks and the big bonuses.
  We are going to have a big debate about whether to extend tax cuts 
for the wealthiest Americans, whether we should give even bigger tax 
cuts to the top couple hundred families with huge estates in this 
country--to do even more than President Bush did on tax cuts for the 
wealthy and the wealthy estates that are literally only 200 or 300 
families in the country. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
will argue for that. They will argue that is the right thing to do. 
That is a different view. It is a different view than we have about 
what is happening in this country and where the priorities ought to be.
  Middle-class families in my State are saying: What about us? What 
about us? The big banks got their bailout, what about us? That is why 
we have been focused on jobs and on innovation. While we aren't out of 
the hole--we are nowhere near out of the hole--we are at least digging 
our way out. There were 750,000 a jobs a month being lost when 
President Obama took office. We changed the focus to working families, 
to middle-class families, and by the end of the year that was zero. Now 
we are gaining 100,000 or 200,000 a month, but we are at least gaining.
  I am not happy at all about the unemployment levels in Michigan. But 
when President Obama took office we were looking at 15.7 percent--
unbelievable--and that is just the people being counted. Now it has 
come down a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, and now it is 13.2. 
That is still way, way too high, but at least it is moving in the right 
direction. We had 8 years of it moving in the wrong direction and we 
have turned the ship and it is beginning to turn around.
  The problem we have is that while it is slow in terms of job 
creation, too many families are caught in the middle on this, waiting 
for that next job, wanting that next job that is going to pay enough so 
they can care for their family. They are caught in a situation they 
never thought they would be in, in their life and they are embarrassed 
and they are mortified and they are angry. They are looking at the 
Senate and saying: What is going on here? You can't even get it 
together to do what every other President, Democrat and Republican, has 
done in the history of our country to come together and to understand 
this is an emergency--15 million people plus is an emergency--and that 
we ought to be extending the small unemployment insurance benefits to 
families who are caught in this.
  That is what this is all about. We find ourselves in a situation 
where we are wasting time right now on the floor of the Senate that we 
could be using after voting to extend unemployment benefits to go on to 
small business, which is also absolutely critical for us. The No. 1 
concern from businesses is the inability to get a loan, to get the 
capital they need to extend their line of credit to do business or be 
able to expand, to get the loans they need. That is the bill we have 
waiting in the wings. That is the one we are trying to get done.
  Instead of focusing on that, which is jobs and small business, which 
is the growth engine of the country, we wait. We watch the clock--30 
hours. For whatever reason I do not know. But I think it is a shame.
  I want to close reading a letter. I get thousands of e-mails. I am 
sure my colleague does too. I find them very heartbreaking. I want to 
read a little bit to put it in the Record, from Philip, from Belding, 
MI:

       I have just learned I exhausted my unemployment benefits. I 
     am going to school under the worker retraining programs 
     through Michigan Works. I have a mere 5 months left until I 
     graduate. I am raising my daughter on my own. My life has 
     been a rough ride, trying to do this on the limited funding 
     already.
       Now I have to make a choice. This is an incredibly hard 
     choice. I have to quit training to get a job or continue 
     training and live with no income whatsoever. My decision must 
     be made in the best interests of my child. I worked 
     tremendously hard to be at the top of my class in my training 
     and now I am faced with the fact that it was all for nothing.
       The last year of hard work and study is lost. The grants I 
     received for Michigan Works were used fruitlessly. I know you 
     are fighting for me and all the others in my position but I 
     feel I need to let someone know . . . what is happening.

  There are so many people who have sent letters and e-mails and who 
have called me. They are just trying to play by the rules and care for 
their families and get another job or go back to school or do the 
things we all want to do for our families to be able to live a good 
life, be able to have that American dream as we define it. It is 
extremely unfortunate that we find ourselves in a situation where we 
continue to see objections and blocking and efforts just to stop 
something as basic as temporary assistance for people who have lost 
their jobs.
  We will get this done. We will get it done. It will pass. The 
difference between what is happening here and what could have been if 
we had gotten it done yesterday is it is going to be a few more days 
before somebody gets the help they need. I do not know how many people 
will lose their houses because those few more days mean they can't make 
that payment in time and they end up on the street or how many missed 
meals, how much hunger, how many times their kids go to bed at night 
hungry because we are wasting all this time on the Senate floor.
  I can tell you there are many of us, those of us on our side, who 
understand what this means for people. We are deeply sorry families are 
in this situation. They need to know we are going to continue to fight, 
we are going to continue to be there, we are going to continue to do 
everything we can to support them and their families until everybody in 
this country who needs a job and wants a job and is able to work has 
one and can get themselves back on their feet and have the kind of life 
they want for themselves and their families.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
  Mr. JOHANNS. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Johanns pertaining to the introduction of S. 3622 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. JOHANNS. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, we are spending time today in so many 
ways talking about where the American people are right now with regard 
to this horrific economy, where we had and still have some of the worst 
job numbers in a long time.
  Fortunately, the economy is recovering. The American Recovery and 
Reinvestment Act, which I voted for, and many of us did, has a positive 
impact along with other job creation strategies. We are happy about 
that. But we know we still have a way to go to fully recover.

[[Page 13625]]

  One of the best ways to ensure that those who are out of work, 
through no fault of their own, can get from a situation of joblessness 
to a job, is to make sure we use programs that we put in place over 
years and that workers and families have contributed to to give them 
the opportunity for unemployment benefits as they transition or go 
across that very long bridge from unemployment to a situation where 
they are back at work.
  We have had months and months of debate about this issue. Finally, 
yesterday, we were able to get beyond yet another hurdle that was 
erected by the Republican side of the aisle, and now we are at a point 
where we are beyond that procedural hurdle.
  Instead of allowing the Senate to finally at long last vote on 
unemployment insurance and to extend it, to give families some peace of 
mind in this terrible economy they have lived through, to give 
businesses some certainty in terms of what the job picture will look 
like in a matter of months, and also to take a step when we extend 
unemployment insurance, to take a step in the right direction to 
continue to jump-start the economy--one of the best ways to do that is 
by extending unemployment insurance, because when you do that, you have 
an additional benefit. The obvious benefit is to a worker and his or 
her family and, by extension, the community or neighborhood they live 
in.
  But there is yet another benefit, a second or a third benefit, that 
is depending on how you count each benefit. You know, if you spend a 
dollar on extending unemployment insurance, you get a lot more than a 
dollar back.
  So you spend a buck on unemployment insurance, by one estimate--Mark 
Zandi--you get more than a buck sixty back. The Congressional Budget 
Office tells us that number may be higher. It might be $1.90 that you 
get back if you spend a dollar. So there is an economic benefit for the 
whole country when we extend unemployment insurance. This isn't simply 
about the obligation I believe we have to help those families who don't 
have a breadwinner, as someone who has lost their job, to help them get 
through this difficult period. That is reason enough to extend it and 
it is reason enough to treat it as the emergency it is and to even, in 
my judgment, add to the deficit to do that. But there is also that 
other benefit, isn't there, the benefit to the economy overall--spend a 
buck and get a lot more back--because we know that when we extend 
unemployment insurance, those dollars go right back into the economy 
and create other jobs and other economic activity and therefore 
economic opportunity for people who have nothing to do--have no 
connection to unemployment insurance. Thank goodness a lot of people 
don't have to worry about unemployment insurance because they still 
have a job. They have some security.
  So there are at least two or three basic reasons we should be 
extending unemployment insurance. With all of the evidence, with all of 
the very compelling and, I would argue, irrefutable evidence that this 
is good for workers and their families, it is necessary to help them, 
and it is also good for all of us in the larger economy because of the 
jump-starting and stimulating aspect of the expenditure of those 
dollars, you would think the folks on the other side of the aisle would 
agree with us. But they haven't for many, many weeks.
  Now we know we have the votes to get this done. Yet they are still 
allowing all these hours to pass that they could waive very easily and 
say: We know we lost--I am speaking from the Republican side of the 
aisle--we have lost the procedural votes, so let's just vote on final 
passage and get this extension approved. They seem to want to play 
politics with the critically important issue for the American people. 
We are going to extend the unemployment insurance, and it is going to 
happen. So why would you insist on the hours that are required--not 
required but the hours that are part of the process and allow that to 
slow this down?
  I was on the floor yesterday talking about a number of 
Pennsylvanians. One gentleman I spoke about, I talked about, reading 
from his letter, the worry he had, a gentleman out of work, worried 
about his family, worried about his 12-year-old daughter who has cystic 
fibrosis, worrying about how he is going to have insurance cover her 
condition, and also worrying about whether he can make ends meet, would 
he find a job, would he be able to provide for his family. That worry 
is universal when it comes to this issue, the worry a parent feels when 
they lose their job and lose their health care, the worry that consumes 
them when they feel they are helpless, almost, to provide for their own 
family.
  We point to individuals within our States who write to us or send us 
an e-mail or somehow communicate with us about their own circumstances.
  Not too long ago, I received an e-mail from a woman named Kimberly. 
She and her husband have two children in college. Her husband has been 
out of work for a year. It is hard to comprehend that, what it is like 
to need a job to provide for your family and you not only don't have a 
job but you don't have a job for a year or longer. So many families 
have been living through that.
  She said:

       We have been struggling for a year while he looks for full-
     time employment with which he can again support our family.

  Then, speaking about her job, she says:

       I don't make a lot of money. I don't make enough to support 
     us. And I especially don't make enough to put my kids through 
     college.

  Then she goes on to say:

       We may not starve, but we won't be able to pay our 
     creditors. We'll be looking at possible bankruptcy. I may 
     have to pull my daughter out of her 4-year university and 
     send her to a community college, and we won't be able to buy 
     clothes or even enjoy simple pleasures like dining out or 
     going to the movies.

  Something as simple as that.
  I spoke yesterday about a woman who had written to me, Rachel, who 
talked about her husband having lost his job and deciding to join the 
National Guard in order to be able to have some job, some livelihood, 
as well as be able to get a little bit better health care coverage.
  These stories are real. They are not anecdotal. They are common in 
one sense or another. There might be differences from one family to the 
other, but there are a couple of universal realities here for people. 
Joblessness, being out of work, does, in most instances, lead to a 
situation where you lose your health insurance coverage. Joblessness 
robs people of their basic dignity. It diminishes their confidence in 
their own worth, their own value to their family, whether it is a 
mother being out of work or a father or a sibling. This kind of worry 
and anxiety plus the basic insecurity of not being able to pay bills is 
horrific, absolutely horrific, something that not many people--maybe a 
few, maybe a few Senators can understand it, but not many can 
understand what it is like not to have income and not to have health 
care.
  Everyone here, every Senator has a steady income. It is reliable. It 
is there every month. You get paid every month. Every Senator gets 
health care coverage. We have that security for ourselves and for our 
families. I realize that some at some point in their lives might have 
an experience that would give them an insight into what someone is 
going through now who is unemployed, but not many, not many U.S. 
Senators, not many Members of the House of Representatives or those who 
work with us in the Federal Government.
  So when folks come to this floor and talk a lot about, we want to 
help, the argument basically is, we want to help, we understand, but we 
don't want to run up the deficit. They make that argument. I wish the 
same folks who make that argument and the passionate arguments about 
the deficit and not using an emergency strategy to help the unemployed, 
I wish they had that same sense of worry and outrage about the deficit 
when they were giving tax breaks--hundreds of billions of dollars--to 
very wealthy Americans, hundreds of billions year after year after year 
to very wealthy Americans and not being too worried about the deficit 
in those days. In fact, some on

[[Page 13626]]

the other side of the aisle were heard to say at the time that deficits 
don't matter; that if it is tax cuts, if that is your priority, if you 
want to vote, if you want to put forth and move forward a tax cut 
policy for the very wealthy, at that time, in their judgment, there was 
nothing wrong with running up the deficit.
  Now when we make the argument that this is an emergency, the way it 
has been treated for years by people on both sides of the aisle--
unemployment insurance in the midst of a horrific recession is, in 
fact, an emergency--and they voted that way, now they are inconsistent, 
not only inconsistent when it comes to all of a sudden insisting that 
they can't support anything that would increase the deficit even in a 
limited manner--that is inconsistent, but I believe it is even more 
outrageously inconsistent when you say: I will vote for tax cuts for 
the wealthy and run up the deficit, but I am not going to take steps to 
increase unemployment insurance or to extend unemployment insurance.
  So what you have is not only hypocrisy and blatant inconsistency, but 
you have hypocrisy and inconsistency and political gamesmanship that is 
hurting real people. There are hundreds of thousands of people. If we 
look across a couple of months, literally millions of Americans have 
been denied unemployment insurance and will be denied unemployment 
insurance if these games keep playing out, if these political obstacles 
are erected every couple of weeks or every couple of months.
  It is a very basic choice: We can vote right away and get beyond this 
and extend unemployment insurance or we can still have the games people 
are playing and the hypocrisy we have seen on display and continue 
playing games while people are out of work, while people are hurting, 
and while families are suffering. It is very simple. There is no kind 
of in-between here--you are either on one side of this issue or the 
other. Then we can get through this period. I think we can move on to 
other debates about our economy, about how our job-creation strategies 
are working. We can have debates about the deficit and a lot of other 
issues. But the first thing we have to do is make sure we are taking 
every step necessary to help people who are out of work through no 
fault of their own and to continue this recovery by creating the jobs 
that we know have been and will continue to be created as we move 
forward. But we have to get beyond this. We should not be waiting hours 
to get this final vote in place so we can pass an extension of 
unemployment insurance and move forward and help those workers and help 
those families.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                           Health Care Reform

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor to visit about the 
continuation of revelations to the American people about the health 
bill that has been signed into law by the President. I come as someone 
who has practiced medicine in Wyoming, taking care of the families of 
Wyoming for the last 25 years. I come as someone who is the medical 
director of the Wyoming Health Fair, offering low-cost blood screens, 
low-cost preventive services to let people identify health problems 
early so they can get early treatment, keep down the cost of their 
medical care. This is something we have done all around the State of 
Wyoming for almost a quarter of a century now.
  I come today to offer a doctor's second opinion. I have done this 
every week since the health care bill became law because every week 
there is a new revelation, a new finding, something that once again 
affirms what those of us who opposed this health care bill and this law 
had said would happen if this actually became law.
  I come to the floor to tell my colleagues what I have found in the 
last week. After all, the goal of health care reform was to lower 
costs, to increase quality, and to improve access for patients around 
the country. I continue to believe week after week, as Americans learn 
more and more about this law, that this is a law that is going to be 
bad for patients--I heard that as I traveled the State of Wyoming this 
past weekend talking to folks; bad for providers, nurses and doctors 
taking care of patients; and something that is going to be bad for 
payers, people who are going to have to pay the bills for their own 
health care, because costs are going up, people paying for their own 
health insurance because costs are going up, taxpayers who are going to 
have to pay for this because those costs continue to go up.
  I come to the floor having just taken a look at the Sunday New York 
Times, an article by Robert Pear: ``Changing Stance, the Administration 
now Defends Insurance Mandate as a Tax.'' I stood on this floor week 
after week hearing people on the other side of the aisle say: No, this 
isn't a tax. Now, all of a sudden the administration says differently. 
But then who can forget Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, who said: 
You don't get to find out what is in the bill until the bill is passed.
  There have been so many broken promises made by this administration 
and this President to the American people. It is no surprise that a 
majority of the American people continue to want to have this law 
repealed and replaced.
  Well, let's review a couple of those promises. One is the President 
said:

       The plan I'm announcing tonight--

     and he said this to a joint session of Congress, with those 
     of us here attending--

       The plan I'm announcing tonight. . . .will slow the growth 
     of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and 
     our government.

  Well, the Chief Actuary for Medicare and Medicaid said, of course, 
the President is wrong.
  Then the President said: If you like your health care plan, you will 
be able to keep your health care plan, period. He said: No one will 
take it away, period. He said: No matter what, period.
  But then the Chief Actuary of Medicare and Medicaid said 14 million 
Americans would lose their employer-sponsored health coverage under the 
law. And when the White House came out with its own recommendations and 
rules and regulations, even they have said a majority of Americans who 
receive their health coverage through work will not be able to keep the 
coverage the President of the United States promised them they could 
keep.
  And now the one where the President said: I can make a firm pledge. 
Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any 
form of tax increase.
  He went on to be specific. He said: not your income taxes, not your 
payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.
  That is what the President happened to say.
  Well, that was not just a candidate speaking that way. Even as 
President, in September of 2009, in a speech before Congress, President 
Obama again promised the American people:

       The middle class will realize greater security, not higher 
     taxes.

  What a difference a year makes. The President's new health care law 
does contain tax hikes--lots of them. In fact, there are at least 18 
new taxes in the health care law, and it raises approximately $500 
billion over a 10-year period.
  Here are a couple of examples: new taxes on medical devices and 
supplies, new taxes on brandname prescription drugs, new taxes on 
health insurance providers, increased Medicare payroll taxes on 
employers. But the most egregious is the individual mandate tax. That 
is the one that the American people are so concerned about right now. 
The new health care law requires all Americans to buy Washington-
approved health insurance, and they have to do it by the year 2014. If 
they do not, they have to pay. Some call it a penalty, others call it a 
fine. For the first time in our Nation's history, the Federal 
Government is ordering the American people to use their own hard-earned 
money to buy a specific good or service.
  Most people I talk to, who see through all of the games and the 
wording, say this is a tax. Even ABC News's George Stephanopoulos 
clearly pointed this out during a September 2009 interview with then 
President Obama. In

[[Page 13627]]

that interview, Mr. Stephanopoulos pressed President Obama, pressed him 
to admit that the individual mandate is a tax. He asked President 
Obama:

       But you reject that it's a tax increase?

  And the President responded:

       I absolutely reject that notion.

  Well, Mr. President, apparently your own administration disagrees 
with you. And clearly your Justice Department disagrees with you. 
Because as the New York Times reported, on July 16--just this past 
Sunday--it said:

       Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin 
     of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul 
     and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by 
     more than 20 states and several private organizations.

  It is so interesting. Just the first paragraph:

       When Congress required most Americans to obtain health 
     insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats--

  In this very Chamber--

     denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the 
     Obama administration and its allies now defend the 
     requirement as an exercise of the government's ``power to lay 
     and collect taxes.''

  So there you have it. The article says the Justice Department now 
believes--the Justice Department takes direction from the President--
the Justice Department believes the individual mandate penalty is a tax 
precisely because it generates money, $4 billion per year through 2017. 
That is according to the Congressional Budget Office. So you have the 
President promising the American people one thing and directing his 
Justice Department to say exactly the opposite.
  Well, you might say, is this partisan? No. We are talking about a New 
York Times article. The New York Times goes on to quote Jack Balkin, 
who is a professor of law at the Yale Law School. This is somebody who 
actually supports the health care law. This is a supporter of the 
health care law. What does he say about President Obama? He said he 
``has not been honest with the American people about the nature of this 
bill.'' He says: ``This bill is a tax.''
  So here you have a supporter of the health care law, a supporter--a 
Yale Law School professor--who goes on to say of President Obama, he 
``has not been honest with the American people about the nature of this 
bill.'' He said: ``This bill is a tax.''
  We have President Obama's own administration now admitting the 
individual mandate to buy health insurance is a tax increase. Well, 
this clearly violates the President's repeated promises that no one--no 
one--making less than $250,000 a year would see a tax increase.
  Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation confirms the tax hikes in the 
health care law absolutely will hit millions of middle-class, working-
class families struggling in this economy.
  Once again, we see and hear the President of the United States 
promising the American people one thing and delivering something 
entirely different.
  The President went on national TV and said his individual mandate was 
not a tax. Now the President's administration says it is.
  So I come to the floor again today with a doctor's second opinion, 
outlining the broken promises of this health care law--the broken 
promises made by this President and this administration to the American 
people, and forcing through, cramming down their throats, against the 
wishes of the American people, a law the American people did not want, 
and still do not want. Because if you go to any senior center, if you 
go to any civic organization, if you travel around this country and you 
ask the question: Under this law, do you believe the cost of health 
care will go up, all the hands will go up. And if you ask the question: 
Do you think the quality of your own care under this new law will go 
down, the same number of hands continue to go up.
  That is why it is important we repeal and replace this health care 
law with something that is patient centered, with something that 
focuses on patients, not Washington bureaucrats and not insurance 
company bureaucrats. There is no reason to not allow Americans to buy 
insurance across State lines. There is no reason not to allow Americans 
who want to buy individual insurance to get the same tax breaks. They 
should be able to get the same tax breaks as those who get their 
insurance through work from the big companies with those tax breaks.
  We have to allow people to have individual incentives if they stay 
healthy and take measures to keep down the cost of their own care. We 
have to deal with lawsuit abuse, which was essentially neglected in 
this over 2,000-page health care law. We need to encourage and allow 
small businesses to join together to get the cost of their health care 
down and the cost of their insurance down.
  Those are the things that will get the cost of care down--not this 
monstrous bill that is bad for patients, bad for providers, and bad for 
the payers of health care. That is why week after week I continue to 
come to the Senate floor to once again go over what we have learned in 
the past week. This week we have learned the President of the United 
States, who promised there would be no increased taxes, has now changed 
the tune of his entire administration and his Justice Department by 
saying: Oh, no, we are changing our stance. Now the insurance mandate 
is a tax.
  I offer my second opinion, and it is time to repeal and replace this 
health care law.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  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. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 5 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                        PRAISING JAYNE ARMSTRONG

  Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I rise once more to honor one of 
America's great Federal employees.
  Last week, the Senate focused a lot of its attention on reforming our 
regulation of Wall Street. As important as that is, we must not forget 
that the health of our economy depends on the success of businesses on 
Main Street. Small businesses form the backbone of our prosperity and 
embody the American dream for millions of families.
  From the colonial merchants at our beginning to those who opened 
stores in frontier towns in the 19th century, from the mom and pop 
shops in the postwar years to the online start-ups of our day, small 
businesses have driven our economy.
  Over the past 57 years, the Small Business Administration has been 
helping small business owners obtain loans and find resources to help 
them prosper. By guaranteeing loans that small businesses take out from 
banks, the SBA enables entrepreneurs to grow and develop their 
businesses with confidence, which helps create jobs and improve local 
economies.
  It was created out of the old Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 
which was set up during the Hoover administration to lend capital to 
businesses hurt by the Great Depression. The SBA was founded in 1953, 
on the cusp of an economic boom that saw the proliferation of new small 
businesses throughout the Nation.
  In 1964, the SBA's Equal Opportunity Loan Program helped tackle 
poverty by encouraging new businesses started by entrepreneurs living 
below the poverty line. In the aftermath of natural disasters, the SBA 
provides emergency assistance to help keep small businesses running. 
Today, the SBA continues to play an important role in helping small 
business owners launch and grow their businesses.
  The great Federal employee I am honoring this week has worked at the 
SBA for 16 years.
  Jayne Armstrong currently serves as the SBA district director for 
Delaware. I have known her for several years, and I have seen firsthand 
her dedication to

[[Page 13628]]

helping Delaware small businesses thrive.
  Jayne, a native of Pittsburgh, worked in advertising, high-tech 
economic development, and higher education development before joining 
the SBA in 1994. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees from West 
Virginia University. First serving as the district director for West 
Virginia and regional advocate in the SBA's Office of Advocacy, Jayne 
helped organize the White House Conference on Small Businesses in 1995. 
She also represented the SBA in Russia during the first-ever formal 
exchange between American and Russian entrepreneurs the following year.
  Since coming to Delaware and, Mr. President, I should add that she 
has lived in my home State for the past 10 years--Jayne has become one 
of the greatest advocates for First State entrepreneurs. She has helped 
hundreds of Delawareans turn ideas into businesses. Nothing, including 
the economic downturn, slows her down in her drive to help small 
business owners obtain the loans they need to open or expand.
  Jayne has placed a particular emphasis on helping entrepreneurs take 
advantage of SBA loan programs created through the Recovery Act, such 
as Queen Bee Beauty Supply in Smyrna, a minority woman-owned business, 
and Miller Metal Fabrication in Bridgeville, a design engineering and 
manufacturing company.
  These are just two of the hundreds of businesses that have Jayne and 
the SBA to thank for helping them get their start or expand into new 
opportunities.
  Jayne is also substantially involved in our State's nonprofit 
community. She serves on the boards of Girls, Inc., the Caesar Rodney 
Rotary Club, and Delaware Tech's Entrepreneurial Advisory Consortium, 
among others. Former Governor Ruth Ann Miller appointed her to serve on 
the Delaware Commission for Women.
  The SBA serves as a fitting example of how the Federal Government 
works with the private sector to fuel job creation--a goal we are 
continuing to focus heavily on in this Congress.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in thanking Jayne Armstrong and all 
of the men and women at the Small Business Administration for their 
hard work to help our small business sector grow and prosper. They are 
all truly great Federal employees.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           American Jobs Act

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, today, hopefully, we will finally extend 
unemployment insurance to those who can't find a job in this difficult 
economic climate. Our next task is to help small employers and 
entrepreneurs grow their businesses and hire new workers. That is the 
only way we will fully emerge from this recession.
  Over the past 15 years, small businesses have created almost two-
thirds of the new jobs in America. Small businesses are the cornerstone 
of New Hampshire's economy. Over 96 percent of businesses in the 
Granite State are small businesses with fewer than 500 employees. That 
is why we need, once we have passed the extension of unemployment 
insurance, to pass the Small Business Jobs Act as soon as possible. 
This is legislation that will dramatically increase lending to small 
businesses, it will enhance the ability of small companies to export, 
and it will provide tax relief to small firms.
  I am proud that as a member of the Small Business Committee I helped 
craft this bill under the leadership of the chair of that committee, 
Senator Mary Landrieu, and ranking member Senator Olympia Snowe. I want 
to thank both of them for their work and for their leadership on this 
bill.
  While many community banks in New Hampshire have increased their 
lending, I consistently hear from small businesses that they have run 
out of financing for the working capital they need. Last year, my 
office organized a financing fair to bring together lenders and small 
businesses who need financing, and over 500 people showed up. It was a 
huge turnout. But still, wherever I go in New Hampshire, small business 
owners tell me they are running out of financing options. In some 
cases, their only choice is to turn to credit cards, often personal 
credit cards, paying exorbitant interest rates to get the working 
capital they need to keep their businesses going.
  The small business jobs bill will enhance Small Business 
Administration loan programs that help small businesses in New 
Hampshire and throughout the country as they try to access the credit 
they need to hire workers, to grow their businesses, and to weather the 
economic storm.
  In the past year, many small businesses in New Hampshire have taken 
advantage of the enhancements to the SBA programs that were included in 
the Recovery Act. One business owner in New Hampshire, Janet Dunican, 
was able to save her business with an SBA loan. Janet owns an 
innovative manufacturing company in Hooksett, NH. She has over 50 
employees, and what they do is help take trucks that are owned by other 
small businesses and transform them by adding custom-fit utility 
buckets--the kind we see when the cable company fixes the power lines 
after a storm.
  When Janet needed a loan to save her company, she looked everywhere 
for help. But with credit tight and with this uncertain economy, she 
had a hard time finding a bank that would finance her project to keep 
the business afloat. Then she turned to a bank that participated in an 
SBA loan guarantee program. She was able to work with her bank to get 
the credit she needed to save her business.
  Unfortunately, too many small businesses can't take advantage of loan 
guarantees because the loans have been too limited, and they do not fit 
their needs. But the small business jobs bill opens these programs to 
more businesses. It increases the size of the loans that businesses can 
obtain, it allows small businesses to refinance their debt at lower 
rates, and it extends the higher guarantee rates that were included in 
the Recovery Act. The SBA estimates that these provisions will put over 
$5 billion in credit into the hands of small businesses.
  The bill also funds successful State small business lending 
programs--programs that have helped save many small businesses and 
helped others finance their growth. These programs, such as our own--
the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority's Capital Access Program--
and other successful small business lending programs, can quickly get 
credit into the hands of the small companies that need it the most.
  The bill also includes a proposal that I worked very hard on to allow 
more small businesses in New Hampshire to access the SBA's Express Loan 
Program. The Express Loan Program is popular with banks in New 
Hampshire because it cuts redtape and allows them to use their own 
paperwork in making the loans. It is a simple way to quickly put 
working capital into the hands of small business owners.
  Another important way we can increase the bottom lines of small 
businesses is by helping them sell their products overseas, something I 
have been supportive of for a very long time. Of the small- and medium-
sized businesses in this country, only about 5 percent are selling into 
markets overseas. Yet 99 percent of those markets are outside of the 
United States. For many of these small businesses that would like to 
export, it can be very challenging because, unlike big companies, they 
often don't have the technical capacity or the resources to identify 
new markets, to go on trade missions, and to market their products to 
foreign buyers.
  The small business jobs bill will help these small firms access new 
markets

[[Page 13629]]

because it boosts Federal and State programs that help small businesses 
export their products. It also strengthens SBA export financing 
programs so that small businesses can get loans to put them in a better 
position to compete locally.
  Finally, this legislation also provides over $12 billion in targeted 
tax relief for small businesses. These are tax cuts that will help free 
up capital for small firms to make investments and, most importantly, 
to hire workers because that, in fact, is what the small business jobs 
bill is all about. It is to help provide the boost that small 
businesses in New Hampshire and across the country need, not just so 
they can be successful and grow, but so they can create jobs--the jobs 
that we need to put people back to work in this country.
  I am excited that we are going to be taking up this legislation. I 
hope it is going to be today. I urge my colleagues to join me in 
supporting this critical bill to help improve job prospects for people 
across the country.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                               Estate Tax

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, every day it becomes harder and harder 
for me to listen to my Republican friends who race down to the Senate 
breathlessly telling the American people how concerned they are about 
the $13 trillion national debt we have and how ``we have to get our 
financial house in order.'' That is what they tell us every single day. 
But a funny thing happened: under the leadership of President George W. 
Bush, these very same Republicans turned a recordbreaking Federal 
surplus left by President Clinton into recordbreaking deficits. Back 
then, as we all recall, not so many years ago, their rallying cry was 
``deficits don't matter.'' That was articulated by Vice President Dick 
Cheney. This ``deficits don't matter'' philosophy gave us two wars that 
were not paid for, including the war in Iraq, which may end up costing 
us $3 trillion. It gave us $700 billion in tax breaks--no worry about 
paying for those tax breaks that went to the very wealthiest people in 
our country. It gave us $400 billion in an unpaid-for prescription drug 
Medicare Part D bill. And, of course, it gave us a $700 billion bailout 
of Wall Street developed by President Bush and his Secretary of the 
Treasury, Mr. Paulson. No worry; in those days, we did not have to pay 
for any of that. It is OK, just add it onto the debt of our kids and 
our grandchildren.
  But it seems our Republican friends recently, about a year and three-
quarters ago, had a change of heart. Coincidentally, that was when 
President Obama came into office. I am sure it was just a coincidence, 
but now it appears that deficits do matter. For 8 years, deficits 
didn't matter. Now they do matter. Now they are telling us we cannot 
afford to extend unemployment benefits to over 2 million Americans who 
lost their jobs in the worst recession in modern history. They tell us 
we just cannot afford to invest in our economy to rebuild our crumbling 
infrastructure or transform our energy system, which would create, over 
a period of years, millions of good-paying jobs. We can't do that. We 
don't have the money to do that.
  The Republican hypocrisy is about to reach a whole new level, 
literally, today. In the name of fiscal responsibility, while they 
oppose every effort to help the middle-class and working families of 
our country, today an amendment is going to come onto the floor which 
is specifically designed to provide huge tax breaks to millionaires and 
billionaires. In other words, there is no money available to help 
desperate families who have lost their jobs, but there is all kinds of 
money to provide huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.
  Finally, last night, as a result of the appointment of a new Senator 
from West Virginia, we got the 60 votes we needed to end the Republican 
filibuster so that we can extend unemployment benefits. But instead of 
allowing this bill to pass yesterday, as common decency would allow, so 
we can begin to get the money out to those families who are wondering 
right now how they are going to buy the food they need, pay the rent, 
pay the mortgage, the Republicans are forcing the Senate to wait 
another 30 hours before final passage.
  Adding insult to injury, my good friend from South Carolina, Senator 
DeMint, wants to suspend the rules so the Senate can take up 
legislation to permanently repeal the estate tax. This, even for the 
Senate, is really weird and really extraordinary. In the midst of 
telling us how serious the deficit is, how serious the national debt 
is, these folks want to give tax breaks to billionaires by permanently 
repealing the estate tax and, as this chart shows, adding more than $1 
trillion to the deficit over 10 years. That is a very unusual way to 
deal with our deficit crisis, by adding $1 trillion to the national 
debt over a 10-year period. Furthermore, as this chart shows--and maybe 
this is the most important point I want to make in my brief remarks--
only a tiny fraction of estates from death in 2009 owed any estate tax. 
In fact, 99.7 percent of Americans would not receive a nickel from 
Senator DeMint's legislation.
  Four years ago, every Republican except two voted to completely 
eliminate the estate tax, a tax that has been in existence since 1916 
and impacts only the very richest families in America, the top three-
tenths of 1 percent. Let me tell you who the major beneficiaries of 
this huge tax break would be. Would it be the average middle-class 
worker who during the Bush years saw a $2,200 decline in his income, 
people who really need the money? No, they are not being helped by Mr. 
DeMint or the repeal of the estate tax. Would it be a small 
businessperson, the people who are creating almost all of the new jobs 
in our economy? Would small business be helped when we repeal the 
estate tax? No, not those guys. Would it be a single mom who wants to 
send her kid to college for the first time in their family's lifetime? 
No, that single mom is not going to be helped, not anybody on Social 
Security, not the people who need the help the most. They don't get one 
penny from the repeal of the estate tax, as Senator DeMint is 
proposing.
  Who benefits? Who are the beneficiaries of the estate tax or, as my 
Republican friends and their pollsters like to refer to it, the death 
tax? If we pass what Senator DeMint wants us to do today, completely 
repeal the estate tax, it would provide an estimated $32.7 billion tax 
break for the Walton family, the founders and owners of Walmart--a 
$32.7 billion tax break for a family that is worth almost $87 billion. 
Some people here may think the Walton family--worth almost $100 
billion--is in desperate need of a tax break at a time when we have a 
$13 trillion national debt. I am not one of those people. I do not 
think they do.
  But it is not just the Walton family, obviously, who will benefit. 
Other very wealthy families will. Do you remember those hedge fund 
managers on Wall Street who made $1 billion a year or several billion a 
year? They are going to benefit. Those are the guys--the people who 
drove us into the recession, who made huge amounts of money gambling on 
Wall Street. They will be very happy if that amendment passes. They 
benefit. The Mars candy family will get an $11 billion tax break; the 
Cox cable family, $9 billion tax breaks.
  Remember, this law has been in existence since 1916. And remember 
again, it only benefits the top three-tenths of 1 percent, and 99.7 
percent of the American people, working people, middle-class, lower 
income people, upper middle-class people, don't benefit one nickel from 
this tax break which costs us $1 trillion over a 10-year period.
  At a time when our country has a $13 trillion national debt, the 
highest level of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, a 
crumbling infrastructure, a desperate need to transform our

[[Page 13630]]

energy system--I see Senator Boxer, who has been a leader in that 
effort--it is beyond comprehension to me that anyone at this moment in 
American history would advocate huge tax breaks for millionaires and 
billionaires.
  This concept of the estate tax was developed by Teddy Roosevelt. He 
was concerned about two things. He was obviously concerned about 
raising revenue for the Federal Government, but he was also concerned 
about making sure we did not maintain an oligarchy in the United States 
where billionaire families--people worth tens of billions of dollars 
now--are able to give away their fortunes to their own heirs. He 
believed in a meritocracy and that it was appropriate that those people 
pay a fair share of taxes.
  This is what he said:

       The absence of effective state and especially national 
     restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a 
     small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful 
     men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power . 
     . . Therefore I [Teddy Roosevelt] believe in a . . . 
     graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly 
     safeguarded against evasion and increasing in amount with the 
     size of the estate.

  Teddy Roosevelt, 1910. I think our Republican friends have kind of 
disowned Teddy Roosevelt, and we don't hear him quoted terribly much 
anymore.
  In order to sell this concept of repealing the estate tax to the 
American people, Republican pollsters--I have to admit, we have to be 
honest about this--have done a very good job. They framed this tax 
break for billionaires into a death tax. So people on the street in 
Burlington, VT, come up to me and say: Bernie, I want to leave my kids 
$20,000. Why are they going to tax me? The Republican pollsters have 
done a very good job and their lobbyists have done a very good job in 
misleading the public. As usual, Republicans are using the old tactic 
of pretending to worry about the needs of ordinary people as a 
smokescreen to serve the wealthy special interests.
  That is what they do very well. If you are in the middle class and 
you want to leave your family $1 million or $2 million or $100,000, 
this doesn't apply to you; you don't benefit one nickel. This is for 
millionaires and billionaires.
  The other thing they talk about is, we have to preserve the family 
farm and the estate tax is wiping out family farms. I am a strong 
advocate of family-based agriculture, and in terms of the preservation 
of family farms, the American Farm Bureau was asked to come up with an 
example of one single family farm being lost as a result of the estate 
tax. They could not find one farm that had to be sold as a result of 
the estate tax. This is not legislation to help family farmers. This is 
legislation to help provide tax breaks for millionaires and 
billionaires.
  Let me quote from an article that appeared in the New York Times July 
8, 2001:

       Neil Harl, an Iowa State University economist whose tax 
     advice has made him a household name among Midwest farmers, 
     said he had searched far and wide but had never found a case 
     in which a farm was lost because of estate taxes. ``It's a 
     myth,'' Mr. Harl said.

  As it happens, I called up Professor Harl this afternoon, just a few 
hours ago. Interestingly, he told me he has conducted over 3,000 
seminars on the estate tax and agriculture. This guy is an expert on 
the issue. I just wanted to get an update from him. What he told me 2 
hours ago is that after studying this issue for decades, he has not 
heard of one family farm that had to be sold because of the estate 
tax--not one.
  When my Republican friends talk about preserving the family farm--
something we have to do--this estate tax issue has nothing to do with 
that.
  In terms of small business, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, as 
this chart indicates, has estimated that only 80 small businesses and 
farm estates throughout the country paid an estate tax in 2009, 
representing 0.003 percent of all estates.
  This legislation is not for the family farmer. This legislation is 
not for small business. This legislation is specifically designed to 
provide huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country, 
millionaires and billionaires, at the same time as we have a $13 
trillion national debt.
  Let me conclude by saying this.
  We have heard our Republican friends week after week, month after 
month, coming down to the floor of the Senate and saying, no, we cannot 
extend unemployment benefits to desperate Americans all over this 
country who, through no fault of their own, have lost their jobs. We 
cannot afford to do that.
  Finally yesterday we got the votes to go forward. But having said 
that, that they cannot help working families and people who have lost 
their jobs, they are now coming down to the floor and saying, we 
desperately need to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.
  You know, Woody Guthrie had a song some years ago. The title was: 
``Whose Side Are You On?'' The Republicans have answered that loudly 
and clearly. But when it comes to the needs of the unemployed and 
uninsured, when it comes to protect the interests of the struggling 
middle class, the Republicans are deficit hawks. We know they are going 
to go after them. But if you are a billionaire family who needs a huge 
tax break that will cost $1 trillion over 10 years, they are on your 
side.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California is 
recognized.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the Senator from Vermont speaks in very 
clear words. When he says this debate is about whose side are you on, 
he could not be more on target. We have a situation where we know that 
when President Obama took office and the Democrats were increasing 
their majority, we inherited the worst recession since the Great 
Depression. Those are not just words; that is a fact.
  We inherited the worst deficit ever, because under the Republicans, 
the hugest tax cuts ever to people earning more than $1 million a year, 
$1 billion a year, went right on the credit card; two wars went right 
on the credit card; nothing paid for.
  Then at the end of George Bush's term, when we started to see jobs 
being lost, 700,000 jobs a month, that is when we took over, and we 
took some tough votes. We said to the American people: We are going to 
focus like a laser beam on jobs and this economy, and we are going to 
get back on our feet. Yes, we are going to tackle that deficit.
  I happen to have the privilege of having been sent here by my State 
when Bill Clinton was President of the United States. You know what. He 
inherited huge deficits, and he inherited a tough economic time, and we 
proved that we could both balance the budget and create 23 million 
jobs. When George W. Bush took the keys to that Oval Office, it took 
him a matter of minutes, figuratively a matter of minutes, to turn 
surpluses into deficits, and to bring down the jobs market until we got 
to a point where we were losing and hemorrhaging jobs at 700,000 a 
month.
  This is important for us to remember, because it is this date where 
we say to our Republican friends, if you care about the people who are 
trying desperately to get jobs, if you care about people who have been 
hit by this great recession, then come with us. Work with us. Let's 
make sure we are there for those who deserve to have this help.
  By the way, if I could say, the rules that go along with getting this 
unemployment extension, people do not talk about that much. You have to 
prove you are ready and willing to work. You have to prove you are 
actively seeking a job. You cannot have been fired for cause. And, by 
the way, you have to have paid into the unemployment insurance fund as 
well. This is unemployment insurance that the workers have paid into.
  These are people who are actively seeking work. Guess what. When they 
get there, they find out there are five job seekers for every job. So 
we say to our friends on the other side of the aisle, where is your 
heart? Where is your heart?
  A couple of them proved that. They stepped up and voted with us. That 
is all. When history is written, I think this time is going to go down 
as a time when right triumphs over wrong, because we did get these 
votes.

[[Page 13631]]

  But guess what. Even though the other side knows we have those votes, 
they are stalling and stalling and having us vote on amendments that 
would give the wealthiest Americans their tax cuts, without paying for 
it. So when a deficit is caused by helping those who earn $1 million a 
year, $1 billion a year, oh, they are happy with that. But when you are 
trying to help mainstream America, middle-class America, the hard-
working people, oh, my goodness, where are they? They are not here. 
Only to delay they are here. They are here to delay.
  This is an important moment in history, because we always had 
bipartisan support for extending unemployment compensation. My God, we 
had it when George W. Bush was President in 2003. The Republicans 
joined with us and extended unemployment. No problem. So I do not know 
where this is coming from.
  You are going to hear: Oh, the deficit. That is hogwash. They admit 
it. They admit it. They do not care about the deficit. When they are 
cutting taxes for their friends, they said: It does not matter. I have 
chapter and verse, quotes from their leadership. So this is about 
values. It is about whose side are you on? I am on the side of the 
American people, the working people. Most of us. Bernie Sanders is on 
that side. The Republicans who are joining us in this vote today are on 
that side today. This is a history-making day. It is the first time we 
have ever had a standoff on this issue. It is the first time we have 
ever seen the Republican Party walk away from working Americans like 
this. Again, when I was here and we balanced the budget, we created 
surpluses. The Republicans were not with us on that. I can honestly 
say, I voted to balance the budget. We did it, and we know how to do 
it, and we are going to do it. But do not turn your backs on people who 
paid into the unemployment compensation funds. It is insurance. They 
paid into it. And they have to be actively seeking work.
  I wanted to read to you a couple of stories from my State, of real 
people. But before I do, I want to talk about Mark Zandi. Mark Zandi, 
chief economist at Moody's, was one of the top economic advisers to 
then-Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. He says that every 
dollar invested in unemployment benefits, such as we are going to vote 
on today, produces $1.61 in economic activity. The CBO estimates it is 
$1.90.
  Why is that? It is because the people who are getting those funds to 
survive are going to spend it in the local economy. They are going to 
go out to the supermarket; they are going to go to the local gas 
station. Economists of all stripes agree that there is an actual return 
on investment here, let alone the morality of standing up for people 
who, through no fault of their own, cannot find a job.
  Let me read what a Sacramento woman said to me.

       Days go by when I hardly sleep at all, worrying about our 
     bills. Since my benefits were cut off on July 1 at the end of 
     my first extension, we have had to concentrate all of our 
     income on paying the rent and buying food and gas. I have not 
     been able to pay any of our other bills. I don't know how 
     long we can make it like this.

  I don't know how long we can make it like this. And our friends are 
stalling and stalling and stalling. Two months already they have 
stalled.
  A city planner from Los Angeles writes:

       The effects of the recession were especially acute for 
     anyone whose industry was decimated by the financial crisis. 
     Since municipalities are struggling and real estate 
     development is frozen, jobs in my industry are few . . . my 
     unemployment checks stopped abruptly last week before the 4th 
     of July. I called my benefits office thinking this must be a 
     mistake, only to find that the benefits ended because 
     Congress didn't pass the Federal extension.

  Another Californian said:

       I am very scared of what might happen if I lose the 
     unemployment income. We don't want to lose our home. My 
     children catch me crying at times and ask me why are you 
     crying, mom? I can't tell them . . . Please pass this bill 
     until this economy strengthens and more companies start to 
     hire again.

  If people on the other side of the aisle can have a good night's 
sleep knowing this is what is happening in the greatest country in the 
world on our watch, then fine for them. But I have to tell you, this is 
a defining moment of who we are as a Nation. As a Nation.
  I actually had the experience of a political analyst, someone who 
comments on politics, say, well, you could understand why people might 
need two yachts, one on each coast. You know what. We better get back 
to the basics here: people who need to feed their families, people who 
need to pay their rent, people who do not want to lose their home.
  We have to do everything we can to revitalize the jobs market. We 
have taken it from 700,000 jobs lost a month under the Republicans, and 
we have turned it around, but not fast enough, not far enough.
  That is why the bills we passed here are so critical. But we have no 
cooperation on that. It would be one thing if the other side said, you 
know, let's not do unemployment, but let's work on jobs bills. Oh, no, 
they do not want to work on jobs bills. We have got a small business 
jobs bill. We are praying to God--I am--that we get one or two 
Republicans. This is a bill that is supported across the board by 
chambers of commerce, everybody. I know, Mr. President, how hard you 
have worked to make sure our community banks can start lending again to 
small businesses.
  I have been through nine cities in my State. I have met with small 
businesses. They want access to credit. This small business bill is a 
terrific bill, and we can leverage it without it costing the Federal 
Government a dime, these loans to qualified small businesses through 
qualified and strong community banks, and leverage all of this to be a 
huge stimulus, and it actually has. Because of the paybacks to the 
government, we even make a little bit on it.
  But we do not have our friends helping us with that. After they stall 
this unemployment bill, they will stall into the night. Hey, it is 
their right. It is their right. But it is my right to talk about how I 
feel about it.
  They will start stalling small business just as they stalled the tax 
breaks that they claimed they wanted. They stalled the bill that would 
have given the research and development tax credit to businesses all 
over this great nation that need that tax break.
  They have stalled a lot of other tax breaks to businesses. There are 
huge tax breaks to small businesses in the small business bill they are 
stalling. So this is a moment in history. This is a moment when 
partisanship is way ahead of the needs of the people of this great 
Nation.
  I think it is a sad day when some of my Republican friends come down 
here and start to demean the people, the people like the one who wrote 
to me, the woman who said: I am scared of what might happen if I lose 
this unemployment income. We do not want to lose our home. My children 
catch my crying and ask me why are you crying, mom? I cannot tell them. 
Please pass this bill until this economy strengthens.
  Well, I make this commitment: if we have to stay here through the 
night, until 1 or 2 a.m.--I do not know what the other side wants; they 
have got their plan of delaying this--fine, then we will stay here 
until we get it done. But we are getting this done, because it is the 
right thing to do, because it is the right thing to do to people who 
are actively seeking jobs, who have lost jobs through no fault of their 
own, who have paid into the unemployment compensation fund.
  We are going to keep on working to create those jobs so we do not 
have to be here again and again doing this. There are things we can do 
to set the stake for economic recovery. We have done some of them. I 
have met the workers. I have met the workers in my State who are 
working on the 405 freeway, the 215 freeway, the 805 freeway, the 
Sacramento Airport, the Caldecott tunnel extension, the Doyle Drive 
extension, all up and down my State.
  I have met those workers who have those jobs because of the Economic 
Recovery Act. Our Republican administration in California has stated 
that at least 150,000 jobs have been saved or created, and other 
studies show it is more than that. It is not enough. We

[[Page 13632]]

have to keep working at it. I am sad to say all we can hope for are two 
or three Republican votes at that. We are grateful to those brave 
Republican Senators who helped us. We are grateful. I thank God for 
them that they have the courage to stand and say yes to the American 
people, yes to America's families, and no to partisan politics. I am so 
grateful to them.
  When I say that, it probably hurts them on the other side. I don't 
mean to do that. I am just being honest about how I feel about it. If 
anyone ever tells you one vote doesn't make a difference, one vote 
makes a difference. We swore in a new Senator from West Virginia to 
take the place of a leader, Robert C. Byrd, who lived his life for 
working people, for the workers in the mines. How appropriate it was 
that his first vote was to help working people, working people who, 
through no fault of their own, can't find work.
  I will wrap up at this point. I am ready, so ready for this final 
vote. If we have to stay here through five motions and debate the fact 
that the wealthiest American billionaires shouldn't have to help us 
with this recession, I am happy to do that. I am a believer that we all 
have to do our share. We all have to work together. Hopefully, tonight, 
whatever time it is, or in the early hours of the morning, my 
constituents, 200,000-plus in California, will be able to look at their 
kids and smile a little and say: Honey, we still have a chance. We are 
going to get out of these tough times. Honey, we are going to do it.
  That is what this place should be about at a time such as this, 
creating the policies that create the jobs, working together to do so 
but never forgetting there are people who just need that bridge until, 
when they go for a job, there are not four other people there for the 
same job. That day will come, if we can work together. I make that 
commitment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I have listened to my colleague from 
California. I am somewhat amazed to think she would imply we don't care 
about the unemployed. The fact is, we do. I went through the list of 
the things she mentioned, as did the Senator from Vermont. I was not 
here in 2001. I was not here in 2003. I was not here when both the wars 
were initiated. I had no part in any of that. But even had I been, the 
fact is, we can help two groups of people with this unemployment 
insurance. There isn't anybody on our side of the aisle who doesn't 
think we ought to pass extended unemployment benefits. To state or 
imply that is absolutely absurd. It is not about stalling. The majority 
leader did not allow one amendment to allow us an opportunity to have a 
vote on whether we ought to pay for it.
  The question isn't whether we help the unemployed. Every time we have 
offered ways to do so--as a matter of fact, five times it has been 
rejected that, in fact, our grandchildren should not have to pay for 
the unemployment benefits of the people who are unemployed today. Five 
times it has been rejected. Multiple times we have chosen to not do the 
responsible thing for two groups of people. It is easy to come to the 
Senate floor and throw darts at people who have a drastic disagreement 
on where we stand in this country. But to imply that they don't care is 
out of bounds. The people in Oklahoma who are not getting unemployment 
checks today I care about just as much as the people who don't have a 
job who aren't getting one. But there is another group of people whom I 
am pressed to serve in Oklahoma as well; that is, their children. The 
assumption that this body can't make the hard choices to eliminate 
things that are much less important, much more wasteful, an absolute 
waste of Federal dollars and eliminate those things to pay for 
unemployment insurance is out of the bounds of reality.
  My colleague from California mentioned several times that all the 
people who are getting these extended benefits have paid into a fund. 
They paid zero. This is extended benefits. The extended benefits are 
100 percent paid for by Federal tax dollars. It is the 26 weeks, the 
routine unemployment, that is paid for through the unemployment fund. 
The extended benefits, long-term benefits, don't come from any pot of 
money except the pot of money of our grandchildren's future.
  Let's put that to rest. There is not a Republican or a Democrat or an 
Independent in this body who does not want these folks to get extended 
unemployment benefits. We do. The question is, at a time when we are 
going to borrow $1.6 trillion this year alone against the future of our 
children, whether maybe we can find $30 billion, that doesn't come 
anywhere close to the priorities of helping people who are unemployed 
today. I reject out of hand the idea that we don't have any compassion. 
The fact is we do.
  As a matter of fact, our compassion is both short term and long term. 
We are thinking about the habits of Congress that continually put the 
credit card into the machine and borrow against the prosperity and 
well-being of generations that follow. Let's not have any more talk 
about the fact that we don't want people to have unemployment. We do. 
We do want them to have unemployment. Multiple times we offered ways 
for that. It may, in fact, pass this afternoon or early this evening 
that we are going to extend them and not pay for it. But as the Senator 
from California said: It is a defining moment. It certainly is. Is the 
Federal Government, in this difficult economic situation, going to at 
least make some small attempt to rein in the $300 billion worth of 
waste, fraud, abuse, and duplication in the Federal Government? The 
answer we get is no. Discretionary programs over the last 2 years, not 
counting the stimulus--we can have the stimulus debate some other 
time--have risen 19.6 percent, when the average wage went up less than 
2 percent. The Federal Government is now twice as big as it was in 
1999, not counting the stimulus. We have 6,400 sets of duplicative 
programs that the body will not touch. They are all designed to do good 
things for people. They are highly inefficient, highly ineffective. Yet 
what we will do is not that hard work to get rid of the things that 
aren't working. We will just charge our children so we can say we took 
care of unemployment.
  Hard times require hard decisions. What we are seeing is the easy way 
out. The easy way out is to not pay for this. The easy way out is to 
charge it to our children and grandchildren. There is no difference in 
the level of compassion. Everybody wants to take care of those who are 
unemployed. The easy way is to put it on the backs of our children and 
grandchildren.
  The question is, Will we do the right thing for the country? Will we 
do the best right thing for the country or will we do the easy thing, 
the politically expedient thing, class envy, ``I am going make somebody 
look bad because they don't agree with me on the timing of something'' 
or will we act as a body that will ensure both caring for the now and 
ensuring the future? It is easy in the Senate to spend money you don't 
have. The bias is for it. The hard thing is to take and do the best 
right thing. My colleagues, many on both sides of the aisle, in 
numerous cases over the last 5\1/2\ years, have too often done the easy 
thing. We have all these fingers pointing at this administration did 
this and this administration did this. There are plenty of problems for 
every administration and every political party to be considered guilty 
on because too often both groups have done the short-term politically 
expedient thing rather than the best right thing for the country.
  I had, at one of the events that my staff attended this weekend, an 
individual in Oklahoma who lost his unemployment insurance. He said: 
You tell Dr. Coburn to be sure and continue to pay for it. I want my 
unemployment insurance. I need my unemployment. I will not be able to 
make my house payments unless I get that. But I don't want that to come 
from my children and grandchildren. I want it to come from the excesses 
and waste in Washington today.
  So there is another viewpoint, even though we hear it is a critically 
nonpertinent viewpoint. This isn't a partisan issue. This isn't a 
delaying tactic.

[[Page 13633]]

This is a real philosophical difference on how we get out of the mess 
we are in.
  A lot of my colleagues are not happy that I am a Republican a lot of 
times because I go after my party just as much as I go after anybody 
else's. But the fact is, core principles matter. Go look at the history 
of republics. The Senator from California talks about a defining 
moment. The defining moment for the Athenian Republic was when they 
decided to start spending money they didn't have on things they didn't 
need.
  Here is our option today. The reason we are going to have motions is 
because we were given no opportunity to amend. That is the only reason 
we will have motions to suspend the rules. It has nothing to do with a 
delaying tactic. It has to do with a debate and a Senator's right to 
offer amendments. The Senator from California would be doing the same 
thing if the shoe was turned the other way. If she was precluded from 
offering amendments, she would find a way to offer an amendment, if she 
believed from a position, a conscientious position that can be defended 
on the basis of facts. You don't have to agree with it, but you can't 
deny there are economic factors that should play in how we pay for 
unemployment insurance.
  You can demean us. You can say we are mean. You can say we don't 
care. But the fact is, none of that is true. It is an absolute untruth.
  The defining moment is, Will we embrace the quality that built this 
country in the first place? That is, being responsible for the problems 
that are in front of us and not shifting that responsibility to 
generations that follow. That is what this debate is all about. When we 
left here for one break, we had agreed with Senator Reid and Senator 
Levin about extending unemployment insurance. We were told by the 
Speaker of the House that she wasn't about to set the precedent of 
starting to pay for unemployment insurance. Why not? When we have a 
$1.6 trillion deficit, when we have $13.3 trillion worth of debt, when 
we are mortgaging the future of our children, we are stealing 
opportunity away from them as we do it, why not? Why not meet the 
challenges that are in front of us by responding in a way that says 
meeting people's needs today is important, and it is important we not 
take away from the needs of the future as we do so. Yet we are lectured 
that it is a partisan debate.
  There is nothing partisan about this. In my soul, I want to help 
everybody out there who is unemployed and facing the tough times. But 
also in my soul is that I do not want to mortgage the future of any 
more American children, when we have tremendous amounts of waste, 
fraud, and duplication that can easily be eliminated.
  One of the motions I am going to offer is to cut $40 billion from the 
Federal Government. America, tell me what part of this you do not agree 
with. The fact is, we are going to ask that we quit wasting money on 
real property. We spend $8 billion a year maintaining property we do 
not want. We have $80 billion worth of empty buildings. It is costing 
us $8 billion a year. Should we continue to spend that $8 billion or 
should we not spend that $8 billion and take that $8 billion and pay 
for unemployment insurance?
  How about collecting unpaid taxes from Federal employees and Members 
of Congress. That is $3 billion. As to currently hired Federal 
employees, it is already adjudicated they owe $3 billion. I think we 
ought to pay it back. I do not think we ought to borrow from the future 
of our children and grandchildren because we do not have the guts to 
say: Pay up. Quit cheating the Federal Government, employee of the 
Federal Government. That is a small number in terms of the number of 
employees, but that is a big number: $3 billion. Let's have them pay 
up.
  Why is it we are not going to eliminate $8 billion in bonuses to 
Federal contractors who did not meet the requirements to get a bonus, 
yet we gave the bonus anyway? Why not eliminate that rather than charge 
this to our children? Tell me why you will not vote for that? Do you 
think we ought to be paying bonuses to people who do not deserve them, 
contractors? It is $6 billion over a 4-year period in just the Defense 
Department alone. But you do not want to get rid of that? You would 
rather charge the money to our kids than make the hard choice of 
alienating some defense contractor or some government contractor 
because they got something they did not deserve in the past, when 
somebody is unemployed who deserves to get unemployment insurance? I do 
not understand it. Or eliminating nonessential government travel--one 
of the things President Obama wants to do. We spend billions--$14.8 
billion, in excess of that--on Federal travel. We are some of the worst 
abusers. Yet we will not discipline ourselves and set an example that 
we can use a teleconference rather than getting on an airplane and 
going somewhere--a video teleconference. At a time such as this, when 
we are having an economic problem, we will not make the hard decision 
to make tough choices that are maybe not as fun, maybe not as easy. 
What I have found is a video teleconference is a whole lot easier than 
travel, but we will not make that hard choice. We are not going to tell 
the agencies they are going to have to do it.
  We will not even put on a Web site all the times we violate our own 
rules on pay-go. On February 12, we passed a law. It used to be a rule 
in the Senate, but now we passed a law. It is called pay-go. It says 
you cannot have new spending unless you pay for it. Since February 12, 
when the President signed that law, we have violated it to the tune of 
$223 billion, where we said: Oh, time out. The pay-go statute does not 
apply. We don't have to pay for it. We don't have to eliminate all the 
inefficiencies, all the duplication. We don't have to go after any 
fraud. We are just going to charge it to our children and 
grandchildren.
  Where is the integrity in that? Where is the integrity? Where is the 
character in that? Where is the courage to do the tough thing that 
accomplishes both helping the people who are unemployed but helping our 
kids and helping our Nation? There is not any. There is none. It is the 
easy way out.
  Lest you think I am making up this stuff, let me give you some 
examples of Federal duplication. I will just give you four easy 
examples. We have 70 different government programs--70 different sets 
of bureaucracies--that spend billions of dollars a year, and on none of 
them is there a metric to measure whether they are effective to help 
people with food who are hungry. Why 70? Why across six or seven 
different agencies? Why not one or two programs keenly focused with 
metrics on saying: Are we feeding them or not? Why not eliminate 68 
sets of bureaucracy and overhead? That is a small one.
  We have 105 different sets of programs to incentivize our young 
people to go into math, engineering, science, and technology. It costs 
$3 billion a year, for 105 different programs, in 9 different Federal 
agencies. They are not in the Department of Education. They are 
everywhere.
  Nobody knows the data, but nobody will vote to make them accountable, 
make them transparent, eliminate the overhead, streamline the 
bureaucracy. No, we do not want to do that. This body has voted against 
doing that multiple times when those amendments have been offered.
  We have a total of 78 job training programs outside the Department of 
Labor, costing billions of dollars a year, none of which have a metric 
on them. Yet we do not want to streamline that, eliminate it, get it 
down to two or three that are focused--some on the chronically 
unemployed, some on the new workers coming in, some on those who are 
handicapped who might need special assistance. No, we are going to keep 
the 70-plus programs we have because they are somebody's baby, all of 
which are highly inefficient and none of which can prove effectiveness 
when you measure them with a metric because they do not have a metric. 
They cannot demonstrate they are effective.
  So the debate is not about whether we want to help people who are 
unemployed. The debate is about whether we

[[Page 13634]]

want to help the people who are unemployed as well as the generations 
that follow us.
  I am amazed, and continue to be so, how easily this body can abandon 
common sense. I do not know if we do not have it to begin with or if we 
are similar to a magnet, and it is two positives, so we repel any 
common sense. But nobody would run any organization--private, public--
business or anything else the way we run the agencies in the Federal 
Government.
  When you start wanting to do something about it, the only thing you 
get is: We can't. Well, the American people are asking us today: 
Please, do what you can. Do what you can. What we can do is we can pay 
for unemployment for the next multiple periods of months by eliminating 
things that are absolutely unnecessary.
  Do you realize we can save $4.5 billion over the next 10 years by not 
printing stuff that people do not want. It is all online. We can save 
$450 million a year just by putting common sense into the Government 
Printing Office. It has been voted down three times on this floor this 
year. Why not? Why do we continue to take the easy task when the future 
of our country is going to be determined on whether we take the hard 
road and do the hard thing that benefits both the coming generations 
and those who are experiencing problems today?
  I tell you why it is. It is because we say we care, but we do not. We 
play the game, but we do not get in the game. Getting in the game means 
that you get criticized, that you offer ideas, some of which may work 
and some of which may not, but you are not afraid to change the game 
because our kids' future, our country's future depend on changing the 
game.
  What we have heard today is the resistance to changing the game. We 
do not have a future if we do not start making hard choices. It is an 
easy choice for me to vote with the Senator from California to pay for 
unemployment benefits. I want those people to get it. It is a hard 
choice for me to vote against it and say: Let's pay for it. If, in 
fact, you will pay for it, I will vote with you. It is not like we 
cannot find $40 billion. Every third grader in this country can find 
$40 billion in this budget. There is no rocket science to it. There is 
so much waste, so much duplication, and so much fraud that anybody can 
find it.
  The question is, Do we have the will to do the best right thing for 
this country? One of the things I have learned in 5\1/2\ years in this 
body is that when people use straw men and people use half-truths, it 
is usually because they are hiding something. What is being hidden from 
the American public today? What is this debate truly all about? Is it 
just about unemployment or is it about we like the way things are?
  We do not want to change the way things are, we do not want to get 
out of our comfort zone to solve the real problems of America, so, 
therefore, we will use all sorts of tactics to deflect what the real 
issues of the day are.
  What are they? The Senator from California rightly outlines that 
millions of Americans need unemployment compensation right now. I am 
all for it. What is the other truth about where we are? The truth is, 
this country is on an absolute unsustainable course. The American 
people have awakened to it. They know it.
  As the Senator from California knows, this is not new for me. I have 
been doing this for 5\1/2\ years. So it did not matter if it was the 
``bridge to nowhere,'' which a Republican authored, or unemployment 
compensation today, I think we use common sense and do the best right 
thing for America, not the politically easy thing.
  So the challenge before us today is to go home and explain, when this 
bill passes, why we charged it to the least of us. That is whom we are 
charging it to: to the least of us.
  I told a story not long ago. In my profession as a physician, I have 
delivered nearly 4,000 babies--maybe over that. I quit counting. But 
the thing that has always gotten me, when I am delivering a baby--and I 
have a mother there and a father there and that baby comes out--is to 
see the glow on the face and in the eyes of those parents. The glow is 
about hope and promise for the future and about what things can be and 
the potential that is unlimited when that new life is here. You see it 
in the parents, and you see them puff up and say: Wow, what a 
phenomenon.
  As I think about what we do today, we are stealing that. We are 
taking it from those kids because we refuse to have the backbone and 
courage to do the hard, yet the best right thing for this country.
  We will hear a lot of speeches about how bad we are because we want 
to pay for it. We will be talked down. It will be said that we want to 
obstruct. I honestly admit I don't want anything to go through this 
body that isn't paid for. You can count on it every time. Everybody on 
that side of the aisle, and most on my side of the aisle, have run in 
cross-wise with me on things that aren't paid for. They know. It is not 
a fetish; it is that I actually recognize the long-term future of this 
country depends on us getting our fiscal house in order.
  So it is a defining moment, as the Senator from California said. But 
it is not the defining moment she thinks it is. It is the defining 
moment of whether this body is going to grab onto and truly accept the 
responsibility given to us by the American people. Will we truly accept 
it? How we act on it determines our commitment to this country.
  I don't disagree with those who just want to get it through and get 
people paid. They have a right to have that position. I am not 
demeaning that position. I am just saying the country can't last if we 
keep doing it. Our kids don't have a future if we keep doing it. If we 
look at the budget projections for our country, we will run--even with 
the tax increases that are coming at the end of this year--we are going 
to run $1 trillion deficits until 2020.
  Let me close with one final thought. We have a $4 trillion budget. We 
are going to run a $1.6 trillion deficit this year. That means we are 
going to borrow that from our children. The deficit by this time next 
year will be close to $14 trillion.
  Have my colleagues ever thought about what $1 trillion is? My 
colleague from Georgia explained it to me. I didn't believe him, so I 
did the math.
  If we spend $1 a second, so that means we spend $60 a minute, or 
$3,600 an hour--$3,600 an hour, the wealthiest in our country probably 
don't spend that, but let's say we did--how long would it take us to 
spend $1 trillion? The answer is 31,709 years spending $3,600 an hour 
before we ever get to $1 trillion. We get $1 trillion deficits $30 
billion, $40 billion at a time, which is the cost of this bill. The way 
we start getting out of debt is to stop adding to it.
  If we go back to February 12 when the law went into effect on pay-go, 
and we add this bill to it, we are going to be at $\1/4\ trillion since 
February 12 that this body will have added to our children's deficit. 
It is not our debt. Nobody in this room and probably very few people 
listening to this debate are going to pay one penny against it. It is 
all going to be borne by the children coming.
  So what is pay-go about? Pay-go is about this, America: You pay and 
we will go spend. We are seeing evidence of it today on the Senate 
floor. It is not just that we pay; We pay, our children pay, and our 
grandchildren pay. We are going to pay with real dollars, but our 
grandchildren are going to pay with lost opportunity, lower levels of 
education, lower levels of everything in the future.
  There is not one problem in front of this country we can't solve. We 
can't solve them by borrowing money that we don't have to spend on a 
good thing, let alone a bad thing, but on a good thing while we allow 
hundreds of billions of dollars to be wasted every year in this 
country.
  So when we hear the cry that somebody doesn't care, we have to ask 
the question, What do they care about? Can we care for those who are 
unemployed today as well as care for our kids? Yes, we can. It is 
really not all that hard, with the examples of waste and duplication. 
There is $100 billion worth of fraud in Medicare that we can

[[Page 13635]]

document. So there are all sorts of things we can do. The question is, 
Do we have the courage? Will we step to the line? Will we do what is 
best for our children and the unemployed? That is the question. It is 
not that somebody doesn't have compassion for the unemployed.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Thank you so much, Mr. President. As Senator Coburn was 
talking about the need to balance the budget, I was remembering that I 
voted to do that. With the leadership of Bill Clinton and the 
Democrats, we not only balanced the budget but we created surpluses. It 
was a great feeling. We did it, we know how to do it, and we will do it 
again.
  Let's talk about what is before us right now. It is not about the 
unemployed versus our children. Our long-term unemployed have children, 
and these children are seeing their dads and moms with their heads in 
their hands, they see tears, and they don't know why. I have letters 
from my constituents. They don't know what to tell their kids. They are 
working so very hard.
  So let's talk about what is before us today. We know how to get to 
the balanced budget. That is why we have budgeting. That is why we have 
authorizing. That is why we have appropriations. That is why President 
Obama has said he will cut the deficit in half at the end of his first 
term, and I am confident that will be the case, and maybe we can even 
do more. We know how to do that.
  Hearing the Senator from Oklahoma say we are being partisan makes no 
sense at all. I sang the praises of my Republican friends who have 
joined with us in making sure we can extend unemployment benefits 
today. I thank God for them, frankly. So this isn't about partisanship. 
It is about pulling together as a country and recognizing that we are 
in the worst recession since the Great Depression. It is no time for 
partisanship. It is time to pull together and help our kids and help 
our families and help those who, through no fault of their own, find 
themselves in this predicament.
  Why are we treating this like an emergency? That is what we are 
doing. It is something that has always been done because it is an 
emergency. President Ronald Reagan signed three extensions of 
unemployment compensation without paying for it because he believed it 
was an emergency and because he understood what we understand. He 
understood that when we, in fact, make sure unemployed people have this 
insurance--which they paid into, by the way--they will spend it 
locally, and every dollar of that unemployment compensation brings to 
the economy either $1.61 under calculations done by John McCain's 
economic adviser, Mark Zandi, or CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, 
which said it yields $1.90.
  Some of the proposals we have seen from the other side are to cut 
other jobs in order to pay for extending unemployment benefits. That is 
not going to help us at this time.
  So, yes, I remember the wonderful feeling I had when we balanced the 
Federal budget when Bill Clinton was President, when we created 
surpluses as far as the eye could see. The debt was on the way down. 
The minute the Republicans took over, they put tax cuts to the 
wealthiest on their credit card. They put two wars on their credit 
card. Spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. All that work we did was, 
unfortunately, reversed.
  What is before us today is a very simple proposition. My friend from 
Oklahoma says he cares deeply about the unemployed. I have no reason to 
doubt that. He should join us today in voting to extend these benefits. 
Ronald Reagan saw it clearly. He extended them three times as 
emergencies because it is an emergency. He knew it was 
counterproductive to cut other jobs to pay for the extension of 
unemployment benefits.
  We know how to balance this budget. Pay-go is a part of it. Pay-go: 
Pay for everything you do except emergencies. That is what we should be 
doing because to do otherwise is counterproductive.
  I am so grateful we are nearing the point where we can extend these 
benefits. Yes, we have been delayed. We have been delayed for 2 months. 
I read letters into the Record before. Here is one:

       I have kept up a relentless job search. I have applied for 
     at least 600 jobs. This is discouraging, not receiving any 
     information back. Days go by when I hardly sleep at all 
     worrying about the bills. We have had to concentrate all of 
     our income on paying the rent and buying gas. I can't pay for 
     other bills.

  Another Californian:

       I am very scared of what might happen if I lose the 
     unemployment income. We don't want to lose our home. My 
     children catch me crying at times and ask me: Why are you 
     crying, Mom? I can't tell them. Please pass this bill until 
     this economy strengthens.

  So, again, this isn't about the way the Senator from Oklahoma phrases 
it. He makes it sound as though children aren't involved in this 
situation. They are. They are the children of the unemployed. So it is 
clear that, yes, we are going to have to tackle the deficit. Of course, 
we are going to have to tackle the deficit. We don't need to be 
lectured about that because we are the party that did it. We are the 
party that created the balanced budget. We are the party that created 
the surpluses, plus 23 million jobs, and the other side, unfortunately, 
didn't take very long to turn that whole thing around. This economy 
went into a ditch, and we are working hard to get it out of that ditch.
  So I wish to close with this: Let's take care of this emergency. It 
is going to help our families. It is going to help our children. It is 
going to help our local communities when people can go down and buy the 
gas at the local gas station, buy the food at the local grocery store, 
and be able to be stable in the community. Then let's get back 
immediately to working on bills that are going to create jobs.
  The small business bill that the Senator from Oregon has worked so 
hard on and the Senator from Louisiana has worked so hard on, and many 
of us have worked with them, that is a good bill and it is 100 percent 
paid for. It even has a plus to it. It is going to create jobs through 
small business. Small business creates more than 60 percent of the jobs 
in this Nation. We have a chance to help those who are struggling.
  So we need to get this bill behind us and go to the small business 
bill. We are going to need 60 votes. They are filibustering that as 
well. So everything we do takes 60 votes.
  If I read the list of supporters for the small business bill, it 
includes the Chamber of Commerce, the regional Chambers of Commerce, 
and businesses and community banks. They want to see this bill happen 
because our small businesses need access to credit. Our very good small 
businesses are being turned away. I visited so many of them. They are 
thriving even in this climate, but they need to expand and they can't 
get access to the capital.
  So, please, let's not see a filibuster there as well. Please, let's 
not see delay there as well. Let's do this unemployment compensation, 
get the assistance to the people who deserve it, those who are actively 
seeking work, who can't find it through no fault of their own, and who 
paid into the unemployment compensation fund. Let's get that behind us. 
That will help our communities. Then let's get to the small business 
bill. It is a small business jobs bill. Let's do the right thing. We 
can get this economy back on its feet, but we need to work together.
  Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, during the debate, I had a chance to sit 
in the chair for a while and listen to one of my colleagues from across 
the aisle. In the space of just a short period of time, that colleague 
turned this into a debate about courage, about integrity, about 
character, and about easy versus hard choices. In other words, he took 
all of his time to use attacks on those who do not share his version of 
economic policy and where our country

[[Page 13636]]

should go. Rather than making the arguments, he made the personal 
attacks.
  He also said something that struck me as right-on, which is that 
often when people are using personal attacks, they are trying to 
camouflage and only give half the story and trying to set up a straw 
man. That is certainly accurate.
  What is the real debate we are having on the floor? Well, on one 
side, there is the argument--an argument I would weigh in favor of--
that says we need to put this economy back on track, put families to 
work, and that it is through jobs for American families, and that we 
will restore the financial foundations not only of families but of our 
communities and of our Nation as a whole.
  There are certain key things we can do now to accomplish that. Those 
things include helping our school districts create a bridge through 
this recession so we don't see thousands of teachers being laid off. 
There is a provision to assist our school districts in the Defense 
supplemental bill we will have in the Senate in the near future.
  Second, we can assist families who are unemployed through no fault of 
their own and help them create a bridge through this recession.
  Third, we can help our small businesses create jobs because there is 
a dysfunction right now in which our community banks that best 
understand Main Street are at their leverage limits and therefore 
cannot make additional loans. Indeed, the Chairman of the Federal 
Reserve was speaking to this challenge in the Capitol just an hour 
ago--the systemic dysfunction in which capital is hung up and 
unavailable to our small businesses. It is our small businesses that, 
by utilizing that capital, can seize economic opportunity and put 
people back to work. It is a good strategy to enable those funds to be 
available to small businesses and help recapitalize community banks. It 
makes money for the Treasury. The CBO estimated it will make $1 billion 
for the Treasury. It does it by enabling $300 billion in liquidity to 
small businesses. The CBO estimate of the funds that come back to the 
Treasury doesn't include the revenue created by families who are put 
back to work and pay income taxes or by small businesses that are more 
successful and pay more in business taxes.
  So it is a win-win. We create a path by supporting our States through 
funds for education, and we create a path through this recession by 
helping families who are unemployed because the economy is in such a 
mess. We create a path out of this recession by creating jobs for 
American families by supporting our small businesses through our 
community banks. That is one version of how we can go forward.
  My colleague across the aisle has a different version. The different 
version is--and this is the leadership of the Republican side that has 
been talking about this all this week. Their version is, no, instead of 
helping families, small businesses, and schools, we want to extend the 
Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. That is the path out of this 
recession, say my colleagues across the aisle.
  There is a fundamental difference of economic strategy involved. What 
is striking to me is that we have a lot of information about the 
strategy being proposed by my colleagues across the aisle because this 
was the Bush Presidency strategy. We tried it. We found out that when 
you give away the National Treasury to the wealthiest Americans, you 
drive this Nation into debt. In fact, under the Bush administration, we 
doubled our national debt.
  Under the very idea and plan for which my colleagues across the aisle 
are advocating, we drove this Nation's economy into the ground. To 
counteract that, the Bush administration said: Let's deregulate the 
banks and Wall Street and make everything move a little faster, and 
maybe consumers will spend a little more and banks will take more risk, 
and we will take away all the lane markers and the traffic signals in 
our financial system, and, by golly, somehow we will make this economy 
flourish.
  Do you know what. They built a house of cards. It was a house of 
cards built on predatory mortgages and the securitization of those 
mortgages, with extraordinary leverage of up to 40 to 1 under that 
deregulation. That house of cards came down, and that house crashed on 
the American family, and that American family lost their savings for 
retirement. Families in my State lost their jobs, and the unemployment 
rate is huge. The families lost the health care that went with their 
jobs. Well, that is not a very pretty picture. But my colleagues, who 
brought us that Bush economic nightmare that crashed on the heads of 
the American families, are coming to this floor and saying: We want 
more of the same.
  Earlier, my colleague across the aisle characterized that strategy as 
the ``tough'' choice, while he characterized the strategy of helping 
American families and small businesses and schools as an ``easy'' 
choice. Well, let's try to set these pejoratives or characterizations 
aside and just say that they are different choices--one, the revival of 
the Bush strategy, which is something like the summer sequel to a cheap 
horror story that wrecks the economy of the United States. That 
strategy is sitting as a potential idea and threat to our Nation.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask, through the Chair, if my friend will 
yield for me to make a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I am pleased to yield to the majority leader for that 
purpose.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture 
time be considered expired, after the use or yielding back of time 
specified in this agreement; that upon the expiration of time, 
amendment No. 4426 be withdrawn; that debate on the motions to suspend 
the rules with respect to H.R. 4213, and that the motions not be 
divisible, as specified here, be limited to 20 minutes each, with the 
time divided equally between the proponents and the majority leader or 
his designee; that upon the expiration of all time, the Senate proceed 
to vote on the motions to suspend in the order in which offered; that 
after the first vote and prior to each succeeding vote in this 
sequence, there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided as specified 
above, with succeeding votes limited to 10 minutes each; that upon 
disposition of the motions, the motion to strike, which is at the desk, 
be agreed to; no further motions or amendments be in order; that the 
pay-go statement from the Budget Committee be read into the Record, and 
without further intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to 
vote on the motion to concur with amendment No. 4425, as amended; 
further, that the motions to suspend be those which appear on pages 
S6034 and S6035 of the Congressional Record of July 20: two Coburn 
motions, the Brown motion, and two DeMint motions.
  I also ask that my friend from Oregon now have whatever time 
necessary to complete his statement. How much time does he need?
  Mr. MERKLEY. Five minutes.
  Mr. REID. I ask that my request be amended in that regard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, for everyone's information, we should be 
able to proceed through these pretty quickly. It is likely--and this 
doesn't take away from the statements to be made by my friends on the 
other side, and we may not use much of our time--that we can move these 
along fairly quickly. There will be five votes, and, as indicated in 
the consent agreement, the first will be the regular time, and after 
that there will be 10 minutes on the final four.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I note that there are a couple of issues 
raised that really are false issues. One is in regard to the debt. My 
colleagues across the aisle are proposing a massive increase of the 
debt by extending the Bush tax cuts, and they are saying that helping 
those who are unemployed through no fault of their own is an increase 
to the debt. This is coming from the same folks who brought us the Bush 
policy, the ones who doubled our

[[Page 13637]]

national debt during the Bush administration and created the house of 
cards that crashed down upon the American families over the last 2 
years.
  So it is not about debt. When it comes to our children--and I hate to 
see the abuse of this argument--sound economic policy is the right 
thing. If we put families to work, those families are far healthier, 
those families have a foundation, they have a future, and they 
recognize there is a horizon that is brighter. They recognize they will 
be able to move forward to create opportunity for their children. That 
is the foundation of a successful family. But giveaways to the 
wealthiest at the expense of helping families is wrong for our 
children. If you don't put people back to work, you don't create an 
economic revival, you don't create revenues in the Treasury, and 
therefore you don't create the ability to pay down that debt.
  So do we want the Bush policy 2, the nightmare that doubled our debt, 
or do we want the investment in families and education that we had 
under the Clinton administration and that we have under the Obama 
administration, which will put money back into the Treasury? I think 
the choice is clear: Let's shore up small businesses and our families, 
let's shore up education, let's put this economy back on track, and 
let's put people to work, and in so doing we will address and resolve 
the issue of the deficit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Mr. President, I enjoyed the prior 
speeches. I don't necessarily agree with them, but I enjoyed them. 
There is plenty of blame to go around. We can go back to the fact that 
the majority party has been in charge for 4 years and President Bush is 
no longer in charge, so saying Bush this and Bush that--that gets old. 
We need to focus on problem-solving today.
  One of the prior speakers mentioned that it takes 60 votes for 
cloture to move things forward. Sometimes you have those 60 votes. 
Other times, there are going to be 41. There are going to be 41 when 
you try to overspend, overtax, and overregulate and, I feel, make it so 
businesses cannot move forward to create those jobs that were just 
referenced and that we need to start to focus on.
  Since I have been here, with all due respect, we haven't done much on 
jobs at all. That is frustrating not only for me but for the American 
people and the people of Massachusetts.
  I am standing before you today to once again consider legislation to 
extend the unemployment benefits, and once again this legislation, as 
we know, will add approximately $30 billion to our Nation's debt, which 
is currently $13 trillion and rising. To put that into perspective, I 
have been here about 6 months, and I remember that when I first got 
here, the debt calculator was about $11.95 trillion. It is now $13.1 
trillion--give or take--and rising, with no end in sight. I find that 
deeply troubling.
  While it is clear that it appears we have the votes to advance this 
measure and it will pass the Senate, I have felt--and I have talked 
about it for a month now--that there is a better way. I stand before 
you to propose an alternative that will be fully paid for by using the 
bank account and not the credit card because rather than putting the 
cost on that credit card and passing it on to our children and 
grandchildren, it is the great-grandchildren who are being affected as 
well.
  Listen, we on this side of the aisle want to help as well, and my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle do too. It is not a partisan 
issue. I agree with the Senator who spoke before me. I agree with her. 
But no one is disputing the value of these programs, not only what it 
means to the citizens of Massachusetts and across the country who are 
having a difficult time, but our economy, as we know, is slow. It is 
showing signs every once in a while of recovering, but it is very slow. 
People out of work need extra assistance while they search for that new 
employment.
  What I want to debate is whether we continue our spending ways to add 
to the credit card, to the debt, versus finding ways to pay for it with 
the money we have. I can tell my colleagues as the ranking member on 
the contracting subcommittee, looking at the amount of waste in Federal 
Government, we can find a way to pay for this program by using the bank 
account, not the credit card.
  I am flabbergasted as to why we do not think outside the box. Some of 
the speakers before me said the Republicans are doing this; the 
Republicans are doing that. With all due respect, I have made many 
efforts to work across party lines, as you know, Mr. President, and as 
the other Members do too. Bipartisanship is a two-way street. You 
cannot tell me we also do not have good ways and good ideas to finance, 
to find ways to solve these problems.
  The American people have made it very clear they want elected 
Representatives in Congress to start paying for the initiatives we are 
trying to push without raising taxes and start exercising the type of 
fiscal restraint they use in their own homes and that they use in their 
businesses.
  Last month's vote on larger tax extenders legislation raised taxes by 
almost $60 billion and increased the deficit by $33 billion. It was 
defeated, and I feel rightly so. Congress must start listening to the 
American people. They are telling us they are tired of the 
overspending, the overtaxation, the increasing debt, the 
overregulation, and the involvement in their lives. They just want to 
be left alone and be able to go to work, pay the bills, take the kids 
out to a movie, pay for their mortgages, pay for school, and they do 
not want to have this constant reaching into their pockets--just take 
your wallet and give it to them, just give it to them. Enough.
  We have to start listening as a body. Forget the party bickering. 
Forget all that. I am way past that. I proposed a fiscally responsible 
way to pay for everything we are trying to do today. We can find a 
funding source without adding to the credit card, to that debt we all 
know about and is rising uncontrollably. We cannot keep spending like 
we are doing. I know it and many people in America know it.
  This is not the first time Republicans have come to the floor to 
offer a path forward on emergency unemployment insurance that is paid 
for. We tried four times already to do just that, and each and every 
time it has been opposed.
  As I said, my amendment pays for the cost of extending unemployment 
insurance by rescinding unobligated stimulus funds and cutting other 
stimulus funds that are estimated not to be used for years. We have 
already heard the stories about the waste and the fluff. Let's get the 
money out the door right now. Let's put it to work right now.
  If this is an emergency as is being said, then let's get the money 
that is not being used out the door right now.
  My amendment reduces the deficit by $7 billion instead of increasing 
it by $34 billion, as the present legislation that is being proposed 
will do.
  Yes, my amendment is about hard choices. Recently, the Governors of 
both parties expressed concerns about how the stimulus funds have been 
spent and whether the true impact is accurate. States have also weighed 
in asking Congress for extended unemployment benefits and additional 
FMAP funding. I believe we have a clear choice where we can offset the 
amount of money we have and get it out the door, not using it as a 
Washington, DC, slush fund, as it is looked at in America.
  The amendment I am offering today represents another compromise--
listening to the concerns of so many Americans and their calls to 
extend emergency unemployment insurance specifically but also not 
burdening future generations and making sure we can actually pay for 
things, truly pay for things.
  As I mentioned earlier, I have been in Washington for a little over 6 
months now. Sometimes, as you might know, Mr. President, it seems like 
6 years. You have followed my voting record, as I said. When I see a 
good bill, regardless of party, I will support it, no questions asked. 
Once again, it is a two-way street. Bipartisanship is a two-way street. 
It needs to come both ways.

[[Page 13638]]




                           Motion to Suspend

  In closing, I move to suspend rule XXII, paragraph 2, for the purpose 
of proposing and considering my amendment No. 4492.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is pending.
  Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.


                           Motion to Suspend

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I move to suspend provisions of rule XXII 
for the purpose of proposing and considering my motion to commit with 
instructions with respect to H.R. 4213, which is at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection the motion is pending.


                           Motion to Suspend

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I move to suspend provisions of rule XXII, 
including germaneness requirements, for the purpose of proposing and 
considering my amendment No. 4493.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the motion is pending.
  Mr. COBURN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I agree with my colleague from 
Massachusetts. The blame game has gone on long enough. There is 
certainly enough blame to go around. But I need to remind the majority 
that they have been in control of Congress for 4 years. Presidents do 
not write economic policy, spend money, or add to the debt. Congress 
does. The Democratic Party has been in control of both Houses since 
2006.
  When the Democrats took control, unemployment was below 5 percent, 
the economy was growing, and the debt was half of what it is today. 
Certainly looking at the projected debt of this administration, we are 
looking at tripling the national debt over the next decade.
  It is time for us to focus on solving problems rather than trying to 
wax eloquent about a President who effectively did not write economic 
policy for over 4 years.
  It is important today that we are extending unemployment benefits. 
But it is curious to a lot of us when the majority has often said 
unemployment compensation is one of the most important forms of 
stimulus, that when Republicans ask that we pay for the extension of 
unemployment benefits with unspent stimulus money, there appears to be 
outrage. Instead, there is a strong consensus on the Democratic side 
that we not pay for this; we just add it to the national debt.
  I, frankly, do not think we can help people for a few months by 
bankrupting our country. We know our debt is unsustainable. To bring up 
bill after bill that we are not even willing to talk about how we pay 
for is disturbing to millions of Americans right now.
  I certainly support my colleague from Massachusetts, as well as my 
colleague from Oklahoma, who are presenting amendments today, 
reasonable, commonsense ways that we can pay for the unemployment 
benefits extension so that helping people today does not diminish the 
quality of life of millions of Americans tomorrow.
  Another issue that is going to affect millions of Americans is in 
just over 5 months tax rates for almost every American who pays taxes 
is going to go up. It is something that is not talked about, and 
Republicans are not talking about a tax cut. We are talking about 
keeping current tax rates the same.
  A few weeks ago, I offered an amendment that would at least keep 
capital gains and dividend taxes the same rather than allow them to go 
up--dividend taxes to nearly 40 percent and capital gains from 15 
percent to 20 percent. Many senior citizens count on dividends, as well 
as cashing in their retirement savings. Capital gains and dividend 
taxes have a huge impact on our senior citizens as well as millions of 
other Americans. Unfortunately, the majority voted this amendment down 
and voted effectively to raise these taxes on Americans.
  Income taxes will go up. But today I want to focus on what I think is 
probably the most immoral tax that we impose on people from the Federal 
level, and that is the death tax.
  This year, the death tax is gone, the first year since the early 
1900s. Americans who work and save, start businesses, start farms, 
their heirs do not have to sell their property in order to pay the 
death tax.
  The Heritage Foundation says if we allow the death tax to go back up 
to 55 percent, it will cost Americans over 1.5 million jobs because 
this is not just for the people who pay the death tax, it is for the 
people who work in the businesses and the farms that are often 
liquidated or at least sold in part to pay this heavy tax.
  What right does the government have to take someone's property 
because they die? They have paid taxes on the property and on the 
income throughout their entire lives, and many times they paid a very 
high tax rate if they worked hard and made a good living.
  What right do we have when they die to take that property? Why should 
the government get a bigger inheritance from someone dying than their 
family?
  That is what is going to happen if we allow the majority to continue 
with their plans to allow the death tax to go up. This will cost lots 
of jobs, break up many family businesses and family farms, and cost, as 
I said, 1.5 million jobs. It makes absolutely no sense at all.
  I am going to offer an amendment today to keep current tax rates the 
same for the death tax which was eliminated this year.
  Another amendment I am going to offer relates to the Arizona 
immigration law. I took the time to read the immigration law that 
Arizona passed and found that much of what has been reported in the 
media is completely false. I was actually stunned as I read through it 
how often it refers to just the enforcement of existing Federal law. 
There is nothing in it about racial profiling, except that we cannot do 
it, and we cannot stop someone if we suspect them of being illegal. We 
can only ask for documentation if we stop them or arrest them for some 
other crime. This is, in effect, the Federal law.
  It is interesting that the Obama administration is suing Arizona for 
enforcing Federal law while ignoring many sanctuary cities that openly 
flaunt their resistance to Federal law. It makes no sense in a free 
country, in a democracy where we are built on the rule of law, for the 
Federal Government to try to intimidate the people of Arizona who are 
only trying to protect themselves.
  As many Americans know, Arizona waited for years for the Federal 
Government to do its job, to secure the borders, and to protect the 
people from the drug trafficking, the human trafficking, and the people 
who come across and who have murdered the citizens there.
  Many States are suffering the same fate of a Federal Government that 
has failed to secure our borders and to protect our people.
  The amendment I am offering today is going to disallow any funding to 
be used by the Federal Government to carry out this lawsuit against 
Arizona. This is something we know, if the American people could vote 
today, they would vote in favor of. The question is, Will the majority 
vote to support the people of Arizona or to support this political move 
that we are now seeing from the White House to attempt to intimidate 
the people of Arizona?
  I can say proudly that the people of Arizona are not going to be 
intimidated by this government. If we can provide some help today, that 
is certainly what I intend to do.
  Mr. President, I wish to offer a couple of motions.


                           Motion to Suspend

  In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I move 
to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and considering a 
motion to commit with regard to the estate tax, which is at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the motion is pending.


                           Motion to Suspend

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, according to rule V of the standing rules 
of the Senate, I move to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing 
and considering a motion to commit with regard to the Arizona 
immigration law, which is at the desk.

[[Page 13639]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the motion is pending.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my high school English teacher always used 
to say: All right, let's review things. So let's review things just for 
a moment.
  I have listened to some of this debate in the Senate today, and as 
best as I can tell, we have people standing, saying the deficit is a 
bad thing. I think there is general agreement about that in the Senate, 
and we have to do something about it. There is general agreement about 
that.
  They say: We are going to make our last stand here on this deficit 
with respect to those who are out of work and who need extension of 
unemployment benefits. We were quick to give help to the wealthiest 
Americans, to the biggest investment banks that needed help. We gave 
hundreds of billions of dollars to those interests at the top of the 
economic ladder, who nearly ran the country right into the ditch. But 
those at the bottom of the ladder, who are out of work, who are 
unemployed, and who are having trouble, that is where they say they are 
making their last stand on deficits.
  So let me try to understand this with a review. We are told the 
deficit is too high; that we cannot give help to the unemployed in the 
manner we used to give help to the unemployed. We always did that when 
there was an economic downturn. We have always done that. But, oh, by 
the way, what we need to do is to repeal the estate tax for the 
wealthiest individuals in America. I don't know. I took mathematics in 
a high school senior class of nine students, and I passed it at least. 
I can understand how things add up now and then. But I don't know how 
that adds up at all.
  There are those coming to the floor of the Senate and having great 
apoplexy about giving help to the unemployed. By the way, some have 
even said: You give help to the unemployed, it just discourages them 
from work. Well, you know something, a guy told me the other day about 
a young third grader who was asked in his school--it was going to be 
his birthday--what he would like for his birthday; what kind of 
birthday present he would like. This little third grader said: A 
flashlight. The guy said: A flashlight? He said: Yes, so I can read at 
night. They turned off our electricity.
  How many in this room would even understand having your electricity 
turned off and having a third grade son who can't read at night because 
there are no lights and asking for a flashlight as a gift? There is 
nobody in here who is unemployed--not one person in this room. This is 
a roomful of people who take their showers in the morning, not at 
night. They get up and put on a blue suit, a pressed white shirt and a 
tie and come to work--all fully employed--and we talk about the 
unemployed.
  We are short 20 million jobs in this country. There are millions of 
people out of work. Five million manufacturing employees alone have 
lost their jobs in the last 9 years. As we ran into this deepest 
recession since the Great Depression, a whole lot of folks--yes, at the 
lower end of the economic ladder and in middle-income areas--have lost 
their jobs and can't find another job. When they worked, from their 
paychecks they paid a small premium for unemployment insurance. They 
paid for that insurance, and now they can't get the extension of that 
unemployment insurance in the Senate. Why? Because the last stand on 
deficits is to take place with respect to restricting the ability of 
those who are out of work from getting the funds to extend their 
unemployment benefits. That is the last stand.
  Did my colleagues make that last stand with regard to the big 
investment banks that ran into trouble? No, not at all. They rushed 
that aid in on a pillow. Can we help you? How much do you need? But now 
that it is the folks at the bottom of the ladder, all of a sudden we 
don't have the capability.
  Some of my colleagues just complained about speakers who wanted to 
talk about the past. You know, if you don't understand the past, you 
are destined to repeat it. I understand that neither side is much of a 
bargain--Republicans and Democrats. This country deserves more from 
both sides. I understand that. But I also understand what has caused 
this problem. I was on the floor of the Senate in February of 2001. By 
the way, when President Clinton left office 2 months prior to that we 
had the first budget surplus in 30 years--over $200 billion in surplus. 
President Bush said: You know, we have these projected surpluses now 
for 10 years. Let's get rid of them. Let's give big tax cuts, with the 
biggest by far going to the wealthiest Americans.
  I stood on the floor and said: Let's be a little conservative. What 
if something happens? They said: You know what, we are going to give 
these tax cuts, and the biggest cuts are going to the wealthiest 
Americans. If you made $1 million a year, that bill gave you, I think, 
$80,000 a year in tax cuts. So everyone on that side voted for it. 
Absolutely. Happy to vote for it, to reduce this country's income. What 
happened? Very quickly, we ran into a recession. Then we had a 
terrorist attack against our country on 9/11. Then we were at war in 
Afghanistan, then at war in Iraq, and this Congress appropriated 
massive amounts of money as it sent young men and women to war and did 
not pay for one penny of it--not a penny. All of it went right onto the 
debt.
  Those who cry the loudest on the floor of the Senate these days, 
right now, are the very ones who voted to reduce this country's income 
with the biggest benefits going to the wealthiest Americans. Yet now 
they come to us and say: Well, you know, now we are making our last 
stand for the unemployed--to prevent the unemployed from getting what 
they should get. By the way, while we are on the floor, they say: Why 
can't we repeal the estate tax that will help the wealthiest Americans?
  Let me mention the estate tax for a moment. First of all, my 
colleague said death tax. He knows, and I know, there is no such thing 
as a death tax. If my colleague should die, his estate is not taxed. 
His entire estate goes tax free, under current law, to his spouse. It 
is true this year there is zero estate tax for anybody, and my 
colleague didn't mention that was created in an architecture of tax 
cuts in 2001 that many of us voted against.
  By the way, that turns out to have been just fundamentally goofy. 
They created estate tax relief that goes down, down, down, and down to 
zero in this year and then springs way back up in 2011. We didn't do 
that. That wasn't us. That was the other side. Now what they say is 
that they would like to repeal the estate tax altogether because they 
think it is a tax on death. It is not. It is a tax on inherited wealth 
and they know that.
  But this year, because there is zero estate tax, about four 
billionaires have died and not one penny of their estate will be taxed 
and most of their estates were never taxed. They were growth 
appreciation of stocks and various assets never subject to a tax. Most 
people have an income and it is subject to a tax. They help send kids 
to school with that tax, pay to build roads, pay for police, pay for 
defense. But that runup in tax for the billionaires or that runup in 
income, I should say, has never borne a tax to support anything. My 
colleagues say: You know what, I want to make sure it doesn't ever bear 
a tax. Let's have the little folks pay a tax. Let's have the rest of 
the folks pay a tax but not the people at the top.
  What an unbelievable irony that on the very day that we have people 
digging in the heels of their cowboy boots and saying we are making our 
last stand to prevent the unemployed from getting unemployment 
compensation they deserve--on the very day that they say we can't do 
that--they come to the floor of the Senate saying: But what we have to 
do as a priority is to relieve the richest Americans, the wealthiest 
Americans, of the obligation to pay estate tax. If there is any 
narrative that tells the American people whose side they are on, this 
little vignette describes it completely, in my judgment.

[[Page 13640]]

  Let me mention that the reason it is important to understand how we 
got to this point is, we will never get out of it unless we understand 
that. A lot of my colleagues have been perfectly content for most of 
the decade standing on this floor deciding that we will ship men and 
women to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight, but we will not pay for the 
cost of a penny of it. They have been perfectly content to do that. I 
have come to the floor of the Senate to say: You know what, sacrifice 
works a number of ways in this country. If we are going to ask young 
men and women to sacrifice their lives, to go 12,000 miles away and 
strap on body armor in the morning and risk their lives by going in 
harm's way, perhaps we could ask the American people to provide the 
money to pay for it.
  I have proposed that in the Senate. President Bush, at one point, 
said: You all do that, and I will veto the bill. My colleagues were 
content to say: Let's spend the money and put it all on the deficit. We 
will send kids to war and they can come back and pay the bill. That is 
how we got here. The second portion of how we got here is about 10 
years ago we passed what was then called financial reform. I voted 
against that as well. That said to the biggest financial institutions 
in this country: Katy bar the door. Do whatever you want. We will not 
watch. We are taking away the protections that existed since the Great 
Depression. We will not look and we will not care.
  As a result, we saw in recent years unbelievable speculation and 
gambling. It was not business, it was just flatout gambling. We saw the 
creation of exotic instruments--CDOs, derivatives, credit default 
swaps, naked credit default swaps, and the like--and we saw 
unbelievable, rampant gaming going on as opposed to thoughtful 
investing in this country's future. As a result, this country nearly 
had an economic collapse.
  It is important for us to understand how that happened because we had 
regulators come to town who were supposed to regulate, and they boasted 
about being business friendly: Don't worry, we will not look. There is 
a new sheriff in town and this sheriff doesn't have a weapon. So don't 
worry about it. Then we saw a decade go by in which this country's 
economy nearly collapsed. So that is how we got where we are. It is 
important for people to understand that.
  They say: Let's not review the past, but let me review one final 
point. When President Obama walked through the White House door, had he 
gone to sleep for 12 months, had he done nothing at all, he would have 
had a $1.3 trillion budget deficit because that is what the previous 
President left him--$1.3 trillion on autopilot.
  Having said all that, let me say this. This deficit, in my judgment, 
is unsustainable. It cannot continue. We have to diffuse it. This is a 
timebomb that will destroy this country's economy inevitably at some 
point. We can't have a government the size and cost of which is such 
that the American people are either unable or unwilling to pay for it. 
You can't do that. So we have to fix it, and we have to fix it 
together. But if we don't learn from what happened, if we don't 
understand the past decade of what happened--going from a $200 billion-
a-year budget surplus to the largest deficits in history and to a near 
economic collapse--we are destined to repeat it.
  Again, it seems to me that everybody here are people of good faith. I 
don't come here suggesting that there are people of bad faith here, but 
there are some people with bad judgment here, for sure. All you have to 
do is look at the record. Those who say: Let's don't look at the 
record, I guess they do not want the record to be understood. I think 
the only way we get out of this unbelievable deficit and debt trap is 
to understand what has caused it. I will tell you this for sure. We are 
not going to get out of this mess by having people come to the floor of 
the Senate and say that one of the biggest problems in the country is 
the death tax, when no such tax exists. What an unbelievable spoof. 
Death tax my eye. We have a tax on inherited wealth and the only people 
who have been paying it are the people at the upper income levels.
  We have had a $3\1/2\ million-a-year exemption for the husband, and a 
$3\1/2\ million exemption for the wife. That was last year's exemption. 
That means you don't pay a penny unless you have $7 million clear, 
husband and wife. How many families have that? But that is not enough, 
my colleagues say. In the middle of all this economic trouble we face, 
in the middle of wars and a near economic collapse, what is their 
priority? Get rid of the so-called death tax, which doesn't exist, or 
perhaps I can rephrase it for them: Get rid of the tax on inherited 
wealth for the wealthiest of Americans.
  These are billionaires' best friends, I guess. I have nothing against 
billionaires. I guess I wish I was one. But when billionaires die, 
they, I think, ought to expect to be able to contribute something to 
this country. It is unbelievable to me. I hope people have listened to 
this discussion today and understand that their priority is to 
eliminate the estate tax, the tax on inherited wealth, which would only 
apply to the wealthiest Americans. It is unbelievable to me.
  I have seen other unbelievable things, some of which have led to this 
current economic trouble. I hope perhaps in calmer times and perhaps 
more sober times we can discuss the best of what both parties have to 
offer this country because I think both parties do make a contribution.
  We cannot wait much longer. This is not something we can delay, it is 
not something we can decide to postpone. This country is in trouble. We 
have a deep Federal budget deficit. It comes from the steepest decline 
in the economy since the 1930s. As a result of that decline, we have 
victims at the bottom of this economic ladder who have not had work, in 
some cases for 2 years. They wake up in the morning feeling helpless 
and hopeless, wondering, How on Earth can I find a job? What do I tell 
my family today?
  This Congress, in my judgment, ought to at least pay as much 
attention to those folks at the bottom of the economic ladder as it has 
paid in the last 2 years to the interests at the top of the economic 
ladder. We shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars toward those at the 
top--the most comfortable pillows to make them rest, the medicine to 
calm their nerves. But when it comes to the people at the bottom, Will 
Rogers had it best. Here is what Will Rogers said 80 years ago and it 
applies today in this Chamber. Will Rogers said: ``The unemployed here 
ain't eating regular but we'll get around to them as soon as everybody 
else gets fixed up OK.''
  Let me say this. A whole lot of other folks got fixed up at the top 
of the economic ladder, at the top of this country's economy. A whole 
lot of folks got fixed up and it is the case that the unemployed here 
``ain't eating regular,'' and this Congress, this Senate ought to care 
about that. It is part of our responsibility. Then let's get about the 
business of having a real debate, a thoughtful rather than thoughtless 
debate about all of the issues that affect us, such as spending and 
taxing, and let's use real terms, not things like ``death taxes'' that 
come from a pollster who decides they want to fool people. Let's use 
real terms in serious discussions between adults and try to figure out 
how we fix what is wrong with this country to put this country back on 
track.
  This country deserves better. It is the first generation of 
Americans, I think, that believes its kids are not going to do as well 
as they did. We have to change that. This country has a lot to offer 
with a good future if we make some good decisions going forward.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, for weeks we have sought to continue 
extended emergency unemployment benefits. We must do this because, 
while our economic recovery has begun, it has a long way to go. Our 
economy is not yet generating enough jobs to put people back to work 
who are searching for work. The repercussions of the worst financial 
crisis in generations are still felt across our country.
  And so to help Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of 
their own, we have sought to continue these

[[Page 13641]]

extended unemployment benefits. We have met opposition and delay. 
Yesterday, we finally broke through the Republican filibuster that was 
the source of that delay.
  Now we have a chance to do what we should have done weeks ago. In 
State after State, thousands of people await our decision, including 
more than 70,000 in my State. We cannot give them back the weeks of 
anxiety our delays have caused. But we can act today. I urge my 
colleagues to support this measure and give struggling American 
families the help they need and deserve.
  Mr. DORGAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. 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.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is that all time has now 
been used.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, all postcloture time 
is yielded back.
  Amendment No. 4426 is withdrawn.


                           Motion to Suspend

  Under the previous order, the question is on agreeing to the Brown of 
Massachusetts motion to suspend rule XXII, paragraph 2.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh) is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 42, nays 56, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 210 Leg.]

                                YEAS--42

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Voinovich
     Wicker

                                NAYS--56

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Goodwin
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Bayh
     Vitter
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 42, the nays are 56. 
Two-thirds of the Senators voting, a quorum being present, not having 
voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  There is now 2 minutes equally divided before a vote with respect to 
the first Coburn motion.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is a very straightforward amendment. 
It is a re-vote where we voted 100 to 0 to make sure we are transparent 
with the American people about when we change and go around pay-go. All 
it does is create a Web site so the American people can see when we 
have done that and how often and what the total amount is. We voted 100 
to nothing for it the last time it was presented to this body.
  I yield back my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time in opposition?
  Mr. DORGAN. I yield back our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  Mr. COBURN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh) is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 49, nays 49, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 211 Leg.]

                                YEAS--49

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagan
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Klobuchar
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Tester
     Thune
     Voinovich
     Webb
     Wicker

                                NAYS--49

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Goodwin
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Bayh
     Vitter
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 49, the nays are 
49. Two-thirds of the Senators voting, a quorum being present, not 
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  There is now 2 minutes evenly divided before a vote pertaining to the 
next Coburn motion.
  Is all time yielded back?
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  If all time is yielded back, the question is on agreeing to the 
motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh) is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 54, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 212 Leg.]

                                YEAS--54

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagan
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Klobuchar
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Tester
     Thune
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Wicker
     Wyden

[[Page 13642]]



                                NAYS--44

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Goodwin
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Whitehouse

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Bayh
     Vitter
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 54, the nays are 
44. Two-thirds of the Senators voting, a quorum being present, not 
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  There will now be 2 minutes evenly divided prior to a vote with 
respect to the DeMint motion.
  The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, this year is the first time in many 
decades that death in America is not a taxable event. For the first 
time in many, many years, folks who worked hard and built businesses, 
built farms, do not lose what they have worked for when they die.
  The Heritage Foundation estimates that if we do nothing as a Senate 
and allow the death tax to go from zero to 55 percent, America will 
lose 1.5 million jobs because when we take the money and the property 
of the people who are working and running businesses and farms, it not 
only affects the families of those who die but those who work for those 
businesses and work on those farms.
  It is immoral for us to take what people work for throughout their 
lives. Their property, their income has all been taxed at least once 
before. Let's do the right thing and vote for this amendment today. 
Let's keep the death tax at zero. This is not a tax cut; it is just 
leaving the tax rate the same.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this is an absurd amendment. This 
amendment would provide $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top three-
tenths of 1 percent, and 99.7 percent of the American people do not get 
a nickel. Despite all the rhetoric we hear around here about fiscal 
responsibility, this isn't paid for. It is another $1 trillion over 10 
years to our national debt.
  I yield to the Senator from Michigan.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I wish to thank our colleague from South 
Carolina for giving us the opportunity tonight to decide whose side we 
are really on. We are talking about upward of $1 trillion in spending 
to help a few hundred of our wealthiest Americans. We would not be 
helping small businesses or family farmers, all of whom we support 
helping, but the wealthiest Americans--close to $1 trillion--or helping 
2.5 million people who lost their jobs, are out of work through no 
fault of their own.
  The crash on Wall Street, the crisis on Wall Street, which, 
unfortunately, colleagues chose not to vote to repair and to fix, has 
caused a situation where families are hurting.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The Senator's time has 
expired.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh) is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 39, nays 59, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 213 Leg.]

                                YEAS--39

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Wicker

                                NAYS--59

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Goodwin
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Bayh
     Vitter
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 39, the nays are 
59. Two-thirds of the Senators voting, a quorum being present, not 
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  There will be 2 minutes equally divided prior to a vote with respect 
to the second DeMint motion.
  The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, this amendment disallows any use of 
taxpayer money to fund the lawsuit against Arizona for its immigration 
policy.
  I hope all my colleagues have taken the time to read this bill 
because what has been reported on it, in most cases, is false.
  This bill is very clear. Its intent is to support and enforce the 
Federal law to protect the citizens of Arizona. Our Federal Government 
should be doing its job to secure our borders rather than trying to 
bully and intimidate the people of Arizona. We should not be suing and 
hassling the people of Arizona for doing what we should be doing here, 
and that is protecting the citizenry.
  I encourage all my colleagues to support this amendment to disallow 
any funding for this lawsuit.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time in opposition?
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  Is all time yielded back?
  All time appears yielded back.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh) is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 43, nays 55, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 214 Leg.]

                                YEAS--43

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Tester
     Thune
     Wicker

                                NAYS--55

     Akaka
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Goodwin
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johanns
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu

[[Page 13643]]


     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Bayh
     Vitter
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 43, the nays are 
55. Two-thirds of the Senators voting, a quorum being present, not 
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.


                           Amendment No. 4497

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to 
strike, which is at the desk, is agreed to.
  The amendment was agreed to, as follows:

       Beginning on page 7, line 14, strike through page 11, line 
     18.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pay-go statement from the Budget Committee 
shall be read into the Record.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Conrad hereby submits this Statement of Budgetary 
     Effects of PAYGO legislation for H.R. 4213, as amended by 
     Senate amendment 4425, as amended. Total Budgetary Effects of 
     H.R. 4213 for the 5-year Statutory PAYGO Scorecard, zero 
     dollars. Total Budgetary Effects of H.R. 4213 for the 10-year 
     statutory PAYGO Scorecard, zero dollars.

  Also submitted for the Record as part of this statement is a table 
prepared by the Congressional Budget Office, which provides additional 
information on the budgetary effects of this act, as follows:

    CBO ESTIMATE OF THE STATUTORY PAY-AS-YOU-GO EFFECTS FOR SENATE AMENDMENT 4425, THE UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION EXTENSION ACT OF 2010, AS AMENDED BY
                                                           UNANIMOUS CONSENT ON JULY 21, 2010
                                                          [Millions of dollars, by fiscal year]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   2010     2011     2012     2013     2014     2015     2016     2017     2018     2019     2020   2010-2015  2010-2020
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                               Net Increase in the Deficit
 
Total Changes..................    8,545   24,684      218      214      148       76       56        2        0        0        0    33,885     33,943
Less:
    Designated as Emergency        8,545   24,684      218      214      148       76       56        2        0        0        0    33,885     33,943
     Requirements\1\...........
                                ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Impact.        0        0        0        0        0        0        0        0        0        0        0         0          0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Memorandum--Components of the Emergency Designations
 
    Change in Outlays..........    8,545   24,495        0        0        0        0        0        0        0        0        0    33,040     33,040
    Changes in Revenues\2\.....        0     -189     -218     -214     -148      -76      -56       -2        0        0        0      -845       -903
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Components may not sum to totals because of rounding.
\1\The bill would designate Sections 2 and 3 as an emergency requirement pursuant to section 4(g) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.
\2\Negative numbers represent a DECREASE in revenues.
Source: Congressional Budget Office.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to 
concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 4213, 
with amendment No. 4425, as amended.
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh) is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 59, nays 39, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 215 Leg.]

                                YEAS--59

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Goodwin
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--39

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Voinovich
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Bayh
     Vitter
       
  The motion was agreed to.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I move to reconsider that vote and lay 
that motion upon the table.
  The motion to lay upon the table was agreed to.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. 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.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes 
as in morning business. I may ask to extend my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________