[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2238-2240]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             BIPARTISANSHIP

  Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, I wish to respond to the Democratic 
leader, particularly in view of what my leader just said about 
bipartisanship.
  It seems that last week there was a bipartisan agreement between the

[[Page 2239]]

members of the Finance Committee on the very issue the Democratic 
leader spoke on. It was called the Baucus-Grassley compromise bill. It 
never got to the floor of the Senate. That was a bipartisan bill that 
was set aside for a very partisan bill that Senator Reid brought to the 
floor and rammed through instead of the bipartisan bill, which had all 
these extended benefits included in it: extended unemployment benefits, 
COBRA health care assistance, flood insurance, highway bill assistance, 
the Medicare doc fix, small business loans, distant network channel for 
rural satellite television, and other things.
  It is hypocritical of the Democratic side of this aisle passing a 
pay-go bill. What does pay-go mean? It means you pay for the bills as 
they appear on the floor of the Senate. Then, to present a bill that is 
not paid for or just paid for a little bit--one-third of it is paid 
for--and that was the Reid jobs bill he presented to us. Five billion 
dollars was paid for; ten billion dollars was not. Then, immediately 
follows a UC, which is not--which is not--something we normally do. We 
have unanimous consents that are much different than this. This is a 
House bill they have asked unanimous consent to proceed on. Regular 
order could prevail and the leader of this Senate could put this bill 
under cloture and get his vote. He will get his 60-plus votes and 
normal procedure will occur. That is the normal way to deal with this 
bill.
  Just so my colleagues understand that not all Americans feel the same 
as my dear friend from Maine and the majority leader of the Senate, I 
am going to read a letter into the Record from a constituent of mine 
from Louisville.
  I am going to read it also because it is very important people 
understand there are other sides of this.

       Dear Senator Jim Bunning:
       I haven't worked a full 40-hour week in probably 2 years 
     now, but I fully support your decision to stand up to those 
     in Congress who want to do nothing more than to spend the 
     taxpayers' money, even the money they do not have, on 
     unemployment extension benefits.
       So far this year I have worked a total of one week here in 
     Louisville, Kentucky. My employer is a sheet metal 
     fabrication plant with its main headquarters based in 
     Cincinnati, Ohio. Normally the Louisville branch would employ 
     upwards of fifty people on any given day if business were 
     good. Recently that number has dwindled to about four.
       This country is sooner or later going to implode because of 
     the massive amount of debt run up over the past 40 to 50 
     years. Selling the Nation's soul to countries like Communist 
     China in order to finance our life style and allow the 
     government to further debase the currency is sheer lunacy. 
     Throwing away hundreds of billions of dollars so executives 
     on Wall Street can keep their multi-million dollar bonuses 
     while others in society worry about keeping the electricity 
     on and their children fed only helps to move this country 
     closer to a long overdue revolution. The problem is by then 
     we won't even own it anymore.
       Politicians, on both sides, enjoy getting up in front of 
     television cameras and talking about their support of the 
     ``pay as you go'' plan, but when it comes down to actually 
     doing what they say, they all run for cover and vote for 
     anything they think will win them another vote or another 
     term. Your stance in holding them to their words and 
     expecting them to actually do what they voted for is a 
     refreshing concept in an otherwise corrupt and hypocritical 
     power base known as Washington, DC.
       It is too bad Senator Mitch McConnell and some of the 
     elected officials on your side of the aisle do not have your 
     backbone or your sense of decency when it comes to keeping 
     their promises to the American people.

  For security's sake, I am just going to read his first name. It says: 
Sincerely, Robert, from Louisville.
  There is no doubt in anybody's mind that I have supported extension 
of unemployment benefits, COBRA health care benefits, flood insurance, 
the highway bill. I was the one who proposed the Medicare doc fix on a 
permanent basis in the Finance Committee. I have supported small 
business loans and all the other things that are in this temporary 
bill.
  I wish to set the record straight. The majority leader has all the 
tools in his kit and he normally exercises them and I think he is about 
to do that on the bill currently before us, which we call the large 
jobs bill. He soon will invoke cloture to cut off debate. He normally 
doesn't even allow amendments. He will file cloture, fill the tree--by 
filling the tree, that means the amendment tree which allows the 
Republicans no alternatives but to vote for cloture or not vote for 
cloture--and then, unfortunately, we have 30 hours of debate 
immediately following cloture.


                       Unanimous-Consent Request

  I am going to propose, one more time, my unanimous-consent request.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
the immediate consideration of H.R. 4691; that the amendment at the 
desk which offers a full offset be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be 
read for a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid 
upon the table.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I am sorry 
my friend from Kentucky has made this so personal because it shouldn't 
be the case, but let me review history a little bit.
  The Senator from Kentucky talks about the bill we voted on and passed 
last week as being very partisan. That bill received 70 votes. It was a 
very nonpartisan bill. I should say it was a bipartisan bill. It 
received 70 votes. Why did it receive 70 votes? Because it did some 
great things for America. It extended the highway bill for 1 year, 
saving 1 million jobs. It gave small businesses the right to write off 
$250,000 in purchases, stimulating small businesses all over America. 
It gave employers the ability to hire people who have been out of work 
for 60 days, and if they hired them, they wouldn't have to pay their 
FICA tax if they gave them 30 hours a week. Not only that, they get a 
$1,000 tax credit at the end of the year. This is a good proposal. We 
also extended Build America Bonds, which are so important to the 
American Recovery Act, and Democrats and Republicans all over the 
country--Governors, mayors, county commissioners--loved that proposal. 
So it was certainly not a partisan bill. He is right. The other bill he 
talked about wasn't brought to the floor. I would also say this. It was 
paid for. Not a cent of deficit spending--not a cent.
  It is interesting my friend would talk about pay-go. He voted against 
pay-go. He is talking about pay-go now. He voted against it. He voted 
against it right here on the Senate floor. If he so likes pay-go, why 
didn't he vote for it? He voted against it. The Senator from Kentucky 
voted against pay-go. It has no applicability to the jobs bill that 
passed because it was paid for.
  The doc fix, he talks about having voted for it in committee. He 
voted against it on the floor.
  So my friend is throwing around words such as ``hypocrite.'' People 
can make their own decision as to who is a hypocrite. I am not calling 
anyone a hypocrite, although I am just stating the facts: Someone who 
boasts about the good of pay-go but votes against it and talks about 
the doc fix but votes against it.
  So I would think my friend from Kentucky should get a different 
historian to help him with facts because they are simply wrong, and I 
object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, I will only continue for 2 minutes. Why 
would you vote for a bill when you know it is not going to be honored? 
Why would you vote for a bill you knew was going to be violated in the 
first bill brought to the floor after you passed it? As far as the doc 
fix is concerned, I have a history with the doc fix that I don't need 
to defend to the majority leader or to anybody in this body. Check with 
the Kentucky Medical Association and all my doctors whom I represent in 
Kentucky.
  I think the letter of the gentleman from Louisville states the facts 
better than I. We want a country where my 40 grandchildren have the 
same abilities I did growing up. We want a country that doesn't owe 
everybody in the world for our existence.
  The question I have been asked mostly is: Why now? Well, why not now? 
What better time to stand than now, when the majority leader has the 
ability to do exactly on this bill what he

[[Page 2240]]

has done on 25 bills in the last 5 months: file cloture, fill the tree, 
and vote yea or nay, get the 60 votes, pass the bill, and extend these 
temporary benefits. We may pass this other bill--I hope we do--that 
will extend them on a permanent basis for a year--until the end of the 
year, anyway.
  I think it is very important that people understand that I have the 
same right he does. He was elected by the people in Nevada, with fewer 
people than in Kentucky. So I have the same right as any other Senator 
here on the floor. It is not a filibuster when you object. That ought 
to be brought out clearly. A filibuster is when you stand on this floor 
and you talk and talk and talk. I have not done that.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I know my friends from Tennessee and Texas 
wish to speak, but I have to respond because I was mentioned again. I 
can't match, now or in the past, my friend's fast ball, his curve ball, 
or his 40 grandchildren. But I do have 16 grandchildren. I do think it 
is important to understand that the reasoning is a little unusual. He 
said I wouldn't vote for a bill that I thought would not be upheld at a 
later time, or procedures in the bill not followed. I don't know why 
anyone is entitled to be the judge and jury when you pass legislation. 
And if it is the law, there are ways of upholding that.
  With pay-go, we have some experience. We know it works. It worked 
during the Clinton years. We paid down the national debt as a result of 
what happened during the Clinton years. Pay-go was dismissed during the 
Bush years.
  My friend talks about the debt. He wants to make sure the debt 
doesn't go up. Where was he during the Bush years, with two unpaid-for 
wars, taxes unpaid for, running up trillions of dollars of red ink on 
the American people? We tried to address that. We asked for a debt 
commission to be established. We did that by legislation on the floor. 
My friend didn't vote for that. He didn't vote for pay-go. So we are 
trying on the floor--we have legislation that will resolve this issue.
  What my friend said is a little unusual. He said why doesn't the 
leader file for cloture, use up a week or 10 days, waste that time, and 
then hold off getting to all of the other things. That doesn't make 
sense. It is without any sense, when, in fact, with the Senator 
withdrawing his objection, we could get it done just like that. We 
wouldn't have to wait a week or 10 days. He made his stand. I think he 
is wrong, as do the American people, and as do the people of Kentucky, 
in spite of the letter from Robert.
  Madam President, so that I don't take advantage of my position as 
being leader, I ask unanimous consent that the time I consumed in my 
back and forth with Senator Bunning, which was under Republican 
control, be charged to leader time.
  I wonder if the staff has heard whether Senators Sessions and Leahy 
wish to take the full hour of time. How much time does my friend from 
Texas wish?
  Mr. CORNYN. About 10 minutes.
  Mr. REID. And the Senator from Tennessee is here. If we run into a 
shortage of time, we will be happy to try to work it out in some way 
with the minority.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Will the leader yield for a brief statement?
  Mr. REID. My friend from Texas has been so very patient.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republicans control the time.
  The Senator from Texas is recognized.

                          ____________________