[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5198-5214]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    CONTINUING EXTENSION ACT OF 2010

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and dear friend, 
Senator Stabenow, for those kind words. I know no one who cares more 
deeply and works harder in this body for the average American family, 
for the workers of this country, than Debbie Stabenow. She is always 
there thinking about how we can make their lives better, what we can do 
to increase employment opportunities for working families. The fact she 
is here today leading the debate on extending unemployment insurance 
again shows her dedication to those hard-working men and women who make 
this country what it is. I thank the Senator from Michigan for her 
leadership in this crucial area.
  I listened to the news this morning on the radio while driving in. 
The new figures are out for growth rate. We are growing now at about--
last quarter was about 5 percent. That is a turnaround from a negative 
6 percent 1 year ago. Also, in unemployment, about 1 year ago we were 
losing jobs at 750,000 each month. It came down to only 35,000 jobs we 
were losing a month in the last 3 months. Every expectation is that 
when we end March, we will actually be in the positive once again. It 
shows that President Obama's economic policies and programs and what we 
did in the Recovery Act are working.
  This is encouraging news. However, there are still almost 15 million 
hard-working people who lost their jobs and still struggling to find 
work. For these people, the recession is still a reality and recovery 
seems far out of reach.
  There have been 6.1 million people out of work for more than half a 
year. That is the highest number of long-term unemployed we have had 
since we started keeping track in 1948. The families of these long-term 
unemployed are hanging by a thread. Their savings are exhausted. The 
unemployment benefits they get are the lifeline that helps them pay the 
rent, put food on the table, and keep their kids in school.
  Yet in the face of this unprecedented crisis and long-term 
unemployment, a short-term extension of unemployment insurance is being 
needlessly, needlessly--I would say cruelly--obstructed in the Senate. 
In a real case of deja vu, a few members of the minority party

[[Page 5199]]

are yet again stonewalling a piece of legislation that I think most 
people in this room and most of the people in this country would agree 
is vitally important.
  Indeed, we know for a fact there is broad support for extending 
benefits in the Senate because we already passed a longer extension 
earlier this year. That is what is most illogical about this whole 
situation. We have already said we want to continue the Federal 
extended benefits program through the end of this year. We are now just 
waiting for the House to act. But now we cannot pass a 30-day extension 
to give the House the time they need to catch up. That does not make 
sense. We have already passed it for the year. We just need to fill in 
a small gap for 1 month. Those on the minority side are saying no.
  As a result of this political gamesmanship, more than 37,000 
unemployed Americans will be abruptly cut off from Federal unemployment 
benefits. They will lose their subsidized COBRA health insurance 
coverage during the first week of April. In my own State of Iowa, about 
1,200 workers struggling with joblessness will see their safety net 
drop out from underneath them.
  Blocking this bill may be a political game for some in the minority 
party, but it is not a game for millions of Americans who, in a matter 
of days, will lose their lifeline. For them, the obstruction of this 
bill, by just a few in this Chamber, is a personal and family crisis of 
the first magnitude.
  It is interesting, we are going to be leaving here today. I guess 
this will be the last day before the Easter recess. We are out for 2 
weeks. Senators will be going back to their States, probably traveling 
and doing different activities with their families. They will probably 
be having nice Easter dinners with all their families. Guess what. Not 
one Member of this Senate or the House will lose their pay or benefits 
during this period of time. How about all the people out there right 
now who are facing an April 5 cutoff of their unemployment benefits, a 
cutoff of their COBRA health benefits? These are not people who have a 
big bank vault with a lot of money on which they can draw. These are 
people hanging by a thread. They have been out of work at least for 
over half a year. It almost borders on the unconscionable that we would 
leave and not pass this bill.
  I know those on the other side say we have to pay for it. I am all 
for paying for things, but I daresay, if a tornado wiped out a town in 
Oklahoma or we had a flood, as some are having in the Midwest, that 
wiped out a community and we needed to rush money in and rush items in 
to help people, would we stand here and say: Oh, no, we can't call that 
an emergency; that is not an emergency; somehow we have to come up with 
the pay-fors right away. No, it would be an emergency. We would rush in 
to help.
  For the thousands of Americans who are going to lose their 
unemployment on April 5, it is an emergency. It is as if a tornado hit 
their home or a flood wiped out their community. It is an emergency, 
and we respond to emergencies with emergency spending--that is all we 
are saying--for 30 days, short term. This is an emergency. Yet it is 
being obstructed by the minority, by the Republicans. Let's say it for 
what it is. The Republicans are stopping this legislation. It is simply 
inexplicable.
  There is no reason to put millions of families through the stress and 
uncertainty of wondering whether their benefits are disappearing. There 
is no reason to put States through the trouble and administrative 
expense that comes with a lapse in the program. That is even going to 
cost more money.
  The flood insurance program also needs to be extended or many people 
purchasing a home will not be able to close on their homes, causing 
major economic problems for them and the home seller.
  Extending benefits is good for the families, workers, the States, and 
our economy. Economists calculate that every $1 invested in the 
unemployment insurance safety net generates $1.90 in economic activity. 
Unemployed households spend these dollars on immediate needs--to pay 
the rent or medical bill, buy groceries and school supplies, or repair 
the family car--all economic activities that quickly inject dollars 
into our communities.
  I call on my colleagues to stop their obstruction and do the right 
thing. Do the right thing. Just think about those people out there who 
are going to lose these benefits on April 5. I know some people say we 
will come back on the 12th and maybe by the 15th of the month we will 
be able to take care of it and we will go retroactive and fill that in. 
These are not people who can just go down to the bank and have a line 
of credit. These are people who probably in desperation--in 
desperation--will go down to some loan shark, get some kind of payday 
loan, something like that, and pay 20 percent interest on it for a 
couple weeks because they are that desperate.
  I think it is unconscionable that we would hold this up because a few 
say we have to pay for it. We will pay for it. They say we cannot put 
this off on our children and our grandchildren. I agree, we have to be 
careful. We have to start getting out of the hole we are in. We are in 
a hole economically. Don't put it all on the backs of the few who have 
been out of work for so long facing getting their money cut off on 
April 5. Let's have a little heart. Let's have a little compassion. 
Let's have a little understanding of what these people are going 
through every day in their lives, the stress they have. Let's do the 
right thing and extend unemployment benefits for 1 month.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Stabenow control the time from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.; that I control the 
time from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.; that Senator Stabenow control the time 
from 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.; that I control the time from 11 a.m. to 12 
p.m.; and that Senator Stabenow control the time from 12 p.m. to 12:30 
p.m.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. I yield to the Senator from Michigan.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Oklahoma.
  Mr. President, we are here today because Republicans are objecting 
again to critical legislation and critical problem-solving efforts that 
are going to help middle-class families, that are going to help move us 
forward as a country.
  We have seen, over and over, a pattern in the last year and 2 years 
ago when they first began to move this kind of a strategy forward, of 
blocking, blocking, blocking, saying no, saying no, saying no, rather 
than working together to solve critical issues. People are facing some 
of the most daunting challenges right now, more than they ever have in 
their lifetime--either trying to hold on to their job, trying to find a 
job, trying to make sure they have medical care for their families--and 
we have taken a very critical step this week to be able to ease some of 
those challenges and fears. Americans are struggling in an economy they 
didn't create, and when we look over this pattern, I am compelled to 
speak for a moment about it.
  Over the history of our country, we have never seen such obstruction, 
efforts to block what we are doing, as we are now seeing. In the last 2 
years, there were a total of 139 filibusters and efforts to block. That 
was in a 2-year period. Today, barely into the new year, after a little 
over a year, we are at 130 different times that the other party has 
said no to doing things that would help middle-class families, that 
would help small businesses, and that would help us move this country 
forward. One hundred thirty times. Unheard of, never happened before.
  I know for people watching, they probably wonder: What in the world 
is going on here, and why should we care about procedure? We just want 
you to solve problems. But it is the effort we saw in the past with the 
Senator from Kentucky, who blocked for days our effort to move forward 
and extend unemployment benefits for families who are

[[Page 5200]]

out of work through no fault of their own. People want to work, Mr. 
President, as you know, and they work hard. It is not their fault this 
economy went into a tailspin, which, quite frankly, in my judgment, was 
caused as a result of the policies of the previous administration that 
for 8 years chose to focus on just a few people. So the people in 
Michigan are saying: What about the rest of us? What about the rest of 
us? We are not the Wall Street fat cats. We are not the CEOs with the 
big bonuses or the people who got the big tax cuts. We are just working 
every day. We just want the American dream for our kids. We want to 
know things are going to be better. We want to know we can send our 
kids to college so they will have a great opportunity to be the best 
they can be.
  That is who we are fighting for, and that is why we took subsidies 
from banks this week and gave the money directly to students, to create 
opportunities for those who want to go to college. That is why we have 
focused on lowering costs for middle-class families and small 
businesses on health insurance. But we are back here today because, 
unfortunately, our Republican colleagues are trying to score political 
points on the backs of people who have lost their jobs.
  Now, I know a great way to bring down the deficit, and one that 
hasn't been tried. The 8 years that our colleagues were in control, 
along with President Bush, they focused on the people at the top and 
said that was going to do it. If it had worked, that would have been 
great, but unfortunately they left everybody else behind, and we saw 
what happened. So I have a great idea. Let's focus on putting everybody 
back to work so they can contribute to our economy by paying their 
taxes, and that will pay down the deficit. That is what President 
Clinton did. That is what the Democrats did when we were last in 
control. That is what we are focused on doing now--putting people back 
to work--because that is the formula for bringing down this deficit.
  The challenge we have is that we have one job for every six people 
who are looking right now. So we aren't in a situation yet where we 
have the jobs available for every person who wants to work and is able 
to work. That is what we are laser-focused on here in the Congress. But 
we need to continue to understand, as Senator Harkin has said, that too 
many families are caught in this economic tsunami. Whether it is a 
flood, a hurricane, or the fact that your community got wiped out 
because a plant closed, it is an economic emergency.
  We have always stepped up and funded the extension of unemployment 
benefits as an emergency with emergency funding. We have always done 
that, and now we are being asked to change that. We weren't asked to 
change it for Wall Street and the bailout. We weren't asked to change 
it for the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. But we are being 
asked to change it on the backs of working people, and I believe that 
is wrong.
  We are still recovering from the worst economic situation since the 
Great Depression, but we are recovering. When President Obama took 
office, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month--too many of them in my 
great State of Michigan. We are now, at the end of the year, down to 
losing close to zero a month. That is better--not good enough, so we 
must stay focused, but we are hearing that we are going to have some 
pretty good numbers from March, where people are actually going back to 
work and jobs are being created. I don't want to stop and I know the 
Presiding Officer doesn't want to stop until every single person who is 
able to work and who wants a job has the dignity of work so that we 
give breadwinners the ability to bring the bread home. And that is what 
this is about.
  So we are in a situation where we are in transition, and too many 
families are caught. In my great State, the unemployment rate is still 
the highest in the country--14.1 percent. It is coming down slowly, but 
it is still way too high. We have almost 700,000 people who have lost 
their jobs and are looking for work. But that is only the official 
number. That doesn't include the people who are working one part-time 
job, two part-time jobs, three part- time jobs trying to hold it 
together or people who have been out of work so long they no longer 
qualify for any kind of help. Those numbers are much bigger.
  Every day, the unemployment insurance agency in Michigan gets 13,000 
to 15,000 phone calls from people asking for help--every day. Every 
single day, up to 15,000 phone calls come in from people in Michigan 
who are desperate about what they are going to do in this situation. 
Well, we can help them. That is what this is about. That is what we are 
trying to do.
  If this isn't an emergency, I don't know what is. The other side 
says: No, it is not an emergency. But for families who have lost their 
jobs and who are trying to find work, trying to put food on the table, 
I can assure you, this is an emergency. It is an economic disaster. 
When 14.9 million people around the country are unemployed, to me, that 
is a disaster. And those are the people we are fighting for today, 
yesterday, tomorrow. Those are the people who, when Wall Street got 
bailed out, said to us: What about us? Well, part of the answer is, to 
make sure they can keep a roof over their head and food on the table, 
to allow them to receive unemployment benefits. And these aren't huge 
numbers. They do not begin to match the Wall Street bonuses. We are 
talking about $250, $300 a week. But it may be the difference between 
being able to keep your family going or not.
  In this legislation, we have a very important provision on health 
care--on COBRA. When COBRA was put in place, it was a great idea. If 
you lost your job, you could pay to continue the health insurance your 
employer was providing. The problem is, it is way too expensive when 
you are paying both the employee and the employer side. So last year, 
in the Recovery Act, we put some help in place: 65 percent would be 
paid for by the Federal Government to help families keep their 
insurance going. That is also a part of this--to keep that going so 
families can keep their health care. That is extremely important.
  We need to focus on the real challenges families are facing today and 
work together across the aisle to tackle those. People are so tired of 
the games. They are so tired of it. They watch what is happening here, 
and they say: What are these people thinking? What are they doing?
  I know that politically folks may gain points by objecting, blocking, 
filibustering 130 times, but it makes the whole process look messy--
terribly messy. It causes people to lose faith in their government. 
That may seem to have some short-term advantage, but I believe that is 
a disastrous direction for our country. People want to know we are 
going to work together. People are going to want to know we put 
priorities in the right place so that we are focusing on the majority 
of Americans, not an elite few.
  The great thing about our country is the middle class. That is what 
has always differentiated us from other countries--the fact that we 
make things, we grow things, and we add value to it. And by the way, we 
make things and grow things very well in Michigan, Mr. President. We 
will take on any State. We will take on anybody. We know how to do 
things. We know how to work, we know how to make things.
  But we have not had this focus over the last decade on strengthening 
that middle class. We are turning that around now, and I am very proud 
of the fact that we are seeing manufacturing begin to turn, that we are 
seeing efforts that we put in place through the Recovery Act putting 
people back to work.
  Too many families are not yet feeling that economic recovery, and 
this is for them. This is about saying to the American people, middle-
class families across the country: You know what, we get it. We are 
sorry you are having to go through this, and we are going to do our 
part. We are going to do whatever we can to make sure you have the 
resources to keep things together while you are going out and looking 
for that job or going back to job training and

[[Page 5201]]

holding things together with bits and pieces--odd jobs, part-time 
jobs--until this economy turns around.
  We know, ultimately, that it is about jobs. We know, ultimately, it 
is about the private sector creating those jobs. But there is a 
partnership we need to have between the Federal Government and our 
industry so they can successfully compete in a global economy. Rather 
than focusing on Democrats versus Republicans, who can score the next 
short-term gain in the election, we should be coming together and 
realize that this is an economic race between the United States and 
China, it is the United States versus Japan, it is the United States 
versus Korea. We are in a global economic race. Instead of spending 
time objecting, playing games, filibustering at an unheard of rate in 
our history--absolutely unheard of; never before have we seen this kind 
of obstruction--we ought to be coming together and be laser-focused on 
China, which is spending $288 million every day--$288 million every 
day--to beat us on clean energy technology. Let's make that the fight. 
Let's make that the fight together.
  This is the wrong place and time to be obstructing and playing games. 
It is the wrong place to say that suddenly we want to balance the 
deficit on the backs of people who are out of work through no fault of 
their own; that we are going to change the rules now; that it is no 
longer an emergency and no longer emergency spending. We shouldn't be 
changing the rules now and doing it to people who are out of work. That 
is not fair.
  I say to my colleagues: Don't block democracy. Just vote--today. We 
can vote on this up or down. We can vote on it. Don't obstruct; just 
vote. You want to make a motion, you want to vote, a majority vote, 
fine. Let's vote. But don't force a filibuster and don't object and 
don't threaten a filibuster. Just vote. We are happy to vote.


                  Unanimous-Consent Request H.R. 4851

  Mr. President, at this point, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 323, H.R. 4851, 
to provide a temporary extension of certain programs, and that the bill 
be read three times, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon 
the table.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. COBURN. Reserving the right to object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. I think my colleague realizes that, in fact, this will 
add $9.2 billion to the debt, and she also realizes, in spite of her 
claim that we could vote, that there is nobody in town to vote because 
there are only 10 or 11 of us still in town. And because every 
Republican voted against adjourning so that we could stay and work this 
out, I would object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, could you indicate the time remaining on 
our side for this portion?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. In this block of time, the Senator 
has no time remaining.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma is 
recognized.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, let me set the record straight. Yesterday 
in this body we offered the same bill in a way that would not increase 
the debt. It was immediately tabled, with all Republicans voting not to 
table it and the majority voting to table it. So there is a little bit 
of confusion.
  We worked out an agreement with Senator Stabenow and Senator Levin 
from Michigan where we came together with an agreement for 2 weeks 
where this would be paid for, so the reason this bill is not moving 
forward is because the House leadership rejected that compromise. In 
other words, we had a compromise. We developed a plan where our 
children will not pay for this, we will, by offsetting and not adding 
to the debt.
  With that, I wish to recognize my colleague from Wyoming, Senator 
Barrasso, for what time he might consume.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, it was fascinating to be here in the 
Senate Chamber this morning when first the Senator from Iowa made the 
statement, ``I'm all for paying for things.''
  I am all for paying for things? But not for this. Not for that. Not 
for the next thing.
  Watching the Senator's voting record, it seems that everything is an 
emergency. He certainly does not seem to want to be paying for 
anything, just add it to the debt.
  Mr. COBURN. Will the Senator yield for a moment.
  He talked about a tornado in Oklahoma. When the Oklahoma City bombing 
happened and we sent emergency funds to Oklahoma City, we paid for 
them. We decreased spending somewhere else to pay for that spending. 
His point falls on a flat wall because when we had an urgency such as 
that in 1995, we paid for it.
  Mr. BARRASSO. I heard the Senator, my good friend from Michigan, a 
few minutes ago say it is the United States versus China. My good 
friend from Michigan said we are laser focused on China and that China 
is spending money every day to beat us.
  I think the problem is the government in Washington is spending money 
every day--the taxpayers' money, money we do not have, and that is what 
is going to beat us. It is money irresponsibly being spent by this 
government in this city, voted on time and time again by a Washington 
government that doesn't live within its means, doesn't do what the 
States in this country do, where we do live within our means. I served 
in the Wyoming Senate where we did balance the budget. The Governor had 
a line-item veto. We had to balance our budget. It is the spending by 
us in the United States that is going to lead to China beating us, not 
money being spent in China every day.
  That is why on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today, above 
the fold, right there, Wall Street Journal, Friday, March 26, 2010, 
``Debt Fears Send Rates Up.'' The fear of the debt is sending rates up.
  What it means is people do not think we are responsible in the way we 
are living. We are not living within our means. We are not doing what a 
family does in this country, where a family says we have to live within 
our means. When the Senator from Iowa says you can't go down and get an 
extended line of credit if you have already tapped your credit, this 
country continues to do it. Washington continues to overspend and not 
live within its means. The amount of spending being done, often under 
the guise of saying it is an emergency, has been irresponsible, 
unsustainable, and my concern is it will soon be irreversible.
  I believe in this country. I believe in America. We are a strong 
nation. We are a resilient nation. We are a proud nation. And we are a 
nation that has faced down some of history's most vicious tyrants, we 
have faced down some of the most incredible obstacles, challenging 
obstacles, and we have risen to the occasion time and time again.
  Today, here we are, faced with many challenges, none of which is too 
large or too difficult for the American people to overcome. But the 
President of the United States has determined the people cannot be 
trusted to overcome the obstacles we face. Instead, here in Washington, 
Democrats believe the government continues to be the answer. I am here 
to tell you that government is not the answer. The government is the 
problem.
  Americans have been promised transparency, accountability, hope, and 
change. Instead, what the American people have been given is 
irresponsible and unsustainable spending, along with unthinkable 
government intervention into nearly every aspect of our lives. This 
country needs an economic environment where people, where individuals, 
where families, where businesses can recover and thrive. What the 
administration has done is give us more bureaucracy and more debt and 
it is going to get worse now that the health care bill has been signed 
into law. To

[[Page 5202]]

make matters worse, this government in Washington is sending the bill 
to our children and our grandchildren.
  Look at the proposals that are ahead of us here--costly cap-and-trade 
proposals which are going to raise costs and raise energy prices for 
American families, government-run health care, irresponsible bailouts 
of every industry in sight, one takeover after another, where 
government says we know better than the American people.
  Government is wrong. I have great concern that people here in 
Washington are completely out of touch with what is happening in the 
real world. I go home to Wyoming every weekend. I am going today. That 
is the best way to do it, to go home and listen to people who have to 
balance their checkbooks, people who have to live within their means, 
and then visit with State legislators who know when they go to the 
capitals of their respective States that the States have to live within 
their means, balance their budget, don't overspend, tighten the belt, 
cut spending if we need to.
  Watching this debate in the last couple of weeks with health care, 
having practiced medicine for 25 years, we need to focus on the overall 
health of people as well as the economy, because if people cannot put 
food on the table or a roof over their head, no matter what additional 
bill is passed in Washington--which spends more money--that is not 
going to make it easier for the families of America. Spending billions 
to combat global warming--global warming--billions, it seems senseless 
for somebody who is retired and can't afford to heat their home in the 
Wyoming winter.
  There was a time when our leaders recognized that America's most 
valuable asset was the American people. I continue to believe that. 
There is a reason the preamble to our Constitution begins with, ``We 
the people,'' not ``You, the people.'' Our forefathers created a system 
of government through which free Americans get to decide their own 
fate. Today the very fabric of America is in danger of being tattered 
beyond repair, and every time I go home, as I travel around the State 
of Wyoming, people continue to tell me we are losing our country. I am 
not the only one who is hearing it. When Senators, when Representatives 
go home--and many of us do go home every weekend--we are hearing it 
State by State. Those Members of Congress who choose to not go home, to 
not go visit with the people they represent, to not hold town meetings 
because they are told by leadership don't go listen to the people, 
listen to us--those are the kinds of people who continue to vote for 
irresponsible spending.
  I am hoping Members go home over the upcoming Eastertime, go home and 
listen to people in their own home communities who will say Washington 
needs to live by the same rules families in America live by--live 
within your means. American families know what it means to live within 
your means.
  Since the beginning of this crisis, Americans have been forced to 
make some very difficult choices and to tighten our belts. Financially 
stressed Americans balance budgets for food, for gas, for electricity, 
for tuition, for clothing, rent, mortgage payments, and much more. When 
your neighbor maxes out the limit on their credit card they are keenly 
aware this is a clear indication of a spending problem. They cannot 
call the credit card company and simply say increase the credit limit. 
Unfortunately, we know Washington is not your average consumer. 
President Obama said it best. He said:

       In the long run we can't continue to spend as if deficits 
     don't have consequences, as if waste does not matter, as if 
     the hard earned tax dollars of the American people can be 
     treated like monopoly money.

  Let me repeat that. This is President Obama who said last year, right 
before Christmas, ``We can't continue to spend as if the hard earned 
tax dollars of the American people can be treated like monopoly money. 
That's what we have seen time and time again.'' He said ``Washington 
has become more concerned about the next election than the next 
generation.''
  Those on this side of the aisle are most concerned about our economy, 
our Nation, jobs, growth, opportunity, the families of this country. 
This is a long-term problem and it must be addressed in the short term. 
We cannot afford to wait. We cannot continue to call everything 
emergency spending without paying for it.
  The American people are demanding action. Time and again Washington's 
insatiable appetite for spending is met with more of the same. Only in 
Washington can you max out the country's credit card at $14 trillion 
and simply keep on spending. Unlike your average American, Washington 
has refused to make the tough choices needed to rein in unsustainable 
deficits we are now facing. Since we are not making the tough choices, 
the cost of handling the debt is continuing to go up. Interest rates 
are rising which means the amount of money that is going to go to pay 
that debt will continue to rise. Yet we are looking at a deficit that 
continues to rise, $1 trillion a year, all the way through 2020, and a 
Presidential budget that will double the national debt in 5 years and 
triple it in 10.
  The current national deficit for this fiscal year is $1.4 trillion. 
That is three times the previous record high. As I said, according to 
the budget projections, the deficit is going to be close to $1 trillion 
a year through 2020. This budget deficit is simply appalling. All you 
need to do is go home, have a townhall meeting, listen to people. 
People around the country are incensed with this sort of reckless, 
wasteful Washington spending.
  The worst part is people do not believe they are getting value for 
their money. In a recent poll, of every $1 you send to Washington in 
taxes, how much do you think is being wasted? The American public said 
50 cents on every dollar sent to Washington in taxes is being wasted. 
That is an all-time record high number. People are not seeing that 
Washington is being responsible in how taxpayer dollars are being used 
and the American people simply do not believe they are getting value 
for their money.
  I agree, the people are not getting value for their money. All you 
need to do is look at the Washington wasteful spending and it is no 
surprise that the American people are incredibly upset. Year after 
year, monstrous deficits are leading us to a national debt crisis. In 
2009 alone, the public debt grew 31 percent. It now is almost half of 
the gross domestic product. By 2020 it is expected to balloon to over 
70 percent of the gross domestic product.
  So when I look at this and I talk to people at home and I think about 
this and I look at the great threats, the great threats to our Nation, 
to me the debt is the threat. As a result, I take a look at this major 
spending bill, the so-called stimulus package--which was supposed to 
keep unemployment down below 9 percent and said if you didn't pass it, 
it might go to 9 percent--they passed it, and it still went to 10 
percent. Do you know only 1 in 16 Americans believes it actually 
created jobs. The President is out there saying it created jobs, 
traveling around the country, and only 1 in 16 Americans believes it. 
That is how severe this problem is.
  With that, I see my part of the time has expired and I wish to turn 
the remainder of this time over to Senator Coburn.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want to set a little bit of a tone. 
First, I thank the Senator from Michigan. Yesterday, it was through her 
work and Senator Levin's work that we were able to come to an agreement 
on a compromise in the Senate. I think that shows when we get down to 
issues we can work together; when we get to the position. It was her 
efforts, along with several others, that allowed us to reach that 
compromise.
  But I wanted to make a point--a couple of points. No. 1, there is 
nobody on our side who does not want to extend the unemployment 
benefits. The difference is we want to extend them without hurting her 
future. Whether you are a conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, 
or an Independent, the consequences of our actions are going to affect 
everybody. I used this last year, and this little girl is saying:

[[Page 5203]]

I am already $38,375 in debt, and I only own a dollhouse.
  Well, let me show you what is going to happen this year. This year 
alone, she is $45,000 in debt. We moved from $39,000 to $45,000 for 
every man, woman, and child in this country. That only reflects the 
outstanding debt we do not owe ourselves, that we have stolen from 
Social Security and that we have stolen from other trust funds, that we 
put in an IOU.
  There is another thing that is happening that Americans should be 
aware of. In the past year, the average interest rates on the debt 
obligations we are issuing have risen 1 percent. So we have $12.8 
trillion worth of debt. Multiply that by 1 percent, and in this next 
year we are going to pay an extra $128 billion in interest just from 
that 1 percent.
  So for every 1 percent interest rates go up, we have interest costs 
of $128 billion. What will happen as we continue to project trillion-
dollar deficits over the next 9 years is, that is going to rise and 
rise and rise.
  She is the one that is going to pay for that, and this will not be 
$45,000; it will be $75,000. Then it will be $85,000, and then pretty 
soon--and by the way, that only reflects the debt. That has no 
reflection on the unfunded commitments that we have made to veterans, 
social security benefits, Medicare, none.
  If we add those in, we have another $37 trillion that has to be 
accounted for just over the next four decades. So debt is a big problem 
for us. I would also make a point, the Senator from Michigan mentioned 
the long-term debt extender that we have. It is 12 months. It is going 
down each time we do it. We sent that to the House. You know what. It 
did not increase the debt because we offset it. We paid for it.
  So the House has a bill the Senate has passed that was paid for, and 
they stole some of the pay-fors for the health care bill. So the House 
has not sent it back because the House refuses to make the hard choices 
to pay for the things that are necessary to be done right now. That is 
what happened yesterday. The Senate came to an agreement. We decided we 
would pay for 2 weeks so nobody will have any hitch in their 
unemployment, no hitch in their COBRA, no hitch anywhere. When it was 
sent over there, it was rejected.
  Now, I want to posit something to you. The reason it was rejected is 
we do not want to create the precedent that when we spend money we have 
to pay for it. Where in the world is that a normal thinking process? In 
other words, we want to make sure we always have the option to spend 
money that is not paid for. There could be nothing more economically 
unreasonable than that.
  So this is not a battle about not wanting to help the people who need 
our help today, this is a battle about helping the people who need our 
help today without hurting the children of tomorrow, without rescuing 
them.
  If we are talking about emergencies, the fact is, because we cannot 
control our appetite for spending, our interest costs have gone up 
another $128 billion this year. That is an emergency. The other thing 
is that we have over $300 billion worth of waste, of fraud, of 
duplication in the Federal Government every year. So if you dispute it, 
you can say there is only--let's say it is half that. Why would we not 
get rid of that and pay for this rather than charge this intermediate 
$9.2 billion to those little children?
  I actually had the pleasure of meeting this little girl in my office 
after I saw this photo. She has parents. They are worried. So what is 
her future going to be like? Is she going to have the same opportunity 
I have? So what I would posit forth is that we can do both. We can meet 
the needs of those who are dependent upon us now because of the 
economic downturn, and we can protect her and all of those of her 
generation.
  To not do so says we are going to take the easy way out. We are not 
going to act responsibly. We are not going to act like every other 
family in America acts. They look at what is there, what is the 
priority, what we can do, and what we cannot do. Then they make a 
decision about what is most important.
  The process the Senator from Michigan wants us to do, even though she 
agreed yesterday, is to not put a priority on it that considers both 
the short term and the long term; that cares both for the children as 
well as the unemployed; that considers both the future of our country 
and her opportunity to take advantage of the freest Nation in the 
world.
  This is not a Republican-Democrat thing. Republicans have been 
irresponsible in spending too. It is a whole new era now. Everything 
has changed. It does not matter what party we are in. If we do not get 
hold of the debt in this country, everyone is going to suffer.
  I spoke on the Senate floor yesterday, and I will reiterate it: 
Whether you call it a filibuster or whether you call it obstruction, as 
a grandfather of five children, truly reflective of tons of 
grandparents out there and tons of grandkids out there, I am not going 
to agree in the future to spend money we do not have until we get rid 
of the things that are not a priority, the $300 billion, before we 
move. Someone has to start saying no to the addiction we have that 
every time we have a problem we will just spend money.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 4915

  I would like to make a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous 
consent that the Senate now proceed to H.R. 4915, a revenue measure 
from the House; provided that the only amendment in order be a 
substitute amendment, the text of which is the 2-week extension that we 
agreed on yesterday of unemployment benefits that is paid for, that 
will not increase the debt, with agreed-to offsets from the Finance 
Committee that was agreed to yesterday; proceeded further that the 
amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and 
passed, with a motion to reconsider laid upon the table.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Ms. STABENOW. Reserving the right to object, I would just indicate to 
my colleague that from our perspective this is an emergency, an 
economic disaster for families right now. We need to do as we have done 
three other times in the Congress and extend this emergency spending to 
help families who are out of work.
  Given that, I will object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I am sorry we have an objection. The fact 
is, we agreed to it. The fact is, the Senator from Michigan is having 
to protect the House of Representatives. She knows we are not going to 
go forward with this unless we pay for that, until we get back.
  The only way to do that is through unanimous consent. The only way we 
are going to accomplish that is what we agreed to yesterday and send it 
to the House and let them do it by unanimous consent, even though they 
said they will not do it.
  The fact is, we agreed in the Senate. We came to an agreement, and 
because the House has said they will not do it, they do not want to--
they want to increase the debt to do it rather than to do it and not 
increase the debt. I think that speaks of where we are in the country.
  We cannot do this. We have agreed on the way to do it in our body.
  After we had an agreement yesterday that maybe the House did not 
like, it actually solved the problem and solved the problem for these 
little kids as well as those unemployed in Michigan and across the 
country. We now have the House saying: No, we cannot do it.
  So I am sorry. I apologize to the Senator from Michigan for putting 
her in that position. I sincerely do. But I think we have to be 
recognizable of the fact that what looks like may be happening as both 
Houses recess is that it will not get done. It will not get done 
because we cannot get it done. It will not get done because the House 
refuses to take a position to not add to the debt as we solve this 
problem, as we meet both priorities--those people who are hurting and 
the priority of what is to come in the future. I think that is 
unfortunate for us.
  I would yield the remaining time I have, which is only about 2 or 3 
minutes, to the Senator from Georgia, and

[[Page 5204]]

then I hope he will join me when we come back.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. I will be here this 
morning to talk about this issue. I, too, just want to say to the 
Senator from Michigan, it is unfortunate that the Senate has tried to 
be responsible and react to the situation we are in from an 
unemployment insurance standpoint, and in a very responsible way, and, 
unfortunately, the House will not agree with us. I am one of the folks 
who has a great deal of sympathy for those folks who are unemployed, as 
do all other 99 Members of this body.
  This is the fourth time we have sought to extend unemployment 
insurance for individuals across America. My State of Georgia has an 
unemployment rate of almost 10.5 percent. We have a lot of people who 
are hurting in a very significant way.
  I voted last time, on March 2 I believe it was, to extend 
unemployment insurance without paying for it because I know the 
difficulties people are having. But I did it with the understanding 
that we had 30 days to fix it. We had 30 days to figure out a way to 
pay for it. Yet, instead of concentrating on ways to figure out a way 
to pay for it, last night, the Senator from Oklahoma was forced to 
raise an objection to the extension that is not paid for, so the 
majority decided: Well, maybe he is really serious about paying for it. 
Maybe the Republicans do want to see us pay for this rather than adding 
to the debt that our children and our grandchildren will inherit.
  That is when serious discussions took place. I will come back with my 
colleague from Oklahoma and talk more about this later. I regret that 
the House has taken the action they have. It sends us down a continuing 
trail that we have been on in the Congress over the last several years. 
My colleague is right. Republicans have done this, just as Democrats 
have. Republicans have not been as egregious about it as we have seen 
in the last year and a half, but it is an issue we have to get under 
control. Now is the time to do it. If we can't find a way to pay for $9 
billion worth of expenses, then it is Katy bar the door.
  Today we borrow 43 cents out of every dollar the Federal Government 
spends. That is spending that is out of control. I look forward to 
continuing this dialog as we turn the discussion over to the other 
side. We will come back in a little while and talk more about it.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to my distinguished 
colleague, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the terrific 
senior Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if Senator Chambliss might stay for 1 second so I 
can inform my Republican colleagues, in about 10 minutes I will be 
asking unanimous consent to confirm a general who has been nominated--a 
brigadier general who has been nominated to be a major general, who has 
been stuck on this calendar since October because of the objection of 
Senator Vitter, who is not hiding that it is totally unrelated to the 
merits of this general. He acknowledges that. Senator Vitter has 
acknowledged that his problem is with the Corps of Engineers. This is a 
Corps of Engineers that has nothing to do with the projects Senator 
Vitter is trying to get funded. The Corps of Engineers has said it is 
illegal to proceed. They have written him back. The hold still stands. 
This is a uniformed officer of the U.S. Government. As chairman of the 
Armed Services Committee, I feel obligated--and the reason I 
interrupted your mission, forgive me, is because it is a Senate Armed 
Services Committee matter, where we have unanimously approved him 6 
months ago or 5 months ago to be a major general.
  I want to put folks on notice. I will be making a unanimous consent 
request in about 10 minutes that this matter be taken off the calendar 
and that it be confirmed. I wanted, as a courtesy, to make sure folks 
on that side of the aisle knew.
  I thank my dear friend from Michigan, my colleague, Senator Stabenow, 
for yielding me this time. I know later on this morning or early this 
afternoon there will be a unanimous consent request that unemployment 
benefits be extended, that a bill be adopted. It is critically 
important that unanimous consent request be approved. I will speak now 
for a few minutes on that matter.
  We have thousands of people in our State of Michigan who have lost 
jobs thanks to a crisis that was created in mortgage company boiler 
rooms and Wall Street board rooms. Now they are suffering because of 
the failure of our Republican colleagues to understand the emergency 
situation--I want to focus on the word ``emergency''--of those who have 
lost their jobs because of that crisis. It should not be hard to 
deliver much needed aid to people who are facing an emergency crisis. 
We have an unemployment rate in the country that is approximating 10 
percent. We have an unemployment rate in Michigan that is over 14 
percent. People need us to do what is right and to extend these 
benefits.
  Here we are, up against a wall of obstructionism again, while 
thousands of our constituents, people in every State, wonder what it is 
exactly we are doing that we would deny the extension of unemployment 
benefits when we have a deep recession. Hopefully, we may be coming 
out. There is some evidence we may be coming out, but not for this 
record number of people who will lose their unemployment benefits if we 
don't act.
  This is not an abstract policy debate. These are real lives which are 
hanging in the balance. We have more than a half million Michiganians 
receiving unemployment benefits. We have 125,000 Michiganians who will 
lose their unemployment benefits by the end of April, if we do not act. 
Unemployed breadwinners will continue to receive benefits only if we 
can find the will and the decency to act on their behalf--real people, 
real families coping with enormous problems. Denying this extension is 
simply inhumane. It is more than the families. We could talk about 
that. We can talk about the economy, which also benefits from these 
unemployment benefits. In fact, economists tell us--this has been 
extensively documented--that government payments, such as unemployment 
benefits, are among the most effective forms of economic stimulus. Not 
providing that stimulus has a negative effect on the entire economy. 
But that is not the point I wish to reinforce this morning. It is the 
fact that we have an emergency in millions of homes, and that emergency 
needs to be recognized as such. If it is--and I hope our Republican 
colleagues would agree--we then do not have to have the offsets which 
we would if it is not designated as an emergency.
  Our Republican colleagues tell us they are in favor of an extension, 
but they argue it should be offset with cuts in other programs. In 
fact, one of the programs they look to for an offset is the American 
Recovery and Reinvestment Act or the stimulus package. It is a pretty 
ironic place to look since that package is a job creator. So in order 
to do the right thing and extend unemployment benefits, some of our 
Republican colleagues argue--and I guess continue to believe--we should 
take funds from a stimulus package, which most economists say is 
creating jobs, in order to pay for the extension of jobless benefits. 
If there is any wrong place to look for offsets, that would be it.
  The main point is not that it is the wrong offset. The main point is, 
every single time we have extended benefits, we have seen in this body 
that it is an emergency.
  On June 30, 2008, in a 2008 Supplemental Appropriations Act, we 
deemed the extension of unemployment benefits an emergency. It was 
designated as an emergency on June 30, 2008. Then when we funded 
unemployment benefits on February 17, 2009, we designated that 
extension cost as an emergency. December 19, 2009, when we extended 
benefits, this time in a Defense Appropriations Act, it was designated 
an emergency. On March 2, a few weeks ago, it was designated as an 
emergency. Is the emergency over? Is this

[[Page 5205]]

recession over? Is that what Republican objections are suggesting? It 
is no longer an emergency? It has been an emergency since 2008, but 
that is all over now?
  I don't think the American people see it that way. I think the 
American people see what is happening in their families, in their 
homes, a crisis that continues to exist with record levels of 
unemployment.
  I hope we will be able today to persuade our Republican colleagues 
they should not object to the extension of benefits and to continue to 
declare the situation in which we find ourselves as an emergency, since 
it so clearly is.
  I ask the Presiding Officer how much time I have remaining.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 2 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. LEVIN. May I have 2 additional minutes.
  Ms. STABENOW. Yes.


             Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, back in October--to be precise, October 27, 
so we have now almost 5 months--almost 5 months ago, the Armed Services 
Committee unanimously approved the nomination of BG Michael Walsh to be 
a major general. This is a man who has had an exemplary career in the 
military. He has been there 30 years in the Corps of Engineers. He 
served in command assignments throughout the United States, throughout 
the world. In 2006-2008, Brigadier General Walsh served in Baghdad. He 
was commander of the Gulf Region Division of the Army Corps of 
Engineers. He was responsible for reconstruction projects managed by 
the corps throughout Iraq. Prior to that tour, Brigadier General Walsh 
served as commander of the Army Corps's South Atlantic Division. He 
served in places as far afield as Germany and Saudi Arabia.
  We approved this unanimously in the committee. There is no doubt 
about this general's qualifications and his character. No one has 
raised the slightest issue as to whether he should be approved based on 
his own merits. Instead, the objection is, the Corps of Engineers has 
not approved a number of projects Senator Vitter wants the corps to 
approve.
  It is inappropriate to stop a uniformed officer of the United States 
from having an advancement in his career because a Senator believes the 
Corps of Engineers, where this general served, should approve projects 
which the corps has said it cannot approve. Even if it wanted to, it 
can't approve them. The funds have not been appropriated. They have 
written Senator Vitter that it is illegal for them to approve these 
projects, as well as being against their policy. I don't want to get 
into the question of whether it is legal or whether it is the right 
policy to approve three projects which Senator Vitter thinks are 
important. That is not the issue.
  This general could not approve those projects if he wanted to. It is 
not his job. That comes from higher up. All he does is execute projects 
which the corps approves.
  This is the situation. For 5 months, we have a uniformed officer of 
the United States whose career is being interfered with in this way, 
whose advancement is being interfered with because there is a hold on 
this nomination from one Republican Senator.
  I have urged the leadership on the other side to weigh in on this. By 
the way, Senator McCain, my ranking member on the Armed Services 
Committee, supports what I am doing. I want Republicans to realize 
this. The ranking member of the Armed Services Committee is joining me 
in making this unanimous consent request. This was a unanimously 
approved nomination. He loses pay. He loses rank. His career is 
interrupted. Why should this kind of unfairness be perpetrated on a 
uniformed member of the U.S. Army because one Republican Senator can't 
get the projects he thinks he should get for his State?
  That is what it comes down to. This is one of the purest forms of 
inappropriate obstructionism I have seen here. As chairman of the 
committee, I am simply not going to stand by without trying my best to 
change this.
  I hope my friends will not object, but I ask unanimous consent that 
the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following 
nomination on the Executive Calendar, Calendar No. 526, BG Michael 
Walsh, to be major general; that the nomination be confirmed, the 
motion to reconsider be laid on the table, the President be immediately 
notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume where it 
was.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. COBURN. Reserving the right to object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. I must say to my colleague, I agree with him--what he 
said--but under the conventions that we use, Senators can ask others to 
object on their behalf, and, regrettably, I have been asked to do that 
and will do that on Senator Vitter's behalf.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  Mr. LEVIN. I deeply regret that, and I am going to continue to press 
forward on this. I hope the leadership on the Republican side will 
weigh in on this.
  I yield the floor, and I thank my friend.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his 
extraordinary leadership on the Armed Services Committee and his 
efforts to make sure we have the staff, the leadership in our 
Department of Defense, our military, on behalf of our troops. It is 
very regrettable that once again we are seeing obstructionism, blocking 
us from moving forward.
  I do not know the exact number now, but I know we have over 70 
different positions that are being held up. They have been held up, 
many of them, for over a year now in the Obama administration--many 
related to jobs, to commerce, to trade, to the Department of Defense--
and it continues to be part of what we are seeing over and over and 
over again in efforts to just function, have government be able to 
function.
  Mr. President, for so long--I know there are all the politics of 
people believing they can gain points because of debating whether 
government is good or bad, whether it is the problem, whether it is the 
solution--I think the majority of the American people just want it to 
work well. They want us to work together, and they want the services 
that are to be provided, whether it is supporting our troops in the 
military, whether it is providing education for our children, whether 
it is police officers on the street, whether it is making sure the 
water our children drink is safe, or whatever it is. They want it to 
work well and make sure every dollar we are spending on their behalf is 
spent with them in mind and it is done well and we are doing it 
efficiently and effectively.
  I do have to say, in looking at the beautiful picture of the child my 
friend from Oklahoma held up--talking about children and the future--
this week, we completed a process that will make sure it is illegal to 
block that child from getting health insurance because of a preexisting 
condition. I wish our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle 
had chosen to join with us in that very important effort to make sure 
every child can receive the health insurance they need, that every 
parent can have freedom from the fear that when they go to bed at night 
they are not going to have to say one more time: Dear God, please don't 
let the kids get sick because I don't know what I am going to do.
  So we do care about those children. We have put into place a health 
insurance reform plan that is going to make sure every pregnant mom 
gets prenatal care and has maternity care, which in a majority of 
private-sector insurance plans you can go out and buy for yourself, 
they do not cover it. I am happy to have a discussion about children 
and about making sure they can afford to go to college, which was also 
in the bill we passed this week--providing more opportunity for 
children. I am happy to have that discussion.
  But it is amazing to me we continue to be lectured by the people who 
got us into this mess because of their economic policies. We are now 
lectured on

[[Page 5206]]

probably a daily basis about the size of the deficit. We understand 
that. I was very proud to be in the House of Representatives when 
President Clinton and the Democrats balanced the budget for the first 
time in 30 years. When I came into the Senate, the big debate was what 
to do about the surplus. We were looking at almost a $6 trillion 
surplus over 10 years. Well, unfortunately, under President Bush, under 
a Republican Congress, that went away pretty fast: by not paying for 
tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans--somehow that was OK--by not 
paying for two wars, by not paying for a prescription drug effort under 
Medicare. During those 8 years, somehow it did not matter there was a 
credit card being run up, that a huge surplus that had been accumulated 
through tough decisions, very tough choices, in the 1990s was somehow 
squandered away. So I have a hard time hearing over and over again 
about the deficit and being lectured as if somehow President Obama or 
the Democrats caused that deficit.
  I am not saying we do not have a challenge right now and a huge hole, 
and that we are not in a situation where we need to do emergency 
spending because of this economic disaster that has gone on. I 
understand that. I understand we are currently in a situation to be 
forced into a position because there are no savings to help people. Now 
we are in a deficit position. But I find it interesting that all of a 
sudden, when we are in a situation where middle-class families need 
help--all of a sudden, when working people in this country need help--
this is an issue, when it was not an issue for 8 years during the Bush 
administration. That is what I find difficult.
  We have put back in place the budget rules that were in place during 
the Clinton years, and we are going to dig ourselves out of this 
deficit. We passed a health insurance reform bill that over the next 
two decades is going to decrease the deficit by over $1.2 trillion. We 
know there is a hole. We understand that. But we also understand that 
middle-class families--who are under the crunch, who are losing their 
jobs, who are trying to figure out how to pay the bills--did not cause 
that, and the solutions being proposed now would put it right on their 
backs. That is what we say no to. Because it is about time, as people 
in my State say, we focus on the rest of us. What about the rest of us 
in this country--not just those in the privileged, few powerful 
positions, the people on Wall Street? That is what this is about. This 
is fundamentally a debate about that. That is what we are talking about 
today.
  I also want to indicate what we are talking about is extending an 
emergency program put in place in 2008 because of the economic disaster 
that families are facing. It is not the regular unemployment program. 
It is what was put in place in 2008 because of job loss, because of the 
fact that we got to a point where we are losing 600,000, 700,000, 
800,000 jobs a month. That is a disaster as much as a hurricane, a 
flood, or anything else that could happen to families and communities.
  Since that time, we have extended it--as we are asking to extend it--
on four different occasions. We are asking right now for at least 2 
weeks until the long-term extension gets passed by the House. For 2 
weeks let us extend it, or 30 days. Let us extend it so there is not a 
gap in coverage, so we do not have families, who are feeling stress 
already, now reading in the papers that the unemployment extension is 
going to stop and trying to figure out what in the world they are going 
to do during this period of time. We are asking for 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 
weeks to be able to extend it until the House is able to pass the long-
term extension.
  We are right back where we were again: objection, objection, 
objection on being able to do that--more objections than we have ever 
had in the history of our country in terms of process. We find 
ourselves in a situation where, even though we have not adjourned--I 
will emphasize that: Senator Reid, the majority leader, did not 
adjourn. We could have votes. I realize people have left. We could have 
voted last night. We wanted to vote last night. Our only option to 
overcome this was to start a process to stop a filibuster, which takes 
2 days and voting and 30 hours, and all of this, and they know that. So 
we could have voted last night: yes or no. We could have done that last 
night. But, once again, as we have had 130 different times, we are in a 
situation where there has been objection, objection, objection.
  This is very much about priorities. My friends on the other side of 
the aisle talk about priorities. Yes, this is about priorities. It is 
about values. And it is about who you are fighting for. Fundamentally, 
it is about who you are fighting for. I can tell you, the people in 
Michigan--hard-working people, middle-class Americans, families who 
care deeply about this country; they love this country--are tired of 
decisions being made for a few at the top. They are tired of the games 
and the obstructionism that has gone on and on and on. They want us to 
get things done--real things that affect their lives. That is what they 
want to have us get done.
  I see my distinguished friend from Rhode Island on the floor--a 
champion on this issue, a fighter for Rhode Island, working men and 
women, and someone who has been on this floor over and over again 
fighting to make sure people who are out of work through no fault of 
their own have the opportunity to receive some help, some short-term 
help.
  I now yield to my friend from Rhode Island up to 10 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I thank Senator Stabenow.
  We are here to attempt to extend unemployment benefits for a brief 
period of time so Americans do not get caught up in the expiration of 
these benefits on April 5. This has been a repeated struggle. We have 
had many incidents over the last several months where we have had to 
come down here and, at the last moment, attempt to project these 
benefits further. I hope we do not fail again today.
  In 2009, when President Obama walked into office, we were losing 
700,000 jobs per month. This is a crisis of epic proportions, rivaling, 
in some respect, in some regions of the country, the Great Depression. 
In my home State of Rhode Island, we have a 12.7-percent unemployment 
rate, and it has been persistent now for almost 2 years. We are seeing 
an unfortunate record of long-term unemployment. We have to help our 
colleagues, our neighbors, our friends, and we have to do it in a way 
that does not deny them the basic necessities to hang on in a difficult 
economy.
  But this situation is not just as a result of the last several months 
or the last several years. If you look back across the past decade--
from 2000 to 2010--it has been an extraordinarily unproductive one for 
working Americans. There has been zero net job creation since December 
1999. We have had no decade since the 1940s where job growth was less 
than 20 percent. This is the culmination of a decade in which people 
could not find the kind of work they typically found in America. We saw 
middle-income households' earning power decline. They were making less 
in 2008 than they were in 1999. Two-thirds of the Nation's total income 
from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1 percent.
  So middle-income families have been losing out persistently, and now 
they have hit the skids because so many of them now are seeing their 
jobs go, seeing their house threatened with foreclosure, seeing the 
dream of sending their children to college evaporate. At least the 
minimum we can do is provide the kind of assistance they need.
  We routinely, when there is a natural disaster, provide assistance. 
In the last 20 years, an estimated $336 billion in disaster assistance 
and $61.8 billion in agricultural assistance has flowed to the States. 
This is a disaster in the same respect. It is a disaster to individual 
families who have lost their employment.
  The irony here is, if a flood had washed through a State in the Union 
and destroyed the work of 12 percent of the population, we would be 
here with disaster relief to get the funds to give loans, to give 
support, et cetera. Well, this is a disaster. We must move.

[[Page 5207]]

  In that respect, seeing my time is coming to a close, the time I 
have----
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I would be happy to give the Senator some 
additional time, and we will roll the time off of your later time, if 
you would like time now, I say to the Senator.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. Let me 
take 1 or 2 more minutes. That is extremely thoughtful. I thank the 
Senator.
  We have an opportunity to act today, and we should. The proposal is 
to go ahead and to extend through the next several days the existing 
benefits so we have time to come back. We have already sent to the 
House an extension of unemployment benefits that will carry through to 
the end of this calendar year. It also includes FMAP provisions, which 
are extremely important to States. I think in the spirit of letting us 
continue to support these Americans while we debate and finally 
conclude, I hope successfully, a longer term solution is the best thing 
to do.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 4501

  My colleague Senator Stabenow an hour ago propounded a unanimous 
consent request, only to receive an objection. I will once again ask 
unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate 
consideration of Calendar 323, H.R. 4501, to provide a temporary 
extension of certain programs, that the bill be read three times, 
passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, again, I 
would note this is the fourth time I have done this and, regrettably, 
because we had an agreement yesterday that the House would not go along 
with, I have to object because we will be adding to the debt.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's objection. 
Additionally, I appreciate his consideration in allowing me to speak.
  Let me conclude. We have a huge debt at the moment. I think if you 
look at the major contributing factors of that debt, they would include 
tax cuts that were unpaid for, supported strongly by the Republicans, 
which went dramatically to the richest Americans, and two wars that 
have been unpaid for. In fact, I think in a few weeks we are going to 
have to consider another supplemental Defense budget which at this 
point I do not believe is paid for and which I do not feel will 
engender any objection by the Republican side. It will include, given 
the nature of counterinsurgency operations, monies that will be used, 
ironically, to help develop productive jobs and build clinics and do 
things our soldiers must do to secure the peace in Afghanistan and 
Iraq. Yet at the same time we can't find that kind of money here 
without on offset to help Americans.
  So there is a question of priorities. There is a question of the 
deficit. Again, repeating something my colleague said, I too recall 
when we had a surplus. That was under the leadership of President 
Clinton. There were tough votes by my colleagues and myself. That 
surplus has dissipated. We are now in a severe situation with the 
deficit. The compelling priorities of Americans who need to work and 
can't find it yet are extremely persuasive and should be responded to 
by the success of the bill.
  I again thank the Senator from Oklahoma. He is extraordinarily kind.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, since the 
majority took an additional 5 minutes of our time, that our original 
unanimous consent be changed to give us the time from 11:05 to 12:05, 
and the majority from 12:05 to 12:30.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I yield to Senator Chambliss at this time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, first, let me thank my colleague from 
Oklahoma for highlighting this issue and for reaching a point where the 
American people have wanted us to be for some time, and that is to 
simply look at the spending that is going on in Washington and say 
enough is enough. That if we are going to continue down the road of 
increasing Federal spending, then we have to offset that additional 
Federal spending that is over and above the amount of revenues coming 
in.
  I also wish to say to my friend from Michigan, the chairman of the 
Armed Services Committee, who made the request on the approval of the 
promotion of a general that, as he knows, I have already voted in favor 
of doing that one time within the committee. I regret we are having to 
stand up and object. However, as he well knows, that is part of the 
process here, so Senator Coburn had to object on behalf of another 
Member of the Senate.
  I can't help but note, as we are talking about spending here, an 
article that appeared in this morning's Washington Times. The caption 
in the article is ``CBO Report: Debt Will Rise to 90 Percent of GDP.''
  The article reads:

       President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly 
     $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 
     years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, 
     and raise the Federal debt to 90 percent of the Nation's 
     economic output by 2020, according to the Congressional 
     Budget Office. In its 2011 budget, which the White House 
     Office of Management and Budget released February 1, the 
     administration projected a 10-year deficit total of $8.53 
     trillion. After looking it over, CBO said in its final 
     analysis released Thursday that the President's budget would 
     generate a combined $9.75 trillion in deficits over the next 
     decade.

  This is exactly why, with the leadership of the Senator from 
Oklahoma, we have to address this issue of spending and why we have to 
get this issue of spending under control. No time is better suited to 
do this than now. We are looking at a deficit, according to the 
independent Congressional Budget Office, of $10 trillion over the next 
10 years.
  The majority is saying we can't find $9 billion to offset this 
particular bill that everybody agrees is needed and that everybody on 
both sides of the aisle wishes to see enacted. Very simply stated, the 
Republicans want to see the bill paid for. If we can't find $9 billion 
in Federal spending that is out there today to offset this bill, how in 
the world are we going to be able to do anything other than, under the 
current leadership, go down this road of seeing nearly $10 trillion in 
budget deficits accumulate over the next 10 years?
  Congress has an obligation to serve as custodian of the American 
taxpayer dollar. When we engage in unchecked deficit spending, it has a 
long-lasting, negative impact on all Americans.
  I understand times are tough across the country. As I said earlier, 
in my home State of Georgia, the unemployment rate announced last month 
was 10.4 percent. There is a new number coming out today. I suspect it 
is going to be at least that high. Georgians are hurting, and I am 
concerned about that. That is why I wish to make sure we can extend 
this unemployment insurance but to do so without paying for it, in my 
opinion, is reckless at this point in time and it would not be in the 
best interests of all Americans to extend it without paying for it.
  The fact is, as I said earlier, I voted to extend it without paying 
for it back in the early part of March. The reason I did was because it 
was with the understanding that the majority had 30 days to work with 
the minority to try to find the offsets. When did the discussions on 
what those offsets would be begin? They began last night about 2 hours 
before we finally decided it was time to go home. To the credit of the 
Presiding Officer as well as others on the Majority side in a 
leadership role, they agreed with the Republican party, the Republican 
Members of this Senate, that we should offset it and we could offset 
it. That was objected to by Speaker Pelosi. So, unfortunately, here we 
are today in a situation where we are arguing about $9 billion and 
looking at a proposed deficit from this administration of $10 trillion 
over the next 10 years.
  The American people are as upset as they can be with Congress, and 
rightfully so. The main reason they are

[[Page 5208]]

upset with us is because of this very issue. When I am back home, which 
is where I go every weekend, and I visit with folks, whether it is in 
the grocery store, whether it is at church or within the business 
community, every constituent at some point in the conversation about 
what is happening in Washington will bring up the issue of Federal 
spending and why in the world Members of Congress don't take some 
action to get this spending under control. There has never been a 
better time to do it than with this particular bill, and there has 
never been an easier time to do it. We are not talking about $1 
trillion; we are talking about $9 billion in offsets, in reductions in 
Federal spending, in waste, fraud, and abuse that we all know is out 
there, in whatever area we can agree on that the money would come from. 
As we know, we have already identified some areas where we can reduce 
Federal spending to pay this.
  Now is the time to do it. I would simply say to my colleague from 
Oklahoma, I commend him for being firm. I commend him for being in a 
leadership role on this issue. I am very pleased to stand with him to 
say that now is the time to do it. I think we should find that $9 
billion.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia. I ask 
unanimous consent to have a colloquy on our side between the Members 
who are here. If there is no objection, I wish to proceed with that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. I recognize the Senator from Florida and the Senator from 
Alabama to start that off. I yield to the Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I appreciate the leadership Senator 
Coburn has shown. We need to focus on the seriousness of the issue and 
all that is at stake--why it is important and how it can be done. It's 
not impossible to pay for this bill and provide these benefits without 
adding to the debt of the country by containing other spending. There 
is no reason we can't do this. I thought last night we had reached an 
agreement that would actually have achieved that, but we were not able 
to.
  Let me briefly restate the posture we are in. Senator Grassley 
offered an amendment a few days ago to extend unemployment insurance 
for 30 days. It also would include a doctors payment so they don't get 
cut for their Medicare work; COBRA benefits, FMAP benefits, and other 
things. He offered that measure, but our Democratic colleagues blocked 
it. Now, the amendment was paid for. He had an offset, which was I 
think mostly unspent stimulus money that still remains available to us 
to spend on this kind of activity. Then yesterday Senator McConnell 
reintroduced it. He sought to have the Grassley amendment come up for a 
vote that would have extended unemployment insurance and would have 
paid for it. That was voted down by our Democratic colleagues.
  What I first wish to say to my colleagues who have been so vigorous--
almost excessively so--in attacking the Republican side for not dealing 
with this issue is that we have offered two proposals to do so and they 
have been blocked. So it is not fair to say Republicans don't want to 
do unemployment insurance. It is not fair to say that. To do it in an 
attacking fashion, and to attack those of us who are simply saying 
let's pay for it, as if we don't care about people who are unemployed, 
is offensive to me and I object.
  I know what the deal is. Last night I thought we could reach an 
agreement on this but it fell apart. The Democratic leadership and 
Senator Reid decided they will let it lapse, and then they will attack 
and blame Republicans for it.
  I just do not think that is fair.
  Let's get back to the critical issues that are at stake.
  Senator Chambliss mentioned that according to the Washington Times 
today, the Congressional Budget Office--the group we employ to help us 
understand these issues--says the publicly held debt of the United 
States will reach 90 percent of the gross domestic product by 2020. Why 
is that significant? First of all, it is above what Europe expects. 
They will not allow a country to enter the European Union if it has 
debt exceeding 60 percent of GDP.
  More importantly, the Budget Committee had a professor testify from 
the University of Maryland who has written a book on this subject 
testify. She was asked by the Democratic chairman to provide expertise 
to the Budget Committee a couple of weeks ago. What she said is that 
when your debt reaches 90 percent of GDP, it impacts economic growth 
adversely. She said that with debt at 90 percent of GDP, the growth of 
our economy will be reduced by at least 1 percent. That is not a small 
amount.
  As we know, 2-percent growth is not a bad thing to have. If you get 3 
or 4 percent of GDP growth, you are moving along at a pretty good pace. 
In a mature economy you almost never get growth exceeding 3 or 4 
percent of GDP on a sustained basis. If you are losing 1 percent of 
your growth, it could be 50 percent or 30 percent of the entire 
national growth that is being eliminated, pulled down. Why? Because we 
excessively spending money today, putting our debt off on our children 
and grandchildren into the future. That is going to make them less able 
to have a robust economy than they otherwise would have. People will 
pay. Nothing is created from nothing, as Julie Andrews taught us in 
that great song. Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could. 
Somebody is going to pay for this.
  We are enjoying and celebrating today by spending money that is not 
ours. We do not have it in our bank account. We are having to go out 
and borrow. That is the problem that I believe is of great importance.
  Get this, it has also been reported in the press that Berkshire 
Hathaway, Warren Buffett's company--I say to Senator LeMieux--can 
borrow money cheaper than the U.S. Government. The insurance, for those 
who want to insure the money they loan to the government in case the 
U.S. Government does not pay it back, has tripled. Our annual deficit, 
as a percentage of GDP, is about 9.9 percent. The Greeks are in great 
trouble. Theirs is 12.9 percent of their economy. We are moving too 
close to that level. Remember, there are people who, when they buy a 
U.S. Treasury bond, insure themselves against the U.S. Treasury's 
failure to pay. They are paying three times today what they were paying 
just a few years ago because the U.S. Government's debt is not sound. 
Moody's, the company that rates the debt, continues to suggest they may 
downgrade our debt. This is because we are borrowing too much. It is 
time for us to put a stop to this and bring it under control.
  We have offered several amendments that would fix the unemployment 
insurance and pay for it. Last night, a series of offsets were 
provided--offsets being things you could do to get the money out of 
current resources and expenditures instead of borrowing it.
  Also, it is well known that all the money has not been expended in 
the $800 billion stimulus plan. A lot of that money is not spent. The 
stimulus bill, when we passed it, was supposed to do a number of 
things. One was to deal with our crumbling bridges, our infrastructure, 
and one was unemployment insurance. That money has not been spent. Why 
don't we use it? If you don't use it, it allows that unspent money in 
the stimulus pot to be used as a slush fund to finance whatever other 
idea on which our leadership desires to spend it. That is what it is. 
Why won't we use it? Because they still want to use it on other things 
they have in their minds, of which I have not been fully informed.
  I will say that I have a lot of county commissioners--and I assume 
the Senator from Florida has also--talking about roads and highways. I 
have to tell them how heartbroken I am that the stimulus legislation, 
which spent an incredible amount of money--$800 billion--only spent 3 
or 4 percent on highways and bridges. They are not feeling any growth 
of a significant nature in their infrastructure improvements. The 
advantages of money being spent on infrastructure are twofold. It

[[Page 5209]]

absolutely creates a certain number of jobs. Perhaps not a huge number, 
but a certain number of jobs are absolutely created to do the 
construction work, to replace a bridge, to pave a road, or to fix a 
water sewer system.
  Those are real jobs. But, more important, when you do that, you have 
accomplished something. You have obtained a tangible asset that 
benefits the people in that community and makes that community more 
productive. It also helps make our Nation more competitive because we 
have either built new infrastructure we needed or restored 
infrastructure we were going to have to restore anyway to keep up our 
productivity. Having so little of the money in the stimulus package go 
to that sort of thing is one reason we have not seen growth in jobs.
  It is particularly disheartening to me to think of how little 
permanent benefit we have gotten from the bill.
  I see my colleague from Florida, Senator LeMieux, is here. One of the 
things he and I have talked about a lot--and I think it has been a bit 
of a shock to him since he has been here--is the extent to which our 
Nation is increasing our debt. I know he deeply, as a citizen 
legislator, cares about this situation. In his conversations with me, 
he has shared with me that is what he thinks is the biggest threat to 
our country. I know he wants to do everything he can to help us right 
this ship that is going in the wrong direction.
  I am pleased to yield the floor at this time to Senator LeMieux.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from 
Alabama. Senator Sessions has been an outstanding leader on many issues 
but specifically on this issue of fighting against this debt. He and I 
often talk about these concerns. He comes to the floor, and he 
articulates these concerns so the American people can understand how 
dangerous this situation is. But he does not just come and talk about 
the problem; he offers real solutions to cap our spending, to find 
mechanisms to get this Congress on the right course.
  As my friend mentioned, I am new to the Senate. I was appointed and 
came here in September of last year. My experience is in business and 
my experience is in State government back home in Florida. The 
comparisons to how Congress manages its money--your money--versus how a 
family does or a business does or even a State government does, those 
comparisons are striking because this is the only institution I have 
ever been a part of where we do not have to make ends meet, where we 
just spend money we do not have, where we never have a discussion 
about, well, if we raise this budget for this particular part of the 
money we spend, how much are we going to have to lower this budget. 
That discussion does not happen in the U.S. Congress.
  In 2011, we are going to take in an estimated $2.2 trillion in 
revenue from taxes--money that is coming from you, the American 
people--but we are going to spend $3.8 trillion. That is like a family 
in my home State, say, in Ocala, who makes $22,000 a year and they are 
going to spend $38,000. Oh, by the way, they have $1 million in debt. 
It is unsustainable.
  The way the American people run their families, the way businesses 
have to run their budgets, the way State governments that are 
constitutionally required to balance their budgets have to cut spending 
in tough times--we do not have those mechanisms in this body, and we do 
not have enough people, such as Senator Sessions, Senator Chambliss, my 
friend from Georgia, and Senator Coburn from Oklahoma, who come to the 
floor and bring forth good ideas to talk about this spending problem.
  This current bill to extend unemployment insurance and add money for 
doctors who give Medicare services--a lot of those folks in my State in 
Florida--and for money for COBRA, which is health care when you are 
unemployed, so government can put in that portion your employer would 
normally pay for--these are all good things. Every Member of this body, 
all 100 Senators, all 41 Members of the Republican side want to vote 
for this bill.
  Last night, as my friend from Alabama said, we had a deal worked out 
with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to pay for this. What 
a novel idea: We are going to spend new money, and we are actually 
going to cut money from someplace else in the budget so we do not add 
to the deficit and the debt--shockingly good idea in Washington. But 
the deal fell apart because our friends in the House of 
Representatives, the Democratic leadership, would not agree to it.
  Let me tell you, there is probably no State in the Union that needs 
this money more than Florida. I want to vote for it, but I cannot vote 
for it because it is not paid for.
  My friend from Georgia just talked about the unemployment number that 
came out--more than 10 percent unemployment in Georgia. He has a new 
number coming out today. The number came out in Florida. We are at 12.2 
percent unemployment announced today--12.2 percent, the worst 
unemployment in the history of keeping records in Florida. The second 
worst time was in 1973 to 1975, during that recession. There are 
1,126,000 Floridians out of work. By the way, that is just the 
unemployed number. We know those who are underemployed--people who lost 
their jobs and now have to work part time and cannot get full-time 
employment--we know that number, if you add it with those who are 
unemployed, is probably 17, 18, 19 percent of the people.
  When I go home to Florida and I am walking down the street, one out 
of every five people I see of working age and ability either does not 
have a job or does not have enough work. That is the issue on which we 
should be focused. But we cannot continue to pay for things here that 
we cannot afford. We cannot continue to burden our kids and the next 
generation with debt they will not be able to pay.
  The hour of awakening and the hour we will be responsible and feel 
the impact for this spending is not just 5 or 10 years from now; it is 
now, it is today. Let me give an example.
  Today in the Wall Street Journal, there is an article by Tom 
Lauricella. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this 
article in the Wall Street Journal.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Wall St. Journal, Mar. 26, 2010]

                        Debt Fears Send Rates Up


  Unease at Deficit Hurts Demand for Treasurys; Mortgage Costs on the 
                                  Rise

                          (By Tom Lauricella)

       A sudden drop-off in investor demand for U.S. Treasury 
     notes is raising questions about whether interest rates will 
     finally begin a march higher--a climb that would jack up the 
     government's borrowing costs and spell trouble for the 
     fragile housing market.
       For months, investors have focused their attention on the 
     debt crisis in Europe, but there are signs the spotlight is 
     turning to the ability of the U.S. to finance its own budget 
     deficit.
       This week, some investors turned up their noses at three 
     big U.S. Treasury offerings. Demand was weak for a $44 
     billion 2-year-note auction on Tuesday, a $42 billion sale of 
     5-year debt on Wednesday and a $32 billion 7-year-note sale 
     Thursday.
       The poor demand, especially from foreign investors, sent 
     the bonds' prices sharply lower and yields higher. It lifted 
     the yield on the 10-year note to 3.9%--its highest since last 
     June, and approaching the psychologically important 4% mark. 
     That mark has been pierced only briefly since the financial 
     crisis in 2008.
       Investors' response marked a big shift from auctions in 
     recent months in which major foreign buyers, such as central 
     banks, had snapped up Treasurys. It could spell trouble for 
     the U.S. housing market; the rates on many mortgages are 
     linked to the yield on the 10-year note.
       The move up in its yield coincides with the impending end 
     of the Federal Reserve's program to support the mortgage 
     market. The Fed has bought $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed 
     securities, bolstering their prices and thus holding down 
     their yields.
       In just the past two days, the rate on 30-year Fannie Mae 
     mortgage securities has risen to 4.5% from 4.3%. Once fees by 
     lenders are tacked on, this means mortgage rates above 5%. 
     Thomas Lawler, a housing economist, says some bigger lenders 
     have already raised rates. Some were quoting 30-year 
     mortgages at 5.125% Thursday morning, up from 4.875% earlier 
     in the week, he said in a note to clients.

[[Page 5210]]

       Concerns about the U.S. budget deficit are beginning to 
     hurt the Treasury market, said Steve Rodosky, head of 
     Treasury and derivatives trading at bond giant Pacific 
     Investment Management Co. He said he is increasingly worried 
     about the U.S. fiscal outlook.
       In all, the U.S. government is expected to sell $1.6 
     trillion in debt this year, including the $118 billion sold 
     this week.
       There are some temporary factors behind the week's 
     lackluster demand, such as a reluctance by Japanese investors 
     to make new investments ahead of their fiscal year-end March 
     31.
       While this could be just ``noise'' in the markets, ``I 
     think it involves a greater, long-term concern about deficits 
     in the U.S., about Social Security being in a deficit,'' said 
     Brian Fabbri, chief economist North America at BNP Paribas. 
     ``And all of the concerns about the U.S. have been heightened 
     by concerns about Greece.''
       The jitters in Treasurys haven't spread to other markets. 
     Stocks remain near 18-month highs. The Dow Jones Industrial 
     Average came within 45 points of the 11000 mark on Thursday 
     before falling back. It closed up 5.06 points at 10841.21.
       Bruce Bittles, a strategist at R.W. Baird & Co., said he 
     remains bullish on stocks for now. But he said if the yield 
     on 10-year Treasurys creeps above 4%, that would be a signal 
     to start dialing back his clients' stock holdings.
       ``In a debt-based economy like we have in the U.S., it 
     doesn't take much of a hit from bond yields to cause some 
     real pain,'' by raising costs to finance economic activity, 
     he said.
       The dollar has rallied, even as Treasurys have sold off. 
     Usually, concerns about budget deficits send a currency 
     lower. But investors appear to be betting on better prospects 
     for a recovery in the U.S. than in Europe.
       Adding to the focus on the Treasurys' woes has been an 
     unusual development in an important, but usually ignored, 
     market: interest-rate swaps. These common derivatives entail 
     contracts that typically involve trading one stream of 
     interest income for another. And in the past week, investors 
     are being paid more to own U.S. Treasurys than U.S. corporate 
     bonds.
       This development ``is causing a lot of people to start 
     scratching their heads, trying to understand what's going 
     on,'' said BNP's Mr. Fabbri. One explanation, he said, may be 
     investors are more comfortable with the risks of owning bonds 
     backed by U.S. corporations than the government. The big 
     question is whether this slippage in demand for Treasurys 
     will prove temporary or is the start of a trend.
       For the most part, investors have taken at face value 
     statements from Federal Reserve officials, including Chairman 
     Ben Bernanke on Thursday, that the Fed isn't about to start 
     raising the short-term rate it controls. But a growing number 
     of investors expect that at its next policy-making meeting in 
     late April, the Fed may step back from its pledge to keep 
     short-term rates low for an ``extended period.''
       Longer-term interest rates aren't set by the Fed but move 
     on their own, in response to supply and demand. And some 
     argue that the bond market has been too confident about these 
     longer-term rates remaining low, at a time when the economy 
     is slowly improving and the government is running huge budget 
     deficits.

  Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, the article talks about the fact that 
when we are selling our debt, which is what the Federal Government does 
when we do not have enough money to pay for our expenditures, when we 
spend more than we have, we borrow and we issue debt instruments--
bonds, Treasury notes. Now we find out in today's Wall Street Journal 
that the demand for our debt is falling. As my friend, Senator Sessions 
from Alabama, said, Warren Buffett now is a better investment than the 
U.S. Treasury. What an important statement that is for us to think 
about, that we no longer are the best investment, that an individual in 
this country is a more worthy investment.
  Now Treasury note demand is down. What happens when less people want 
to buy our debt? When they turn their nose up at our Treasury 
offerings, the bond prices go down and the yield goes higher. The 
interest rate goes up. That does a couple things. One is that we have 
to spend more money on interest payments. That means more of our 
spending in the year will go to pay for our debt. The third or fourth--
depending on how you count it--biggest expenditure every year in our 
budget is our interest payments. There is more than $200 billion a year 
in interest payments alone. That is money that could be sent back to 
you, the taxpayer, or could be used to pave roads or hire teachers or 
send kids to college, and we are sending it to finance bad decisions we 
have already made. But now, with the interest rates, the yield rates 
going higher on the debt we are offering, guess what it is going to do. 
It is going to increase the cost of borrowing money, which is going to 
increase the cost of mortgages.
  So here I am from Florida, and I sure want to extend unemployment 
insurance to folks who are suffering, but I also don't want to do any 
more damage to our real estate market. We have some of the worst 
foreclosure rates in the country. So what is going to happen when that 
family of four in Naples, FL, who has been struggling through this 
economy, has a problem keeping a job? Maybe mom lost a job and now she 
is underemployed and dad is unemployed, and they are trying to make 
their mortgage payments. They have an adjustable rate mortgage and 
their interest rates are going to go up. What happens if someone wants 
to buy a new house in our struggling real estate economy? They can't go 
buy that house because that house is now more expensive because the 
interest rates have gone up.
  So the problems of our debt and our deficit are not just going to be 
visited on our kids, they are being visited now. Other countries around 
the world, their economies are booming. Their growth is coming back--
places such as Brazil are on fire. Their stock market is up incredibly 
because the world is finding it a better place to invest than the 
United States. Our debt is making us a bad investment. So not just for 
our kids or our grandkids, right now this economy is going to have 
problems recovering because of the debt we have now.
  But let's talk a second about the future. Sometime between now and 
Monday my wife and I are going to have our fourth child. I have the 
cell phone in my pocket. If it rings, I have to go. That baby is going 
to be born in a country where he or she will be responsible for about 
$40,000 in debt. What is the future of our baby, along with our other 
three sons who are 6, 4 and 2, going to be like in this country with 
all of this crushing debt, with $10 trillion more in debt expected by 
the end of this decade?
  We are going to pay $800 billion in interest payments by the end of 
this decade if this spending continues. That is more than we spend on 
the defense of the United States, more than our Defense Department 
budget. More and more will go to interest; less and less will go to 
spending. Then what will happen? Taxes are going to have to go up, and 
by the way, 70 million people are going to retire and they are going to 
go into Medicare. Those two programs right now don't have enough money 
in them.
  So while I am high on the American people, and I am optimistic this 
country can do anything, I am seriously worried about this government. 
I am seriously worried about the fact that we spend money we don't 
have, and I am seriously worried about the fact that there are too few 
Members of this body and the body down the hall who want to make the 
tough decisions to start cutting our spending now to save our future.
  By the way, it wouldn't be that hard to do. It wouldn't be that hard 
to do for us to come together, Democrats and Republicans alike. The 
American people should know we have colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle who want to do this. We talk to them. They are concerned too. But 
we have to come together and address this, and we are going to have to 
make, as the President would say, grownup decisions about the future of 
this country. Some things are going to have to get cut, and we are 
going to have to spend less.
  Let me give an example of the framework--for when we come back from 
the break--of a piece of legislation I will introduce to give us the 
mechanism for doing this. If we went back to the spending that we had 
in 2007, which is just 3 years ago, and we froze spending at that level 
for the next 10 years--until 2020--we would balance the budget in 2013, 
and we would cut the deficit of $12 trillion in half by 2020.
  Now, the question I ask when I am back in Florida talking to 
constituents is--as my friend from Georgia said--whether at a 
supermarket, at a townhall meeting, or at a church--would

[[Page 5211]]

you be able to live off the money you made in 2007? Well, the answer 
unanimously is, yes; it is more than I am making now. The economy 
didn't go into recession until December of 2007. So why can't 
government go back to what we spent in 2007 and cap it? Then we could 
do something we don't do in this Congress: We could look at the money 
we are spending now as opposed to trying to spend new money and find 
out whether we are doing it efficiently.
  We could cut the wasteful programs. My colleague from Oklahoma has 
already been identifying hundreds of duplicative programs in 
government. We could go and find ways to combat waste, fraud, and 
abuse. For example, we know there is $60 billion to $100 billion a year 
in Medicare fraud--health care for seniors. My State, unfortunately, is 
the leading place for health care fraud in the country.
  I have a proposal I have talked to my friend, the chairman of the 
Finance Committee, about--Chairman Baucus--and other Democrats, and I 
think we are going to get some bipartisan support to pass that this 
year, and that may save us $20 billion by stopping waste, fraud, and 
abuse in Medicare. Does anyone think there is not waste and fraud and 
abuse throughout the spending of government? When is the last time 
someone went and looked under the hood of one of these agencies and 
said: Could we do the same work with less? Do we need to spend as much 
money as we spent last year?
  Businesses do this every year. They are doing it right now, just as 
families are doing it. They are saying: Do we really need to do what we 
did last year? We have less money; what do we cut? Government doesn't 
do that.
  Our friends on the other side are more interested in new programs. We 
should all spend a year or two focusing on the programs we have. My 
friend from Oklahoma, Senator Coburn, is a champion at oversight and 
gets under the hood of these agencies and looks at the spending. It is 
not just in the social services agencies, it is in all the agencies--in 
the Defense Department and everywhere.
  We have a duty to the American people to make sure that every dollar 
we spend, we spend wisely. Let's spend a couple of years questioning 
the money we are spending now. Let's have our agency heads, our 
Secretaries, our Cabinet members, instead of devising new programs, go 
into the programs they have and see whether they are helping the 
American people. If they are not, let's cut them. Let's freeze hiring 
across the Federal Government. A lot of folks are going to retire out 
of the Federal Government when the baby boomers retire. It is an easy 
way to shrink the size of government, to let those folks retire and not 
replace them. Technology in the private sector gives us great 
opportunities to do more with less. In government, we do less with 
more.
  So I am appreciative of my friend from Oklahoma for bringing up this 
point and objecting. It is not politically popular to do. None of us 
wants to stand in the way of unemployment compensation. I need it in 
Florida for my folks who are out of work. But we are impacting our way 
of life now, and we are going to impact our children's lives. When my 
baby is born this weekend, or on Monday, I am going to be extremely 
happy--and I know my wife is--about bringing a fourth child into the 
world, but it will still be in the back of my mind: Is he or she going 
to inherit the same America I have, with all the same opportunities I 
was able to enjoy? I hope so.
  With that, I yield the floor to my friend from Oklahoma.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. I thank the Senators from Alabama and Florida for their 
comments.
  Many have heard us use the word ``pay-for'' sometimes. When we say 
that, what we are actually saying is, we don't want the debt increased. 
So we don't want to get that confused.
  I also want to make one comment in relation to what Senator Reed from 
Rhode Island said earlier today. He said nobody on the other side of 
the aisle will be objecting to the supplemental coming for the military 
if it is not paid for. I want to state for the record that I voted 
against it the last two times. It is not because I don't want to 
support the military, but it wasn't paid for. We didn't make the hard 
choices. I will vote against it again, and I will try to make that a 
pay-for. So it is an unfair characterization to say ``nobody.'' I am 
pretty consistent on that. If we are going to spend new money, we 
should cut some of the money we are spending now that isn't as 
important.
  Under the Constitution, the No. 1 responsibility for us is defending 
the country. One of the reasons we are in trouble is we have ignored 
the enumerated powers clause of the Constitution, which sets out a very 
limited role for the Federal Government and reserves the rest of the 
programs we are talking about to the States and to the people.
  With that, Mr. President, I would like to recognize the senior--the 
Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl. I started to say senior, but that is not 
so.
  Mr. KYL. It is easier just to say the ``other'' Senator from Arizona, 
given who my colleague is. First of all, I want to say that my 
colleague, John McCain, has been a leader in this battle for fiscal 
responsibility for as long as I have been in the Senate. So as long as 
we are talking about the senior Senator from Arizona, let me get in 
that plug.
  But the Senator from Oklahoma, who just yielded the time to me, has 
been the leader in the fight here to ensure that we pay for the things 
on which we spend money. I would like to get back to that critical 
point because I heard both the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator 
from Alabama, who is on the Senate floor, and was last night, make this 
very point.
  Let's be clear about what this debate is about and what it is not 
about. There are a lot of things the government must do. National 
defense is No. 1. We have to do it. Then we figure out what we have 
enough money for with regard to everything else.
  There are other very important obligations or responsibilities of the 
Federal Government. We finally get down the list of priorities of the 
things that it would sure be nice to do, if we could, because of 
various needs of the American people. But a lot of times this gets into 
conflict with what families can do to help each other, what communities 
can do, what churches and religious institutions can do. So it is not 
just a responsibility of government, let alone the United States 
Government in Washington.
  The reason I make that point is that for every dollar that is sent 
back to Washington, the amount of money that gets sent back to help 
people is usually measured in cents rather than dollars. So it is not 
the best way for us to take care of our fellow citizens. But one of the 
programs we have decided we want to have some Federal assistance in is 
to support our States when they provide unemployment compensation to 
people who have been out of work for a long time and just can't find 
work.
  If we have relatively low unemployment, in the 5- or 6-percent 
range--5 percent is relatively low; 6 percent is beginning to be 
something where we begin to pay attention to it--we can let that go for 
a little while. But before long, we have citizens out there who can't 
find work and, therefore, are having a hard time supplying what they 
need for their families. Again, for a while, their families and 
communities and churches and so on can help them, but there comes a 
point when government has said: We need to help them, and it is best 
done at the State level. But in the last many decades the Federal 
Government has provided support for that unemployment compensation as 
well.
  What we are talking about is a situation where we are now close to 10 
percent unemployment, and it has been that way now for a couple of 
years. So we keep extending the Federal Government's support for people 
who can't find jobs. That is a legitimate thing for the Federal 
Government to do. It is not the most important thing, but I will tell 
you, for everybody who needs the help, it is important.
  So we have tried to do that, and I have voted for every one of these 
temporary extensions of unemployment

[[Page 5212]]

benefits. But there also comes a point in time, because this has gone 
on now for a couple of years and we keep voting time after time for 
these extensions, that you have to ask the question: OK, compared to 
what? Who is paying for this or who is going to have to pay for it?
  As between someone who is looking for a job and needs some help for 
their family right now, and my grandchild--and I don't know the 
circumstances of my grandchild. My grandchild may be smart and get a 
good job and never have to worry about things in life or, as happens to 
every family, my grandchild might have a tough time--so I am asking 
myself--and I heard Senator Coburn on the floor last night make this 
point--as between what we are spending money on today and my grandchild 
and your grandchild, should we maybe be thinking about the burden we 
are placing on them to pay for this money we are spending today? It is 
easy for us to say we feel sorry for people who cannot find a job right 
now, let's help them out. It is harder when you say, who is paying the 
bill? If it is my grandkids, and I am not sure what their circumstances 
will be, I have to think that through.
  What Senator Coburn has led is an effort to say, since we cannot say 
what kind of a burden they will have, although we know it is huge based 
upon what we have already spent and deferred for them to pay for, we 
ought to be making the tougher decision right now: If this is a 
worthwhile goal, if we want to extend this unemployment compensation, 
then let's find a way to pay for it now rather than putting more of 
that burden on our children and on our grandchildren. That is what is 
at issue, not whether we want to do it, not whether it is a good idea 
to do it, not whether there are people suffering. All of that is 
conceded. The question is, Should we put that burden on our children 
and grandchildren continuously, without even bothering to ask whether 
we can pay for it now? Maybe there is something else we could give up 
now or delay in order to pay for this so we are not adding to the 
burden of our kids and our grandkids.
  Last night, we came to a very important conclusion in the Senate, 
informally, and that conclusion was, since there is a 1-week period of 
time between the time April 5 that these benefits run out and the time 
April 12 that we come back into session from the Easter recess, that 
these, the unemployment benefits, are not paid for here, that we do not 
have the money to extend the benefits, that what we should do is extend 
those benefits for that week period of time and pay for it. That is to 
say, Democratic Senators and Republican Senators agreed, let's extend 
it for that week and let's make sure we are paying for it right now. So 
at least that week's benefits are not going to be an added burden on 
our kids and grandkids--a very important agreement and precedent that 
we established, for about 45 minutes.
  When our colleagues on the Democratic side who had agreed with us 
that this should be done ran that up the flag pole with our Democratic 
leadership colleagues in the House of Representatives, apparently the 
Democratic leadership said: No, we do not want this paid for. In other 
words, we want that put off in the future so somebody else will pay for 
it, our kids and grandkids. So our Democratic friends in the Senate 
came back to us and said we thought we had an agreement to extend this 
for a week and to pay for it, but our leadership in the House would not 
agree and, therefore, we have to go back to what we did before, which 
is we are not going to have those benefits available for the week 
between April 5 and April 12.
  That is too bad because I think what it showed is, first of all, 
Democrats and Republicans in the Senate can work in a bipartisan way. 
We established a good principle. We can both lead with our heart and 
help people who need help today but also act with our heads and make 
sure we pay for it rather than just sending the bill to our kids. That 
was a good precedent, that was a good agreement.
  But when people out in America say: Why can't they ever work 
together, why can't they put politics aside, you have to ask the 
leadership in the House of Representatives because I think we had a 
pretty good agreement last night.
  But what I think we also have established is, over time, more and 
more of our colleagues are coming to realize it is not a choice between 
doing something we want to do to help people who need help right now 
and doing nothing, it is a choice between our paying for it or asking 
our kids to pay for it. I think most of us are beginning to come to the 
realization that from now on, as much as we have gone into debt 
accumulating this huge amount of debt in the past, thinking it would be 
OK for our kids and grandkids to pay for it, we now realize we have put 
entirely too much debt on their shoulders. Their standard of living is 
not going to be as good as ours.
  Do you know--I will close with this--public opinion surveys going all 
the way back to just after World War II asked Americans: Do you think 
the next generation will be better off than our generation? Do you 
think we will leave it better for our kids than it was left for us?
  Every generation has been able to say: Yes, our kids will have a 
better standard of living and better future than we did--except now. If 
you look at the surveys, they all say we believe we have it better than 
our kids will; that we have put too much of the burden of what we have 
spent onto our kids and grandkids. For the first time in history, 
Americans believe their kids, our kids, will not be as well off as we 
were. Why? Because we wanted to spend, we wanted to help people by 
spending a lot of money in Washington, but we were not willing to make 
the tough decisions to figure out how to pay for it.
  That is a real shocking testament because we have always said we are 
the land of opportunity, and the American dream is every generation 
that succeeds will be better off than the generation before. To think 
about the fact that Americans do not believe that is true anymore is 
bothersome. But we have an ability to do something about it, and it 
started last night right here in the Senate. It started with Senator 
Coburn saying: No, we need to pay for this, and everybody else finally 
saying you are right and coming together in a bipartisan way, Democrats 
and Republicans saying we can at least start with 1 week where we do 
something we all want to do, help people who are unemployed, and pay 
for it ourselves rather than sending the bill to our kids.
  That is a start and we ought to build on that. Even though that fell 
apart, I think it represents the beginning. If we can continue to seek 
the advice of our constituents, ask the American people: What do you 
think about this, do you think we are right about this, I think they 
will tell us that is exactly what they want us to do, and I think they 
will thank us this week for beginning to take the small steps to get to 
that point. Rather than casting aspersions or making political 
arguments or getting into partisan politics, I am going to assume we 
have kind of turned a corner and all of us can agree this is what we 
aspire to do. We may stumble along the way a little bit. But if we can 
now take two steps forward and only one step back rather than one step 
forward and two steps back, digging the debt hole deeper and deeper, 
then maybe in a few years we will be able to answer those public 
opinion questions and say: I think we have turned it around. I think 
our kids will have a better future than we did. That is the best legacy 
of all that we could leave for them.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. I comment on the Senator's point, there is not anybody in 
this body, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, who does 
not want a great future for our kids. Everybody does. The Senator from 
Oregon has a set of twins, beautiful kids. He wants the best for them. 
What we want is the same thing other Americans want.
  I showed this little sign earlier. I actually got to meet this girl 
because I thought it was so unique that she had the wisdom or somebody 
in her family had the wisdom to make the contrast.

[[Page 5213]]

She doesn't even have a home yet, and when she had this her share of 
the debt was $38,375. That is just external debt. That does not include 
what we borrowed and stole from Social Security and all the other trust 
funds. If we included that, she would have been about $42,000. I marked 
through that this morning because it is now at the end of this year, 
September 30 of this year, every man, woman and little girl and little 
boy will be responsible for $45,000. It is going to grow $6,000 per 
man, woman, and child this year alone. That is just talking about the 
external debt. That is not talking about what we are stealing from 
other people.
  Is there a point in time when we are on a downslope, where we get to 
a point in time where there is no return? We know that. Senator 
Sessions talked about it in terms of 90 percent of GDP, and how that 
has a depression. I made the point earlier. We saw a 1-percent increase 
in interest rates last year. We owe $12.8 trillion. That is $128 
billion we are going to pay more in interest in this next year than we 
paid in the last year, as you float through all the bonds and recognize 
that 1 percent increase. What was 2.4 percent 1\1/2\ years ago on 10-
year Treasury bonds is 3.88 percent right now, this morning. I checked 
it before I came over here. That is 1.48. As our debt balloons, that 
interest cost is going to go up.
  You heard Senator Sessions say in 2019 we will spend $850 billion on 
interest. We are going to spend $850 billion on interest. Of the $9.8 
trillion we are going to borrow over the next 9 years, $5.6 trillion of 
that is going to be interest. So now we are borrowing trillions of 
dollars to pay the interest on trillions of dollars.
  It has to stop. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
recognize that. It is not that they do not want to fix it too. I agree 
with the Senator from Arizona. I think we will come to that realization 
across party lines. I was proud of the Senate yesterday because we 
actually worked together and came to a compromise that we could all 
agree to, and we got shot down by those who are thinking short term.
  I am not doing this to score political points, as the Senator from 
Michigan alluded. I am not doing anything that I have not believed all 
the time I have been here, and my colleagues all across this body know 
that. The problem right now in our country is the debt. It is the debt.
  If, in fact, we want a future--I have a 7-month old new one. I have 
five grandchildren. She is as cute as she can be. Her name is Katie 
Rose. I got to see her a couple weeks ago as my daughter came through. 
She hadn't seen me in a couple months and didn't like what she saw. I 
can't blame her for that. But the fact is, everybody has a Katie Rose. 
If this is your child, the new birth we are going to celebrate, Senator 
LeMieux's this weekend--everybody has one. So the contrast is, Can we 
do both? Can we take care of the Katie Roses of this world and take 
care of the unemployed or do we just say: No, it is too hard. If it is 
too hard, we are over. And I believe it is not over. It does not have 
to be. We can come together and solve both the debt problem and the 
needs of our country. We can do that.
  I wish to give one little example. In the month of December, I had my 
staff search through programs that are duplicative. In 2 weeks, my 
staff found 640 duplicative programs--640. Let me just give one 
example. In our Federal Government, we have 105 programs run by nine 
different agencies to encourage people to study math, science, 
engineering and technology. One hundred five? So after that experience 
in December on one of the bills out here we put through, that passed, 
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle agreed we should have GAO do 
that study for us to give us all of them. That is just what we found in 
2 weeks--there are thousands--because that tells us where to start 
eliminating duplication, start asking for metrics on what you are 
doing. If you have a program for math, engineering, science and 
technology, we ought to measure whether it is effective. We might only 
want to have one program instead of 105.
  In the Judiciary Committee in the past 2 months, we have had two 
different bills that have come forward to solve problems. When the 
bills were offered, we didn't even know we had agencies out there and a 
program ready to do it.
  There were some positive things with the health care bill. There are 
tons of negatives in my experience as a doctor who has practiced 27 
years. But one of the negatives is, we are going to have 88 new 
government programs and we are probably going to add about 50,000 or 
60,000 or 70,000 people to that. I know we are going to add 16,500 to 
the IRS to make sure you bought your health insurance. Why would we do 
that?
  It is time for us to make the difficult choices. The choice does not 
have to be do nothing or pay for it. The choice can be we can take care 
of both.
  I will close with this discussion. This is what we did last year--43 
cents of everything the Government spent we borrowed from Katie Roses. 
That is who is going to pay it back. We are not going to pay it back. 
This year it is going to be over 45 cents, maybe 46 or 47 cents this 
year, because when you take the real projections for what our addition 
to the debt this year is--in terms of recognizing all the debt such as 
an accountant would do, not like the Government does--we are going to 
have a $1.8 trillion deficit.
  This means, externally and internally, we are going to borrow $1.5 
trillion externally, but internally we are going to borrow $300 billion 
from trust funds and programs and everything else we have.
  Let me give you a little example people never think about. It is 
called the Inland Waterway Trust Fund. It is the trust fund that has 
paid for all of our inland waterways. There is no money in it because 
we have taken it all out. We cannot do what we need to do on our 
navigable waters where we haul freight and barges because we have 
stolen all of the money. There are hundreds of those trust funds where 
we have emptied the coffers.
  I will end with this last request. When we come back, my pledge is to 
work with anybody in this body who will seriously work with me on 
making the appropriate tradeoffs of what is important and what is not 
in terms of priorities.
  You know that our nature as elected officials is not to offend 
anybody. If we continue with that process--I am talking about those who 
support programs we cannot afford--we are all going to be offended 
because every Katie Rose in the world, in our country, will have her 
future squelched.
  And the last set of numbers you should pay attention to: If you are 
under 25 years of age today--that means from 25 to 1--20 years from 
now, you plus everybody who is born in that 20 years will be 
responsible for debt and unfunded liabilities of $1,113,000. Think 
about that. In the next 20 years, those under 25 and below and 
everybody born will be responsible for $1,113,000. Think about what 
that costs. If you apply a 6-percent interest rate to that, let's round 
it at $60,000--it is more than that; $66,000-something--you are going 
to have to pay $66,000 in carry costs either through interest on the 
national debt or through direct taxes before you ever pay the first 
income tax to run anything for the Federal Government. What does that 
mean in terms of opportunity for those Katie Roses and this little 
girl? It means they will have trouble buying a home. They will have 
trouble educating their kids to give them opportunity.
  So I believe we are at a point where we have to start making the hard 
decisions. My pledge to my colleagues is that I will work with you in a 
way that is positive to make sure we do not put these people at risk. 
But I also will work with you to make sure you understand that I am 
going stand up every time, including the supplemental that is coming 
forward, and say that we must pay for it rather than charge it to our 
children.
  With that, I yield our time to the Senator from Oregon. I would note 
that we have until 12:30 to finish this discussion.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oregon is 
recognized.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, when I have come to the floor over the last

[[Page 5214]]

few months, I have always tried to focus on ways to bring parties 
together, both sides to work for common solutions--whether it's health 
care, the new tax reform bill Senator Gregg and I have introduced, or 
the Build America Bonds program put together by Senator Thune and I, 
which has clearly been a huge success in terms of revolutionizing the 
system for funding transportation and infrastructure. Senator Cornyn 
and I are working on a significant crime bill. So I am always going to 
come to this floor and try to be bipartisan and bring both sides 
together.
  On this question of helping folks who are so desperately hurting 
today--including so many in my State, where we have a very high 
unemployment rate--I want to suggest a bipartisan path forward that I 
hope we can look at in the days ahead. I see my friend from Georgia 
here, who also wants to work on these major economic issues in a 
bipartisan way.
  When you listened to colleagues last night and this morning, it seems 
to me there is agreement on two fundamental principles. One is that it 
is absolutely essential to help folks who are hurting now. We have 
millions of Americans walking on an economic tightrope; balancing their 
food bill against their fuel bill; trying to pay for essentials; going 
to bed every night, whether in Colorado, Oregon, or Georgia, figuring 
out if they are going to be able to pay the bills when they wake up in 
the morning. So there is agreement on both sides that you have to help 
folks who are hurting now. There is also agreement that we have to deal 
with this deficit, and the spending issue which is contributing to the 
deficit for the long term. So, in effect, we start the possibility of a 
bipartisan strategy around agreement in two key areas: We have to help 
folks now who are hurting, and we have to deal with those major 
deficits, the revenue and spending problems, in the long term.
  What there is disagreement on, it seems to me, is the timing of these 
particular debates. I and others feel very strongly that it is just not 
right to compound the hurt Americans are suffering, even for a few 
weeks, even for a few days. That is why we very much want, before we go 
home, to have this worked out and to get this unemployment benefits 
extension to them.
  We also recognize that getting at this long-term budget issue quickly 
is a matter of national urgency. I sit on the Budget Committee. We are 
going to have a chance to do that in April, within 30 days.
  So what you see is, in effect, all of the various ideas with respect 
to extending unemployment so that folks who are hurting so badly do not 
go without for a short period of time--a week, 2 weeks, 30 days--a 
variety of different approaches. All of those time periods are shorter 
than the time period for when we will have an our opportunity to make 
tough decisions for the long term that we have heard Democrats and 
Republicans talking about this morning.
  So I hope that we can get back to working in a bipartisan way around 
those two areas of agreement that will help folks who are hurting now, 
help them quickly, not have them suffer any more, even for a few 
additional days, and that we recognize that in April, on the Budget 
Committee on which I serve, we will have the opportunity to tackle the 
larger budget issues. We have very strong bipartisan leadership between 
Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg. A lot of us thought they were right 
on their debt commission. I supported that, supported it for a long 
time. So we have an opportunity to make those long-term budget 
decisions Democrats and Republicans rightly have said are so important, 
beginning next month. So let's do both. Let's help people who are 
hurting now and recognize how serious the challenge is with respect to 
the long term as well.
  The only other point I would make with respect to the unemployment 
extension is a point made by a number of our country's leading 
economists who are advising both Republicans and Democrats, again, in a 
bipartisan fashion. Mark Zandi, for example, one of our leading 
economists who is relied on by individuals of both political parties, 
has pointed out that for every dollar of unemployment, our country gets 
$1.64 in return. The folks who are unemployed spend their benefits as 
quickly as they can get them. They spend them only on essentials. They 
spend them on the essentials of life.
  It is pretty obvious that consumer spending is a very significant 
part of economic recovery. The economic recovery is obviously fragile. 
We have so many folks out of work, and those folks and the folks who 
are worried about losing their jobs put off spending on anything but 
the most basic needs. So obviously that slowdown in consumer spending 
also takes a toll on our economy. If we are going to make up for the 
decline in consumer spending, one obvious way, it seems to me, is to 
get this extra help to folks who are hurting so badly today in our 
country.
  So it strikes me that the decision to not get help to people 
immediately is simply illogical. It is bad from the standpoint of 
economic recovery. It is obviously going to compound the hurt Americans 
who are out of work are experiencing now, and colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle have said they don't want that to happen.
  So I am very hopeful that even before the end of the day, for the 
folks who are out of work, who are exhausting their unemployment and 
COBRA benefits--that there will be discussions here in the Senate to 
try to make sure folks are not denied the bare minimums that are needed 
to just get by and not denied even for just a few days. The fact is, 
these are folks who are making $250, $300 a week. None of them are 
living a life of leisure. No one can say these folks are somehow, as a 
result of their benefits, disinclined to find work. They are not part 
of ``Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.'' They are the millions who 
today walk that economic tightrope, always feeling that another big 
bill is going to push them into the abyss where they cannot afford to 
pay the rent, cannot afford to pay the utility bill, cannot afford 
food. It is not right to let these folks suffer.
  I would submit that on a matter such as this, which is, in my view, a 
question of right and wrong, that is what extending unemployment 
benefits for a short period of time to prevent human suffering is all 
about, that we stay at this effort so folks who are hurting so badly in 
our country do not lose out, if even for only a few days. I will be at 
my post to continue to work and talk with colleagues of both political 
parties toward that end. We have to stay at it to ensure there is no 
break in the essential benefits the most vulnerable of our country so 
desperately needs.

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