[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11098-11149]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       SMALL BUSINESS JOBS AND TAX RELIEF ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Madam President, what is the matter now before the Senate?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The motion to proceed to S. 2237.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Madam President, the next hour will be equally divided 
between the two leaders or their designees. The Republicans will 
control the first half, the majority will control the final half.
  We are hopeful we will be able to agree to the motion to proceed to 
S. 2237, the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act, today.


                Measure Placed on the Calendar--S. 3369

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I am told that S. 3369 is at the desk and 
due for a second reading.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the bill by 
title for the second time.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 3369) to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act 
     of 1971 to provide for additional disclosure requirements for 
     corporations, labor organizations, super PACs, and other 
     entities, and for other purposes.

  Mr. REID. I object to any further proceedings with respect to this 
bill at this time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard. The bill will 
be placed on the calendar.


                                Tax Cuts

  Mr. REID. Madam President, over the last few years Americans who are 
very wealthy have taken home a greater share of the Nation's income 
since the 1920s. That is 90 years. A larger percentage of what is out 
there the rich are getting. The rich are getting richer and the poor 
are being squeezed, as are the middle class. The rich are doing well.
  But while the bank accounts of a few fortunate Americans have grown, 
their tax bills have not. The wealthiest Americans now pay the lowest 
tax rates in more than 50 years.
  While this generous Tax Code has been good for their bottom lines, it 
hasn't been good for America's bottom line. Hundreds of billions of 
dollars in tax cuts--some say more than $1 trillion--have been handed 
out disproportionately to the rich by the previous administration, 
fueling skyrocketing deficits and a growing national debt.
  Democrats and Republicans alike agree that we have to reduce the 
deficit and rein in the debt. Unfortunately, the same Republicans who 
say we have to get our fiscal house in order also claim millionaires 
and billionaires cannot afford to contribute even a tiny bit more and 
share the effort that is before this country.
  These same Republicans say multimillionaires such as Mitt Romney need 
lower taxes--even lower than the only tax return we have been able to 
see of Governor Romney, which showed his rate at 16 percent. We don't 
know what is in the other tax returns he should have made public. Tax 
returns were made public by his father, who started it, and everyone 
who has run for President since then has followed him. George Romney 
set an example that his son should follow. We want to know what is in 
those tax returns he refuses to show the American public. Did he pay 
any taxes?
  Well, I suggest to everybody that Mitt Romney doesn't need another 
tax break. In fact, he has so much money that he doesn't even know 
where it is all located--Switzerland, Cayman Islands, Bermuda? No 
wonder he doesn't want America to see his tax returns.
  Mitt Romney is doing fine, and so are the other millionaires and 
billionaires. It is the middle class I am worried about, not the very 
wealthy.
  We all know times have been tough the last few years for ordinary 
Americans who are struggling to keep a roof over their head and food on 
the table. That is the literal truth. The last thing they can afford 
now is a tax increase. That is why Democrats want to keep taxes low for 
98 percent of Americans, including almost 98 percent of small 
businesses--everyone making less than $250,000 a year. But while 
Democrats are focused on how we can help 98 percent of Americans, 
Republicans are focused on how they can help Mitt Romney and the rest 
of the top 2 percent. They are willing to hold tax cuts for everyone 
hostage to protect tax breaks for that top 2 percent.
  Democrats don't agree the top 2 percent of wage earners can't afford 
to pay the same tax rate they paid when Bill Clinton was President. 
Remember, that was when the budget was balanced and we were paying down 
the debt. Some claimed they were paying down the debt too quickly. The 
years of the Bush administration took care of that, when the $7 
trillion surplus over 10 years was wiped out.
  Still we are willing to debate that with our Republican colleagues, 
and we are willing to discuss it reasonably. But we don't believe 
middle-class families should wait and wonder, watch and worry whether 
their taxes are about to go up while Congress has that conversation. We 
should not wait until the last second to act.

[[Page 11099]]

  Here is what one major newspaper wrote yesterday about the need to 
act:

       The majority of Americans, and the broader economy, should 
     not be held hostage again to another debate over the merits 
     of tax cuts for the wealthy. . . . There will never be 
     consensus for solving our nation's budget problems without 
     first ending the lavish tax breaks at the top.

  I call on my Republican colleagues to help us give 98 percent of 
American families the certainty and the security they need, and to do 
it now, right away. I call on them to help us pass a tax cut that will 
benefit the middle class without bankrupting our Nation.
  It is time we faced facts. If we are serious about reducing the 
deficit, we cannot keep handing out more tax breaks to the richest of 
the rich. We will have to make difficult decisions about where to cut 
and invest to keep our Nation strong.
  But whether we keep taxes low for middle-class families should not be 
one of the difficult decisions we make. I haven't heard one person--
Democrat, Republican, or Independent--say we should raise taxes on 
middle-class families. This is an area where we can easily find common 
ground. So what is stopping us from doing what is right and doing it 
now? I hope it won't be more Republican hostage-taking on behalf of the 
top 2 percent.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is 
recognized.


                             Raising Taxes

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, earlier this week President Obama 
reiterated his desire to raise taxes on small businesses earning over 
$250,000 a year. I and all of my Republican colleagues oppose this tax 
hike for the same reason the President himself opposed it 2 years ago--
because raising taxes would only make a bad economy worse.
  But here it comes again--sort of like a bad penny--the liberal 
crusade for more government, regardless of the circumstances, the 
impact it would have on working Americans or the broader economy.
  On Monday the President issued the following reckless ultimatum: Let 
me raise taxes on about 1 million business owners, and I promise I 
won't raise taxes on everybody else.
  In the face of 41 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent, 
the President is begging Congress to let him raise taxes on the very 
businesses the American people are counting on to create jobs.
  It is the exact opposite, of course, of what is needed. For some 
reason, he thinks a tax hike is his ticket to reelection. He says it is 
fair.
  Well, I don't think most Americans think it is particularly fair for 
a government that doesn't do a thing to live within its means to take 
more money away from those who have worked and sacrificed to earn it, 
only to waste it on some solar company or on one more government 
program we can't afford.
  We have seen this movie too many times in the past. Frankly, we don't 
have the luxury to waste any more time arguing about a question that is 
already settled for most people. The problem here isn't that the 
government taxes too little but that it spends too much.
  What the American people need right now isn't a lecture on fairness; 
they would like to have some certainty. That is why today I am going to 
call on the Senate to provide just that. I have already called for a 1-
year extension of all the current income tax rates.
  Today I will go further by asking consent that we set up two votes in 
the Senate: one on the President's proposal to raise taxes on nearly 1 
million business owners in the middle of the worst economic recovery in 
modern times, and another that would extend current income tax rates 
for 1 year and task the Finance Committee to produce a bill that would 
enact fundamental, progrowth tax reform.
  It has been over a quarter century since we last did comprehensive 
tax reform. We all agree, on a bipartisan basis, that we need to do it 
again.
  The Senate should make itself clear which policy it supports, and 
this is our chance to do it.
  On Monday, the President said if the Senate passes this tax hike on 
small businesses, he would sign it right away. That is what he said 2 
days ago, on Monday. I can't see why our friends on the other side 
would not want to give him the chance.
  With that, I ask unanimous consent that at 2 p.m. today the motion to 
proceed to S. 2237 be adopted, and that the first two amendments in 
order to the bill be the Hatch-McConnell amendment No. 2491, which 
would provide for the extension of current rates while we work on tax 
reform, and a Reid or designee amendment to enact the President's 
proposal, which, as I have said, would impose job-killing tax hikes on 
nearly 1 million businessowners.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Madam President, reserving the right to object, we have 
been here before. We try to legislate here, and the program of the 
Republicans in the Senate has been to divert, deny, and obstruct.
  I asked the Chair when we started what we were doing here, and we are 
on a small business jobs bill. It is extremely important legislation. 
It would give small businesses across America--small businesses with 
less than 500 employees--and that is where most jobs are created--a 10-
percent tax credit for hiring more people, and it would also give them 
the ability, this year, to purchase equipment and write that off. It 
would be great for the economy.
  We are told by outside experts that it would create about a million 
jobs. What we have before us is something that the Republicans in the 
House have sent us. It is their version of this. It is the ``help Paris 
Hilton'' legislation. It would give people like her a tax break for 
doing nothing--$46 billion of the American people's money to help Paris 
Hilton and others. It would give people a tax break for doing nothing--
nothing. And for my friend the Republican leader to talk about small 
businesses being hurt with the proposal of the President--that is not 
true. As I said in my opening statement, 98 percent of the American 
people would have the benefit of that tax benefit, and 97\1/2\ percent 
of small businesses would benefit.
  So we are in the situation where my friend talks about the fact that 
we have not had enough job creation, and I acknowledge that. Certainly 
that is true, and the President acknowledges that. But you see, we have 
kind of a hole to pull ourselves out of. During the prior 8 years, 8 
million-plus jobs were lost, and we have filled that hole more than 
halfway, with 4\1/2\ million new jobs being created. We have had 28 
months of private sector job growth--28 months in a row. So we are 
making progress, but we have a long way to go.
  Madam President, I object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Let me simplify this for everybody. On Monday the 
President asked that we have the vote I have just offered to the 
majority. We have a clear contrast here. We have 41 straight months of 
unemployment over 8 percent. If this is a recovery, it is the most 
tepid recovery in modern times. The President's solution to that is to 
raise taxes on about 1 million small business owners, representing 
about 53 percent of small business income and up to 25 percent of the 
workforce.
  We are on a different bill that my friend the majority leader is 
talking about, that I understand would be slipped by the House in any 
event. Clearly, what we are doing this week is having a political 
discussion, not seriously legislating. So my recommendation is that we 
give the President what he asked for. He wants to have a vote on 
raising taxes on individuals making over $250,000 a year, which, of 
course, includes almost 1 million small businesses that pay taxes as 
individuals, not as corporations--they are either S corps or LLCs--the 
most successful small businesses in America, in fact. That is a vote we 
welcome. It is a vote the President is asking for, and it is a vote I 
just asked for.
  Senator Hatch, our leader on the Finance Committee, here on the floor 
right behind me today, has advocated that we extend the current tax 
rates for 1 year--the same thing the President, I would say to my 
friend from

[[Page 11100]]

Utah, wanted to do 2 years ago, at that time arguing it would be bad 
for the economy not to do that. And the growth then was actually better 
than it is now. We think we ought to vote on that. It would give 
Senator Hatch and Senator Baucus and the people on the Finance 
Committee a year to work us through comprehensive tax reform. Again, it 
has been a quarter of a century since we have done that.
  Why not have those votes today? That is what my consent agreement is 
about. I am a little surprised we are not willing to give the President 
what he asked for, which is a vote on a clear distinction for the 
American people so they can understand how the two sides look at this 
important issue. It could not be more clear.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, the American people are seeing again--
again and again and again--the scores of times during the last 18 
months that we have engaged in a filibuster. As I said earlier, it is a 
way to divert attention from what we are doing today--to obstruct. As 
is indicated in the Oxford English Dictionary, a filibuster is an act 
which obstructs progress in a legislative assembly; to practice 
obstruction. That is what is going on today.
  Now, why shouldn't we pass this bill that is before the body today? 
It would create 1 million jobs and give small businesses--not Paris 
Hilton but small businesses--across America today a tax credit for 
hiring more people and allow them to write off what they purchase, 
which would create more jobs.
  So we have here a big Las Vegas neon sign flashing on and off saying: 
Grover Norquist has won again.
  To the people out there watching who might be wondering who Grover 
Norquist is, remember, he is this guy who goes to the Republicans and 
asks if they would be kind enough to sign a pledge for him that does 
what he wants them to do and not what the American people want, which 
is that they will not tax the rich at all, not even a tiny bit. He 
says: Sign this pledge, will you? Of course they all sign. But the 
American people--Democrats, Independents, and Republicans--agree that 
the richest of the rich should pay a little bit more.
  But we are now involved in a filibuster to divert attention away from 
an important piece of legislation. Let's pass this legislation. We will 
have this tax debate. We will be happy to do that, but let's get this 
done first. As most people know, I appreciate my friend the Republican 
leader. I know he has a job to do. But let's get away from this pledge, 
and let's start legislating and not have to break filibusters on 
virtually everything we do.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I think we have witnessed here a new 
definition of a filibuster. My good friend the majority leader, I 
gather, is accusing me of filibustering when I am trying to get a 
vote--not one but two votes--on what he says he is for, what the 
President says he is for, and a vote on what Republicans are for. So we 
have here a brandnew definition of a filibuster. Even when you are 
trying to get votes and they are objected to by the other side, somehow 
that is a filibuster.
  Now, my good friend talks about what would help small businesses. I 
think we ought to ask them would they prefer the underlying bill, which 
the majority leader has called up and we have voted to proceed to, or 
would they prefer not to have their taxes go up at the end of the year? 
Talk about a no-brainer. I don't think there is any question what small 
businesses would rather have.
  But we are certainly not filibustering. We enjoy discussing our 
differences of opinion on the tax issue. There couldn't be anything 
more important to the American people if we are going to get this 
economy going again. And certainly trying to set up two votes--No. 1 on 
what the President is asking for and No. 2 on what Republicans think is 
a better alternative--could not, in my view, be the definition of a 
filibuster.
  So Senator Hatch is here--and obviously the majority leader can speak 
again if he wishes--and he is going to address the matter as well, but 
I wish to thank him again for his conspicuous leadership on the Finance 
Committee. We are looking to him to work us through this comprehensive 
tax reform matter again next year. It is going to be extremely 
important for the country, and I thank him for his good work.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, when I came here this morning--I repeat 
for the third time--I asked what the business was before this body. It 
is the small business jobs bill. Of course, there has been a direct 
attack on that legislation by saying: Let's do something else. Let's 
not do this right now. Let's do something else.
  I understand the definition of a filibuster. I understand it very 
clearly--from the Dutch, a ``free booter,'' one of a class of piratical 
adventurers who pillaged the Spanish colonies in the West Indies during 
the 17th century; one who engages in unauthorized and irregular warfare 
against a foreign state. They go on to say, in the United States, to 
obstruct progress in a legislative assembly; to practice 
obstructionism.
  Yes, they are trying to, as the ``free booters'' here, steal 
legislation and move to something else. They will do anything they can, 
as my friend the Republican leader said at the beginning of this 
Congress, to divert attention from the fact that President Obama should 
be reelected.
  Madam President, I will end this debate soon. There will be other 
times to do this. But if Governor Romney came before this body to be a 
Cabinet officer, he couldn't get approved. He won't show anybody his 
income tax returns. So if he doesn't qualify to be a Cabinet officer, 
how could he qualify to be President? So let's debate the issues before 
us. We will get to the tax issues, and that way we will be able to talk 
in more detail about Governor Romney's taxes. But right now, before 
this body is the small business jobs bill.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.


                           Order of Business

  Under the previous order, the following hour will be equally divided 
and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the 
Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the 
final half.
  The Senator from Utah.


                                Tax Cuts

  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, this is really an amazing moment, as far 
as I can see. Sometimes, for those watching on C-SPAN, the Senate, with 
its unique rulings, can seem like a pretty arcane place. The impact of 
unanimous consent requests is not something ordinary folks talk about, 
so let me put this in plain English.
  The Senate's Republican leader has just made a remarkable offer to 
our friends on the other side, the Democrats. We hear all the time from 
the left that Republicans refuse to do anything in the Senate, which 
certainly is mind-boggling. Remember this episode the next time you 
hear that. My friend and colleague, the Senator from Kentucky and the 
Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, presented this body with an 
opportunity to take a stand, to take a vote--two votes, as a matter of 
fact--to show the American people our cards on the most important issue 
facing this country: the coming fiscal cliff. In exchange for a vote on 
the amendment I introduced to extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax 
relief for 1 year, the Republican leader agreed to a vote on the 
President's counteroffer that would increase taxes on families and 
small businesses. You heard that right. The Republican leader offered a 
vote on President Obama's plan to raise taxes, and the Democratic 
leader rejected this offer. That is mind-boggling to me. Senate 
Democratic leadership turned down an opportunity to vote on President 
Obama's tax increase bill--the bill he insists is the only acceptable 
way to address the fiscal cliff.
  After today, all of the President's surrogates, if they are honest, 
will have to rewrite their talking points

[[Page 11101]]

about the do-nothing Republicans in the Senate. Senate Democratic 
leadership is effectively filibustering--and that is the real use of 
the term--President Obama's tax increase bill. Did everyone out there 
hear that? They are filibustering their own bill by not agreeing to 
equivalent votes here.
  So what does that tell us? Here is what it tells us. It tells us that 
the President's tax increase plan is not just an economic disaster, it 
is a political loser, and they know it. It tells us that in spite of 
all the big talk from the President's Chicago reelection campaign about 
evil Republicans who want to extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax 
relief, vulnerable Members of the Senate's Democratic conference do not 
want to be anywhere near the President's tax increase alternative. To 
borrow from the film ``Top Gun,'' the President's campaign is writing 
checks that Senate Democrats can't cash or, as we westerners like to 
say, the President is all hat and no cattle. He is tipping his tax 
increase Stetson, but he doesn't have enough of a herd in the Senate to 
follow him.
  Keep in mind that the Democratic leadership is not just filibustering 
the President's tax increase proposal, that leadership is also 
filibustering my tax relief proposal as well. And I suspect they are 
filibustering this amendment because they are afraid it would pass. 
Forty Democrats in this Chamber supported the extension of the 2001 and 
2003 tax relief in 2010--40 Democrats--and they would probably do so 
again if they had a chance, so the Democratic leadership has decided to 
deny them that chance.
  The President is asking for compromise. Well, he is looking at it. As 
the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, I have deep 
reservations about temporary tax policies. Temporary tax policy does 
not provide the certainty to small businesses and families that is 
necessary for long-term planning and investment. If a small business 
does not know what its tax bill is going to be next year, it is not 
going to be doing any hiring. We all understand that. So it is not 
surprising to me, with next year's tax rates up in the air, that we 
just saw the worst quarter of hiring in over 2 years.
  But in the interest of preventing a tax increase that would further 
hamper the economy, I am willing to set aside the virtue of permanency 
for the time being.
  My amendment would just extend the 2001 and 2003 tax relief for 1 
year, and during that year we would work on doing what is right with 
regard to tax reform.
  The amendment I have filed with my friend, the Republican leader, is 
in itself a compromise, but we have offered a further compromise. Fair 
is fair. We have our proposal: We want to keep taxes low for all 
Americans, particularly with our economy on the ropes. And the 
President has his proposal: He wants to raise taxes on small 
businesses, even as the prospects for economic growth and job creation 
look increasingly bleak.
  So let's have these votes. Let's get it on the record. Our 
constituents sent us here to make hard choices. It is time to put our 
money where our mouth is.
  If the President and his party think it is morally reprehensible to 
extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief, then they should vote 
against it. If they think raising taxes is the way to go, then vote for 
the President's plan.
  I wish I could say I was shocked, but this is just par for the 
course. We have been watching this now for a couple of years.
  I know the hand-wringing Washington pundits like to blame Republicans 
for the lack of progress on the fiscal cliff, but this episode should 
show, once and for all, what a fiction that is. Republicans are ready 
to act. We are ready to vote. We can vote on my amendment to extend tax 
relief to all Americans and on the President's proposal to deny that 
tax relief to small businesses. We can do what our constituents sent us 
here to do--we can vote and let the better plan win. But the Democratic 
leadership, fearful of the embarrassing reality that their own 
conference has serious reservations about the President's tax-hiking 
agenda, is now filibustering their own bill, and they are now 
filibustering President Obama's signature tax policy.
  Those who continue to talk about the President's reelection prospects 
in glowing terms need to reevaluate that fairly. President Obama thinks 
the ticket to his reelection runs through tax hike valley. He is going 
to succeed where Walter Mondale failed.
  President Obama's signature economic policy is a promise to raise 
taxes on job creators when we are facing the 40th straight month of 
unemployment in excess of 8 percent. We don't need a sophisticated poll 
to figure out how popular this policy is in swing States or with 
Independents. Just look at what happened this morning. Republicans 
offered a vote on the President's plan, and Democrats balked at the 
opportunity.
  Democrats are filibustering President Obama's signature domestic 
policy--a bill to increase taxes--and they are doing so because many 
members of their own conference know that a vote for these tax 
increases would sink them back home. They know that.
  This is a pathetic spectacle made even more so by the fact that time 
is running short, the fiscal cliff is approaching, and families and 
businesses need to know what their tax rates will be next year. To 
date, the Senate's Democratic leadership has done absolutely nothing to 
provide that certainty. It is disgraceful what we are witnessing this 
morning. We need to put politics aside and have these votes.
  I would renew the Republican leader's unanimous request and ask that 
we immediately proceed to debate and votes on my amendment to extend 
tax relief to all Americans and on the President's tax increase plan. 
President Obama seems to think he has a winning issue. It might be good 
for him, but delaying resolution of these tax rates is putting partisan 
goals ahead of the common good. The American people deserve better than 
this.
  What is mind-boggling to me is for our leader to tie up the 
parliamentary tree so no real amendments can be voted on. And we offer 
him a vote on the President's proposal and he accuses us of 
filibustering when he refuses to allow that vote? Before that we would 
like to have a vote on our proposal for the 2001 and 2003 tax relief 
that we know needs to be effectuated. Then what really boggled my mind 
is when the leader talked in terms of the Republicans are 
filibustering? Give me a break.
  We have asked for two major votes: one on the President's own 
proposal and the other on my proposal to extend those tax cuts for 1 
more year, during which time both sides should come together, work 
together, compromise together, and come up with a new reformed Tax Code 
that doesn't continue to eat us alive.
  I am absolutely amazed by what happened this morning.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I came down to the floor early to line up 
in the queue to talk about taxes and the proposal that has just been 
discussed.
  I sat here in amazement as the Senator from Utah has just expressed, 
and as the minority leader expressed the redefinition of 
``filibuster.'' It was a tortured effort on the part of the majority 
leader to try to redefine it in a way that had just the opposite effect 
of what a filibuster really is.
  I wish the majority leader had been at our caucus luncheon yesterday 
when we debated whether we would vote against the cloture motion to 
proceed on this bill. The consent of our caucus was, no; we welcome a 
debate on taxes. We welcome the opportunity to move forward and discuss 
our two visions of how we need to revive this economy.
  So let's not use parliamentary tricks or a parliamentary procedure to 
avoid that debate and to avoid a vote on the President's proposal. We 
realized there was the opportunity for the majority leader to use 
parliamentary tricks and procedures in order to deny us the opportunity 
to offer our own version of what we thought we should do with our Tax 
Code and provisions, particularly

[[Page 11102]]

as it reflects this particular tax on small business, but we welcome 
the opportunity to come and debate that and work through it and, 
hopefully, make an offer that is acceptable.
  So the minority leader came down here this morning and turned to the 
majority leader and said: We are going to give you your vote. We are 
not going to use parliamentary procedures to prevent you from having an 
opportunity to vote on your proposal, the President's proposal.
  By some tortured way of opposing this, the majority leader 
essentially said: There you go again. Republicans are filibustering. I 
think we all just sat here with our mouths agape saying: Have we missed 
something? We are offering to give you your vote.
  Now, it is clear this center aisle--not completely--divides us in 
terms of how we think we should go forward in dealing with this very 
sick and anemic economy. There is probably pretty close to a consensus 
that tax reform needs to be an essential part of what we need to do.
  In a bipartisan way, Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and 
Dan Coats, a Republican from Indiana, have been working for 1\1/2\ 
years now on something that was started with Senator Gregg, who is now 
retired from distinguished service in the Senate but worked with 
Senator Wyden for 2 years in putting a package together, a 
comprehensive tax reform package. It is the only plan out there that 
has been written, scored, and is available for debate and available to 
the tax-writing committees to use as a basis--or foundation or parts of 
it or all of it or whatever--in forming their own version to bring 
forward. But there is a bipartisan consensus that we ought to move 
forward on comprehensive tax reform.
  Senator Hatch, our Republican leader in the Finance Committee--which 
is the committee responsible for writing that bill--has said piecemeal 
is not the way to go. Anybody who has analyzed our current situation 
understands that comprehensive tax reform is the best solution. But 
even Senator Hatch agreed, in this instance, given the situation we now 
face, he would accept going forward with a short-term proposal that 
would give us 1 year to put together a comprehensive tax reform 
package. The last one occurred in 1986, so long past time we overhaul 
the Tax Code. With all the credits and subsidies and additions and 
addendums to the current Tax Code, it is complex beyond anybody's 
ability to fully understand. And it isn't fair. It favors some at the 
expense of the many. In many cases, there are special credits and tax 
breaks that go to a single industry. So we need much more fairness 
across the board, and that is what Senator Wyden and I attempt to do in 
our proposal.
  The word ``fairness'' is thrown around here as a condemnation on the 
Republican Party's ability to achieve bipartisan consent, but if we 
want to talk about fairness, let's talk about what just happened here. 
It was imminently fair for the minority leader to offer the Democrats a 
vote on the President's proposal. All we asked in return was an 
opportunity to present, debate and vote on our proposal.
  What is amazing is that the Democratic Party controls the Senate. 
They have the votes to pass the President's proposal. So in the end, if 
they voted in unison with the President, their proposal wins. If we 
vote and we come up short, we lose.
  Obviously, there must be a reason they don't want that vote. They 
don't want an alternative presented to them because they must fear they 
would lose votes on their side of the aisle for the President's 
proposal, and we would gain votes from them on our side. It has 
happened in the past, and apparently that is the decision they made.
  But this torturous explanation of how this could be a Republican 
filibuster--if they can spin this one at the White House and at the 
press conference today, or if they can spin this through the press, 
they are not listening or understanding what is actually going on here.
  What is going on here is a decided attempt by the majority leader to 
protect his party from having to take a vote for or against. If the 
American people want anything out of this body, and if they are 
disgusted with anything that comes out of this body, it is when people 
go home and say: Well, we didn't have a real vote on that. There was a 
procedural this or that and it got stopped here or modified there or 
the others tied up the legislative tree.
  What in the world does that mean to most people outside of this body? 
They used some procedural way to avoid a real vote.
  They want our yes to be yes and our no to be no, and we are offering 
to the Democratic leader that opportunity. Let your yes be yes and your 
no be no on the specific bill before us, and then go home and explain 
to your people why you voted yes or why you voted no. Then they can 
decide in this democratic process whether they want to send you back or 
send somebody else back for you.
  The American people aren't getting that kind of clarity right now, 
and it is no wonder they are disgusted with Congress. It is 10:00 in 
the morning when we are talking about this. If they get a fair 
treatment in the press over what happened this morning, they will fully 
easily grasp and understand that what was proposed by the Republicans 
was nothing but fairness, and what was proposed by the other party was 
nothing but unfairness.
  What could be more fair than giving each side, in a divided vision of 
how we should go forward, their opportunity to debate what they believe 
in and to call a vote for it? Particularly from the party that has the 
votes to win and the party that has the votes not to win, why not have 
the vote? What have you got to lose? Unless you think you are going to 
lose your own people or not want to put them on the line for having a 
yes or a no recorded clearly before the American people.
  I have diverted from what I was going to say this morning. I was just 
so amazed by what took place down here I could not help but comment on 
it.
  We will see how this all gets spun out by the White House. We will 
see what is the next diversionary tactic they use to stop us from 
talking about the No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 issue facing this country; 
that is, this anemic economy. Eighty thousand jobs? Only eighty 
thousand jobs created in June. People say we are on the right track? 
That doesn't even replace the number of people who are retiring, let 
alone add new jobs. How many college graduates this spring are living 
in the basement of their parents' home? That has happened now for more 
than 3 years. There are millions, 12.7 million people who woke this 
morning with no job to go to. There are many more who woke to go to 
jobs far below their abilities or training. So 80,000 jobs, let's put 
this in perspective. It is far below what we need just to break even, 
just to give anybody a new shot and a new chance.
  We have had 3\1/2\ years of the policies of this administration which 
have not improved the situation and, in fact, some have said are making 
it worse. We all know we have come through a tough time. We all know 
just sticking the blame against one side or the other is not the 
solution. The solution is to find how to put sensible policies in place 
that will get this economy moving again. One of those policies is 
comprehensive tax reform.
  Once again, I bring up the Wyden-Coats bill. It has been out there. 
It is written. It is scored. It is available to take up right now if 
that were the case, but because the tax-writing committees have the 
jurisdictional right to have a say and because it is a complex process, 
they would like some time to put it together.
  The proposal of Senator Hatch, eminently fair, is to basically say 
let's not put a bandaid on the Tax Code now with something that is not 
going to make much difference at all and, in fact, we believe, will 
negatively impact small businesses around the country.
  I had a small business group in my office yesterday basically saying 
the President only talks about the middle class. That is whom I hire, 
they say. That is who is working in our business. If they put a tax on 
me, the owner of the business, actually it is a tax on the business--
the passthroughs, the noncorporations that exist here where, from a tax 
basis, everything flows

[[Page 11103]]

through to that individual taxpayer. They say I am the guy who owns the 
business. I am the guy who makes the decision on hiring. I am the guy 
who has to put the health care plan together. I am the guy who hires 
the people and pays the people. If government taxes me more, I do not 
have the same flexibility to hire, expand or buy equipment or expand my 
factory or hire more people.
  Yes, the White House can go out and spin it like I am a rich guy, but 
because I have chosen a certain way in order to form my business--not 
as a corporation--I am taxed in an entirely different way than 
corporations. But if you go out and say we are giving the middle class 
a break--and we are hurting the people who employ the middle class and 
you are raising their taxes--you are hurting the middle-class people. 
The very people the President says he is trying to protect, he is 
hurting by raising this tax. The President himself said in his campaign 
and throughout his Presidency: The worst thing you can do is raise any 
taxes during a time of economic distress.
  I do not care if you are Paul Krugman or if you are the most 
conservative economic analyst out there, there is a widespread 
consensus that the last thing you do is raise taxes at a time of a 
stagnant economy, a recessionary economy. It is the last thing you do.
  Dan Coats just said that, respected economists on the left and right 
said that, and even the President of the United States said that as a 
candidate and throughout his Presidency. In 2010, the President said 
the last thing we should do is raise any taxes. Now he has turned 
around to say let's tax up to 1 million small businesses because 
obviously they can spin that and play that in what sounds like a 
politically opportune way.
  It is a direct contradiction coming out of the mouth of the 
President, out of the mouths of others. It is simply an election year 
political class division ploy to divert from the miserable record under 
this administration, in terms of dealing with this economy. Frankly, if 
they know--we can hardly conclude anything, but they just do not know 
what they are doing. But even if they know what they are doing, their 
policies have not worked.
  Whether it is Republicans or Democrats, if they have done something 
for 3\1/2\ years and it has not worked, isn't it time to look at a 
different set of policies? That is what we wanted to debate, but the 
majority leader is not allowing us to debate. In some excruciatingly, 
twisted way, he is saying Republicans are trying to prevent us from 
going forward. It boggles the mind.
  I will stop with that and yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.


                        Stolen Valor Act of 2011

  Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Madam President, I have enjoyed the 
previous speaker. It was very interesting.
  I wish to shift gears and talk about S. 1728, the Stolen Valor Act of 
2011. As many know, the Supreme Court recently struck down the Stolen 
Valor Act of 2011 by saying that lying about military awards, records, 
and service is protected by our first amendment rights. The Court has 
ruled. But let's be clear, it is wrong and cowardly for people to make 
fraudulent statements in order to receive distinctions they have not 
earned. Let me say that again. It is wrong and cowardly for people to 
make fraudulent statements in order to receive distinctions they have 
not earned.
  As a 32-year member of the Army National Guard still serving, I feel 
very strongly about this issue, and I believe we need a Federal law to 
punish those who seek to benefit from making false claims and steal the 
true valor of our heroic men and women in uniform. My bipartisan, 
bicameral Stolen Valor Act of 2011 reminds me of the bill we worked on, 
the insider trading bill. We have an opportunity once again to send a 
powerful message to the American people that in the middle of the 
gridlock we can work together on something that makes complete sense. 
It addresses the Supreme Court's change by making a key change in order 
to protect first amendment rights. It would punish individuals who 
deliberately lie about their military service, their records or honors, 
with the intention of obtaining anything of value.
  The key term is ``of value.'' One actually gets something of value as 
a result of their misrepresentations. Again, the new Stolen Valor Act 
makes it a Federal crime to lie about military service in order to 
profit or benefit, and that is the key distinction.
  Yesterday, Congressman Joe Heck of Nevada and I--he is the lead 
sponsor in the House version of the bill, I in the Senate--held a press 
conference to start a fresh campaign to pass the new Stolen Valor Act. 
We had wonderful results. Within a few hours of that press conference, 
we gained 27 new cosponsors in the Senate, making a total of 29. I 
encourage the Presiding Officer and others on her side of the aisle to 
get involved in this very real effort to help our heroes who have 
served legitimately. Congressman Heck also has 67 bipartisan cosponsors 
in the House.
  Also, yesterday, the Pentagon announced they will take a major step 
to deter con artists by establishing a searchable database of military 
awards and medals to confirm, in fact, that the person with whom one is 
dealing or speaking with is, in fact, deserving of the medals and 
honors they received.
  It is clear this cause has momentum and the Supreme Court decision 
has given many a sense of urgency and clarity. In fact, today I wrote 
President Obama to ask for his public endorsement of the bill, very 
similar to the day he was walking up the aisle after the State of the 
Union and I said: Mr. President, I have a bill on Harry Reid's desk on 
insider trading. Let's get it out. He said: I will; I will get it out.
  He can do the same here. He can give his public endorsement of this 
very important bill, and I am hopeful the Commander in Chief will lend 
his endorsement to this cause, to show leadership on this issue and 
give his blessing so we can actually get to work on legislation that 
will truly pass, I venture 99 to 0, in this Chamber. His voice would 
join several military organizations that endorsed the Stolen Valor Act 
of 2011: the Military Officers Association of America, the Association 
of the U.S. Army, Military Order of the Purple Heart, and the Iraq and 
Afghanistan Veterans of America.
  As bipartisan support of this effort grows, I ask my Senate 
colleagues who have not cosponsored the Stolen Valor Act of 2011 to get 
on board. It is time. It is time to send a very powerful message to the 
men and women who have served with dignity and honor that we respect 
that service and we are tired of the frauds who are out there 
perpetrating fraud and wearing medals and receiving honors to which 
they are not entitled.
  If we choose to come together and pass this legislation, we can 
respond immediately to the Supreme Court's ruling with the urgency this 
issue deserves. It is very similar to how Senator McCaskill and I, in 
the middle of the gridlock a couple years ago, passed the Arlington 
Cemetery bill. We can do it with this legislation as well and send a 
message to the American people that we can work together and that 
unified message will protect the valor of our heroic veterans and 
servicemembers who defend our freedom and serve our country with the 
greatest of honor.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I applaud the Senator from 
Massachusetts for introducing the bill. He is trying to make a 
constitutional way so those who have done the service for our country 
and earned the medals are assured that those medals mean something and 
cannot be in any way misrepresented without a consequence. I thank the 
Senator from Massachusetts.


                               Tax Policy

  I rise to talk about this week's issue, which is taxes on our 
Nation's small

[[Page 11104]]

 businesses. Small businesses are the economic engine of America. It is 
not big business. Jobs are created by small businesses that grow and 
become medium-size businesses. They are responsible for driving most of 
the job growth in this country. Fifty-five percent of private sector 
jobs are created by small business. Punishing them with new taxes in a 
time of economic stagnation is incomprehensible. It is 
incomprehensible.
  This tax that is suggested by the President on those who make 
$200,000 to $250,000 or more will affect small business, make no 
mistake about it. I have been a small businessperson, and I know if 
someone is paying all the expenses they are paying, if they are taxed 
as an individual in their small business, they are not going to be able 
to hire new people--not with what is looming next year in increased 
taxes. Even the talk of it is part of the reason we have the stagnation 
we do.
  Seventy-five percent of the small businesses in our country pay taxes 
at an individual rate. They are organized as flowthrough businesses: 
Partnerships, S corporations, LLCs, and sole proprietorships. Fifty-
three percent of all flowthrough business income will be subject to the 
top two individual income tax rate increases subject to take place in 
2013. Even our talking about tax increases is on the minds of our small 
businessespeople. It makes them very nervous.
  We have an already uncertain environment. Hiring is stalled. We have 
been strangling growth in our country and the hope of recovery is not 
there. The first round of taxes in the health care law the President's 
party and the President passed will kick in, in 2013. I do not want to 
have to go back to the small business owners whom I have just visited 
with last week all over my State and say: Yes, it is true. You are 
going to have the taxes involved in the health care plan that will take 
effect in 2013 and your taxes are going up because you are going into a 
higher bracket, and if the President has his way, the rates are going 
to increase too. That is not the message anyone in this body should 
want to take back to their home States and I do not want to go back to 
the hard-working employees and customers and tell them the same thing 
because it will not be just small business owners caught in the net of 
higher taxes, every American is going to see their taxes increase if 
they are paying taxes today.
  We have a cliff. Everyone around here is talking about the fiscal 
cliff. It happens on December 31 of this year. Taxes will automatically 
go up on January 1. Everybody will go into a higher bracket. We will 
lose the marriage penalty relief we have had. We are going to see tax 
increases on the middle class, and it is going to be steep. 
Approximately 31 million Americans will be hit for the first time with 
the alternative minimum tax. Most people know the alternative minimum 
tax was enacted in 1969 to target a few hundred millionaires in America 
to try to ensure that those millionaires paid a tax. Well, guess who 
qualifies next year if we don't do something. A single person making 
$33,750 and a married couple earning $45,000 will be considered as not 
paying their fair share of taxes. That is outrageous for this Congress 
to let that happen. We must work with the President to ensure that 
those steep tax increases do not take effect.
  The tax increases, the astronomical debt we face, and the persistent 
high unemployment rate have come together to create a perfect recovery-
killing storm. And if this weren't enough to send our economy into 
permanent hiding, we now have the dubious honor of having the highest 
corporate tax rate in the world at 35 percent. We used to be second, 
but Japan had the good sense to lower its rate earlier this year, so 
now it is America that holds that dubious honor.
  This is not a recipe for growth. Is it any wonder that we have a 
recurring over 8 percent unemployment rate in this country? If we don't 
do something before the end of this year, those who are employed are 
going to pay more taxes next year, and for those who are not employed, 
it is going to be harder to find a job. So what is the answer? The 
answer, as we all know, is for this Congress and the President to do 
something before the election.
  Now, Senator Reid has introduced a tax bill. It is a bill that will 
provide two temporary tax credits, but a 1-year temporary tax credit is 
really not enough. Many of us voted in support of the motion to proceed 
to this bill because we would like something to start with, and I hope 
the majority leader is going to allow amendments because there are many 
amendments for us to try to cobble together a bill that will really 
make a difference in our economy. So it is a start, and I am going to 
give the leader credit for that.
  A real long-term solution is what business is looking for. If we have 
a 1-year tax credit, we are going to get a 1-year plan, and a 1-year 
plan is not going to encourage people to be hired. It is not going to 
encourage employers when they see a 1-year plan and know that Congress 
is going to do what it has done so often; that is, get to the last of 
the year and then cobble something together that will perhaps last a 
year. Maybe it will be the same or maybe it won't. That is not the way 
business works. They have to plan. They have to know what they are 
going to have in the next 5 years in expenses so they know what they 
can produce and what they can charge. That is the private sector.
  We should be focusing on the underlying issue. It should be tax 
relief and tax reform. We can alleviate the employers' conundrum and 
get them to start hiring if they know what to expect, and a 1-year fix 
will not do it. We need long-term tax reform, we need to address the 
looming debt, and we know it. We know what the fiscal cliff is.
  I would like to read a letter I received in answer to a 
congratulatory note I wrote to the former football coach at Texas A&M, 
R.C. Slocum, who is one of the finest men I have ever met. He is 
exactly what America is. He was just inducted into the College Football 
Hall of Fame, and I congratulated him sincerely because he is the kind 
of person we want coaching our young men in football.
  Well, he wrote me back, and I am going to read an excerpt from his 
letter. He does the niceties of thanking me for writing him, and then 
he says:

       I am really concerned that the America that you and I grew 
     up in is being attacked from within. Although I grew up in a 
     poor family, I was taught that I was privileged because I was 
     born in America, the land of opportunity. We did not begrudge 
     the ``rich'' but was encouraged that through hard work and 
     education, some day we could be one of them. Thankfully, I 
     was not taught that it was someone else's fault that we were 
     poor or that government would, or should, come bail us out. 
     We worked our own way out and felt the great feeling of 
     accomplishment that goes with it. In my career as a coach, I 
     encouraged my players to try the formula I was given. It 
     still works and I am so proud of the young men that have 
     dramatically changed their lives, and with it the course of 
     their families' lives.

  That is what America is, and that is what we ought to be working to 
achieve.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam President, I am here on the Senate floor 
to highlight our country's clean energy future.
  Mrs. BOXER. Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent regarding 
time?
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. I would be happy to yield.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Udall proceed for 6 minutes, that I proceed for 12 minutes, and that 
Senator Manchin proceed for 12 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Colorado.


                         Production Tax Credit

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam President, I am here on the floor, as I 
have been for a succession of morning speeches, to talk about the 
importance of extending the tax credit for wind power. If you look in 
every corner of our great country, the production tax

[[Page 11105]]

credit has resulted in good-paying jobs for Americans--jobs, I might 
add, that can't be exported overseas.
  I have taken a tour of the country. This morning I wish to highlight 
the beautiful State of South Carolina.
  South Carolina is one of the few States that do not have installed 
onshore wind power, but that has not stopped South Carolina from 
attracting literally dozens of manufacturers that support 1,000 good-
paying wind energy jobs across the State.
  As we look at this chart of the State of South Carolina, we can see 
that the green circles acknowledge the manufacturing facilities that 
built components for wind turbines. Nearly every component in a wind 
turbine is built in South Carolina.
  I wish to highlight Greenville, up here in the northwestern part of 
South Carolina. GE has a facility there, and they have designed the 
1.5-megawatt wind turbine that is a hallmark of GE. That facility 
supports more than a dozen suppliers and hundreds of jobs across the 
State.
  One of the most exciting ventures outside of manufacturing that is 
going on in South Carolina is the massive investment that has been made 
in innovation. In 2009 Clemson University won a $45 million grant from 
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Department of Energy 
for the construction of a brandnew facility that will be the largest 
wind turbine testing facility in the world. In that facility, they will 
test cutting-edge drivetrain technologies for the next generation of 
wind turbines.
  Now, South Carolina has doubled down on that support of wind 
innovation. The university donors and other partners have joined 
Clemson and have come up with another $53 million to supplement the $45 
million that came through the Recovery Act. That is $98 million that 
will be an investment in South Carolina's economy and in our wind 
energy future.
  So not only will there be good-paying jobs created at this wind 
turbine drivetrain testing facility, but this facility will be a global 
leader in developing wind turbines capable of 3 to 10 times as much 
power as wind turbines today. I was under the impression that wind 
turbine technology had matured and that we had wrung out every electron 
possible. I have been told we can increase the yields by 3 to 10 times 
through this kind of research. This facility will focus on onshore and 
offshore wind turbines. So this is crucial research.
  We know in Colorado that the presence of top-notch research and 
development institutions attracts incredibly talented individuals and 
often results in the creation of new companies that commercialize the 
new and innovative technologies developed in these R&D facilities. I 
know that in the Presiding Officer's State, that is a formula for 
success. When we make the investments such as South Carolina, Colorado, 
and New York are making, we draw top-notch resources that are able to 
exploit in a responsible way natural resources.
  The grant I mentioned combined with the research dollars that have 
come from the private sector represent an enormous opportunity for 
South Carolina and for our country in turn. We already see millions of 
dollars that have been attracted into South Carolina from global 
investors because they see the potential of what is going to happen at 
Clemson.
  The point I want to make is that if we don't extend the wind tax 
credit, the PTC, then these wind manufacturers may not have the 
wherewithal, frankly, to team up with Clemson, to commercialize the new 
technologies that will be developed in South Carolina, and then the 
jobs that follow won't be created. That just doesn't make sense. South 
Carolina and Clemson are going to be global leaders in the development 
of these new technologies.
  The question is, Where will these new turbines be built? I know, for 
one, that the Chinese would be happy to step in and take away our 
manufacturing jobs. But if we get our act together and extend the PTC, 
then these wind turbines will be built here in America. They will be 
built in South Carolina, they will be built in Colorado, and they will 
be built in Pennsylvania. They will be built all over our country in 
literally every corner. But if we let the PTC expire, we risk shipping 
this industry and our good-paying jobs overseas.
  Coloradans keep telling me--and I know in the Presiding Officer's 
home State as well--that there is no reason to outsource these jobs. 
There is no reason to outsource energy production, and there is no 
reason to handicap a growing industry that has helped make us and our 
country more energy independent. Let's pass the extension of the PTC 
today. Let's create jobs today. Let's build this clean energy economy. 
Let's pursue an all-of-the-above strategy. Let's do it here in the 
United States, and let's do it now.
  Madam President, thank you for your attention and your interest.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, was there any time remaining for Senator 
Udall?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. He used 6 minutes.


                               Tax Policy

  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I rise to talk a little bit about health 
care and what it would mean if the Republicans get their way and take 
away so many benefits for millions of people. But before I do, I would 
like to respond to Senator Hutchison's remarks on taxes.
  President Obama has called on us to pass a tax cut for 98 percent of 
the American people. That would not be for millionaires, but for the 
middle class. It is not for billionaires, but for the middle class--98 
percent. He said anyone earning up to $250,000 will get a tax break. As 
a matter of fact, he said all income under $250,000 will get a tax cut. 
Only income over $250,000 would go back to the tax rates of Bill 
Clinton. Let me remind everyone that in those years we had 23 million 
new jobs created and a balanced budget, and we never had more 
millionaires created in one period of time as we did then because it 
was a fair tax system.
  President Obama has asked us to give a tax break to everyone on the 
first $250,000 of their income and after that go back to the rates 
under Bill Clinton. That includes 97 percent of small business owners. 
When we hear the Republicans get up and say: Democrats want to hurt 
small businesses, Democrats want to hurt the job creators, our position 
is that 97 percent of small business owners agree with the President--
they should get a tax break. If you earn over that $250,000, which is a 
few percent, pay the fair share that we paid during the fabulous 
economic growth period when Bill Clinton was the President.
  Why do we feel it is important that we say 98 percent and not 100 
percent of taxpayers? Because we have a deficit issue. We have a debt 
problem. We want to get back to the days of balanced budgets, and we 
will get there, if everyone pays their fair share.
  So let's be clear. All of those tears being shed on the other side 
are being shed for people such as Donald Trump. Isn't it unfortunate 
that a man such as Donald Trump, who was able to catch the dream to the 
ultimate--and all right, we want that for everyone--has to pay just a 
little bit more? At a time when people are taking their money out of 
this country and putting it in Swiss bank accounts and Bermuda accounts 
and accounts in the Cayman Islands, it is time for everyone to have a 
little patriotism here. We have to have the greatest country in this 
world, and that means the strongest military in the world; that means 
the best roads and bridges in the world; that means a strong education 
system. We want to wipe out cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer's. That means a 
strong medical research system. We need everyone in America to do their 
part.
  My dad was a CPA. We were very middle class--lower middle class, I 
would say. I started working in little jobs when I was 16, 17, and I 
got mad. I hate to age myself, but the minimum wage was quite low then. 
It was in the cents. It was around 75 cents an hour or something. I 
remember saying, Why do I have to pay anything to the government? I 
don't want to pay anything.

[[Page 11106]]

My father would say to me, You kiss the ground you walk on because you 
live in America, and we have to have things in this country to make us 
great. And don't you ever forget that, and don't you complain about it. 
He also said, You make sure it is spent right and you make sure you 
have a voice in it. But this country needs to be strong. So to have 
millionaires and billionaires take their money out of America and hide 
it in accounts in other countries is not something I would be proud of. 
We should invest our funds here and everyone should pay their fair 
share.


                              Health Care

  Here is the deal. The Republicans have said if they take over all of 
the branches of government, which is their goal, on day one they are 
going to repeal ObamaCare. They are going to repeal our health care 
law. It reminds me of this: If I were to say to the Presiding Officer, 
meet me on the corner at 6 o'clock tonight and I am going to punch you 
in the nose, hit you over the head, and leave you there, she might 
rethink meeting me. She might say, you know, Barbara, that is not 
something to look forward to. Well, let me say this to the millions of 
Americans who are already receiving the benefits of ObamaCare, which I 
will describe: You are about to be hit over the head and punched in the 
nose, if the Republicans take over Washington, DC. That is their goal, 
to take over the Senate, take over the Presidency, and keep the 
majority in the House.
  Let me tell my colleagues why I say this. Here are the benefits that 
are in jeopardy--not in jeopardy from repeal; they will be repealed: 
Free preventive services which have already begun: Cancer screenings 
and immunizations for those people who have private insurance. Fifty-
four million people are going to be punched in the nose and hit in the 
head, if the Republicans take over and they repeal health care--on day 
one. They are trying to do it today over in the House for the 31st 
time.
  Prescription drug discounts for seniors who are in the doughnut hole. 
Fifty-two million seniors have already saved $3.7 billion. They are 
going to be hit in the head and punched in the nose on day one--not 
even day two--of a Republican takeover.
  Free preventive services for seniors. We have 32.5 million Medicare 
patients who get free screenings now--32.5 million. That is almost as 
many people as live in California who will be hit in the head and 
punched in the nose on day one--not on day two or three, but right 
away.
  Protection against lifetime dollar limits. Right now, people think 
they have a good health care insurance plan. If a person gets, God 
forbid, something such as cancer and they have it checked out and find 
out the limit is $\1/2\ million, maybe $1 million, maybe even $2 
million limit--they don't know how fast that limit comes and then they 
are out of insurance. So now 105 million Americans who had limits on 
their policies no longer have limits. Well, if the Republicans take 
over, punch in the nose, hit in the head, they are finished; they are 
out.
  Young adults who can now stay on their parents' plan up to age 26--
6.6 million young adults--are out of luck on the first day of a 
Republican takeover.
  Let's go to the next chart. Limits on the amount of premiums health 
insurance companies can spend on administrative costs. Right now, 12 
million Americans-plus are going to receive a total of $1 billion in 
rebates because, under ObamaCare, the insurance companies have to spend 
the money on patients--80 percent--not on their own perks, not on their 
bonuses, and people are going to get checks in the mail. So I say to 
these 12.7 million Americans: I hope you are listening, because on day 
one, no more rebates.
  Tax credits to help small businesses purchase health insurance. We 
hear about how the Democrats don't care about small business. How about 
this: The 360,000 small businesses who insure 2 million workers have 
gotten tax credits, right now--right now. We see the crocodile tears 
over there, yet they want to repeal a tax break that is helping 360,000 
small businesses.
  If a child is born with a preexisting condition, let's say some heart 
defect, and that child can't get insurance. Today they can. Guess what. 
Seventeen million children benefit from this protection right now. 
Seventeen million of the most vulnerable people now have protection 
because of ObamaCare. But if the Republicans take over, these little 
babies are out--out of luck--and their parents will probably have to go 
on welfare. Great. Meet you on the corner, be there, vote for me, and I 
will punch you in the nose and hit you in the head. That is what is 
going on.
  Funding for new community health care centers and expansions. Already 
3 million patients have been helped by this. The fact is we have seen 
funds go to these community health care centers in our communities, so 
whether a person has insurance or not, they can drop in to a health 
care center. It is particularly important in rural areas where they 
have very little access.
  I just talked about what happens already. Now, in 2014, we set up the 
health insurance exchanges so there is competition and people can get 
cheaper insurance. The preexisting condition benefit will then apply to 
everybody, so if you have a preexisting condition and you are an adult, 
you can still get health care.
  Women will get protection. Women have had to pay twice as much as a 
man for insurance. That is discrimination. That will be banned starting 
in 2014.
  There will be protection against arbitrary annual limits on the 
health care benefits people can get. Sometimes people have the ability 
to get health care coverage, but it is capped every year. No more 
artificial caps.
  Finally, we will say that health insurance plans have to cover 
essential benefits such as maternity care. Many plans will not cover 
maternity care. That is over.
  So then people say, Well, how is this reform paid for? The 
Republicans say taxes will go up, deficits will go up. The CBO has told 
us that this is actually a reducer of the deficit by tens of billions 
of dollars. As a matter of fact, it reduces the deficit by $127 billion 
over the next 10 years. How is it that ObamaCare saves money? It is 
because we invest in prevention. Everyone within the sound of my voice 
knows that if a woman gets an annual mammogram and it indicates a very 
tiny start of a breast tumor and the patient gets that tumor out at an 
early stage, they have avoided the worst consequences and it is way 
cheaper than waiting until the end when a patient needs radiation, 
chemotherapy, all of this tough medicine that is also expensive.
  I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. How else do we pay for this? We cut out waste and fraud 
in Medicare. We say to the health care industry: You make a lot more 
money and you have to pay a little more, and they will.
  Then there are the free riders who say, I will never get sick, and if 
I do I will get free health care at the emergency room. We finally say 
to them, as they did in Massachusetts: Those days are over. If you can 
afford it, you need to get a basic policy. By the way, it is a tiny 
percentage of people. It is 1.4 million people. I think it is less than 
1 percent of the people who will have to get insurance because the rest 
of us are paying $1,000 a year to cover these people. So no more free 
rides. We all work together.
  I will close with this. Watch out in this election who you vote for. 
If somebody tells you they are going to repeal health care, that means 
all of these benefits go out the window. All of this deficit cutting 
goes out the window. The Supreme Court said it is constitutional, and 
it is.
  I want to make this point: Don't vote for people who will punch you 
in the nose, hit you in the head, and walk away from you. I think the 
choice is between those who will lift people up and make life better 
for people and their families and those who would go back to a system 
that was so harmful for our families.
  Thank you very much, Madam President. I yield the floor.

[[Page 11107]]

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.


                             Power Outages

  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I rise this morning to address a 
situation that is very hard for me to believe, and I am sure for many 
of my colleagues, and maybe the Presiding Officer as well. It makes no 
sense to the people of our great State of West Virginia.
  For nearly 2 weeks, hundreds of thousands of West Virginians have 
been deprived of basic necessities such as water and electricity 
because of massive storms--not just West Virginia but up and down the 
east coast. At the peak of the outage, FEMA estimates that 688,000 West 
Virginians didn't have power. That is a third of our State. One-third 
of our State was completely knocked out. Hundreds of thousands of 
people had to throw away all of the food in their refrigerators and 
freezers because of the lack of electricity.
  Our National Guard and first responders did a superb job of keeping 
people safe. But this country learned just how vulnerable and 
inadequate our infrastructure is and how much we have come to depend on 
it. Up and down the east coast, our electrical grid was crippled by 
this storm because there is no backup plan--none whatsoever--that could 
keep the vital necessities of life running during these horrific 
storms.
  The fact is we have to invest in our Nation's infrastructure. We all 
talk about it but still very little is being done. Power outages cost 
this country between $79 billion and $164 billion every year. That is 
because on top of powering our hospitals, our nursing homes, and our 
schools, reliable energy underpins our economy and keeps Americans at 
work.
  I know there are other needs around the world, but seeing firsthand 
how vulnerable our system is, I was so surprised--and the Presiding 
Officer might be also--and disappointed to hear yesterday that the U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers is making a massive investment in power 
infrastructure in another country by awarding a $94 million contract to 
provide--listen--reliable power in Afghanistan. So I thought: How will 
I explain this back home? We are providing reliable power to the 
Afghans when nearly 200,000 West Virginians spent an entire week 
without electricity, lost all of their food, and suffered through 
nearly 100-degree heat during this period of time, when our country is 
losing tens and hundreds of billions of dollars because of power 
outages all over the east coast? As of 6 p.m. yesterday--this is more 
than 12 days after the storm--we still have over 30,000 people without 
electricity.
  I cannot count the number of times I have come to the floor of this 
Senate Chamber to say it is time to start rebuilding America and not 
Afghanistan. But in all my time in the Senate, I have not seen a 
starker example of misplaced priorities. It is wrong to invest in 
reliable power for the Afghan people when tens of thousands of not just 
West Virginians but Americans all over this country have been without 
power for nearly 2 weeks because our infrastructure is so vulnerable.
  In fact, in our State, too many people still don't have reliable 
water. When the power goes out, the water systems can't purify the 
water. In McDowell County in our southern coalfields, FEMA expects it 
will be another 2 to 3 weeks before our water service is restored to 
the customers in the Northfork public service district. Let me repeat 
that. They will go another 2 to 3 weeks without water, a basic 
necessity of life. That will be a full month after the storm without 
one of life's basic necessities.
  Something is truly out of balance. It has been almost 2 weeks since a 
storm of unprecedented strength hit our State. How can I look the 
people of my great State of West Virginia in the eye when our 
infrastructure is so poor that they do not have reliable power or water 
but still tell them we are investing in transmission lines to provide 
reliable power to Afghanistan? It just does not make sense.
  According to the Congressional Research Service, the American 
taxpayers have already spent more than $9 billion--$9 billion--on 
infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, including the costs of 
reconstruction assistance, diplomatic security, and activities by non-
Department of Defense agencies. This is in addition to the $551 billion 
we have spent on military operations. And that does not even begin to 
address Iraq, where we have spent at least $5 billion on electrical 
systems and $61 billion total on infrastructure projects, according to 
the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
  Still, when we take a closer look at the project that was announced 
yesterday, the facts are even more disturbing. The Army Times reported 
that the Corps' awarding of $93.6 million to improve electrical 
transmission from the Kajaki Dam power station throughout the Helmand 
Province of Afghanistan includes burying transmission lines--burying 
transmission lines which we do not even do in America--and providing 
backup generators--which we do not have, which is why we have lost our 
water systems and our food.
  But believe it or not, the people of the United States already paid 
to build the Kajaki Dam powerhouse in the 1970s. I am going to quote 
from this article from the Army Times.

       Because the entire electrical system has largely been 
     neglected--

  Neglected--

     due to decades of war, Afghan and U.S. agencies are 
     partnering to increase power generation and distribution to 
     solve the severe lack of electricity in the region.

  Trust me, in West Virginia we can understand the severe lack of 
power.
  This facility was not maintained in the 1970s. It was not maintained 
in the 1980s. It was not maintained in the 1990s. It is still not being 
maintained. What makes us think it is going to be maintained now that 
we are spending millions and millions of dollars?
  This is only one small piece of an even more costly contract to bring 
electricity to southern Afghanistan. The $93.6 million contract is the 
first of six integrated components collectively called the Kandahar 
Helmand Power Project, a USAID initiative to expand the electrical 
distribution system of two provinces in southern Afghanistan, with a 
combined estimated population of 1.7 million. That is short of the 
population of my home State of West Virginia. We are about 1.8 million.
  It is one thing to help another country with loans--which I am all 
for--that will help them get back on their feet so they can repay their 
debts, but it is another thing entirely to pour billions of taxpayer 
dollars into another country for a decade with no chance of any 
repayment to this country and to the taxpayers of the United States of 
America. Something is wrong with that.
  I cannot say it enough: If you build a bridge in West Virginia, we 
will not blow it up. If you help us build a school, we will not burn it 
down. We are very appreciative. We appreciate the help of all American 
taxpayers because we are part of this great country. If you help us 
invest in a more reliable electricity system, we will use that power to 
make this country stronger, to power this Nation's economy, and to 
provide good-paying jobs all over this country.
  Not only that, the scope of the problem with electricity 
infrastructure in West Virginia is tremendous. According to the 
National Energy Technology Laboratory, power outages in West Virginia 
take four times longer to fix than the national average. We have been 
blessed with so much beauty, but we have kind of a challenging 
topography, if you will, and it makes it much more difficult.
  If we modernize our grid to make it more flexible and reliable, we 
can make a return on investment of up to $6 for every $1 we invest, 
according to studies from both the Electric Power Research Institute 
and the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Instead of investing 
that money in Afghanistan, doesn't it just make sense to invest it here 
at home? And we will start right in West Virginia if you like.
  Madam President, I would feel the same if this was in your State, if 
it was in any other State in the country. This might have been a ``once 
in a lifetime'' storm, one where millions of people

[[Page 11108]]

lost power no matter how well we prepared, but the fact that tens of 
thousands of West Virginians are still without power and water is a 
sign that we must do better as a country.
  This could have happened to any State--whether it is a storm, an 
earthquake, tornado, fire, flood, or a hurricane--and I hope that my 
colleagues in the Senate would share my feelings. We cannot help others 
if we do not make and keep ourselves strong. We are beginning to 
neglect our very real needs at home.
  As West Virginians, I am proud to say we are a strong people. We are 
able to pick ourselves up faster than most, and we go to the aid of our 
friends and neighbors who need it most--even though we are in need 
ourselves. But when you go to a filling station and the sign says 
``cash only,'' and then you find out that the banks are closed because 
all the power is down, and the ATM is out--we are changing and 
transforming our whole monetary system, but there is no backup plan--
what do you do? We have a problem. We truly have a problem. But I know 
we can fix it because we are Americans.
  That is why it is time to rebuild America and our infrastructure, not 
Afghanistan or other places of the world. Let's make ourselves strong 
again so we can help people.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. BEGICH. Madam President, first, before I make my comments--I want 
to talk about the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act--I want to say 
to my friend from West Virginia, I know they are struggling under 
incredible issues--even before the storm that occurred. I know he has 
efforts he is doing to build infrastructure, and his statements are 
right on the mark.
  In western Alaska, 40 percent of the communities do not even have 
water infrastructure. It is not a question of rebuilding it; they do 
not have it. So I recognize the Senator and his great work for West 
Virginia, making it a better place. His points are well thought out and 
right to the mark about what we need to do to rebuild this country. A 
good part of all that is it is about American jobs, American workers 
building those water and sewer lines and putting those transmission 
lines back up--whether they be above or below the ground.
  So, again, I commend the Senator for his work in West Virginia.
  Madam President, I have come down to talk about the Small Business 
Jobs and Tax Relief Act. I come from the small business world. I know 
people come down to the Senate floor on the other side of the aisle and 
talk about being from the small business world. I always like to look 
and see what that really means. It is always amazing to me.
  When someone is from the small business world, here is what it is 
really about: It is not about working for some corporation, having a 
nice title, not really worrying about making it from day to day or 
worrying about a payroll. At the end of the day, if the business is not 
good, they do not get a check. That is how it works in the small 
business world.
  So when I hear people come down and talk about small business, it 
surprises me, to be very frank, the lack of understanding, the lack of 
knowledge they have about the small business world. I have been in it 
from the age of 14. My wife has grown a business from serving and 
selling smoked salmon on the street corner to now, having a couple 
retail stores and doing very well. But she has struggled just like 
everyone else. She has had to deal with the bureaucracy. She has had to 
figure out how to raise the capital, put retirement money on the table, 
maximize her credit cards--do everything possible to take her dream and 
make it a reality, just as I have done for all my years in the small 
business world.
  So I come here not just as a Senator from Alaska, representing 
Alaskans and small businesses, but also as someone who has lived it, 
worked it, and understands it. We have a chance--and I appreciate the 
80-to-14 vote to let us proceed to this bill, which is the Small 
Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act. This is an important bill. It has two 
components that seem simple in a lot of ways but have great impact.
  First, I want to mention the idea that you can get a tax credit for 
hiring people. Some say, well, small businesses will not use a tax rate 
just to hire people. I, maybe, agree to a certain extent on that, but 
why is this important? If you are a small businessperson and you are 
going to increase your payroll--maybe you are giving raises or bonuses, 
and so forth, or you are going to hire part-time or full-time people, 
if you hire those people--and just a clear example is if your payroll 
is $200,000, and your payroll goes up by $20,000 to $220,000, you will 
get a tax break of 10 percent, which is $2,000.
  What will that small business do with that $2,000? In a big business 
that just gets lost in some pile. Maybe it goes to some corporate 
salary. But here is what a small businessperson will do with it. They 
will get that $2,000, and they might now go recarpet their lease-hold 
improvement or their rental space they are using for their small 
business.
  What does that mean? That $2,000 now goes to the carpet layer and the 
carpet seller. What will they do with it? They will put it into the 
next part of the economy. It just keeps moving much quicker and faster 
in the economy. As a matter of fact, every $1 we see out there has a 
multiplier effect that is pretty significant for small business.
  So the one piece is giving tax credits for small businesses to 
increase their payrolls. It may be for increased salaries or for 
increased employment. Either way you are putting more money into the 
working people of this economy and, therefore, they are putting it back 
into the economy.
  The second piece of the act is the depreciation. If you are not a 
small businessperson, you do not really pay a lot of attention to this. 
But the way the IRS Code works is if you invest in new equipment, 
carpeting, sheet rock, lighting, whatever, the IRS has these schedules 
to deappreciate this over many years.
  Here is how it works: First, we have the tax credit for payroll, and 
now we have a second piece of this bill, which is accelerated or bonus 
depreciation, which means if you are thinking of an idea--I will tell 
you, a small business I just visited in Alaska called Lime Solar, by 
Chet Dyson and Jessie Moe--these are two young men who are starting a 
small business to sell solar products for homes and businesses, but 
they got a lease-hold space. They rented a space. It had no sheet rock, 
no lighting. They are responsible for paying for all of that.
  So they invested, they cleaned it up, sheet-rocked it, fixed it all 
up, put equipment in. All that expense now--if this bill passes--can be 
written off in the first year instead of depreciating it over multiple 
years.
  Why is that important? Let's assume they spent $100,000 renovating 
their facility and they are in a 25-percent tax bracket. They will save 
in the first year $25,000--like that--instead of spreading that over 
the next 10 or 15 years. Why is that important? That $25,000 they save 
in taxes or depreciation they will be able to reinvest, reinvest into 
their business as they struggle to figure out how to build their 
markets.
  Another friend of mine, Jack Lewis, opened his second restaurant 
recently, Firetap. Restaurants are not a cheap business. I have been in 
that business. I would not wish it on anybody. It is a tough business. 
Margins are thin. But, again, he invested, he built it, built it all 
out of scratch. Now he can, again, under this bonus depreciation 
schedule depreciate it, write it off in the first year. That is a huge 
benefit for these small businesses.
  When I look at another small company called SteamDot Coffee--it is a 
small coffee company. Jonathan White owns it. They brew their own 
coffee, have their own coffee, and they also package it and manufacture 
it for resale. That takes a lot of equipment. Now they get to write 
that off in the first year.
  What this bill does is simple, but yet it has a huge impact. As a 
matter of fact, under the depreciation it is estimated that for every 
$1 we give in the

[[Page 11109]]

tax benefit, there is a $9 benefit to the GDP, a 1-to-9 ratio. Any 
businessperson would love that deal. That is a great deal.
  So this bill, I hope--our colleagues have shown by 80 to 14 this is a 
great bipartisan effort. I hope we now move to the next stage. Maybe we 
will have some amendments and work through it. But lets do it for the 
small business community of this country, for the State I live in, and 
for every State.
  I say to the Acting President pro tempore, the State of New York is 
piled with small businesses. When you go through New York City, every 
inch of the street has a small businessperson. That is what drives this 
economy. That is what makes this economy happen. That is where we need 
to put our investment.
  I will end on this note: I know we will have some pro forma votes, as 
I call them, show-and-tell. We will vote on this 20-percent tax rate 
deduction that is being proposed by the House. It sounds good, but 
there is no guarantee that is going to go back into the economy. As a 
matter of fact, if you are a hedge funder, you will get that break. If 
you are an attorney, you will get that break. If you are a small 
businessperson, you will get that break. But there is no guarantee that 
money goes back into the economy. So if we are going to give these tax 
incentives, let's make sure it is helping the economy and building jobs 
and building a future for us.
  So, Madam President, I just wanted to come down and speak on this 
bill and encourage my colleagues to support the Small Business Jobs and 
Tax Relief Act, not only through the pro forma vote we had yesterday to 
move forward on it but also to really pass it.
  We have done a great job the last few months passing a lot of 
legislation out of this body. Let's continue that effort and help our 
economy grow.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Blumenthal and I be recognized for the next 20 or so minutes to speak 
on the issue of cybersecurity.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                             Cybersecurity

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I rise to speak about cybersecurity, 
but specifically about the cyber threat to our Nation's critical 
infrastructure. By critical infrastructure I mean the power grid that 
supplies electricity to our homes that keeps us warm in the winter and 
cool in the summer. I mean the financial services' processing systems 
that connect our ATMs to our accounts and move money around in our 
complex financial system. I mean the communications networks by which 
we talk and e-mail and text and message one another.
  The men and women we have charged with our Nation's defense and we 
have confirmed in these roles in the Senate have repeatedly and 
consistently warned us about the danger of cyber attacks on this 
critical infrastructure. It provides power and light and heat, tracks 
and records financial transactions, allows communication and data 
transfer, keeps airlines safe in the air, controls our dams, and 
enables our commerce. The consequences of failure in these areas could 
be catastrophic. We must pay heed to these warnings about America's 
critical infrastructure as we consider cybersecurity legislation.
  The administration has described this cyber threat in no uncertain 
terms. The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has 
stated:

       [I]t's clear from all that we've said [that] we all 
     recognize we need to do something. . . . We all recognize 
     this as a profound threat to this country, to its future, to 
     its economy, to its very being.

  Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has warned:

       The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a 
     cyber attack.

  Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has compared this 
threat to the September 11 attacks.

       Prior to 9/11, there were all kinds of information out 
     there that a catastrophic attack was looming. . . . The 
     information on a cyberattack is at that same frequency and 
     intensity and is bubbling at the same level, and we should 
     not wait for an attack in order to do something.

  Attorney General Holder stressed the urgency of responding to this 
threat in a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. He said:

       This a problem that we must address, our nation is 
     otherwise at risk and to ignore this problem, to think it is 
     going to go away runs headlong into all of the intelligence 
     we have gathered, the facts we have been able to accrue which 
     show that the problem is getting worse instead of getting 
     better. There are more countries that are becoming more adept 
     at the use of these tools, there are groups that are becoming 
     more adept at the use of these tools, and the harm that they 
     want to do to the United States and to our infrastructure 
     through these means is extremely real.

  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey has warned that 
``a cyber attack could stop society in its tracks.''
  NSA Director and U.S. Cyber Commander GEN Keith Alexander, a four-
star general, has stated:

       We see this as something absolutely vital to the future of 
     our country. Cybersecurity for government and critical 
     infrastructure is key to the security of this Nation.

  A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security found that 
companies which operate critical infrastructure have reported a sharp 
rise in cybersecurity incidents over the past 3 years. Companies 
reported 198 cyber incidents in 2011, up from 41 incidents in 2010, and 
just 9 in 2009. This may reflect that the private sector is just now 
beginning to catch on. It is unfortunate but true that the private 
sector cannot be counted on to respond to this growing challenge on its 
own.
  As Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has explained, and I 
quote again:

       There is a market failure at work here. . . . Companies 
     just aren't willing to admit vulnerability to themselves, or 
     publicly to shareholders, in such a way as to support the 
     necessary investments or lead their peers down a certain path 
     of investment and all that would follow.

  These were administration warnings, but the concerns are bipartisan. 
A wide range of national security experts from previous Republican 
administrations have echoed this alarm. Former Director of National 
Intelligence and NSA Director ADM Mike McConnell has said, and I quote:

       The United States is fighting a cyber-war today, and we are 
     losing. It's that simple.

  He explained:

       As the most wired nation on Earth, we offer the most 
     targets of significance, yet our cyber defenses are woefully 
     lacking. . . . The stakes are enormous. To the extent that 
     the sprawling U.S. economy inhabits a common physical space, 
     it is in our communications networks. If an enemy disrupted 
     our financial and accounting transactions, our equities and 
     bond markets or our retail commerce--or created confusion 
     about the legitimacy of those transactions--chaos would 
     result. Our power grids, air and ground transportation, 
     telecommunications and water filtration systems are in 
     jeopardy as well.

  That ends the quote from Admiral McConnell.
  Admiral McConnell also made a comparison to threats from the past.

       The cyber-war mirrors the nuclear challenge in terms of the 
     potential economic and psychological effects. . . . We 
     prevailed in the Cold War through strong leadership, clear 
     policies, solid alliances and close integration of our 
     diplomatic, economic, and military efforts. We backed all of 
     this up with robust investments--security never comes cheap. 
     It worked, because we had to make it work. Let's do the same 
     with cybersecurity. The time to start was yesterday.

  Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has also echoed the 
administration's warning that a cyber attack has the potential of 
causing devastation on the scale of another September 11. He stated:

       I hope we do not have to wait for the cyber-equivalent of 
     9/11 before people realize that we are vulnerable.

  Former Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland 
Security Stewart Baker has compared the

[[Page 11110]]

threat to the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina.

       We must begin now to protect our critical infrastructure 
     from attack. And so far, we have done little. We are all 
     living in a digital New Orleans. No one really wants to spend 
     the money reinforcing the levees. But the alternative is 
     worse. . . . And it is bearing down on us at speed.

  Former NSA Director and CIA Director Michael Hayden has said:

       We have entered into a new phase of conflict in which we 
     use a cyberweapon to create physical destruction, and in this 
     case, physical destruction in someone else's critical 
     infrastructure.

  Former Republican officials have also noted the cybersecurity gap in 
the private sector due to this market failure. Former Secretary of 
Homeland Security Chertoff said:

       The marketplace is likely to fail in allocating the correct 
     amount of investment to manage risk across the breadth of the 
     network on which our society relies.

  The following examples are emblematic of the market failure that both 
Democratic and Republican national security officials have identified 
in this cybersecurity area for critical infrastructure.
  When the FBI-led National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force 
informs an American corporation that it has been hacked, 9 times out of 
10 that American corporation had no idea.
  Kevin Mandia of the leading security firm Mandiant has said, and I 
quote:

       In over 90 [percent] of the cases we have responded to, 
     Government notification was required to alert the company 
     that a security breach was underway. In our last 50 
     incidents, 48 of the victim companies learned they were 
     breached from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the 
     Department of Defense, or some other third party.

  In operation Aurora, the cyber attack which targeted numerous 
companies, most prominently Google, only 3 out of the approximately 300 
companies attacked were aware that they had been attacked before they 
were contacted by the government.
  We cannot count on the private sector to defend itself against a 
threat about which it is so unaware. An advanced persistent intrusion 
of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's systems also went undetected until 
the chamber received help from the government. The Wall Street Journal 
reported that a group of hackers in China breached the computer 
defenses of the U.S. Chamber, gained access to everything stored in its 
systems, including information about its 3 million members, and 
remained on the network for at least 6 months and possibly more than a 
year. The chamber only learned of the break-in, according to the 
article, when the FBI told the group that servers in China were 
stealing its information. The special expertise of our national 
security agencies is a consistent theme through these examples. As 
former Assistant Attorney General, OLC Director, and Harvard Law School 
Professor Jack Goldsmith has explained:

       The government is the only institution with the resources 
     and the incentives to ensure that the [critical 
     infrastructure] on which we all depend is secure, and we must 
     find a way for it to meet its responsibilities.

  By the way, that was Goldsmith at the Department of Justice in the 
Bush administration. This is a Republican appointee speaking. These 
warnings have been repeatedly communicated to us in the Senate. We 
cannot plead ignorance of them.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter to 
Senate Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell dated January 
19, 2012.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                 January 19, 2012.
     Hon. Harry Reid,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell, We 
     write to urge the Senate to take up, debate, and pass 
     legislation to strengthen our nation's cybersecurity.
       As former executive branch officials who shared the 
     responsibility for our nation's security, we are deeply 
     concerned by the severity and sophistication of the cyber 
     threats facing our nation. These threats demand a response. 
     Congress must act to ensure that appropriate tools, 
     authorities, and resources are available to the executive 
     branch agencies, as well as private sector entities, that are 
     responsible for our nation's cybersecurity. The Senate is 
     well-prepared to take up legislation in this important 
     national security field, and to do so in a bipartisan manner 
     in the best traditions of the Senate.
       Every week brings new reports of cyber intrusions into 
     American companies or government agencies, new disclosures of 
     the breach of Americans' private information, or new 
     revelations of incidents of cyber disruption or sabotage. The 
     present cyber risk is shocking and unacceptable. Control 
     system vulnerabilities threaten power plants and the critical 
     infrastructure they support, from dams to hospitals. Reported 
     intrusions into defense contractors and military systems 
     reveal the direct national security cost of cyber attacks. 
     Evaluations of the Night Dragon and Aurora attacks reveal the 
     vulnerability of our most advanced and essential industries 
     to sophisticated hackers. The recent report by the Office of 
     the National Counterintelligence Executive makes clear that 
     foreign states are waging sustained campaigns to gather 
     American intellectual property--the core assets of our 
     innovation economy--through cyber-enabled espionage. The 
     growing threat of terrorist organizations acquiring cyber 
     capabilities and using them against American interests opens 
     another battlefront in cyberspace. And every day, Americans' 
     identities are compromised by international criminals who 
     have built online marketplaces for buying and selling 
     Americans' bank account numbers and passwords.
       This constant barrage of cyber assaults has inflicted 
     severe damage to our national and economic security, as well 
     as to the privacy of individual citizens. The threat is only 
     going to get worse. Inaction is not an acceptable option.
       Senate committees of jurisdiction have done important, 
     bipartisan work developing legislation to strengthen our 
     nation's cybersecurity. The Administration likewise has 
     weighed in with a set of legislative proposals. The stage 
     thus is set for the Senate to take up cybersecurity 
     legislation. We believe that it can and should undertake this 
     work in keeping with its best, bipartisan traditions, 
     addressing this pressing national security need with the 
     seriousness that it deserves.
       We urge the Senate to do so in short order: the rewards of 
     increased security for our country, particularly our private 
     sector critical infrastructure, will be rapid and profound.
           Sincerely,
     Michael Chertoff.
     William J. Lynn III.
     J. Michael McConnell.
     Richard Clarke.
     Dr. William J. Perry.
     Paul Wolfowitz.
     Jamie Gorelick.
     Gen. (ret.) James Cartwright, USMC.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. This explains that the threat is only going to get 
worse; inaction is not an acceptable option. This letter was signed by 
former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, former Deputy 
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, former Director of National 
Intelligence and NSA Director ADM Mike McConnell, former Vice Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright, former Defense 
Secretary Dr. Willian Perry, former Deputy Attorney General Jamie 
Gorelick, former Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn, III, and 
former Special Advisor to the President for Cyber Security, Richard 
Clarke.
  I also have a letter written to Majority Leader Reid and Minority 
Leader McConnell, dated June 6, 2012, which I ask unanimous consent to 
have printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                     June 6, 2012.
       Dear Senators Reid and McConnell, We write to urge you to 
     bring cyber security legislation to the floor as soon as 
     possible. Given the time left in this legislative session and 
     the upcoming election this fall, we are concerned that the 
     window of opportunity to pass legislation that is in our view 
     critically necessary to protect our national and economic 
     security is quickly disappearing.
       We have spoken a number of times in recent months on the 
     cyber threat--that it is imminent, and that it represents one 
     of the most serious challenges to our national security since 
     the onset of the nuclear age sixty years ago. It appears that 
     this message has been received by many in Congress--and yet 
     we still await conclusive legislative action.
       We support the areas that have been addressed so far, most 
     recently in the House: the importance of strengthening the 
     security of the federal government's computer networks, 
     investing in cyber research and development, and fostering 
     information sharing about cyber threats and vulnerabilities

[[Page 11111]]

     across government agencies and with the private sector. We 
     urge the Senate to now keep the ball moving forward in these 
     areas by bringing legislation to the floor as soon as 
     possible.
       In addition, we also feel that protection of our critical 
     infrastructure is essential in order to effectively protect 
     our national and economic security from the growing cyber 
     threat. Infrastructure that controls our electricity, water 
     and sewer, nuclear plants, communications backbone, energy 
     pipelines and financial networks must be required to meet 
     appropriate cyber security standards. Where market forces and 
     existing regulations have failed to drive appropriate 
     security, we believe that our government must do what it can 
     to ensure the protection of our critical infrastructure. 
     Performance standards in some cases will be necessary--these 
     standards should be technology neutral, and risk and outcome 
     based. We do not believe that this requires the imposition of 
     detailed security regimes in every instance, but some 
     standards must be minimally required or promoted through the 
     offer of positive incentives such as liability protection and 
     availability of clearances.
       Various drafts of legislation have attempted to address 
     this important area--the Lieberman/Collins bill having 
     received the most traction until recently. We will not 
     advocate one approach over another--however, we do feel 
     strongly that critical infrastructure protection needs to be 
     addressed in any cyber security legislation. The risk is 
     simply too great considering the reality of our 
     interconnected and interdependent world, and the impact that 
     can result from the failure of even one part of the network 
     across a wide range of physical, economic and social systems.
       Finally, we have commented previously about the important 
     role that the National Security Agency (NSA) can and does 
     play in the protection of our country against cyber threats. 
     A piece of malware sent from Asia to the United States could 
     take as little as 30 milliseconds to traverse such distance. 
     Preventing and defending against such attacks requires the 
     ability to respond to them in real-time. NSA is the only 
     agency dedicated to breaking the codes and understanding the 
     capabilities and intentions of potential enemies, even before 
     they hit ``send.'' Any legislation passed by Congress should 
     allow the public and private sectors to harness the 
     capabilities of the NSA to protect our critical 
     infrastructure from malicious actors.
       We carry the burden of knowing that 9/11 might have been 
     averted with the intelligence that existed at the time. We do 
     not want to be in the same position again when `cyber 9/11' 
     hits--it is not a question of `whether' this will happen; it 
     is a question of `when.'
       Therefore we urge you to bring cyber security legislation 
     to the floor as soon as possible.
           Sincerely,
     Hon. Michael Chertoff,
     Hon. J. Mike McConnell,
     Hon. Paul Wolfowitz,
     Gen. Michael Hayden,
     Gen. James Cartwright (RET),
     Hon. William Lynn III.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Secretary Chertoff, Admiral McConnell, Deputy 
Secretary Wolfowitz, General Hayden, and General Cartwright urged us 
to:

       . . . bring cyber security legislation to the floor as soon 
     as possible. Given the time left in this legislative session 
     and upcoming election this fall, we are concerned that the 
     window of opportunity to pass legislation that is in our view 
     critically necessary to protect our national and economic 
     security is quickly disappearing.

  They specifically focused on the threat to critical infrastructure, 
stating that ``protection of our critical infrastructure is essential 
in order to effectively protect our national and economic security from 
the growing cyber threat.''
  We must not ignore this chorus of warnings issued by those who are 
the most informed and most alert about the danger to our critical 
infrastructure. We must pass cybersecurity legislation, and we must 
ensure that the cybersecurity legislation we pass addresses our 
Nation's critical infrastructure. No bill that fails to address 
critical infrastructure can be said to have done the job of protecting 
our country.
  Our Nation will be vulnerable if critical infrastructure companies 
fail to meet basic security standards, as they do right now. 
Legislation must include a mechanism to end this continuing 
vulnerability. If operators object to a particular approach to 
cybersecurity for our critical infrastructure on the basis that it is 
too burdensome or too unwieldy, they will find many Members of the 
Senate on both sides--myself and Senator Blumenthal included--who are 
ready and eager to work with them. But if the purpose of the exercise 
is to come to an end point in which the operators of our critical 
infrastructure do not have to reach adequate levels of cybersecurity, 
then we need to move on and we need to vote and go beyond that.
  The question of how we get to cybersecurity is one we should engage 
in the Senate. The question of whether we protect our privately held 
critical infrastructure in a responsible way is one we should not allow 
to deter us from getting this job done to protect our national and 
economic security.
  Whatever the ultimate solution, we simply must find a way to improve 
the cybersecurity of our critical infrastructure.
  I yield the floor to Senator Blumenthal, who has been engaged in 
efforts with me to try to find a way through to a bipartisan bill that 
will protect our critical infrastructure. He has expertise in this area 
as a superbly trained lawyer, a multiply elected Attorney General of 
his home State, a former marine dedicated to our national security, and 
as a person who brings the highest level of legal talent to this 
discussion, having argued, I think, five separate cases before the U.S. 
Supreme Court. He has been an enormous asset, and I appreciate his 
participation.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Rhode 
Island, my distinguished colleague, for those very generous remarks. 
Actually, I had four arguments in the Supreme Court. The rest was 
similarly exaggerated as to my qualifications. But I thank the Senator 
from Rhode Island. Most importantly, I thank him for his extraordinary 
work on this issue and for his leadership and vision as well as his 
courage.
  I wish to emphasize a number of the points he made so powerfully in 
his remarks earlier. First and most significantly, the United States is 
under cyber attack. The question is, How do we respond? It is our 
national interests that are at stake.
  Every day this Nation suffers attempted intrusions, attempted 
interference, and attempted theft of our intellectual property as a 
result of the ongoing attacks we need to stop, deter, and answer.
  National security is indistinguishable from cybersecurity. In fact, 
cybersecurity is a matter of national security and not only so far as 
our defense capabilities; our actual weapons systems are potentially 
under attack and interference, but also, as my colleague from Rhode 
Island said so well, because our critical infrastructure is every day 
at risk--our facilities in transportation, our financial systems, our 
utilities that power our great cities and our rural areas and our 
intellectual property, which is so valuable and which every day is at 
risk and, in fact, is taken from us wrongfully, at great cost to our 
Nation.
  The number and sophistication of cyber attacks has increased 
dramatically over the past 5 years. All the warnings--bipartisan 
warnings--say those attacks will continue and will be mounted with 
increasing intensity. In fact, experts say that with enough time, 
motivation, and funding, a determined adversary can penetrate nearly 
any system that is accessible directly from the Internet.
  The United States today is vulnerable. To take the Pearl Harbor 
analysis that our Secretary of Defense has drawn so well, we have our 
``ships'' sitting unprotected today, as they were at the time of the 
Pearl Harbor attack. Our ships today are not just our vessels in the 
sea but our institutions sitting in this country and around the world, 
our critical infrastructure, which is equally vulnerable to 
sophisticated and unsophisticated hackers.
  In fact, the threat ranges from the hackers in developing countries--
unsophisticated hackers--to foreign agents who want to steal our 
Nation's secrets, to terrorists who seek ways to disrupt that critical 
infrastructure.
  It is not a matter simply of convenience. We are not talking about 
temporary dislocations, such as the loss of electricity that the 
Capital area suffered recently or that our States in New England 
suffered as a result of the

[[Page 11112]]

recent storms last fall; we are talking about permanent, severe, 
lasting disruptions and dislocations of our financial and power systems 
that may be caused by this interference.
  One international group, for example, accessed a financial company's 
internal computer network and stole millions of dollars in just 24 
hours.
  Another such criminal group accessed online commercial bank accounts 
and spread malicious computer viruses that cost our financial 
institutions nearly $70 million.
  One company that was recently a victim of intrusion determined it 
lost 10 years' worth of research and development--valued at $1 
billion--virtually overnight. These losses are not just for the 
shareholders of these companies, they are to all of us who live in the 
United States because the losses, in many instances, are losses of 
information to defense companies that produce our weapons, losses of 
property that has been developed at great cost to them and to our 
taxpayers. We should all be concerned about such losses.
  As Shawn Henry, the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, has 
said: ``The cyber threat is an existential one, meaning that a major 
cyber attack could potentially wipe out whole companies.''
  Those threats to our critical infrastructure, as we have heard so 
powerfully from my colleague from Rhode Island, are widespread and 
spreading.
  Industrial control systems, which help control our pipelines, 
railroads, water treatment facilities, and powerplants, are at an 
elevated risk of cyber exploitation today--not at some point in the 
future but today. The FBI warns that a successful cyber attack against 
an electrical grid ``could cause serious damage to parts of our cities, 
and ultimately even kill people.''
  The Department of Homeland Security said that last year they had 
received nearly 200 reports of suspected cyber incidents, more than 4 
times the number of incidents reported in 2010.
  In one such incident, more than 100 computers at a nuclear energy 
firm were infected with a virus that could have been used to take 
complete control of that company's system.
  These reports, these warnings, go on.
  In summary, the Director of the FBI said it best: ``We are losing 
data, we are losing money, we are losing ideas, and we are losing 
innovation. ``
  Those threats are existential to our Nation, and we must address them 
now--not simply as a luxury, not as a possibility but as a need now.
  I thank the Senator from Rhode Island, as well as my distinguished 
fellow Senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman, and others on the 
other side, such as Senators McCain, Collins, Graham, and Chambliss, as 
well as other colleagues on this side, for their leadership in this 
area. They have started this effort with great dedication.
  There has been substantial work done already. No one here has ignored 
this threat. We must move forward for the sake of our Nation's 
security. Our cybersecurity must be addressed as soon as possible. 
Cybersecurity is not an issue we can wait to address until we see the 
results of failure. The consequences of a debilitating attack would be 
catastrophic to our Nation. I hope we can continue to fill the 
consensus, which the Senator from Rhode Island has been working to do, 
with other colleagues, so we can come together, as he said--not whether 
but how--and do it in a bipartisan way. This issue has elicited, very 
commendably and impressively, colleagues from both sides who have been 
working on this issue with dedication and diligence. I hope the body as 
a whole will match the vigor that is appropriate.
  Again, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island. Part of our challenge 
will be to elicit better agency coordination. If the Senator from Rhode 
Island wishes to comment further, I hope perhaps he can respond to the 
question of how soon we should come together and work on this issue. Is 
it a problem we can delay until the next session or should we try to 
address it during the coming months of this session before we close?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am delighted to respond to the 
Senator in two ways. First, as the Senator so well pointed out, this is 
not a future threat or a prospective threat that we need to prepare 
ourselves against; this is an ongoing, current threat. There is a 
campaign of attacks into our national security infrastructure, into our 
intellectual property, and into our critical infrastructure, such as 
the power grids and the communications networks we count on in our 
daily lives for what we consider the American standard of living here 
at home. So time is not our friend.
  As one of the individuals I quoted said--I think Admiral McConnell--
the day to get this done was yesterday. So the sooner the better. We do 
need to form a consensus in this body, enough to move through the 
parliamentary obstacles that exist in this body, which allows us to go 
forward and will allow us to go forward in a way that does something 
serious about forcing the operators of our critical infrastructure to 
put in adequate cybersecurity protections. If they have to do it 
because they have incentives to do it, that is one way of getting 
there. If they have to do it because there are regulations that demand 
it, that is another way of getting there. There are different ways of 
getting there. And as the Senator from Connecticut and I have 
discussed--and we are actually working together on this--we are open to 
different ways to get there, but it should be agreed amongst us in the 
Senate that getting there, getting to the point where America's 
critical infrastructure is protected from cyber attack as reasonably 
well as we can should be the nonnegotiable goal. Anything short of that 
should be seen as failure.
  There is another thing I wanted to add. The Senator was very generous 
in his remarks and credentialing of a great number of Senators who have 
been working very hard. I would also like to single out Senator Coons, 
who has been very helpful in our efforts.
  I will stay on our side of the aisle at this point and add in 
particular Senator Mikulski. Barbara Mikulski serves on the 
Intelligence Committee. She is keenly aware of the cyber threat. She 
has taken deep dives into this issue in her role as a cardinal on the 
Appropriations Committee. She does the appropriations for many of the 
national security agencies and law enforcement agencies that are deeply 
involved in this. So when she speaks, she speaks with real authority 
and she speaks with real impact. Her participation in this effort is 
extraordinarily helpful, in addition to the efforts of the many 
Senators whom my colleague singled out as well.
  With that, I yield the floor. I see the Senator from Louisiana is 
here, and I thank the Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I thank the Senator and the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The Senator from Louisiana.


                        Prescription Drug Policy

  Mr. VITTER, Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor to talk about a 
priority of mine that has been the case since I first came to the 
Senate; that is, reimportation--changing Federal law appropriately to 
allow Americans to buy safe, cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and 
other countries.
  We all know prescription drug prices are sky-high in the United 
States. They are sky-high by any metric, by any measure, but certainly 
in this down economy and certainly for folks like our seniors who are 
on a fixed income. They are particularly sky-high when you compare 
those drug prices to the prices of exactly the same drugs in other 
countries, including other Western industrialized countries, such as 
Canada immediately to our north.
  For this reason, from the very beginning of my work in the Senate, I 
have laid out a number of solutions that I believe would make the 
situation a lot better, including generics reform, which I am working 
on in a bipartisan way with other Members of the Senate. One of those 
proposed solutions has been reimportation. Again, that would mean 
changing Federal law, as I think we absolutely need to do, to allow 
American seniors and all Americans to

[[Page 11113]]

buy safe, cheaper prescription drugs from other countries such as 
Canada.
  Let me emphasize that I am talking about exactly the same 
prescription drugs as we can buy here at much higher prices, and I am 
only talking about FDA-approved drugs. I am talking about drugs coming 
from the same sources, manufacturing sites, either in this country that 
go to Canada and other countries or sometimes from third-party 
countries, with the drugs coming to both Canada and the United States.
  When I first came to the Senate, we were on the verge of passing that 
legislation. I worked in a bipartisan way with a large group of 
Senators, including Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who was one 
of the leaders of the issue at the time; John McCain on our Republican 
side; and many others, including Olympia Snowe, who were also involved 
in this issue.
  One of those strong vocal supporters of reimportation was then-
Senator Barack Obama. He took a very clear position as a U.S. Senator 
being strongly in support of reimportation. He voted for the full-
fledged reimportation bill in 2007, and as he became a Presidential 
candidate, that strong, clear support continued during his Presidential 
campaign. Then-candidate Obama clearly stated once again his strong, 
crystal-clear support for reimportation. In fact, Presidential 
candidate Obama used very feisty language about reimportation. He 
claimed he would fight Big Pharma--the big pharmaceutical companies--
stating, ``We'll take them on, hold them accountable for the prices 
they charge'' and ``[drug] companies are exploiting Americans by 
dramatically overcharging U.S. consumers.''
  Unfortunately, after then-candidate Obama was elected President, some 
things changed, and the biggest change was the ObamaCare proposal and 
all of the backroom deals, bartering, and deal-making that led to its 
passage through Congress. I had concerns at the time. In fact, I spoke 
very clearly about my concerns here on the Senate floor that there were 
some backroom deals going on, essentially trading reimportation--the 
White House pledging to oppose reimportation, clearly against what the 
President ran on and how he voted here in the Senate, if Big Pharma 
would join the effort to pass ObamaCare into law.
  More recently, in the last few months, e-mails and other evidence 
have surfaced that clearly confirm that is exactly what went on. In 
fact, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has had an investigation 
into this issue, and it has revealed and made very clear the closed-
door negotiations about ObamaCare that essentially struck a deal 
between Big Pharma and the White House, the White House saying: You 
support ObamaCare, you help us pass it, you produce advertising dollars 
to do that, and we will deep-six--kill forever--reimportation.
  As I said, this House investigation has laid out a clear pattern of 
e-mails and other communications that tell the story very clearly. 
PhRMA e-mails, for instance, say:

       Rahm will make it clear that PhRMA needs a direct line of 
     communication, separate and apart from any other coalition.

  Of course, Rahm is then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
  On June 10, 2009, PhRMA lobbyists met with White House officials, and 
coming out of that meeting, they said they had discussed the details 
``and the expected financial gain from health reform.''
  The same House investigation has revealed meetings between top 
administration officials and other special interest groups, including 
meetings at the DSCC--Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee--to 
coordinate political operations. PhRMA lobbyists attended these 
meetings to learn about White House messaging and ``how our effort can 
be consistent with that.''
  Then the final big deal was struck, and the big deal, as revealed 
clearly by this evidence and these e-mails, was very clear: PhRMA--the 
big pharmaceutical companies--would support ObamaCare not just in word 
but in deed, including putting up $70 million to help fund an 
advertising campaign in support of the passage of ObamaCare. That $70 
million from the biggest pharmaceutical companies went to two 501(c)(4) 
groups--Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care. 
These groups were formed specifically to advertise and promote the 
passage of ObamaCare. The former group was actually created after a 
meeting discussing the need for these efforts at the DSCC, a Democratic 
campaign arm. In addition, Big Pharma--the biggest pharmaceutical 
companies--offered $80 billion in payment reductions and other parts of 
health care financing in order to again secure their top priority: 
killing, in their mind, hopefully forever, reimportation.
  In June President Obama's top White House health care adviser, Nancy-
Ann DeParle, wrote to PhRMA that the Obama administration had ``made 
[the] decision, based on how constructive you guys have been, to oppose 
importation.'' Later, after that, PhRMA lobbyist e-mails confirm the 
deal and specifically highlight a conversation a PhRMA lobbyist had 
with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina. The PhRMA lobbyist 
wrote:

       Confidential. [White House] is working on some very 
     explicit language on importation to kill it in health care 
     reform.

  In August 2009 PhRMA's top lobbyist at the time, Billy Tauzin, made 
it crystal clear as well when he said:

       We were assured . . . you will have a rock-solid deal.

  The tragedy of all this is they apparently did have a rock-solid deal 
because if we look at Senate votes after that backroom deal which 
helped pass ObamaCare, there were multiple individual Senators who 
flipped their votes and made good on the White House rock-solid deal to 
kill reimportation--that opportunity for all Americans, particularly 
seniors, to be able to buy safe, cheaper prescription drugs from Canada 
and elsewhere.
  Let's look at votes on the broad reimportation bill which was led by 
then-Senator Byron Dorgan. I was a cosponsor, and so were many other 
Senators who had been involved in this issue, such as John McCain, 
Olympia Snowe, and many others. In 2007 the Senate actually passed that 
measure 63 to 28, although after that it was essentially scuttled by a 
poison pill that was added to the bill. But the vote on the base 
measure was 63 to 28, with 47 Senate Democrats voting yes, including 
then-Senator Barack Obama.
  Now let's flash-forward to 2009, after the ObamaCare backroom deal, 
and it is a whole different planet, a whole different landscape. The 
Senate defeated the same measure 51 to 48. There was a 60-vote 
threshold, with 38 Senate Democrats voting yes--a far smaller number--
and 23 Senate Democrats switching their votes from 2007. It was exactly 
the same measure, but 23 Senate Democrats flip-flopped, switched their 
votes in light of the White House ObamaCare deal.
  We can see a similar flip-flop with regard to votes on my Vitter 
amendment, which was a more narrowly tailored measure regarding 
reimportation. In 2009 the Senate passed that Vitter amendment 55 to 
36, with, again, 45 Senate Democrats voting yes on that more focused 
and narrowly tailored reimportation amendment. But in 2011, after the 
deal, it was a completely different story. The Senate rejected the same 
amendment 45 to 55, with only 29 Senate Democrats voting yes--again, 14 
Senate Democrats having switched their votes, doing a complete flip-
flop from 2009.
  So I believe the facts are in. Investigations, e-mails, and other 
crystal-clear evidence, including those votes and vote switches, make 
it very clear there was a backroom deal worth billions of dollars to 
Big Pharma and worth a lot politically to the Obama White House. That 
deal, as evidenced by these communications and quotes and e-mails, was 
very clear.
  Big Pharma said: We will help you pass ObamaCare. We will give you 
$70 million in advertising money. We will help lower costs so you can 
brag that ObamaCare is, through some smoke and mirrors accounting, 
actually saving money when it is not. And, in exchange, you kill 
reimportation, which

[[Page 11114]]

would lower prices on us and hurt our profit margin. And the White 
House said: Absolutely, we agree.
  Senator Obama was full bore for reimportation. Candidate Obama 
campaigned on the issue and was very strong and vocal about it. 
President Obama cut the backroom deal and killed it. Those of us who 
are still fighting for lower prescription drug costs here in the Senate 
are, quite frankly, still reeling from the setback and still trying to 
deal with it. But I believe we ultimately will deal with it and will 
recover from this major setback when the American people fully realize 
what went on--the corrupt, I would say, backroom deal that was cut 
between the White House and Big Pharma, and how seniors and other 
Americans are paying the price.
  ObamaCare passed, and prescription drug prices continue to be sky 
high. They continue to hurt tens of millions of Americans, particularly 
those on a fixed income such as seniors. And we continue to need a 
solution to that very real problem. That is why I will continue to 
fight. I will continue to fight for any measure that makes sense to 
lower prescription drug prices, generics reform, streamlining at FDA, 
and, yes, reimportation, to level the playing field, to get a world 
price on the drugs we use and not force a much higher price on 
Americans than virtually anyone else pays around the world.
  America's seniors need that relief. I wish the Obama White House 
understood that and acted upon that. I wish President Obama would keep 
his word that he made as a Senator and as a Presidential candidate. But 
I will continue to keep my word on the issue and to build that support 
for strong, effective reimportation legislation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.


                       Honoring Raoul Wallenberg

  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise today on a matter that has 
become very close to my heart; and that is, honoring Raoul Wallenberg 
with the Nation's highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal 
of Honor. I urge my colleagues to support conferring this honor on Mr. 
Wallenberg, and I am grateful that we already have 71 of my colleagues 
from every part of the political spectrum supporting our efforts.
  During World War II, Raoul Wallenberg chose to leave his life of ease 
in Sweden for a diplomatic assignment in Hungary, which was then an 
ally in Nazi Germany. His assignment was the result of a recruitment 
effort by the United States War Refugee Board and the Office of 
Strategic Services to try to save the remaining Hungarian Jews from the 
Holocaust.
  In his effort, Mr. Wallenberg succeeded beyond anyone's expectations. 
He provided Swedish passports for thousands of Jews, which literally 
made the difference between life and death. Mr. Wallenberg rented 32 
buildings in Budapest, raised a Swedish flag, and declared them 
protected with diplomatic immunity. Within these buildings, he housed, 
protected, and saved almost 10,000 precious lives.
  Mr. Wallenberg's bravery and his will to act are shining examples to 
us all. According to eyewitnesses, Mr. Wallenberg once climbed onto the 
roof of a train with Jews departing for Auschwitz, handing them 
protective passes through the doors. Amid threats from the guards, he 
then marched dozens of those with passes to safety in a diplomatic 
convoy. As the Nazi front was collapsing and Adolf Eichmann moved to 
kill all the remaining Jews in Budapest, it was Mr. Wallenberg who 
helped thwart that plan by threatening Hungarian leaders with the 
promise of hanging for war crimes if they carried out the plot.
  Sadly, and selflessly, Mr. Wallenberg was later taken prisoner when 
the Soviet Army liberated Budapest from the Nazis, and it is presumed 
that he died in a Moscow prison.
  This hero's willingness to risk his own life for others exemplifies 
his outstanding spirit, his dedication to humanity, and the 
responsibility for all of us to speak out against atrocities. His 
enduring legacy lives on in the countless descendants of those he 
saved, the lives of New Yorkers such as Peter Rebenwurzel, a New York 
City resident whose late father helped Jews in the Budapest ghetto, and 
whose father-in-law only survived because of Mr. Wallenberg's heroic 
efforts.
  I wish also to take this moment to recognize Andrew Stevens, who was 
an active member of the Jewish underground during the Holocaust who 
worked bravely alongside Mr. Wallenberg to save Jewish lives.
  As we move to award Raoul Wallenberg with this Congressional Medal of 
Honor upon the centennial of his birth, we pay tribute to an 
extraordinary man whose life should serve as a shining example of 
leadership and courage for all future generations to come.
  Mr. President, I wish also to address the second issue of something 
we have been debating on the floor all morning, and that is the issue 
of jobs and what this Congress is doing to help our small businesses 
grow.
  I rise in support of the Landrieu-Snowe amendment and the underlying 
bill. These two proposals will address what every American expects us 
to take on; that is, coming together to create jobs, help our economy 
grow, and focus squarely on creating opportunities for our middle class 
to thrive. All across my home State of New York, too many middle-class 
families are continuing to struggle in this very tough economy.
  Of course, the government doesn't create any jobs. Businesses create 
jobs and ideas, and people create jobs, especially small businesses. 
Small businesses have been responsible for at least 60 percent of all 
new jobs that have been created, and small businesses can give us the 
spark we actually need to create a growing economy and a thriving 
middle class.
  I have spent months going all across New York State having 
roundtables with businesses, and I have particularly hosted roundtables 
focused on women-owned businesses. I have been to restaurants, I have 
been to bookstores, I have been to recyclers, I have been to 
incubators, I have been to home stores, all businesses created by women 
all across New York State.
  Women-owned businesses are among the fastest growing sector within 
the small business economy. More than 10 million businesses are owned 
by women, employing more than 13 million people and generating nearly 
$2 trillion worth of sales in 2008 alone. Even though women-owned 
businesses start their businesses with about eight times less capital 
than their male counterparts, in the decade from 1997 to 2007, women-
owned businesses added roughly \1/2\ million jobs to our economy. That 
is the kind of growth we need right now. That is the kind of spark that 
could actually make a difference. And we could do our part right here 
in Congress this week. It is time to end all the political posturing. 
It is time to come together around commonsense core ideas, such as 
giving these businesses the tax breaks they need to grow.
  We shouldn't wait another day to eliminate capital gains on 
investments in these small businesses. We should extend the tax breaks 
for businesses that allow them to invest in new property, plants, or 
equipment and take those deductions upfront. We should give them 
incentives to hire those new employees. It is our responsibility as 
lawmakers to do this kind of work together, in a bipartisan way, one 
that can set aside the political gamesmanship.
  I know, just as women-owned small businesses are ready to lead us to 
lasting economic strength and growing economy, the women of the Senate 
are there to support them. Democrats and Republican women have come 
together around this bill in a bipartisan way to urge our colleagues to 
support it.
  These tax provisions provide relief to the self-employed, to small 
businesses in their capital investments, and encourage new investment. 
They work hand in hand with other tax credits that encourage new hires 
and wage increases. The combination of these things will harness their 
full potential for our American businesses to grow.
  We know these proposals are effective. They helped boost private 
sector

[[Page 11115]]

job creation over the past 2 years. But we all know there is so much 
more we have to do, and we can start by renewing these commonsense 
steps to unlock the power of our small businesses.
  These aren't Democratic ideas; they are not Republican ideas; they 
are just good ideas. They are good, commonsense ideas that can make a 
difference. We should be able to come together to do this for the 
American people to create a growing economy again.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate voted by a wide margin 
to proceed to Leader Reid's Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act.
  Everyone in this Chamber claims to support both small businesses and 
tax relief, and Republicans know the best way to do that is to stop the 
$4.5 trillion tax hike that looms over the economy, and it is crippling 
job creators.
  Fortunately, there is an easy way to solve the problem: Vote on and 
pass amendment No. 2491, introduced by Senators Hatch and McConnell and 
cosponsored by myself and several colleagues.
  The amendment is simple. It prevents the looming expiration of the 
2001 and 2003 tax relief for 1 year, and lays out specific conditions 
for progrowth tax reform in the coming months. It is similar to the 
approach the House will take later this month.
  In other words, the Hatch-McConnell amendment stops income tax rates 
from rising. It stops capital gains and dividends rates from rising. It 
stops the job-killing death tax from rising and the related exemption 
from falling. And it prevents the alternative minimum tax from 
engulfing millions more middle-income Americans.
  It is an amendment that would protect our economy more than any debt-
financed stimulus bill or other kind of short-term tax credit that the 
Obama administration could dream up. It is an amendment that, given the 
history of bipartisan support for tax relief in this Chamber, should 
pass the Chamber today.
  To be clear, stopping these tax hikes for 1 year is not a perfect 
solution. My preference is to continue the current rates as we move 
toward comprehensive tax reform for both individuals and corporations. 
But let's be clear about what the other options are.
  First, we could let the top two marginal tax brackets increase from 
33 and 35 percent to 36 and 39.6 percent respectively. That is what 
President Obama and Leader Reid wish to do.
  That strategy means that almost 1 million business owners will be hit 
with a massive tax increase on New Year's Day. And that is according to 
the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. That strategy means 53 
percent of business income will be subjected to a tax hike in order to 
fund the historic levels of spending from the current administration. 
The strategy guarantees more jobs will be lost, that unemployment will 
stay high, and that economic growth will remain sub par.
  Let me repeat that. Over half--53 percent--of all business income 
would be subjected to this tax increase.
  If we do nothing, the current code expires and Americans will see 
over $4.5 trillion taken from the private sector over the next decade. 
This will help push us into a recession next year, according to the 
Congressional Budget Office. For any Member of this Chamber who cares 
about job creation and economic recovery, these two options should be 
unacceptable. They certainly were for President Obama in 2010. Less 
than 2 years ago, when President Obama signed legislation into law 
preventing taxes from going up on any American, he noted that tax 
hikes, and I am quoting here, ``would have been a blow to our economy 
just as we are climbing out of a devastating recession.''
  Evidently, 40 Senate Democrats agreed with the President since they 
too voted to stop taxes from increasing in 2010. What is the difference 
now? Our economy is in worse shape, growing now at less than 2 percent. 
At that time it was 3 percent. So there is even more reason not to 
raise taxes now than there was in 2010 when the President thought it 
was a bad idea.
  I want to echo the sentiments of Senator McConnell this morning. Even 
though the President's plan is bad for the economy, we should vote on 
it and we should vote on the Hatch amendment today. Let's show the 
American people where we stand. A unanimous consent agreement to do 
just that was blocked this morning by the majority leader even though 
President Obama said the following 2 days ago:

       So my message to Congress is this: Pass a bill. I will sign 
     it tomorrow. Pass it next week; I'll sign it next week. Pass 
     it next--well, you get the idea.

  We should follow President Obama's suggestion. We should vote on 
these proposals. Let's vote on his proposal. Let's vote on Senator 
Hatch's proposal. Senator Hatch's proposal will stop taxes from going 
up on any American. The other one will burden nearly 1 million business 
owners with job-killing higher taxes. I think Americans deserve to know 
where their elected officials stand on these critical issues.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask to speak on an amendment I have sent 
to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Amendments are not in order at this time, but 
it can be submitted.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask to speak on the bill I send to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The measure will be appropriately referred.
  Mr. WEBB. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Parliamentarian for 
that clarification.
  (The remarks of Mr. Webb pertaining to the introduction of S. 3372 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. WEBB. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). Without objection, 
it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, what is the current parliamentary 
situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is postcloture on the motion to 
proceed to S. 2237.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer, the Senator 
from New Mexico.


                         Vermont National Guard

  Mr. President, let me begin by noting that this morning, while 
watching ``The Today Show,'' I saw a piece about the Vermont National 
Guard. We have called them the Green Mountain Boys from the time of 
Ethan Allen. It was fascinating to watch Savannah Guthrie, who is one 
of the anchors of the morning program ``The Today Show.'' Her brother 
is a colonel with the Vermont National Guard who flies F-16s. She got 
to ride on the plane with her brother, which I thought was remarkable. 
I had the opportunity to fly with them before. For those of us who are 
usually confined to flying on airlines, this is a little bit different, 
both in takeoff, visibility, and maneuvers. I have never been on a 
commercial airplane where I was pulled anywhere from 5 to 9 Gs, as that 
flight was.
  I was glad to see not only Colonel Guthrie recognized, but also all 
the men and women of the Vermont National Guard. This is a group who, 
in the hours after 9/11--the tragedies of   9/11--immediately took to 
the air and guarded the skies over New York City.
  I recall when our adjutant general called me to tell me that the 
Green

[[Page 11116]]

Mountain Boys were protecting New York City around the clock.
  I asked her: Where are you basing them from?
  She said: Vermont.
  I said: Well, how long does it take you to get to New York City?
  She told me: With the after burners, a matter of minutes.
  I have never been quite able to make that flight on a commuter plane 
from Burlington, VT, to New York City. But they can be refueled in 
midair.
  Everybody, whether on vacation or not, showed up at the Vermont 
National Guard--our mechanics, flight administrators, and pilots, of 
course. They kept those planes going around the clock for weeks. They 
did not miss a single day of their mission, or a single minute of their 
mission--even with all the calibration of weapons and radar and 
everything else. It was a remarkable scene.
  I am glad to see them recognized this morning, and as a Vermonter, I 
am extraordinarily proud of our Vermont National Guard, both our Army 
Guard and our Air Guard. They do all the people of our State proud.
  Mr. President, I wish to speak on another matter, and I ask as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, small businesses and working families 
throughout Vermont and around the country are facing incredibly 
challenging times. These problems are especially acute in my State, 
where we rely so heavily on small businesses to create jobs for our 
citizens and to make Vermont the desirable place to live and to visit 
that it is.
  The Federal Government has rightly recognized the important role 
small businesses play in our economy. From SBA loans, to USDA Rural 
Development grants, to small business set-asides on government 
contracts, a variety of targeted Federal programs join with small 
businesses to help them grow and prosper.
  This Congress has enacted several job-creating steps. Just last year, 
I was able to lead the effort here in the Senate to enact a major 
overhaul of our Nation's outdated patent laws. The Leahy-Smith America 
Invents Act is going to create jobs, but also, and very importantly, it 
is going to help unleash more American innovation, and it does not add 
a penny to our deficit. In fact, last year Vermont was awarded more 
patents per capita than any State in the Union. Of course, those 
patents mean more jobs for Vermonters.
  And 2 weeks ago we made further progress by passing a transportation 
funding bill that will make vital investments in our Nation's roads, 
bridges, and transit systems, and a student loan bill that will lower 
the costs of college borrowing for thousands of students and their 
families.
  I might say, these student loans are extremely important. I remember 
the one I had when I was in law school--a 10-year loan. Two things 
happened the year of that last payment, that 10th payment on my student 
loan from law school: first, the satisfaction my wife, Marcelle, and I 
had in paying off the loan, and second, it was that same year I was 
sworn into the U.S. Senate. I wonder if I would have been here had we 
not had the money to pay for school.
  But I think we can and must do more to help our struggling small 
businesses and working families.
  That is why I strongly support the bill before us today that will 
provide small businesses with tax incentives to begin hiring again. The 
bill is a multipronged strategy for spurring job creation. First, it 
would create a tax credit for businesses to hire new workers or 
increase wages for their current workers. In other words, instead of 
saying that we just give a tax break to extraordinarily wealthy people 
and somehow jobs will be created, we say: Let's see the jobs. Show me 
the jobs. Show me the jobs. If you have a tax credit for businesses 
that hire new workers or increase wages for their current workers, then 
that is a good use of our Tax Code. Second, it would allow businesses 
to immediately write off all of the major purchases they make this 
year. That is a tangible incentive for new investments and new hires, 
right away.
  I do not support this bill just because the President supports it, or 
the Democratic leader supports it, or most of the Members of my side of 
the aisle support it. They all do stand behind this effort, and I am 
grateful for that. I support this bill because I have heard from small 
business owners in Vermont, Democratic and Republican alike, who tell 
me they would make capital improvements and put people to work 
immediately if this bill were signed into law. And I suspect the same 
would be true in virtually every other State in this country.
  On the shores of Lake Champlain, in the northern border town of 
Highgate, VT, sits one of America's most genuine and beautiful family 
resorts: the Tyler Place Family Resort. Year after year, families flock 
to the resort to spend time with their families, swimming and boating 
and enjoying a summer campfire. It is the kind of place that draws the 
same families year after year, where multigenerational families take 
time to enjoy each other's company as well as the great food and the 
magnificent views. It is easy to forget, especially when you are 
sitting there watching the sunset over the beautiful, great big Lake 
Champlain, that it is one of the millions of small businesses that keep 
America's economy moving forward and Americans at work.
  Last year I heard from the owners of the resort, including Pixley 
Tyler Hill, a dogged advocate for Vermont, for Vermont's tourism 
industry, and for Lake Champlain, about their interest in seeing an 
extension of the bonus depreciation provision that expired in December.
  Her brother Ted Tyler summed it up by saying:

       These changes in the tax law make all the difference in the 
     world in decisions whether to spend money, and thereby 
     stimulate the economy and increase employment in the process. 
     For example, consider a resort deciding whether to add tennis 
     courts, put in a new sewer system, upgrade roads or do major 
     landscaping work--say, at an anticipated cost of $300,000. 
     Absent bonus depreciation the company will have paid $300,000 
     but it can only deduct $20,000 that year as an expense for 
     tax purposes. True enough that over the next 14 years, the 
     business can continue to write off $20,000. But how many 
     small businesses can afford to wait that long to recoup the 
     $280,000 they no longer have?

  Pixley and Ted had me sold the minute they explained that this tax 
incentive was the difference between making new investments and hiring 
someone, and sitting on their hands waiting for things to change. 
Extending this provision alone is reason enough to pass the bill.
  This bill is full of a million other reasons why we should be working 
with all the determination we can muster and promptly pass it. Pass it 
now when the economy needs it. It is a good, solid reason for each of 
the jobs it would create for working families and businesses all over 
America.
  I urge all Senators to work without delay on this important 
legislation. Businesses in each of our 50 States are waiting for us to 
lend another helping hand to the economic recovery act.


               Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act

  Mr. President, it has been nearly 3 months since the Senate passed 
the bipartisan Leahy-Crapo Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act--
3 months. We are no closer to enacting this bill into law than we were 
in April when 68 Senators, Republican and Democratic Senators alike, 
voted for this critical legislation to protect women from domestic and 
sexual abuse.
  I am concerned that politics threatens to get in the way of passing 
this critical legislation this year. Protecting every victim of 
domestic and sexual violence should be above politics. Members of 
Congress in both Chambers, set aside the political rhetoric. Act 
swiftly to reauthorize this landmark legislation and save countless 
lives.
  Time is running out. There are only a few weeks left in this session 
before election-year politics take over and Congress comes to a 
standstill. There are critical improvements in the Leahy-Crapo 
reauthorization bill that will not take effect unless Congress acts. We 
cannot simply say: Well, if we

[[Page 11117]]

do not enact it, maybe we can do it next year or the year after. There 
are a lot of major programs that can only be enacted in this bill, not 
in appropriations, not any other way.
  Sexual assault programs will not receive the added support they need 
unless we pass our bill into law. The legislation's emphasis on 
increasing housing protection for victims and preventing homicides 
connected to domestic and sexual violence will not have an opportunity 
to help vulnerable victims across the country. Important improvements 
in campus safety and prevention programs for teens will not occur. 
Immigrant victims, Native women, and LGBT victims will continue to 
remain without the services and protection they need and deserve.
  The legislation is too important to wait. I hear from victims and the 
professionals who work on their behalf. They say they need the 
improvements made by the Leahy-Crapo bill and they need them today.
  The legislation is particularly important during difficult economic 
times because the economic pressures facing many Americans can pose 
additional hurdles in leaving abusive relationships. Active community 
networks are needed to provide support to victims in these 
circumstances, yet budget cuts result in fewer available services, such 
as emergency shelters, transitional housing, and counseling.
  Late last month, I had the opportunity to speak at the VAWA National 
Days of Action rally, where survivors and professionals in the field--
those who have dedicated their lives to helping victims all over the 
country--gathered together to send Congress a message. They told me 
they are very frustrated by the lack of progress in passing VAWA, and 
rightfully so, because they and the victims they serve are the ones who 
are affected by Congress's inaction. They were so inspired when this 
body came together and 68 of us voted to pass it. Now they ask when are 
we going to finish.
  Their message to Congress was loud and clear: Do your job. Pass VAWA 
now. Supporting the work of these tireless advocates, and the victims 
they help, should be our priority.
  Victims should not be forced to wait any longer. They will not 
benefit from the improvements we made in the Senate bill unless both 
Houses of Congress vote to pass this legislation. The problems facing 
victims of domestic and sexual violence are too serious for Congress to 
delay. Domestic and sexual violence knows no political party. Its 
victims are Republican and Democratic, rich and poor, young and old. As 
I said so many times, a victim is a victim is a victim. Helping these 
victims, all of these victims, should be our goal.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, we were here two winters ago, in 
February, when Washington was hit by a snowstorm that achieved the 
nickname Snowmageddon. The city and, in fact, much of the mid-Atlantic 
was buried under feet of snow. It was the biggest snowstorm in 90 years 
for this area. People in Washington were struggling to get to work and 
school, and people went without power for days.
  This being Washington, some of our colleagues in the Senate seized on 
that opportunity to mock climate change and to suggest these winter 
snowstorms were inconsistent with the projections of what would happen 
from global warming and climate change. As an initial matter, that is a 
false comparison from the very get-go all by itself. Climate science 
models have predicted consistently that as polar icecaps and glaciers 
melt and more water enters the system, we can expect heavier 
precipitation events. One of the ways it has been described is that if 
you have a pot on the stove and you have the heat under it and it is 
simmering, when you turn up the heat, you get more activity in the pot. 
You add energy to a dynamic system like a pot of boiling water, and it 
creates more energy in the dynamic environment.
  In the same way, the extra energy coming in because of climate 
change, our carbon pollution in the atmosphere, is energizing our 
atmosphere and our weather, and we are getting weather extremes as a 
result.
  There was an article in Science Daily, headlined ``Arctic Ice Melt Is 
Setting Stage for Severe Winters.'' It says this:

       The dramatic melt-off of Arctic sea ice due to climate 
     change is hitting closer to home than millions of Americans 
     might think.
       That's because melting Arctic sea ice can trigger a domino 
     effect leading to increased odds of severe winter weather 
     outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere's middle latitudes--
     think the ``Snowmageddon'' storm that hamstrung Washington, 
     DC, during February 2010.

  I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record at 
the end of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. That shows the original challenge to climate change 
theory, based on the incident of Snowmageddon, was like so much that is 
said to challenge climate change--phony, outright wrong, a 
misunderstanding of how it works, and misrepresenting what it shows.

       Scientists have recently published an article in 
     Oceanography that demonstrates that link between climate 
     change and severe winter weather in the northern Hemisphere's 
     middle latitudes. I think that can be debunked as a phony 
     claim against the facts of climate change that are 
     surrounding us. Look around at what is happening now. We are 
     seeing extreme weather on the other side.

  Last week, Eugene Robinson wrote a Washington Post column that was 
entitled ``Feeling the Heat.'' He wrote:

       Still don't believe in climate change? Then you're either 
     deep in denial or delirious from the heat.

  He points out that the evidence is mounting in irresistible and 
ultimately irrefutable ways. To quote from his article:

       The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says 
     the past winter was the fourth-warmest on record in the 
     United States. To top that, Spring--which meteorologists 
     define as the months of March, April and May--was the warmest 
     since recordkeeping began in 1895.

  Again, this spring--March, April, and May--was the warmest since 
recordkeeping began in 1895.
  He continues:

       If you don't believe me or the scientists, ask a farmer 
     whose planting seasons have gone awry.

  The Bloomberg news recently wrote a story entitled ``U.S. Corn 
Growers Farming in Hell as Midwest Heat Spreads.'' The story reported 
that corn crops are in the worst condition since 1988 and that 53 
percent of the Midwest is experiencing moderate to extreme drought 
conditions.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, at the 
conclusion of my remarks, the Bloomberg article I have just referenced.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 2.)
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. It is not just the agricultural sector that is 
getting clobbered by the drought and the heat. As the Presiding 
Officer, Senator Udall of New Mexico, knows all too well, and to quote 
from a New York Times story:

       Explosive wildfires have burned across much of the west in 
     recent weeks. In southwestern New Mexico, the largest 
     wildfire in state history has burned nearly 300,000 acres.

  Of course, New Mexico is the Presiding Officer's home State, but the 
article also describes other fires on the loose in Colorado and Utah.

       The High Park Fire, which has been burning for weeks near 
     Fort Collins and is one of the largest and most destructive 
     blazes in the state's history . . .

  The article also mentions that Colorado had more than half a dozen 
fires burning and said conditions have not been this bad in a decade.

[[Page 11118]]

  So we are seeing exactly the kind of extreme weather conditions the 
climate scientists, whom the deniers have always mocked and made fun 
of, actually predicted. They predicted this would happen, and it is, in 
fact, happening.
  It is clear we can't take a particular storm and say this storm, this 
fire, this drought was the product of climate change. The example 
people use to describe what is going on is that it is akin to loading 
dice. The more someone loads the dice, the more the numbers they have 
loaded the dice to show up will show up. So we will get more weather 
events. Even if we don't load the dice, we are sometimes going to get 
double sixes. We can't show every double six is because the dice were 
loaded, but when we see more and more double sixes showing up--more 
than history would suggest or more than the odds would suggest--then 
something is going on. That is what we have done by loading our 
atmosphere with carbon pollution. We have loaded the dice for these 
extreme weather events, and now we are reaping that bitter harvest from 
the pollution we have thrown up there.
  Unfortunately, the bitter harvest in this city is that we continue to 
listen to propaganda and nonsense from the polluters designed 
specifically to create enough doubt to prevent us from taking action 
about something that is creating these immense consequences for 
foresters and firefighters in the West, for corn farmers in the 
Midwest, and for anybody who has to experience extraordinary weather 
events like ``snowmageddon,'' so-called, here in Washington. These 
things are beginning to have an effect as real life begins to model 
what the climate scientists predicted.
  NOAA's Chief Jane Lubchenco spoke before an audience in Australia, 
which is experiencing very similar conditions, and said these extreme 
weather events are convincing many Americans that climate change is a 
reality. We are seeing that more and more.
  Yale, George Mason University, and the Knowledge Networks did some 
polling on this subject, and 69 percent of the respondents said they 
agreed that ``global warming is affecting the weather in the United 
States'' versus 30 percent who said they disagreed. So better than 2 to 
1 the American people are ready for us to do something about this. They 
know there is a connection and they expect us to take responsible 
action.
  Gallup polls are reflecting a rebound in the public's concern about 
climate change from 51 percent in 2011 up to 55 percent in March of 
this year. Before the recession, it was all the way up to 66 percent, 
until the economic issues pushed it aside.
  The contention the polluting industries and their mouthpieces here in 
Washington make--that the jury is still out on climate change caused by 
carbon pollution--is simply false. The jury is not still out. The 
verdict is in, the verdict is clear, and we should start doing 
something about it.
  When I come to the Senate floor to give these talks, I often quote a 
letter from back in October 2009 that was signed by virtually every 
major scientific organization in the country--the American Chemical 
Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological 
Society, the American Society of Agronomy, the Botanical Society of 
America, the Soil Science Society of American, the American Statistical 
Association, and I could go on and on. The point is not to name all the 
multiple responsible and respected scientific organizations that signed 
the letter but to read what it was they said. If we think about it, as 
I read it, think about how cautious scientists ordinarily are in the 
language they use. Here is what they said:

       Observations throughout the world make it clear--

  Clear--

     that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific 
     research demonstrates--

  Not suggests, demonstrates--

     that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are--

  Not maybe, are--

     the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple 
     independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are 
     inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of 
     peer-reviewed science.

  That is a very ``sciencey'' way of saying something that is pretty 
harsh, which is that all these contrary assertions about climate change 
simply cannot be reconciled with an objective assessment of the facts, 
of the vast body of peer-reviewed research. If it can't be reconciled 
with an objective assessment, what kind of assessment is it getting? 
What it is getting, I submit, is a phony assessment, a political, 
propaganda-driven assessment, and an assessment with the purpose of 
creating enough doubt to slow down political action, to preserve the 
status quo, and to allow pollution to continue to pour out of these 
smokestacks.
  I speak very specifically about smokestacks because Rhode Island is a 
downwind State, and so much of the coal pollution that gets piped up 
into the atmosphere through Midwestern smoke stacks ends up landing in 
my State. It lands in the form of ozone, in particular. There are days 
in a Rhode Island summer that look clear, look beautiful, and someone 
can be driving by sparkling Narragansett Bay in the morning on their 
way to work when off goes the radio and the radio jock, in giving the 
news announcements of the day, says: Today is a bad air day in Rhode 
Island. Infants should stay indoors. The elderly should stay indoors. 
People with breathing difficulties should stay indoors.
  This is an otherwise beautiful day. Yet children, seniors, and people 
with breathing difficulties should stay indoors? Yes, because 
corporations, pumping carbon pollution and other forms of pollution out 
of their Midwestern smokestacks, will not clean up their act. So they 
get to hold Rhode Islanders, on a clear summer day, captive indoors 
because they will not clean it up? That is wrong. It is just plain 
wrong.
  I am going to continue to come to the floor on a regular basis to 
keep pointing this out. For some reason, this has become the issue in 
Washington that dare not be mentioned. Enough of that. It is time we 
started to mention it. It is time we started to force this issue, and 
it is time we started to do something about it because any other form 
of activity faced with these facts would be wildly irresponsible.
  Let me give the example I have used before. You are a parent. You 
have responsibility for the welfare and well-being of your child. Your 
child is showing symptoms. You don't know quite what is wrong, but you 
take her to the doctor and the doctor says: Something is wrong here. 
She needs treatment. Treatment is not going to be easy, it will not be 
cheap, but she needs it. You think: OK. That is bad news. I tell you 
what, I am going to be a responsible parent and I am going to go get a 
second opinion. So you go and get a second opinion and that doctor says 
the exact same thing: Your daughter is sick. She needs treatment. So 
you ask a couple more doctors who are friends. You get a third and 
fourth opinion.
  Let's say you are the most determined parent in the world and you go 
out and you get 99 second opinions. You contact 100 doctors about your 
daughter's condition, and 97 of them, 97 of those doctors say your 
daughter is sick and she needs to be taken care of and she needs this 
treatment. At that point you say: There is still doubt. There are these 
three other doctors who aren't so sure about this, so I am not going to 
do it. That is not something a responsible parent would do. I suspect 
in some circumstances that would be so irresponsible that it might land 
you in the child and family services office of your local government.
  That is exactly what we are being asked to do about climate change--
to ignore the 97 percent of peer-reviewed climate scientists who 
understand this is real, this is man-made, and the consequences are 
going to be ferocious for us because there is a 3-percent doubt. It 
gets even worse because so many of the scientists involved in the 3 
percent are scientists for hire who have economic ties to the polluting 
industries. Some of them even go back to previous fights, such as those 
over whether cigarette smoking is good for you or whether lead paint is 
safe for children.

[[Page 11119]]

These are scientists who have made a career of manufacturing doubt on 
behalf of the cigarette and tobacco industry, on behalf of the lead 
paint industry, and now on behalf of the big carbon polluters. In a 
nutshell, they are phonies, and we are being asked to believe them.
  I see the Senator from Florida is here, and I think my time at this 
point has probably expired. I appreciate the time to come before this 
body and share these views again. I will close by pointing out if there 
is one place we truly need to worry about climate change and about the 
effects of our carbon pollution, it is not just in our atmosphere, it 
is not just in the climate or in the weather, it is in the oceans. The 
oceans are undergoing historic changes as a result of the amount of 
carbon in our atmosphere. We are acidifying our oceans at a rate that 
is unprecedented. We are now out of a bandwidth that has lasted for 
8,000 centuries--8,000 centuries. Our entire species has developed 
within a safe bandwidth of atmospheric carbon and of ocean acidity that 
we have now, for the first time, stepped out of and a long way out of. 
If we do not take this issue on in a responsible way, we are going to 
bear an even more bitter harvest.

                               Exhibit 1

                 [From the ScienceDaily, June 6, 2012]

          Arctic Ice Melt Is Setting Stage for Severe Winters

                              (By Anne Ju)

       The dramatic melt-off of Arctic sea ice due to climate 
     change is hitting closer to home than millions of Americans 
     might think.
       That's because melting Arctic sea ice can trigger a domino 
     effect leading to increased odds of severe winter weather 
     outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere's middle latitudes--
     think the ``Snowmageddon'' storm that hamstrung Washington, 
     D.C., during February 2010.
       Cornell's Charles H. Greene, professor of earth and 
     atmospheric sciences, and Bruce C. Monger, senior research 
     associate in the same department, detail this phenomenon in a 
     paper published in the June issue of the journal 
     Oceanography.
       ``Everyone thinks of Arctic climate change as this remote 
     phenomenon that has little effect on our everyday lives,'' 
     Greene said. ``But what goes on in the Arctic remotely forces 
     our weather patterns here.''
       A warmer Earth increases the melting of sea ice during 
     summer, exposing darker ocean water to incoming sunlight. 
     This causes increased absorption of solar radiation and 
     excess summertime heating of the ocean--further accelerating 
     the ice melt. The excess heat is released to the atmosphere, 
     especially during the autumn, decreasing the temperature and 
     atmospheric pressure gradients between the Arctic and middle 
     latitudes.
       A diminished latitudinal pressure gradient is associated 
     with a weakening of the winds associated with the polar 
     vortex and jet stream. Since the polar vortex normally 
     retains the cold Arctic air masses up above the Arctic 
     Circle, its weakening allows the cold air to invade lower 
     latitudes.
       The recent observations present a new twist to the Arctic 
     Oscillation--a natural pattern of climate variability in the 
     Northern Hemisphere. Before humans began warming the planet, 
     the Arctic's climate system naturally oscillated between 
     conditions favorable and those unfavorable for invasions of 
     cold Arctic air.
       ``What's happening now is that we are changing the climate 
     system, especially in the Arctic, and that's increasing the 
     odds for the negative AO conditions that favor cold air 
     invasions and severe winter weather outbreaks,'' Greene said. 
     ``It's something to think about given our recent history.''
       This past winter, an extended cold snap descended on 
     central and Eastern Europe in mid-January, with temperatures 
     approaching minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit and snowdrifts 
     reaching rooftops. And there were the record snowstorms fresh 
     in the memories of residents from several eastern U.S. 
     cities, such as Washington, New York and Philadelphia, as 
     well as many other parts of the Eastern Seaboard during the 
     previous two years.
       Greene and Monger did note that their paper is being 
     published just after one of the warmest winters in the 
     eastern U.S. on record.
       ``It's a great demonstration of the complexities of our 
     climate system and how they influence our regional weather 
     patterns,'' Greene said.
       In any particular region, many factors can have an 
     influence, including the El Nino/La Nina cycle. This winter, 
     La Nina in the Pacific shifted undulations in the jet stream 
     so that while many parts of the Northern Hemisphere were hit 
     by the severe winter weather patterns expected during a bout 
     of negative AO conditions, much of the eastern United States 
     basked in the warm tropical air that swung north with the jet 
     stream.
       ``It turns out that while the eastern U.S. missed out on 
     the cold and snow this winter, and experienced record-
     breaking warmth during March, many other parts of the 
     Northern Hemisphere were not so fortunate,'' Greene said.
       Europe and Alaska experienced record-breaking winter 
     storms, and the global average temperature during March 2012 
     was cooler than any other March since 1999.
       ``A lot of times people say, `Wait a second, which is it 
     going to be--more snow or more warming?' Well, it depends on 
     a lot of factors, and I guess this was a really good winter 
     demonstrating that,'' Greene said. ``What we can expect, 
     however, is the Arctic wildcard stacking the deck in favor of 
     more severe winter outbreaks in the future.''
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 2

                     [From Bloomberg, July 9, 2012]

       U.S. Corn Growers Farming in Hell as Midwest Heat Spreads

                            (By Jeff Wilson)

       The worst U.S. drought since Ronald Reagan was president is 
     withering the world's largest corn crop, and the speed of the 
     damage may spur the government to make a record cut in its 
     July estimate for domestic inventories.
       Tumbling yields will combine with the greatest-ever global 
     demand to leave U.S. stockpiles on Sept. 1, 2013, at 1.216 
     billion bushels (30.89 million metric tons), according to the 
     average of 31 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That's 
     35 percent below the U.S. Department of Agriculture's June 12 
     forecast, implying the biggest reduction since at least 1973. 
     The USDA updates its harvest and inventory estimates July 11.
       Crops on July 1 were in the worst condition since 1988, and 
     a Midwest heat wave last week set or tied 1,067 temperature 
     records, government data show. Prices surged 37 percent in 
     three weeks, and Rabobank International said June 28 that 
     corn may rise 9.9 percent more by December to near a record 
     $8 a bushel. The gain is threatening to boost food costs the 
     United Nations says fell 15 percent from a record in February 
     2011 and feed prices for meat producers including Smithfield 
     Foods Inc. (SFD)
       ``The drought is much worse than last year and approaching 
     the 1988 disaster,'' said John Cory, the chief executive 
     officer of Rochester, Indiana-based grain processor Prairie 
     Mills Products LLC. ``There are crops that won't make it. The 
     dairy and livestock industries are going to get hit very 
     hard. People are just beginning to realize the depth of the 
     problem.''


                            Top Commodities

       Corn rallied 18 percent in the month through July 6 on the 
     Chicago Board of Trade to $6.93, trailing only wheat among 24 
     commodities tracked by the Standard & Poor's GSCI Spot Index, 
     which rose 2 percent. The MSCI All-Country World Index of 
     equities advanced 4 percent, and the dollar gained 1.3 
     percent against a basket of six currencies in the period. 
     Treasuries returned 0.5 percent, a Bank of America Corp. 
     index shows. Corn for December delivery in Chicago extended 
     the rally today, jumping 5.3 percent to settle at $7.30.
       About 53 percent of the Midwest, where farmers harvested 60 
     percent of last year's U.S. crop, had moderate to extreme 
     drought conditions as of July 3, the highest since the 
     government-funded U.S. Drought Monitor in Lincoln, Nebraska, 
     began tracking the data in 2000. In the seven days ended July 
     6, temperatures in the region averaged as much as 15 degrees 
     Fahrenheit above normal. Soil moisture in Illinois, Indiana, 
     Ohio, Missouri and Kentucky is so low that it ranks in the 
     10th percentile among all other years since 1895.
       Fields are parched just as corn plants began to pollinate, 
     a critical period for determining kernel development and 
     final yields. About 48 percent of the crop in the U.S., the 
     world's largest grower and exporter, was in good or excellent 
     condition as of July 1, the lowest for that date since 1988 
     and down from 77 percent on May 18, government data show.


                              Yield Losses

       The USDA may cut its production forecast by 8.5 percent, 
     the biggest July reduction since a drought in 1988 led the 
     government to cut its estimate by 29 percent, a separate 
     Bloomberg survey of 14 analysts showed. Farmers probably will 
     collect 13.534 billion bushels, compared with the USDA's June 
     forecast for a record 14.79 billion, based on the average of 
     estimates in the survey.
       Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said July 2 that yields will reach 
     153.5 bushels an acre, below the USDA estimate for an all-
     time high of 166.
       ``Corn yields were falling five bushels a day during the 
     past week'' in the driest parts of the Midwest, said Fred 
     Below, a plant biologist at the University of Illinois in 
     Urbana. ``You couldn't choreograph worse weather conditions 
     for pollination. It's like farming in hell.''


                              Record Crop

       Even with the drought, U.S. production in 2012 is expected 
     to rise 9.5 percent from last year to a record after farmers 
     sowed the most acres since 1937, the survey showed. Higher 
     output would help boost inventories before next year's 
     harvest, up from what analysts said will be a 16-year low on 
     Sept. 1 of 837 million bushels.

[[Page 11120]]

       Futures fell 2.2 percent on July 6, the most in two weeks, 
     after the USDA reported a 90 percent drop in export sales in 
     the week ended June 28. U.S. refiners curbed output of corn-
     based ethanol last week to the lowest since September as 
     gasoline demand weakened, government data show.
       Corn's rally also may stall if Europe's widening debt 
     crisis and a faltering global economy erode record demand for 
     the grain. The International Monetary Fund will reduce its 
     estimate for growth this year because of weakness in 
     investment, employment and manufacturing in Europe, the U.S., 
     Brazil, India and China, Managing Director Christine Lagarde 
     said July 6.
       ``The shrinking global economy is the elephant in the room 
     that no one wants to discuss as long as U.S. crops are under 
     siege,'' said Dale Durcholz, the senior market analyst for 
     Bloomington, Illinois-based AgriVisor LLC. ``Corn demand at 
     $5 is much more robust than when it costs $7.''


                         Changing Expectations

       Corn tumbled into a bear market in September and kept 
     dropping as farmers planted more crops. Robert Manly, the 
     chief financial officer at Smithfield Foods, the largest U.S. 
     pork producer, told analysts on a June 14 conference call 
     that hog-raising costs would ``begin to decline starting in 
     the fall.'' Corn has surged 41 percent since then, reaching a 
     nine-month high today.
       U.S. corn production may drop to 11 billion bushels, the 
     smallest crop in seven years, because the hot, dry weather 
     killed the pollen and rains now may be too late to reverse 
     the damage, according to Cory, the Indiana mill owner and a 
     former investment banker. Prices may reach $9 before demand 
     slows, he said.
       World corn use rose to a record every year since 1997 as 
     the expanding economy boosted incomes and the consumption of 
     meat and dairy products from animals raised on the grain. The 
     USDA projected last month a 6.4 percent increase in global 
     demand to 923.39 million tons in the year that starts Sept. 
     1, the biggest gain in six years. More U.S. output went to 
     ethanol production than livestock feed in 2011 for the first 
     time ever.


                           Vulnerable Period

       While the U.S. harvest is about two months away, the 
     drought reached plants at the most vulnerable period in their 
     growing cycle, said Nick Higgins, a London-based analyst at 
     Rabobank, predicting a 13.488 billion-bushel harvest.
       Based on current soil moisture and June temperatures, the 
     drought is probably the worst since 1988, said Joel Widenor, 
     a vice president at the Commodity Weather Group in Bethesda, 
     Maryland. The private forecaster said July 5 that corn output 
     this year will be 13.52 billion bushels, and that hot, dry 
     weather in the next two weeks may reduce yields further.
       The drought may spark a rebound in global food prices this 
     month through October, halting a slide that sent costs in 
     June to the lowest level in 21 months, Abdolreza Abbassian, 
     an economist in Rome at the United Nations' Food & 
     Agriculture Organization, said July 5.


                            Base Ingredient

       ``Corn is key because of its widespread use as a base 
     ingredient in so many foods and for its use in feed for 
     livestock,'' said Stanley Crouch, who helps oversee $2 
     billion of assets as chief investment officer at New York-
     based Aegis Capital Corp. ``We are at the tipping point.''
       In May, retail prices of boneless hams, ground beef and 
     cheese in the U.S. were close to all-time highs set earlier 
     this year, while chicken breast jumped more than 12 percent 
     during the first five months of the year, government data 
     show.
       ``When people look at rising prices for hamburger, butter, 
     eggs and other protein sources from higher corn costs, that's 
     when more money ends up in the food basket,'' said 
     Minneapolis-based Michael Swanson, a senior agricultural 
     economist at Wells Fargo & Co., the biggest U.S. farm lender. 
     ``We were hoping for a break, and we aren't going to get 
     it.''

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in postcloture time.


                              Health Care

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, when Congress began debating health care in 
2009, the goal was to lower the cost of care and give Americans the 
care they need from a doctor they choose.
  Americans were promised that if they liked the insurance they had and 
the doctor they had, they would be able to keep the plan and to 
continue to see the doctor they liked. Americans were promised that the 
negotiations would be transparent and televised on C-SPAN. Americans 
were promised the bill wouldn't add a dime to the deficit, and that it 
would lower the cost of care. Americans were promised their premiums 
would go down by $2,500. Americans were promised this President would 
not raise taxes on families with incomes below $250,000.
  Instead, Congress passed a massive governmental takeover of the 
health care industry. In the last 2 years, we have seen that Americans 
can't keep the insurance they had, continue to see the doctor they 
like, and are paying more for health care now than they would have if 
this administration had not pushed through the massive 2,700-page bill. 
The law adds billions to the deficit. And at the end of the day, 
Americans will find they are left holding a bag full of empty, broken 
promises.
  Today I want to focus on the broken promises of taxes. The President 
pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 and 
families making less than $250,000 per year. Yet the new individual 
mandate tax--which the Supreme Court affirmed as a tax increase--will 
raise $54 billion in new taxes, largely on middle-income Americans 
between 2015 and 2022.
  In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 77 percent of 
those projected to pay the tax in 2016 will be those earning less than 
$120,000 per year. Americans earning less than $120,000 clearly meet 
the President's definition as middle income.
  The Congressional Budget Office projections confirm that at least 
three out of every four Americans subjected to the new individual 
mandate tax will be the same middle-income taxpayers President Obama 
promised would not see their taxes raised by one dime.
  In fact, when asked by George Stephanopoulos of ``ABC News'' in 
September of 2009 if the President rejected the notion that the 
individual mandate was a tax, the President stated, ``I absolutely 
reject that notion.'' The President wasn't equivocal and he didn't 
leave any room for interpretation.
  So let's be clear. This President and the Democratic leaders here in 
Congress sold ObamaCare as if it did not contain significant new tax 
increases on the middle class. Yet what they now know what they were 
selling was an incredible bait and switch. They were in fact enacting 
$54 billion in new individual mandate taxes primarily on the middle 
class by calling it something else.
  I would note that this tax increase is larger than the ``Buffett 
rule'' tax increase the President has spent much of the year promoting.
  The Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate is not 
constitutional under either the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and 
Proper Clause of the Constitution. So there are only two options: 
Either the individual mandate is a tax--and it happens to be a tax that 
falls hardest on the middle class--or it is unconstitutional.
  It is estimated that average tax on an American subject to this new 
tax increase will be about $1,100 per year. And after paying this tax, 
these Americans still won't have health insurance.
  We should not forget that the national health insurance tax is not 
the only tax increase in ObamaCare affecting individuals. Starting next 
year, individuals will be able to save less money, taxfree, in Flexible 
Spending Accounts to pay for their own healthcare expenses. Currently, 
there is no statutory limit on FSA contributions, though many FSAs set 
their own limits. Starting next year, ObamaCare will cap the amount 
Americans can save in a Flexible Savings Account at only $2,500 per 
year, and ObamaCare will limit tax deductions for those with the 
largest health care needs by reducing the medical expense deduction 
from expenses above 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income to expenses 
above 10 percent of adjusted gross income. So at the very time 
ObamaCare is driving up health care costs, it is also making it more 
difficult for American families to pay for their own healthcare needs.
  These tax increases don't even take into account the new 3.8-percent 
tax increase on investment income or the almost 1-percent Medicare 
surtax that will be imposed on higher income Americans starting in 
2013, making it more expensive for small business owners to hire new 
workers or otherwise invest in our economy.

[[Page 11121]]

  These taxes on individuals are in addition to the ObamaCare taxes on 
businesses, such as the new medical device tax or the tanning tax. We 
know these taxes on businesses will ultimately be passed through to 
consumers of health care, driving health care prices even higher.
  In fact, of the $552 billion in new taxes included in ObamaCare, 
according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional 
Budget Office, the Joint Economic Committee has estimated that roughly 
$250 billion is tax increases that will hit the middle class either 
directly or through the health care products they consume.
  In addition to this new national health insurance tax of $1,100 a 
year and other increases in ObamaCare, Americans will see that health 
care costs will continue to rise.
  Despite the President's promise that his health care plan would 
reduce insurance premiums, premiums have increased by over $2,200 since 
Obama took office, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And 
according to the President's own Actuary at the Centers for Medicare 
and Medicaid Services in a report from this month on national health 
expenditure projections, premiums under the new health care law will 
rise faster than if we had done nothing at all. I want to quote from 
that report.

       In 2014, growth in private health insurance premiums is 
     expected to accelerate to 7.9 percent, or 4.1 percentage 
     points higher than in the absence of health reform.

  Think about what is actually being said here. The cost of health 
insurance would have gone up a lot less per year had we done nothing 
than what we did with this bill, which is to increase those 
expenditures for health care by about 7.9 percent.
  Americans are going to be stuck paying higher costs for health 
insurance medical devices due to the tax on these sectors that this 
bill imposes.
  Americans know firsthand that we are going to continue to struggle 
with an economy that is not performing well. The unemployment rate 
remains above 8 percent for 41 consecutive months. On the immediate 
horizon the American people stare down an enormous tax increase, from a 
health reform law they didn't want and still don't want.
  Americans are also seeing this law has impacted our economy. 
According to a recent poll, 48 percent of businesses that are not 
currently hiring list the potential cost of health care regulations as 
a reason for not seeking new employees. And according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, ObamaCare will mean 800,000 fewer jobs 
over the next decade. The last 3 years have made it very clear that 
ObamaCare is making our economy worse by driving up costs and 
discouraging job creation.
  Moving forward, Congress needs to start by repealing ObamaCare. We 
need to repeal ObamaCare and enact commonsense, step-by-step reforms 
that protect Americans' access from the care they need, from the doctor 
they choose, at a lower cost.
  Republicans will not repeat the Democrats' mistakes. We will not rush 
to pass a massive bill the American people don't support. We need to do 
this the right way: No backroom deals or 2,700-page bills that no one 
has read.
  This President owes it to Americans to admit his broken promises, and 
to work with Republicans to put in place real health care reforms that 
will actually help lower health insurance costs for individuals and 
families and ensure that Americans can get the care they need when they 
need it.
  The taxes I have mentioned in the health care law are going to add up 
to a massive tax increase on average ordinary Americans. All the 
analyses that have been done by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the 
Congressional Budget Office, and the Joint Economic Committee come to 
that very same conclusion.
  This is a tax that is going to hit middle-class Americans, 
notwithstanding the President's promise that he wouldn't raise taxes on 
those making less than $200,000 a year. Seventy-five percent of that 
tax burden from that individual mandate tax--which is $54 billion--will 
hit those making less than $120,000 per year.
  So the whole idea of promises made and promises broken I think is the 
narrative that has attached itself to this health care reform law. I 
submit that the Congress and the President need to work together to 
repeal this law and to work in a constructive way to put in place 
commonsense, step-by-step reforms that actually will drive the cost of 
health care down for Americans, because that is the one thing that 
Americans, as they look at the health care economy today, want to see. 
They want to know their costs are going to go down rather than up, and 
they continue to see these increases in premiums year over year and 
that continues to affect our economy.
  The mandates that are imposed upon employers in this health care law 
as well are going to lead to fewer jobs. That is the outcome of this 
health care law. It is higher costs for Americans, and it is going to 
mean fewer jobs for American workers.
  Coupled with that, we have seen as recently as yesterday the 
President saying he now wants to raise taxes on those small businesses 
in our country. The tax he has proposed on those making more than 
$250,000 a year, interestingly enough, hits 940,000 small business 
owners. Fifty-three percent of the passthrough income would face higher 
taxes as a result of the proposal he made yesterday. The people who run 
those businesses employ 25 percent of the American workforce. So we are 
talking about huge new burdens on our economy at a time when we 
absolutely cannot afford it: 41 consecutive months of 8-percent or 
higher unemployment; 23 million Americans either unemployed or 
underemployed; 5.4 million Americans who have been unemployed for a 
long period of time; and the weakest recovery literally since the end 
of World War II. Those are the economic circumstances we find ourselves 
in today, and now we have proposals coming out of the White House, in 
addition to the burdens imposed by ObamaCare, that would lead to higher 
taxes on the very people we look to to get us out of this economic 
circumstance, and that is our small businesses and entrepreneurs, all 
of whom are going to be faced with higher taxes because of the 
President's proposals.
  We can do better for the American people. We can get this economy 
growing again with commonsense health care reforms, commonsense tax 
reforms, regulatory reforms that lower the cost and the burden of doing 
business in this country, a comprehensive energy policy that will make 
sure we are developing our own energy sources in this country, and 
getting Federal spending under control.
  We need a smaller Federal Government and a bigger, more robust 
private economy. You cannot do that by continually piling more taxes 
and more regulations and more mandates and more requirements on the 
very people who create jobs. The American people deserve better and we 
can do better.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, as a courtesy to Senator 
Inhofe, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Inhofe be recognized after 
my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the 
conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from Florida the Senator from 
Wyoming be recognized, and then I be recognized after the Senator from 
Wyoming for up to 35 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Veterans Unemployment

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, on the battlefield there is a 
code among the military that you don't leave anybody behind. That 
principle ought to apply to our returning veterans as well. It is 
essential for us to care for our veterans when they get home and show 
them the same respect and loyalty they showed us during their service.

[[Page 11122]]

  This economic downturn has been especially tough for many of our 
veterans as they come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. The unemployment 
rate among veterans returning from those two countries was 9.5 percent 
in June. While this is clearly an improvement from last year, and an 
improvement in the entire economy over the last couple of years, it is 
still more than a point higher than the national average. For our 
youngest veterans, it is even worse--29 percent in 2011.
  Our servicemembers have already done the toughest jobs out there. 
They are highly trained and extremely skilled. We ought to give them as 
many opportunities as possible to succeed when they get home. That 
means when veterans come back from war, they shouldn't have to do 
battle with bureaucrats.
  I wanted to make a commonsense suggestion, so I filed a bill--which 
recently passed both the House and the Senate--to remove some of those 
bureaucratic obstacles in our veterans' way and to make it easier for 
them to get occupational and professional licenses when they get home. 
The Veteran Skills to Jobs Act is a bipartisan bill cosponsored by 17 
Senators and supported by veterans organizations such as the American 
Legion. I ask unanimous consent that the American Legion's commentary 
on this legislation be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. The bill directs Federal agencies to recognize 
relevant military training when certifying veterans for Federal 
occupational licenses. It is common sense. If veterans have skills 
learned in the military, they ought to be able to utilize those skills, 
that training, without having to go through duplicate training when 
they get into a specialized civilian job. If the military training is 
found to be comparable to the civilian requirements, the veteran would 
be deemed qualified for that occupation.
  These are the licenses people need in order to get jobs in the 
civilian sector.
  I want to give an example. Let's say an Air Force or Navy aircraft 
mechanic gets out of the service. That veteran may want to use those 
skills learned in the military to work in the commercial airline 
business. To do so, that veteran must be certified as an aircraft 
mechanic technician, certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. 
This requires an airframes and powerplant license from the FAA.
  Although the veteran has trained to do this, this highly skilled 
occupation for our military, what we are seeing all too often is common 
sense goes out the window, and that veteran may have to go through 
redundant and expensive training to get that airframes and powerplant 
license. Of course, that does not make sense.
  This is not just a Federal issue. Many States are starting to 
recognize military training when certifying veterans for State 
licenses, such as nurses and truckdrivers. I am pleased that the 
Federal Government will now move in this direction as well. We have 
already passed it unanimously in the Senate; likewise, they have passed 
it in the House. Both bills are down in the other's respective 
Chambers. We need to go ahead and pass this legislation. Today I will 
move for final passage of the bill, and I know of no objection since we 
got it out of the Senate unanimously.
  One of the greatest honors I have in my job is getting to meet and 
thank our veterans and current members of our military and all of our 
national security apparatus. It is up to us to stand by these folks. 
Passing legislation to help employ veterans, such as the Veteran Skills 
to Jobs Act, is one way we can thank them.

                               Exhibit 1

                                              The American Legion,


                             Office of the National Commander,

                                   Washington, DC, March 30, 2012.
     Hon. Bill Nelson,
     U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Nelson: On behalf of the 2.4 million members 
     of The American Legion, I would like to express support for 
     S. 2239, the Veteran Skills to Jobs Act of 2012, which 
     provides for Federal certification of veterans who have been 
     qualified for licensure through relevant military training.
       With an anemic economy and a downsizing military, it is 
     essential veterans be given the ability to quickly find 
     civilian employment upon separation from the military. 
     Without these types of opportunities, separating military 
     personnel could add to the unemployment problem currently 
     faced by millions of Americans. Federal certification and 
     licensure of veterans who have received relevant training 
     will assist in this process of ensuring that veterans are 
     able to smoothly and quickly transition between military and 
     civilian employment. Matching qualified veterans with Federal 
     licenses which require their expertise is good for veterans, 
     good for the economy and good for the country.
       Again, The American Legion fully supports enacting S. 2239 
     and applauds your leadership in addressing this critical 
     issue facing our nation's veterans and their families.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Fang A. Wong,
                                               National Commander.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                            A Second Opinion

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today, as I do week 
after week, ever since the President's health care law has been passed, 
to offer a doctor's second opinion about this health care law, which I 
believe is bad for patients, bad for providers--the nurses and doctors 
who take care of those patients--and terrible for taxpayers.
  We saw the Supreme Court issue its historic decision on the 
President's health care law. The Court confirmed that the individual 
mandate in the President's health care law is a tax. The President said 
it was not a tax. I will just say the Supreme Court confirmed that it 
is in fact a tax. The decision makes it clear that the Internal Revenue 
Service, the IRS, will now play an unprecedented role in America's 
health care system.
  That is not something American citizens have asked for or want, but 
it is something many American citizens fear. Recently, the Associated 
Press highlighted this concern in an article titled, ``Tax Man Cometh 
to Police You on Health Care.''
  ``Tax Man Cometh to Police You on Health Care.''
  The article points out that the health care law contains the largest 
set of tax changes in more than 20 years. To be specific, according to 
the Congressional Budget Office, there are at least 18 separate taxes 
contained in the health care law. These taxes are expected to cost 
taxpayers more than $500 billion over the next 10 years.
  The Associated Press points out that the IRS is expected to spend 
over $880 million just to implement the law from 2010 to 2013, and to 
do this they are going to hire more than 2,700 new government workers. 
This could be just the tip of the iceberg. According to a report issued 
by the House Ways and Means Committee, the Internal Revenue Service may 
need as many as 16,500 additional bureaucrats to enforce the 
President's health care law--now the President's health care tax.
  One of these taxes the agents are going to be enforcing is something 
called the individual mandate. This is the part of the law that forces 
every American to have health insurance. If they do not have it, the 
law forces them to purchase health insurance--and not just any health 
insurance. No, no, not at all. They need to purchase government-
approved health insurance. This is not necessarily something this 
family thinks is right for them and their needs and their insurance and 
their family. No, that is not good enough. They have to purchase 
government-approved insurance, and the IRS is going to check on them to 
make sure they do.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, 77 percent of those 
forced to pay the tax will be people making less than $120,000 a year. 
President Obama repeatedly promised he would not raise taxes on the 
middle class. Specifically, he promised that no family making less than 
$250,000 a year would see any form of tax increase.
  Let me just quote. The President of the United States said:

       I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making 
     less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase . 
     . .

  The President went on to say ``not your income tax.'' He said ``not 
your payroll tax.'' He said ``not your capital

[[Page 11123]]

gains tax.'' He finished it by saying ``not any of your taxes.''
  But when the President's lawyers went before the Supreme Court, they 
did just the opposite. They argued that this mandate was indeed a tax. 
The Solicitor General even stated that the Court had an obligation to 
construe the mandate as a tax. He said it could be upheld on that 
basis.
  As it turns out, a majority of the Supreme Court agreed that the 
mandate was constitutional, but only because it is a tax. In short, the 
Supreme Court confirmed that the President has broken his promise to 
middle-class families; and it is the promise that he made to not raise 
taxes. In fact, the President's individual mandate tax will produce 
more tax revenue for the government than the so-called Buffett rule 
that this administration has been supporting.
  While supporters of the health care law may support using the IRS to 
scare people into getting health insurance, most Americans do not think 
this is the right policy for our country. Back when Congress was 
debating this health care law, the American people were looking for 
reform, health care reform that would actually lower the cost of care, 
not raise their taxes. They wanted a law that helped train more doctors 
and more nurses to take care of them, not more tax collectors to look 
into their life and their records. The last thing they want is the IRS 
breathing down their necks and banging down their doors. But that is 
what the American people have gotten through the President's health 
care law, and that is what they are stuck with unless Congress and the 
White House repeal and replace this flawed and failed law.
  As a physician with 25 years of experience taking care of families 
all around Wyoming, I believe there is a better way. We can implement 
commonsense reforms in a step-by-step way that allows people to 
purchase insurance across State lines, reform medical liability laws, 
and strengthen State high-risk pools. These simple changes will help 
lower the cost of care without forcing millions of Americans to live in 
the fear of the Internal Revenue Service.
  That is why I am going to continue to come to the Senate floor and 
call on Congress to repeal the President's health care law. It is time 
for Americans to get what they were looking for in the beginning but do 
not get as a result of the President's health care law. What they are 
looking for is the care they need from the doctor that they choose at a 
lower cost.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.


                        Global Warming Hysteria

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have to say that I enjoy these second 
opinions when they come from such a well-known doctor who knows what he 
is talking about. Quite often we in this body are forced to kind of 
assume we are experts in every area. It is nice to have a few who 
really are. I think I don't say it very often, but I actually learn 
something when I hear him talk.
  Anyway, that is not why I am here today. I hope to help provide some 
sense and balance and accuracy which is clearly lacking in the 
mainstream media trying to drum up support for the global warming 
hysteria again.
  I have to say it is like we are back to the good-old days. We talked 
about this for 10 years. There are different people coming up with 
legislation, the cap-and-trade legislation. They found out, of course, 
that the American people realized it was a gigantic tax and there were 
no benefits, so it kind of went by the wayside. But there is a new 
thing happening, and it was interesting because just last Friday one of 
the Obama appointees to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Association 
said to the Associated Press:

       The wildfires and hot temperatures over the past few weeks 
     will likely convince Americans that global warming is real.

  In other words, they are now trying to tie them together. They have 
never tried to do this before because that is one of the few things 
that all experts agree on: that one isolated case doesn't make a case 
for major changes in the weather. This is kind of a dangerous game to 
play because what are they going to say when winter comes and it is 
going to get cold? As soon as it gets cold I can tell you what they are 
going to say. They are not going to use global warming; they are going 
to use climate change.
  As the season changes, the terminology changes, and they will start 
saying just because the temperatures are freezing doesn't mean the 
planet is not overheating--if you follow through the double negatives.
  My good friend from Rhode Island commented on the famous igloo. This 
was pretty prominent two summers ago. Let me tell you the story of 
where we got to the igloo. As most people know, because I brag about it 
all the time, I have 20 kids and grandkids.
  This happens to be one family. You cannot see them as well. It is six 
of the most beautiful people we have ever seen. It happens to be my 
daughter and her husband and their family of four kids.
  Anyway this would have been in February 2010. Some of us remember how 
cold it was during that time. It happens that one of my kids--the only 
one who is adopted is a little girl, an orphan from Ethiopia, whom we 
found and nursed back to health. My daughter Molly, who had nothing but 
boys, adopted this little girl.
  Put her picture up there. She is a pretty little girl. She has become 
kind of a hero.
  Every February I sponsor something called the African dinner where 
about 400 of our friends from Africa come over, and we are establishing 
close, intimate relations with them. It happens that 12 years ago, we 
found the little girl who is pictured on the poster. She is now a 12-
year-old little girl. She reads at college level. She is smart and she 
is the main speaker every time we have this dinner.
  In February 2010, little Zegita Marie was up here and she brought her 
whole family and made her speech. It was a beautiful thing. Afterwards, 
as they were getting ready to take the plane back home, the blizzards 
came, and all of the airports in the area shut down. There was no way 
they could get back. So what do you do with a family of six when you 
are snowbound and there is nothing but snow and ice on the ground? You 
make an igloo. So they did.
  That is a real igloo. It sleeps four people. I know that; I was in 
it. It was right by the Library of Congress. The sign on the top said: 
Al Gore's new home. Actually, I think it may have said: Honk if you 
want global warming--or something like that. Anyway, everyone was 
having a good time.
  Some of my liberal friends were so upset. One of them was Keith 
Olbermann. Keith Olbermann, who was with MSNBC, designated my daughter 
Molly's family of six as the worst family in America. Now, there is her 
husband who is very prominent in Fayetteville, AR. My daughter Molly is 
a professor at the university. She was designated as Outstanding 
Professor of the Year this year. She will be marching out during the 
homecoming on November 3 to accept that award. It is quite an 
outstanding family, and the kids are all straight-A students and all of 
that wonderful stuff.
  So that is the famous igloo. It has been a long time since we had a 
chance to talk about it. There we have Molly, James, Jase, Luke, Jonah, 
and Marie enjoying that. Believe it or not, that is the worst family in 
America.
  Well, just after the igloo story broke, a reporter by the name of 
Dana Milbank warned the alarmists. Keep in mind the terminology we use. 
Those people who think the world is coming to an end because 
catastrophic global warming is coming is all due to manmade gases, so 
we need to shut down America. Those are the alarmists.
  The skeptics are people like me, those who look at it and say science 
has been stripped out by the United Nations for an ulterior motive. 
Dana Milbank has been very much on the other side of the issue and 
warned the alarmists to stop using weather to justify global warming 
because then what do they do when the weather doesn't cooperate with 
their predictions of the melting planet.
  He wrote:


[[Page 11124]]

       In Washington's blizzards, the greens were hoist by their 
     own petard.

  He said:

       If the Washington snows persuade the greens to put away the 
     slides of polar bears and pine beetles and to keep the focus 
     on national security and jobs, it will have been worth the 
     shoveling.

  But not everyone got that memo. In July 2010, the hot summer that 
followed the intense blizzards when my family put up the igloo, Jon 
Karl of ABC News asked me to do an interview outside in the heat. It 
was obviously an ambush. People who know me well know I enjoy ambushes, 
so I went out there in the heat. They got ready with the cameras 
rolling, and they had a pan with an egg on it. They were going to fry 
it, but it didn't fry. Nice try, but it didn't work.
  I am sure some here may have noticed that somebody else tried this 
last weekend. Last weekend I happened to be in the Farnborough Airshow, 
which I go to every year. While I was at the airshow, I got a call from 
home telling me that they have kind of resurrected the igloo, and they 
were talking about that. They were planning a great big event on The 
Mall, and in the event they were going to take the thing, called 
``Hoax''--let me go back to 2003.
  In 2003 when I realized and I started hearing from a lot of the real 
scientists that it was a hoax, I made the comment that the notion of 
catastrophic global warming is due to manmade anthropogenic 
CO2 and manmade gases. It is the greatest hoax ever 
perpetrated on the American people. So that is where ``Hoax'' came 
from.
  So they had a great big thing made of ice. Apparently, it was the 
size of a car. It said ``Hoax'' with a question mark. They were going 
to put it out there and it was going to melt and they were going to 
make a big issue out of it.
  The problem is nobody showed. So what did they do? They felt they 
couldn't do this if there were no cameras, so they called it off. They 
used the excuse that there had been a storm, and they thought this 
might be offensive to people who lost electricity in the storm. Anyway, 
that thing went under too.
  So in addition to the recent activity from my alarmist friends, the 
hot weather has also brought some of my favorite global warming 
reporters out of hiding, and they have been all too eager to link 
today's weather events to manmade greenhouse gases. Of course, many of 
the most outspoken global warming alarmists and scientists have been 
happy to play along. The important point is that no one, not even the 
most committed alarmist, can claim that any percentage of the warm 
weather is due to manmade greenhouse gases. I will go into more detail 
in just a minute.
  This is an inconvenient truth that global warming reporters have kept 
out of their headlines, and in some cases their stories as well.
  Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press is a good guy. He is on the 
other side of this issue, but he is one of these guys I still like. He 
is one of the most prominent global warming reporters. He came out last 
week with another scary headline proclaiming: ``This US summer is what 
global warming looks like.''
  Some quotes and stories appeared in Reuters, The Hill, and Politico. 
Yesterday morning Time magazine ran a piece by Bryan Walsh with the 
headline, ``Now Do You Believe in Global Warming?'' I was happy to see 
that Mr. Walsh began his article in Time magazine with a picture of my 
family in their igloo. He concluded his piece with:

       We're living in an igloo in the summertime, and the ice 
     melting all around us.

  It is kind of interesting that they try to talk about global warming, 
but all of a sudden they changed it to cooling.
  This was in the New York Times. They said:

       This summer has been conspicuously different in New York 
     City, not one 99-degree day in Central Park. Not a single day 
     that the temperature even approached 90. For just the second 
     time in 140 years of record keeping, the temperatures failed 
     to reach 90 in either June or July.
       The daily average last month was at or below normal every 
     day but two. The temperature broke 80 on 16 days in New York.

  So it goes on to say that the problem they are having is it is 
unusually cool. But that didn't inure to the benefit of the alarmists, 
so that wasn't used.
  So it is time to take a trip down Memory Lane. Don't forget that Time 
is the same publication that told us in 1974 that we should be very 
concerned about the coming ice age.
  There it is. Every magazine had it. Newsweek had the same thing. All 
the other magazines said another ice age is coming, and we are all 
going to die.
  Since there is time to do this, I will mention one thing which is not 
in my notes. Think about how many times this has happened. Let's look 
at the last 100 years. We will start with 1895. From 1895 to 1925, we 
went through a 30-year period that was a cooling period. Everyone back 
then was saying another ice age is coming, and we are all going to die.
  From 1925 to 1945, for that 20-year period, we went through a warming 
period. That is when they coined the phrase ``global warming.'' That 
was way back in the 1930s. From 1945 to 1975 we went into a cooling 
period. Again, we talked about how an ice age is coming. After that, we 
went into a warming period that went up to the turn of the century. Now 
it is actually going down into a cooling period again, but that was 
actually a chart.
  I guess what I am saying is every 20 or 30 years, we go through this. 
We go through the same hysteria, and everyone goes crazy and says the 
world is coming to an end. The interesting thing about this is that the 
time in world history when we had the greatest surge of CO2 
was right after World War II. That was in 1945, and that precipitated 
not a warming period with all of that CO2, but a cooling 
period that endured for 30 years. Those were the headlines in the 
paper.
  Now 30 years later, during the height of the global warming movement, 
they changed their tune. The image that is sealed in everyone's mind is 
the Time magazine cover, which we have: ``Be Worried, Be Very 
Worried.'' There is the last polar bear standing on the last cube of 
ice. Everything is melting, and we are all going to die. Again, that is 
Time magazine.
  If I were on the board of directors of Time magazine, I would 
probably do the same thing. It is a competitive business, and they have 
to sell magazines. The truth is when we ask the alarmists directly, 
they will specifically link the recent weather events to human 
activity. How do we know this? We recently came across a reported 
conference held by a group called Climate Communication. This is a very 
liberal group. As their Web site confirmed, this call was held to 
spoonfeed talking points to reporters on how to link the heat over the 
past few weeks to manmade global warming.
  To his credit, AP reporter Seth Borenstein asked the most important 
question of the call. He asked: What percentage of the recent warm 
weather can be attributed to manmade gases? I want to be completely 
accurate, so I would like to quote in full Borenstein's question as 
well as the answers he got from Dr. Michael Oppenheimer and Dr. Steven 
Running, two of the foremost global warming alarmist scientists. This 
is what Seth Borenstein said:

       Let me try to put you more on the spot, Mike and Steve: I 
     know there's attribution--you haven't done attribution 
     studies, but if you ballparked it right now and had to put a 
     percentage number on this, on the percent that the heat wave, 
     the percentage of blame you can put on anthropogenic climate 
     change, on this current heat wave, and on the fires, what 
     percentage would the two of you use?

  Dr. Oppenheimer, who is a scientist, said:

       Come on, I'm not going to answer that. Yes, I will answer 
     it, and my answer is: I won't do it. You know, we have to do 
     things carefully, because if you don't, we are going to end 
     up with bogus information out there. People will start 
     disbelieving because you'll be more wrong, more often. This 
     is not the kind of thing I want to do off the top of my head. 
     Nor do I think it can be done, you know, convincingly without 
     really taking--doing careful analysis, so I'll pass on this 
     one and see if Steve has a different view.

  Well, Dr. Steve Running said:

       Well, I already got way too hypothetical on my last answer. 
     Yeah, it's . . . probably really dangerous for us to just lob 
     out a number.


[[Page 11125]]


  Well, this goes on and on and on. I have all of this down. It is 
actually all in the record at this point, so it is redundant. He keeps 
trying to get them to say there is a percentage of chance that this 
warm weather is due to global warming.
  Now, we have to stop for a minute because we have seen that Seth 
Borenstein was asking the inconvenient question. One of the moderators 
tried to step in and tell the AP reporter that his question was a bad 
one.
  Let me quote that one again, Susan Hossel, moderator for the event, 
said:

       Seth, most of the scientists I talk to say it is a 
     contributing factor and that's what we can say and that it's 
     really not even really a well-posed question to ask for a 
     percentage, because it just--what you're asking really is for 
     a model to determine the chances of this happening without 
     climate change or with climate change and models are not very 
     good.

  So we see how he responded. He said:

       I understand, I've been covering this for 20 years, I 
     understand. I don't need a lecture, thank you very much. What 
     I'm asking for is--

  And he went on. Obviously, he was never able to get it.
  Here is the irony: Their Web site specifically explains that the 
purpose of the call is to give reporters a link relating hot weather to 
human-caused global warming.
  It states:

       Climate Communication hosted a press conference featuring 
     experts discussing the connections between extreme heat and 
     climate change.

  But when pressed, they couldn't make the link. Again, Borenstein 
asked a great question, a question that badly needed to be asked. 
Unfortunately, none of the information appeared in his article for the 
AP. Without that link, Borenstein was forced to make his article about 
what global warming could look like in the future. But in doing so, he 
left out any mention of uncertainty expressed by the scientist.
  Borenstein quoted Chris Field, a leading author of the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That is the United Nations 
that started this whole thing, and they are the ones who were stacking 
the scientists. He is one of the individuals. According to Field, this 
report warns of ``unprecedented extreme weather events'' due to global 
warming. But, as usual, Borenstein failed to mention that even the 
IPCC, which normally heightens the fear factor as much as possible, 
admitted in that same March report that there is significant 
uncertainty regarding linking extreme weather events to human causes.
  Also missing from the article was the mention of Borenstein's 
interview from climatologist Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of 
Technology. Fortunately, she was good enough to post her answers on her 
blog since he didn't use it. Curry explained:

       We saw these kinds of heat waves in the 1930's, and those 
     were definitely not caused by greenhouse gases. Weather 
     variability changes on multidecadal time scales, associated 
     with large ocean oscillations. I don't think that what we are 
     seeing this summer is outside the range of natural 
     variability for the past century. In terms of heat waves, 
     particularly in cities, urbanization can also contribute to 
     the warming.

  There was another interesting part of the conference call that I 
think is worth mentioning. When ABC News reporter Bill Blakemore asked 
about the effect of La Nina and El Nino on today's hot weather, Dr. 
Oppenheimer was again uncomfortable about this question and said it was 
``off message.'' Yet NOAA--that is, the N-O-A-A--came out yesterday 
with a different opinion. Andrew Revkin of the New York Times explained 
on his blog:

       In a briefing and several postings today, the National 
     Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reviewed the most 
     notable climate and weather events of 2011. Many of these 
     events--from an extreme East African drought to Australian 
     deluges--were significantly driven by a ``double-dip La 
     Nina'' cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, agency 
     scientists said.

  In other words, it is La Nina and El Nino that made the difference.
  In yesterday's Tulsa World, there was an opinion piece that directly 
addressed this El Nino and La Nina debate and how it affects Oklahoma 
specifically; that is, my State of Oklahoma. The editorial mentions an 
interview in April of 2008 with Tulsa National Weather Service 
meteorologist Nicole McGavock regarding Oklahoma's record rainfall that 
month. McGavock said:

       Don't go blaming global warming, but rather blame El Nino's 
     counterpart, La Nina. La Nina happens when the weather is 
     cooler near the equator along the Pacific Ocean.

  It has nothing to do with global warming.
  That same opinion piece mentioned another article published in 
December of 2011 which was about Oklahoma's drought-filled summer of 
2011. In it, associate State climatologist Gary McManus said:

       Did this hot summer happen due to global warming? [No.] I 
     think when we study this summer, we will find that we would 
     have had the warmest summer regardless of global warming.

  With all this in mind, it is no wonder that when Time magazine asks 
the question, ``Now do you believe in global warming?'' the answer is 
resounding: The American people are no longer buying it. As the 
Washington Post recently reported, global warming is no longer an issue 
of concern for Americans, and one of the reasons is that the public 
doesn't trust those who try to use hot weather as proof of global 
warming. The public has clearly grown weary of the alarmists' fear 
campaigns. After all, they have been going on for 12 years.
  Just how bad have things gotten for the global warming movement? 
Well, one indication is that no one is even talking about global 
warming except for myself and Representative Markey over in the House. 
As a Politico article said yesterday, Representative Markey accused 
Republicans of being silent on the threat of global warming and called 
for Republicans to hold hearings.
  While Representative Markey is quick to accuse Republicans of 
silence, he says nothing about the silence we are hearing from the 
Democrats here in the Senate. We haven't heard anybody. I haven't heard 
the term ``global warming'' coming from any Senator. When was the last 
time anyone heard President Obama or the Democrats mention global 
warming? In fact, their campaign has failed so miserably that President 
Obama, running for reelection, is pretending to support oil and gas to 
gain votes.
  The irony is that the President, who came into office promising to 
slow the rise of the oceans and all that, has presided over the 
complete collapse of the global warming movement. Since President Obama 
took office nearly 4 years ago, not one global warming cap-and-trade 
bill has been debated on the Senate floor. In fact, if anything, they 
are regressing in support for their pet issue. Last year 64 Senators 
went on record as wanting to rein in the Obama EPA's global warming 
regulations.
  We have said several times that there have been numerous bills 
introduced ever since the Kyoto Treaty was never submitted for 
ratification. That was back in the early 1990s. Ever since that time, 
there have been numerous bills that would be cap-and-trade bills and 
they have gone down. Each time, they go down by a greater percentage 
than the one before did. In fact, if anything, they are regressing in 
their support.
  So the far-left environmental community has clearly been instructed 
to keep quiet, although sometimes they can't help themselves and they 
get into trouble, like 350.org that I referred to. They are no doubt 
assured that if President Obama is reelected, he will do everything he 
can to achieve his global warming agenda through regulations because 
the American people have rejected legislation. That is what has 
happened. Actually, the cost of it, which is not controversial--it is 
because people recognize and nobody has actually refuted the fact that 
if it were to pass either by legislation or by regulation, it would 
cost the American people between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. 
So people now realize that and know we can't afford to do something 
that really is not going to accomplish anything.
  Anyway, the Obama administration is already doing--we have identified 
right now some $68 billion that he has, through regulations, been able 
to have on all of his climate agenda. So it has already been very 
expensive. Nobody is really aware of it, but nonetheless that

[[Page 11126]]

is what is happening. He just doesn't want the American people to know 
it. How can he convince them that so much economic pain is necessary 
now that the global warming movement has completely lost its trust in 
the public? That would stop some of the usual suspects from continuing 
to try to drum up global warming hysteria, but we wouldn't count on Al 
Gore coming out of hiding to help or President Obama saying anything to 
back him up--at least not now, before the election.
  Just the other day, George Mason University, I believe it was, did a 
polling of all of the 480 TV meteorologists. Only 19 percent of them 
said we are having global warming due to manmade gases. Now, that is a 
major change from before. So the trendline is going back the other way. 
The polling has definitely gone the other way.
  Back to last weekend's failed effort to blame hot weather on global 
warming, I would like to mention three things on which scientists 
agree.
  First of all, we can't blame global warming on one event. Let me 
share with my colleagues what Roger Pelke, professor of environmental 
studies at the University of Colorado, said:

       Over the long term, there is no evidence that disasters are 
     getting worse because of climate change.

  Judith Curry, whom I already mentioned, is a well-established 
scientist. She said:

       I have been completely unconvinced by any of the arguments 
     . . . that attributes a single extreme weather event, a 
     cluster of extreme weather events, or statistics of extreme 
     weather events to anthropogenic forcing.

  Myles Allen, the head of the Climate Dynamics Group at the University 
of Oxford's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department, 
said:

       When Al Gore said . . . that scientists now have clear 
     proof that climate change is directly responsible for the 
     extreme and devastating floods, storms, and droughts . . . my 
     heart sank.

  I was on ``The Rachel Maddow Show.'' She doesn't have Republicans on 
very often. She is one of my favorite liberals, and I enjoy being on. I 
found out then that Bill Nye, her science guy, actually is one--one of 
the things he states is, don't fall into the trap of trying to say that 
because somebody is at some place that is very, very hot, that somehow 
that supports global warming. In fact, Dana Milbank, a Washington Post 
columnist who is a major Maddow contributor, said:

       When climate activists make the dubious claim, as a 
     Canadian environmental group did, that global warming is to 
     blame for the lack of snow at the Winter Olympics in 
     Vancouver, then they invite similarly specious conclusions 
     about Washington's snow . . . Argument-by-anecdote isn't 
     working.

  That was Dana Milbank, who is really on the other side of this issue.
  So I mentioned that there are three things. One is a fact that is 
incontrovertible, that people agree on, which is that one or two events 
aren't going to reflect climate change or global warming.
  The second thing is the cost. Years ago when the Kyoto Treaty was up, 
I wasn't sure which way to go. I assumed the scientists were all 
together on this, only to find out they weren't.
  One thing we did find out when we got a report from several 
universities, including MIT, was that the cost of this, if we were to 
pass any of the bills, would have been between $300 billion and $400 
billion a year. What I always do when I hear about billions and 
trillions of dollars is I try to, if I can, find out how that affects 
my family and the State of Oklahoma.
  Back when we had the largest tax increase in 1993 called the Clinton-
Gore tax increase, they increased marginal rates, the death tax, 
capital gains tax and all of that, and it was at that time the largest 
tax increase in three decades. We were all pretty outraged about it. 
Yet that was a $32 billion tax increase. Here we are talking about a 
$300 billion to $400 billion tax increase.
  The last thing I would say is that if we have a tax increase like 
this, what do we get for it?
  I sometimes appreciate--in fact, I always appreciate the 
Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson. She is an appointee of 
President Obama. I asked her this question on live TV in one of our 
committee hearings: If you guys are going to do this by regulation or 
if you are going to have cap and trade and punish the American people 
with all of the cost of this and everything else, if they are 
successful, if that happened, would this reduce the CO2 
worldwide? Her answer: No, it wouldn't. Because this isn't where the 
problem is. The problem is in China and Mexico and India. One could 
carry that argument on out further and conclude that if we have that 
kind of a regulation in this country and drive our manufacturing base 
overseas, they would go to places such as China and India where there 
are no emissions restrictions, so it would have the effect of actually 
increased CO2.
  Anyway, I appreciate very much Time magazine coming out and bringing 
up the igloo again. It is a thing of beauty, and it is very meaningful 
to me, and I think it told a story that a lot of people needed to hear, 
and they have heard it now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.


                              Health Care

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I thank you for the recognition. I come to 
the floor to briefly talk about the Supreme Court decision on health 
care.
  I was in Colorado last week. We had a wonderful time traveling across 
the Western Slope of our State. We spent time in Gunnison County and 
other places. We fished in Hartselle. One thing people were not talking 
about there was the Supreme Court decision on health care. What they 
were talking about was how we get our economy moving again; how we 
recouple our economic growth in this country to job growth and wage 
growth again; how we create a comprehensive and thoughtful approach to 
reducing our deficit and our debt; how we educate our kids for the 21st 
century; how we build this economy to make sure we leave our kids with 
something better than what we found. In short, they were talking about 
exactly what people inside the beltway are not talking about.
  Today the House of Representatives--I don't know whether voting has 
started yet--in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, is voting to 
repeal the health care reform bill for the 31st time. They have been 
successful 30 times. They have voted to repeal the bill 30 times, but 
they feel the need now to do it a 31st time.
  I saw on the TV in my office today the Twitter traffic that was 
rolling at the bottom of the screen. One person after another announced 
that they were voting to repeal the health care bill for the 31st time.
  I thought about a Facebook post I saw last week from somebody I know 
in Denver named Mary Seawall. She is on the school board there, but she 
is not a politician. This is what she wrote the day after the Supreme 
Court reached its decision on health care:

       Yesterday's Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable 
     Care Act came on a hard day for our family. Yesterday 
     afternoon, we learned that our 6-year-old Annie has type 1 
     diabetes. She and I sat in a doctor's office crying through 
     her first finger prick, her first insulin shot. Our life is 
     now different.
       She will have this disease for her entire life or until 
     there is a cure. A few years ago, our entire family might 
     have lost our insurance. She now has a preexisting condition 
     that likely would have made her uninsurable as an adult.

  Mary wrote:

       What I am saying is not political; it's a mother's sigh of 
     relief.

  ``A mother's sigh of relief.''

       When I heard the Supreme Court ruling, I was waiting for 
     the call--

  ``I was waiting for the call''--

     to tell me why my baby looked too thin, why she had to take 
     breaks walking up a flight of stairs, why she had started 
     wetting her bed. The ruling means she lives in a country that 
     won't leave her behind.
       We are very lucky that we caught this early before she lost 
     consciousness or went into a coma, something that would have 
     likely happened in the next few days.
       I know our luck came from health insurance that allowed her 
     worried parents to take her to the doctor because we had a 
     ``bad feeling.'' Many families, even insured ones, can't do 
     what we did. I was raised on the idea of ``better to be safe 
     than sorry.'' Our health care system has been ``better sorry 
     than safe'' for too long.


[[Page 11127]]


  Mary goes on to say that this Supreme Court decision ``couldn't have 
come at a better time, our family's worst day.''
  I hope the folks who are twittering about their repeal for the 31st 
time of this bill rather than working to try to improve it, rather than 
working to try to fix it, incapable of actually telling us what they 
would replace this with, would take a moment to read what a mother in 
Denver posted on Facebook last week.
  I do not think this health care bill was perfect, and I said that 
from the day we passed it. There are issues around cost, in particular, 
that I continue to be very concerned with because despite the rhetoric 
around this place, the reality is that we cannot solve our deficit and 
debt problem without dealing with a restructuring of how we deliver 
health care in the United States. Maybe the bill is not perfect, and 
maybe there are suggestions that could be made to improve it. I have my 
own. I tried, when we passed the bill, to put a fail-safe in place that 
would actually hold this Congress to the numbers that it said it would 
save, the dollars that we said we would save, and that if we did not, 
we had to figure out how to cut or make other changes to get there. So 
there is more work to be done. But the thing I find amazing--and this 
is why I wanted to come to the floor--is how far away this conversation 
is from the people I represent and what a masquerade so much of this 
conversation is.
  I know there were a lot of people who were disappointed that the 
health care bill was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, and 
there were people who said they were going to declare it 
unconstitutional, and they did not.
  So the next day--and really for the next week--what we heard was, 
well, the bill imposes a tax on the middle class of this country, that 
the President broke a promise because he said he would not raise taxes 
on the middle class.
  I want everybody to know what is being talked about when people talk 
about this. They are talking about a piece of the legislation called 
the health care mandate. Some people call it a penalty, and some people 
call it a tax. That is something that has been debated around here for 
the last week. It has not been debated before this.
  I do not care what label you put on it, frankly, because people at 
home are not talking to me about this. Do you know why they are not 
talking to me about this? Because it applies to 1 percent--1.2 percent, 
to be precise--of the American people. That is what the Congressional 
Budget Office told us when we were passing this legislation. And if you 
do not believe me, it is on page 33--I will not enter the whole opinion 
into the Record--of the Supreme Court's finding of fact, where Justice 
Roberts finds as a matter of fact that the CBO said this mandate would 
cost $4 billion and that roughly 4 million people would be affected. 
Those are the 4 million people after Medicare and Medicaid and private 
employers' insurance and personal insurance that people buy. That is a 
group of people, a sliver, 1 percent of the American people who can 
afford to buy insurance but do not and choose to pay the penalty or the 
tax or the mandate instead of buying their insurance--$4 billion; 4 
million people.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the portion of the 
Supreme Court Opinion of the Court that I referred to on page 33 of the 
opinion be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                          Opinion of the Court

       The exaction the Affordable Care Act imposes on those 
     without health insurance looks like a tax in many respects. 
     The ``[s]hared responsibility payment,'' as the statute 
     entitles it, is paid into the Treasury by ``taxpayer[s]'' 
     when they file their tax returns. 26 U.S.C. Sec. 5000A(b). It 
     does not apply to individuals who do not pay federal income 
     taxes because their household income is less than the filing 
     threshold in the Internal Revenue Code. Sec. 5000A(e)(2). For 
     taxpayers who do owe the payment, its amount is determined by 
     such familiar factors as taxable income, number of 
     dependents, and joint filing status. Sec. Sec. 5000A(b)(3), 
     (c)(2), (c)(4). The requirement to pay is found in the 
     Internal Revenue Code and enforced by the IRS, which--as we 
     previously explained--must assess and collect it ``in the 
     same manner as taxes.'' Supra, at 13-14. This process yields 
     the essential feature of any tax: it produces at least some 
     revenue for the Government. United States v. Kahriger, 345 
     U.S. 22, 28, n. 4 (1953). Indeed, the payment is expected to 
     raise about $4 billion per year by 2017. Congressional Budget 
     Office, Payments of Penalties for Being Uninsured Under the 
     Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Apr. 30, 2010), 
     in Selected CBO Publications Related to Health Care 
     Legislation, 2009-2010, p. 71 (rev. 2010).

  Mr. BENNET. What the health care bill was intended to do--and again, 
it may not have done it perfectly, and there may be other ideas we 
ought to be legislating around--what it was intended to do is solve a 
problem that confronted not 1 percent of the American people, not 4 
million people, but a problem that conservatively--extremely 
conservatively--affects 50 percent of the American people and is a 
$58.5 billion problem, not a $4 billion problem, because it is 50 
percent of the people who are covered today by their employers who have 
to pay $1,100 a year in additional premiums to subsidize the uninsured 
in the United States of America. That was one of the big objectives of 
dealing with this health care issue. And I say it is conservative 
because this number does not even include the people who are buying 
insurance on their own. So maybe if you add those numbers together, you 
get to about 70 percent of the American people.
  So we spent a week on cable television, on the floor of the Senate, 
occupied completely with this 1 percent number over here, with no 
theory at all about what we are doing for 50 percent of Americans. That 
is how comical this conversation has become. I should not say comical. 
That is how detached this conversation has become from what is actually 
going on in the real lives of the people whom I represent and others in 
this Chamber represent.
  What is so amazing to me, having watched this as somebody who has not 
been around here for very long and may not understand all the ways of 
Washington, is that when you look at the history of this so-called 
mandate or so-called tax, it is really puzzling to understand the 
politics around this.
  This is a chart, I show you in the Chamber, that is part of an 
article that ran in the New Yorker a couple weeks ago called the 
``Unpopular Mandate'' by Ezra Klein. I ask unanimous consent that the 
article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From the New Yorker, June 25, 2012]

     Unpopular Mandate--Why do politicians reverse their positions?

                            (By Ezra Klein)

       On March 23, 2010, the day that President Obama signed the 
     Affordable Care Act into law, fourteen state attorneys 
     general filed suit against the law's requirement that most 
     Americans purchase health insurance, on the ground that it 
     was unconstitutional. It was hard to find a law professor in 
     the country who took them seriously. ``The argument about 
     constitutionality is, if not frivolous, close to it,'' 
     Sanford Levinson, a University of Texas law-school professor, 
     told the McClatchy newspapers. Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of 
     the law school at the University of California at Irvine, 
     told the Times, ``There is no case law, post 1937, that would 
     support an individual's right not to buy health care if the 
     government wants to mandate it.'' Orin Kerr, a George 
     Washington University professor who had clerked for Justice 
     Anthony Kennedy, said, ``There is a less than one-per-cent 
     chance that the courts will invalidate the individual 
     mandate.'' Today, as the Supreme Court prepares to hand down 
     its decision on the law, Kerr puts the chance that it will 
     overturn the mandate--almost certainly on a party-line vote--
     at closer to ``fifty-fifty.'' The Republicans have made the 
     individual mandate the element most likely to undo the 
     President's health-care law. The irony is that the Democrats 
     adopted it in the first place because they thought that it 
     would help them secure conservative support. It had, after 
     all, been at the heart of Republican health-care reforms for 
     two decades.
       The mandate made its political debut in a 1989 Heritage 
     Foundation brief titled ``Assuring Affordable Health Care for 
     All Americans,'' as a counterpoint to the single-payer system 
     and the employer mandate, which were favored in Democratic 
     circles. In the brief, Stuart Butler, the foundation's 
     health-care expert, argued, ``Many states now require 
     passengers in automobiles to wear

[[Page 11128]]

     seat-belts for their own protection. Many others require 
     anybody driving a car to have liability insurance. But 
     neither the federal government nor any state requires all 
     households to protect themselves from the potentially 
     catastrophic costs of a serious accident or illness. Under 
     the Heritage plan, there would be such a requirement.'' The 
     mandate made its first legislative appearance in 1993, in the 
     Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act--the Republicans' 
     alternative to President Clinton's health-reform bill--which 
     was sponsored by John Chafee, of Rhode Island, and co-
     sponsored by eighteen Republicans, including Bob Dole, who 
     was then the Senate Minority Leader.
       After the Clinton bill, which called for an employer 
     mandate, failed, Democrats came to recognize the opportunity 
     that the Chafee bill had presented. In ``The System,'' David 
     Broder and Haynes Johnson's history of the health-care wars 
     of the nineties, Bill Clinton concedes that it was the best 
     chance he had of reaching a bipartisan compromise. ``It 
     should have been right then, or the day after they presented 
     their bill, where I should have tried to have a direct 
     understanding with Dole,'' he said.
       Ten years later, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, 
     began picking his way back through the history--he read ``The 
     System'' four times--and he, too, came to focus on the Chafee 
     bill. He began building a proposal around the individual 
     mandate, and tested it out on both Democrats and Republicans. 
     ``Between 2004 and 2008, I saw over eighty members of the 
     Senate, and there were very few who objected,'' Wyden says. 
     In December, 2006, he unveiled the Healthy Americans Act. In 
     May, 2007, Bob Bennett, a Utah Republican, who had been a 
     sponsor of the Chafee bill, joined him. Wyden-Bennett was 
     eventually co-sponsored by eleven Republicans and nine 
     Democrats, receiving more bipartisan support than any 
     universal health-care proposal in the history of the Senate. 
     It even caught the eye of the Republican Presidential 
     aspirants. In a June, 2009, interview on ``Meet the Press,'' 
     Mitt Romney, who, as governor of Massachusetts, had signed a 
     universal health-care bill with an individual mandate, said 
     that Wyden-Bennett was a plan ``that a number of Republicans 
     think is a very good health-care plan--one that we support.''
       Wyden's bill was part of a broader trend of Democrats 
     endorsing the individual mandate in their own proposals. John 
     Edwards and Hillary Clinton both built a mandate into their 
     campaign health-care proposals. In 2008, Senator Ted Kennedy 
     brought John McDonough, a liberal advocate of the 
     Massachusetts plan, to Washington to help with health-care 
     reform. That same year, Max Baucus, the chairman of the 
     Senate Finance Committee, included an individual mandate in 
     the first draft of his health-care bill. The main Democratic 
     holdout was Senator Barack Obama. But by July, 2009, 
     President Obama had changed his mind. ``I was opposed to this 
     idea because my general attitude was the reason people don't 
     have health insurance is not because they don't want it. It's 
     because they can't afford it,'' he told CBS News. ``I am now 
     in favor of some sort of individual mandate.''
       This process led, eventually, to the Patient Protection and 
     Affordable Care Act--better known as Obamacare--which also 
     included an individual mandate. But, as that bill came closer 
     to passing, Republicans began coalescing around the mandate, 
     which polling showed to be one of the legislation's least 
     popular elements. In December, 2009, in a vote on the bill, 
     every Senate Republican voted to call the individual mandate 
     ``unconstitutional.''
       This shift--Democrats lining up behind the Republican-
     crafted mandate, and Republicans declaring it not just 
     inappropriate policy but contrary to the wishes of the 
     Founders--shocked Wyden. ``I would characterize the 
     Washington, D.C., relationship with the individual mandate as 
     truly schizophrenic,'' he said.
       It was not an isolated case. In 2007, both Newt Gingrich 
     and John McCain wanted a cap-and-trade program in order to 
     reduce carbon emissions. Today, neither they nor any other 
     leading Republicans support cap-and-trade. In 2008, the Bush 
     Administration proposed, pushed, and signed the Economic 
     Stimulus Act, a deficit-financed tax cut designed to boost 
     the flagging economy. Today, few Republicans admit that a 
     deficit-financed stimulus can work. Indeed, with the 
     exception of raising taxes on the rich, virtually every major 
     policy currently associated with the Obama Administration 
     was, within the past decade, a Republican idea in good 
     standing.
       Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at New York 
     University's business school, argues in a new book, ``The 
     Righteous Mind,'' that to understand human beings, and their 
     politics, you need to understand that we are descended from 
     ancestors who would not have survived if they hadn't been 
     very good at belonging to groups. He writes that ``our minds 
     contain a variety of mental mechanisms that make us adept at 
     promoting our group's interests, in competition with other 
     groups. We are not saints, but we are sometimes good team 
     players.''
       One of those mechanisms is figuring out how to believe what 
     the group believes. Haidt sees the role that reason plays as 
     akin to the job of the White House press secretary. He 
     writes, ``No matter how bad the policy, the secretary will 
     find some way to praise or defend it. Sometimes you'll hear 
     an awkward pause as the secretary searches for the right 
     words, but what you'll never hear is: `Hey, that's a great 
     point! Maybe we should rethink this policy.' Press 
     secretaries can't say that because they have no power to make 
     or revise policy. They're told what the policy is, and their 
     job is to find evidence and arguments that will justify the 
     policy to the public.'' For that reason, Haidt told me, 
     ``once group loyalties are engaged, you can't change people's 
     minds by utterly refuting their arguments. Thinking is mostly 
     just rationalization, mostly just a search for supporting 
     evidence.''
       Psychologists have a term for this: ``motivated 
     reasoning,'' which Dan Kahan, a professor of law and 
     psychology at Yale, defines as ``when a person is conforming 
     their assessments of information to some interest or goal 
     that is independent of accuracy''--an interest or goal such 
     as remaining a well-regarded member of his political party, 
     or winning the next election, or even just winning an 
     argument. Geoffrey Cohen, a professor of psychology at 
     Stanford, has shown how motivated reasoning can drive even 
     the opinions of engaged partisans. In 2003, when he was an 
     assistant professor at Yale, Cohen asked a group of 
     undergraduates, who had previously described their political 
     views as either very liberal or very conservative, to 
     participate in a test to study, they were told, their 
     ``memory of everyday current events.''
       The students were shown two articles: one was a generic 
     news story; the other described a proposed welfare policy. 
     The first article was a decoy; it was the students' reactions 
     to the second that interested Cohen. He was actually testing 
     whether party identifications influence voters when they 
     evaluate new policies. To find out, he produced multiple 
     versions of the welfare article. Some students read about a 
     program that was extremely generous--more generous, in fact, 
     than any welfare policy that has ever existed in the United 
     States--while others were presented with a very stingy 
     proposal. But there was a twist: some versions of the article 
     about the generous proposal portrayed it as being endorsed by 
     Republican Party leaders; and some versions of the article 
     about the meagre program described it as having Democratic 
     support. The results showed that, ``for both liberal and 
     conservative participants, the effect of reference group 
     information overrode that of policy content. If their party 
     endorsed it, liberals supported even a harsh welfare program, 
     and conservatives supported even a lavish one.''
       In a subsequent study involving just self-described liberal 
     students, Cohen gave half the group news stories that had 
     accompanying Democratic endorsements and the other half news 
     stories that did not. The students who didn't get the 
     endorsements preferred a more generous program. When they did 
     get the endorsements, they went with their party, even if 
     this meant embracing a meaner option.
       This kind of thinking is, according to psychologists, 
     unsurprising. Each of us can have firsthand knowledge of just 
     a small number of topics--our jobs, our studies, our personal 
     experiences. But as citizens--and as elected officials--we 
     are routinely asked to make judgments on issues as diverse 
     and as complex as the Iranian nuclear program, the 
     environmental impact of an international oil pipeline, and 
     the likely outcomes of branding China a ``currency 
     manipulator.''
       According to the political-science literature, one of the 
     key roles that political parties play is helping us navigate 
     these decisions. In theory, we join parties because they 
     share our values and our goals--values and goals that may 
     have been passed on to us by the most important groups in our 
     lives, such as our families and our communities--and so we 
     trust that their policy judgments will match the ones we 
     would come up with if we had unlimited time to study the 
     issues. But parties, though based on a set of principles, 
     aren't disinterested teachers in search of truth. They're 
     organized groups looking to increase their power. Or, as the 
     psychologists would put it, their reasoning may be motivated 
     by something other than accuracy. And you can see the results 
     among voters who pay the closest attention to the issues.
       In a 2006 paper, ``It Feels Like We're Thinking,'' the 
     political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels 
     looked at a National Election Study, a poll supported by the 
     National Science Foundation, from 1996. One of the questions 
     asked whether ``the size of the yearly budget deficit 
     increased, decreased, or stayed about the same during 
     Clinton's time as President.'' The correct answer is that it 
     decreased, dramatically. Achen and Bartels categorize the 
     respondents according to how politically informed they were. 
     Among the least-informed respondents, Democrats and 
     Republicans picked the wrong answer in roughly equal numbers. 
     But among better-informed voters the story was different. 
     Republicans who were in the fiftieth percentile gave the 
     right answer more often than those in the ninety-fifth 
     percentile. Bartels found a similar effect in a previous 
     survey, in which well-informed Democrats were asked whether 
     inflation had gone down during Ronald Reagan's

[[Page 11129]]

     Presidency. It had, but many of those Democrats said that it 
     hadn't. The more information people had, it seemed, the 
     better they were at arranging it to fit what they wanted to 
     believe. As Bartels told me, ``If I'm a Republican and an 
     enthusiastic supporter of lower tax rates, it is 
     uncomfortable to recognize that President Obama has reduced 
     most Americans' taxes--and I can find plenty of conservative 
     information sources that deny or ignore the fact that he 
     has.''
       Recently, Bartels noticed a similar polarization in 
     attitudes toward the health-care law and the Supreme Court. 
     Using YouGov polling data, he found that less-informed voters 
     who supported the law and less-informed voters who opposed it 
     were equally likely to say that ``the Supreme Court should be 
     able to throw out any law it finds unconstitutional.'' But, 
     among better-informed voters, those who opposed the law were 
     thirty per cent more likely than those who supported it to 
     cede that power to the Court. In other words, well-informed 
     opponents realized that they needed an activist Supreme Court 
     that was willing to aggressively overturn laws if they were 
     to have any hope of invalidating the Affordable Care Act.
       Orin Kerr says that, in the two years since he gave the 
     individual mandate only a one-per-cent chance of being 
     overturned, three key things have happened. First, 
     congressional Republicans made the argument against the 
     mandate a Republican position. Then it became a standard 
     conservative-media position. ``That legitimized the argument 
     in a way we haven't really seen before,'' Kerr said. ``We 
     haven't seen the media pick up a legal argument and make the 
     argument mainstream by virtue of media coverage.'' Finally, 
     he says, ``there were two conservative district judges who 
     agreed with the argument, largely echoing the Republican 
     position and the media coverage. And, once you had all that, 
     it really became a ballgame.''
       Jack Balkin, a Yale law professor, agrees. ``Once 
     Republican politicians say this is unconstitutional, it gets 
     repeated endlessly in the partisan media that's friendly to 
     the Republican Party''--Fox News, conservative talk radio, 
     and the like--``and, because this is now the Republican 
     Party's position, the mainstream media needs to repeatedly 
     explain the claims to their readers. That further moves the 
     arguments from off the wall to on the wall, because, if 
     you're reading articles in the Times describing the case 
     against the mandate, you assume this is a live controversy.'' 
     Of course, Balkin says, ``if the courts didn't buy this, it 
     wouldn't get anywhere.''
       But the courts are not as distant from the political 
     process as some like to think. The first judge to rule 
     against the individual mandate was Judge Henry Hudson, of 
     Virginia's Eastern District Court. Hudson was heavily 
     invested in a Republican consulting firm called Campaign 
     Solutions, Inc. The company had worked with the Presidential 
     campaigns of John McCain and George W. Bush, the Republican 
     National Committee, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and 
     Ken Cuccinelli--the Virginia state attorney general who is 
     one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the Affordable 
     Care Act.
       The fact that a judge--even a partisan judge in a district 
     court--had ruled that a central piece of a Democratic 
     President's signature legislative accomplishment was 
     unconstitutional led the news across the country. Hudson's 
     ruling was followed by a similar, and even more sweeping, 
     ruling, by Judge Roger Vinson, of the Northern District of 
     Florida. Vinson declared the entire bill unconstitutional, 
     setting off a new round of stories. The twin rulings gave 
     conservatives who wanted to believe that the mandate was 
     unconstitutional more reason to hold that belief. Voters who 
     hadn't thought much about it now heard that judges were 
     ruling against the Administration. Vinson and Hudson were 
     outnumbered by other district judges who either upheld the 
     law or threw out lawsuits against it, but those rulings were 
     mostly ignored.
       At the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen kept track of the 
     placement that the Times and the Washington Post (where I 
     work) gave to stories about court rulings on the health-care 
     law. When judges ruled against the law, they got long front-
     page stories. When they ruled for it, they got shorter 
     stories, inside the paper. Indeed, none of the cases 
     upholding the law got front-page coverage, but every 
     rejection of it did, and usually in both papers. From an 
     editorial perspective, that made sense: the Vinson and Hudson 
     rulings called into question the law's future; the other 
     rulings signalled no change. But the effect was repeated news 
     stories in which the Affordable Care Act was declared 
     unconstitutional, and few news stories representing the legal 
     profession's consensus that it was not. The result can be 
     seen in a March poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which 
     found that fifty-one per cent of Americans think that the 
     mandate is unconstitutional.
       What is notable about the conservative response to the 
     individual mandate is not only the speed with which a legal 
     argument that was considered fringe in 2010 had become 
     mainstream by 2012; it's the implication that the Republicans 
     spent two decades pushing legislation that was in clear 
     violation of the nation's founding document. Political 
     parties do go through occasional, painful cleansings, in 
     which they emerge with different leaders who hold different 
     positions. This was true of Democrats in the nineteen- 
     nineties, when Bill Clinton passed free trade, deficit 
     reduction, and welfare reform, despite the furious objections 
     of liberals. But in this case the mandate's supporters simply 
     became its opponents.
       In February, 2012, Stuart Butler, the author of the 
     Heritage Foundation brief that first proposed the mandate, 
     wrote an op-ed for USA Today in which he recanted that 
     support. ``I've altered my views on many things,'' he wrote. 
     ``The individual mandate in health care is one of them.'' 
     Senator Orrin Hatch, who had been a co-sponsor of the Chafee 
     bill, emerged as one of the mandate's most implacable 
     opponents in 2010, writing in The Hill that to come to ``any 
     other conclusion'' than that the mandate is unconstitutional 
     ``requires treating the Constitution as the servant, rather 
     than the master, of Congress.'' Mitt Romney, who had both 
     passed an individual mandate as governor and supported Wyden-
     Bennett, now calls Obama's law an ``unconstitutional power 
     grab from the states,'' and has promised, if elected, to 
     begin repealing the law ``on Day One.''
       Even Bob Bennett, who was among the most eloquent advocates 
     of the mandate, voted, in 2009, to call it unconstitutional. 
     ``I'd group us''--Senate Republicans--``into three 
     categories,'' he says. ``There were people like me, who 
     bought onto the mandate because it made sense and would work, 
     and we were reluctant to let go of it. Then, there were 
     people who bought onto it slowly, for political advantage, 
     and were immediately willing to abandon it as soon as the 
     political advantage went the other way. And then there's a 
     third group that thought it made sense and then thought it 
     through and changed their minds.'' Explaining his decision to 
     vote against the law, Bennett, who was facing a Tea Party 
     challenger in a primary, says, ``I didn't focus on the 
     particulars of the amendment as closely as I should have, and 
     probably would have voted the other way if I had understood 
     that the individual mandate was at its core. I just wanted to 
     express my opposition to the Obama proposal at every 
     opportunity.'' He was defeated in the primary, anyway.
       But, whatever the motives of individual politicians, the 
     end result was the same: a policy that once enjoyed broad 
     support within the Republican Party suddenly faced unified 
     opposition--opposition that was echoed, refined, and 
     popularized by other institutions affiliated with the Party. 
     This is what Jason Grumet, the president of the Bipartisan 
     Policy Center, a group that tried to encourage Republicans 
     and Democrats to unite around policy solutions, calls the 
     ``think-tank industrial complex''--the network of 
     ideologically oriented research centers that drive much of 
     the policy debate in Washington. As Senator Olympia Snowe, of 
     Maine, who has announced that she is leaving the Senate 
     because of the noxious political climate, says, ``You can 
     find a think tank to buttress any view or position, and then 
     you can give it the aura of legitimacy and credibility by 
     referring to their report.'' And, as we're increasingly able 
     to choose our information sources based on their tendency to 
     back up whatever we already believe, we don't even have to 
     hear the arguments from the other side, much less give them 
     serious consideration. Partisans who may not have strong 
     opinions on the underlying issues thus get a clear signal on 
     what their party wants them to think, along with reams of 
     information on why they should think it.
       All this suggests that the old model of compromise is going 
     to have a very difficult time in today's polarized political 
     climate. Because it's typically not in the minority party's 
     interest to compromise with the majority party on big bills--
     elections are a zero-sum game, where the majority wins if the 
     public thinks it has been doing a good job--Washington's 
     motivated-reasoning machine is likely to kick into gear on 
     most major issues. ``Reasoning can take you wherever you want 
     to go,'' Haidt warns. ``Can you see your way to an individual 
     mandate, if it's a way to fight single payer? Sure. And so, 
     when it was strategically valuable Republicans could believe 
     it was constitutional and good. Then Obama proposes the idea. 
     And then the question becomes not `Can you believe in this?' 
     but `Must you believe it?' ''
       And that means that you can't assume that policy-based 
     compromises that made sense at the beginning will survive to 
     the end, because by that time whichever group has an interest 
     in not compromising will likely have convinced itself that 
     the compromise position is an awful idea--even if, just a few 
     years ago, that group thought it was a great one. ``The basic 
     way you wanted to put together a big deal five years ago is 
     that the thoughtful minds in one party would basically go off 
     and write a bill that had seventy per cent of their orthodoxy 
     and thirty per cent of the other side's orthodoxy and try to 
     use that to peel off five or six senators from the other 
     side,'' Grumet says. ``That process just doesn't work 
     anymore.'' The remarkable and confusing trajectory of the 
     individual-mandate debate, in other words, could simply be 
     the new norm.

[[Page 11130]]

       I asked Ron Wyden how, if politicians can so easily be 
     argued out of their policy preferences, compromise was 
     possible. ``I don't find it easy to answer that question, 
     because I'm an elected official and not a psychiatrist,'' he 
     said. ``If somebody says they sincerely changed their minds, 
     then so be it.'' But Wyden is, as always, optimistic about 
     the next bipartisan deal, and, again, he thinks he knows just 
     where to start. ``To bring about bipartisanship, it's going 
     to be necessary to win on something people can see and 
     understand. That's why I think tax reform is a huge 
     opportunity for the economy and the cause of building 
     coalitions.'' Perhaps he's right. Or perhaps that's just what 
     he wants to believe.

  Mr. BENNET. I urge people to read this because what Mr. Klein does in 
this article is chart the political course of this mandate from about 
1989 to the present. The red shown on the chart is the years in which 
this was a Republican idea, advanced by Republican Members of Congress 
and by think tanks like the Heritage Foundation that actually came up 
with the idea to begin with to deal with the fact that there were 
people in this country who were not buying health insurance and whom we 
were all subsidizing, and then when it became a Democratic idea in more 
recent times.
  It strikes me as one person watching all of this that this might have 
more to do with the party that is in the White House or not in the 
White House than it does with respect to the merits of the idea. But it 
is, of course, the merits of these ideas that we should be debating and 
talking about. But we should not be telling the American people that 
something that affects 1 percent of the American people is a broad-
based assault on the middle class, and we should be bringing to this 
floor the ideas we have for improving what 50 percent of the American 
people or 70 percent of the American people are already facing. That is 
what people in our States believe.
  Here is part of an editorial from the Greeley Tribune, which I think 
was published yesterday, where they wrote:

       In 2010, the North Colorado Medical Center provided more 
     than $71 million in services to indigent patients who didn't 
     have health insurance. It wrote off another $29 million in 
     bad debt.

  The Greeley Tribune writes:

       Eventually, insured patients [must] pay for that, in higher 
     premiums and co-pays.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that editorial be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Tribune Opinion: Reforms From Affordable Care Act Will Improve Access 
                                to Care

       Depending on who you talk to, the U.S. Supreme Court 
     decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act is either a great 
     step toward improving health care for millions of Americans 
     or it's the end of the world as we know it.
       But we applaud the court's decision for many reasons. We 
     think the hysteria surrounding the Affordable Care Act is 
     generally unfounded and while not perfect, the Affordable 
     Care Act is a step in the right direction toward reforming 
     our health care system.
       The Supreme Court specifically upheld the individual 
     mandate provision, which will eventually require everyone to 
     have health insurance. Those against the measure say it is an 
     example of a government mandate aimed at controlling what 
     should be a personal freedom to choose not to carry health 
     insurance.
       We argue, however, that this really isn't that different 
     than being required to carry auto insurance if you drive a 
     car or being required to pay your taxes. It's something we 
     should all do to be contributing citizens of this nation.
       But even more, those of us who do have insurance end up 
     paying for those who don't through higher health care costs.
       In 2010, North Colorado Medical Center provided more than 
     $71 million in services to indigent patients who didn't have 
     health insurance. It wrote off another $29 million in bad 
     debt. Eventually, insured patients pay for that, in higher 
     premiums and co-pays.
       This provision isn't meant to be a punishment. Programs are 
     being developed to help those who truly can't afford medical 
     insurance.
       There are other aspects of the act that are also good, 
     including stopping insurance companies from denying coverage 
     for people with ongoing conditions and the provision that 
     will allow children to stay on their parent's insurance until 
     they are 26.
       Frankly, in Colorado, where many aspects of the act have 
     already be instituted, the numbers are hard to ignore. 
     According to Gov. John Hickenlooper's office:
       Because of GettingUsCovered, a high-risk insurance pool, 
     1,331 people with pre-existing conditions have received 
     coverage.
       43,997 more adults have gained health insurance coverage.
       Nearly 1 million residents of the state with private health 
     insurance now have coverage for preventative health care.
       Nearly 2 million residents do not have to worry about 
     lifetime limits on coverage, freeing those suffering from 
     chronic diseases such as cancer of the threat of losing their 
     coverage, and their ability to receive treatments.
       There are many more reforms that are needed in our health 
     care system. There needs to be more emphasis on preventative 
     care. There needs to be more access to treatment for some 
     patients who are suffering from chronic illnesses. The 
     skyrocketing cost of health care needs to be addressed.
       We do believe this act will head the United States toward 
     some of those reforms that eventually will be a direct 
     benefit to patients.
       Unfortunately, we also realize this is going to continue to 
     be a political issue, and that is unfortunate. Access to good 
     health care should be a right in this country for every 
     single citizen, regardless of their income level. It 
     shouldn't be a tool for politicians to use scare tactics and 
     myths to gain more power.
       We hope this historic affirmation of the constitutionality 
     of the Affordable Care Act is just the first step toward 
     improving access, and our health care system as a whole.

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I believe that folks in Colorado have 
moved on here, that they want us to improve this legislation, that they 
want us to get focused on the real matters at hand, which are getting 
this economy going again, getting us into an environment where we have 
more jobs and rising wages again, and they are a lot less interested in 
these talking points.
  I do not understand why people who are in politics can simultaneously 
make such a big deal about this that affects 1 percent of the people in 
this country and at the same time support legislation, for example, 
that forces women, that mandates women to have procedures before they 
can make a choice about their own reproductive health. It does not make 
any sense because it is completely inconsistent.
  I have a daughter Anne who is 7, not 6 like Mary's daughter. But it 
is her health care and the certainty in her life and in her sisters' 
lives and the thousands of children across my State whose health care 
we should be interested in.
  I can see that other colleagues of mine have come to the floor, so I 
am going to move along here. But before I do that and before I yield to 
the Senator from Maryland, I want to say that if this repeal happened 
in the House and then this repeal happened in the Senate and it were 
signed into law, 932,000 Coloradans who have preexisting conditions 
would lose their insurance, 50,000 young adults in Colorado who can now 
stay on their parents' insurance until they are 26 would no longer be 
able to, and women could once again be discriminated against simply 
because they are women. It is welcome to 696,000 women in Colorado who 
need maternity care or other women's health services who are not going 
to be charged higher premiums since this law is in effect. And when 
these exchanges are set up, 521,000 Colorado children will, for the 
first time, have better vision and dental coverage.
  I want to work in a bipartisan way going forward to try to make sure 
we are doing everything we can to follow the examples of places such as 
St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction or the University of Colorado 
Hospital in Denver or Denver Health in Denver to drive higher quality 
and to drive lower costs. It is essential. It is essential for our 
economy, and it is essential for our competitive position in the world. 
And it is essential that we put these talking points down and start 
actually dealing with the facts as they are.
  With that, Mr. President, I thank you for your patience, and I yield 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. First, Mr. President, I thank Senator Bennet for his 
comments as they relate to the Affordable Care Act. I appreciate very 
much the point the Senator made that what was passed by Congress and 
signed by

[[Page 11131]]

President Obama was really an evolution of work that had been done and 
recommendations that had been made by Democratic and Republican 
administrations over a long period of time and that what the Supreme 
Court did was uphold Congress's ability to move forward with a plan 
that will give every American access to affordable quality health care.
  I could not agree more with the Senator that we need to do work on 
this. We need to improve the bill. There are different things we need 
to work on, and Democrats and Republicans should be working together to 
move forward on the health care debate.
  I also appreciate the point the Senator raised that the House of 
Representatives--I think it is the 31st time they are acting on 
legislation that repeals all or part of the Affordable Care Act. But 
their strategy is to repeal the law, and they have nothing to move 
forward with. They do not have a plan. As the Senator pointed out, if 
that were to become the case--and it will not; we are not going to pass 
it in the Senate--parents who now have their children on their 
insurance policy, who are 23, 24, 25 years old, would lose that 
opportunity, and parents who can now get their children covered by 
insurance who have preexisting conditions would lose that protection.
  The Patients' Bill of Rights that we have incorporated against 
abusive practices of private insurance companies--so that if someone 
goes into an emergency room with emergency conditions, they need to be 
reimbursed under prudent layperson standards--that could be lost. Our 
seniors could lose their wellness exams that are covered under 
Medicare. And we are closing the coverage gap on prescription drugs. 
That could be lost.
  Let me also point out that our seniors appreciate the fact that what 
we did in the Affordable Care Act extends the life of Medicare for 
about a decade. That would be lost.
  Small businesses will be able, in 2014, to go into exchanges and not 
be discriminated against by paying more for their insurance than a 
larger company. That would be lost.
  As the Senator knows, the attack on women's health care--this bill 
that is now law allows women to be treated equally with men as far as 
premiums are concerned. That would be lost.
  So I appreciate Senator Bennet taking the time on the floor to go 
over exactly what would happen if we were to repeal the Affordable Care 
Act.
  What we need to do, and I think the Court gave us this opportunity--
they spoke to the fact that it is up to Congress to move forward on 
this--it gives us a chance, Democrats and Republicans, to say: How can 
we make sure our health care system is as cost-effective as possible.
  In the Senate Finance Committee today, we had a roundtable discussion 
with experts as to how we can do delivery system reforms, use ways we 
can manage people with serious illnesses and bring down the cost. That 
is what we need to do.
  But the Affordable Care Act itself reduced health care costs. Look at 
the record. We will lose all that. We actually add to the deficit by 
repealing the Affordable Care Act. As the Senator knows, the House 
changed their rules so they can repeal the bill, even though it adds to 
the deficit.
  So I wanted to first thank the Senator for bringing this to the 
attention of our colleagues as to what is involved. I do think 
Democrats and Republicans need to work together. The one comment I hear 
more and more from my constituents is stop the gridlock in Washington. 
Stop debating the old issues. Let's move forward. Let's create jobs. 
Let's work together. Let's get the job done for the American people.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Tourette Syndrome

  Mr. CARDIN. I rise to bring attention to Tourette syndrome, a 
neurological disorder that affects more than 200,000 Americans in the 
most severe form and as many as 3 million more who exhibit milder 
symptoms. Tourette syndrome or TS is characterized by repetitive 
involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics.
  The disorder is named for a French neurologist who in 1885 first 
described the condition in an 86-year-old woman. TS occurs in people 
from all ethnic groups and is present in males three to four times more 
often than in females.
  The early symptoms are typically noticed first in childhood, usually 
when a child is between the age of 3 and 9 years of age. Although TS 
can be a chronic condition with symptoms lasting a lifetime, most 
patients experience the most severe symptoms in their early teens, with 
some improvements occurring in the late teens and continuing into 
adulthood.
  In May, a 13-year-old boy named Jackson Guyton from Parkton, MD, 
visited my office to tell me about his experiences with Tourette. 
Jackson first noticed symptoms 5 years ago during the summer of 2007. 
While on vacation with his family at the beach, his body started making 
strange movements he could not control. First, came a head jerk, then 
eye-squinting and rolling; later, he started emitting high-pitched 
squeaking sounds. As Jackson put it: ``I was a regular kid one moment, 
with good grades and very few problems, then in the next I was rolling 
my eyes and making sounds. . . . like a fire alarm going off.''
  In school, the sound was so loud his friends would cover their ears 
and avoid sitting near him in class, and parents of other children 
began complaining about his being in their children's class. With 
teachers who were uneducated on TS, the symptoms continued throughout 
the school year.
  So as to avoid ridicule, Jackson began skipping school or spending 
more time in the nurse's office than in class. Fortunately, Jackson's 
parents found a physician who was able to quickly diagnose the 
condition as Tourette Syndrome. Jackson changed schools and spent the 
next few years in treatment, trying various medications prescribed by 
his doctors.
  Those medicines were somewhat helpful. Jackson tried other treatments 
and clinical trials at Johns Hopkins University, where he met Dr. 
Matthew Specht, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry who 
teaches children exercises to help control the tics.
  That technique, cognitive behavioral intervention therapy or CBIT 
requires patients to use a great amount of focus and it does not work 
for everyone. But it did help Jackson control his squeaks. In the 
middle school, he encountered a guidance counselor named Mrs. Oates who 
helped change his life. In Jackson's words:

       She learned as much as she could about TS and helped me 
     learn how to deal with the kids better and talk to teachers 
     about what was happening. She also gave me a safe place to 
     hang out when things were bad. Through her and a group that 
     my mom started to help other families with TS in our area, I 
     made a few friends who understood me better.

  She also helped Jackson develop a presentation for the 6th grade 
class in his school. Jackson is now 13 years of age, and in September 
he will enter the 9th grade at Hereford High School. He is no longer 
feeling depressed, and he no longer retreats from others because of his 
condition. Rather, he welcomes the opportunity to use his experiences 
to educate teachers and other students as a Youth Ambassador, a 
position for which he was trained at the National TSA Conference with 
about 40 other young people.
  Recently, he presented information about TS to more than 400 
elementary school students. He says he truly enjoys answering their 
questions. He believes, as I do, it is important for people to 
understand that children with TS are not doing strange or disruptive 
things on purpose, and he just wants to be treated like everyone else.
  Jackson still has unpredictable and sometimes painful tics, but he 
knows now that TS will not stop him from accomplishing everything he 
wants to do in life. Last year, Jackson's little brother Davis was also 
diagnosed with TS. Jackson says that having a teacher who understands 
the problem and knows how to help is one of the most important things 
in the life of a child with TS.
  He is preparing a special presentation for Davis's class that he will 
deliver

[[Page 11132]]

when the 2012-2013 school year starts. I am very proud of this young 
man. I am hopeful the examples set by him, his guidance counselor Mrs. 
Oates, and other TSA Youth Ambassadors are blazing a trial for those 
who are newly diagnosed.
  I am also pleased Congress understands how important public awareness 
of Tourette is. In 2000, Congress created the Tourette Syndrome Public 
Health Education Research Outreach Program at the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention. The purpose of this program is to increase 
recognition and diagnosis of TS, reduce the stigma attached to the 
disorder, and increase the availability of effective treatment.
  The program also includes a public-private partnership between the 
CDC and the Tourette Syndrome Association, or TSA, that provides 
educational programs for physicians, allied health professionals and 
school personnel as well as those who have TS, their families, and the 
general public. To date, the CDC-TSA outreach program has conducted 
more than 520 educational programs for 32,000 professionals and 
community members nationwide.
  This program is working well. In addition, CDC has entered into a 
cooperative agreement with the University of Rochester and the 
University of South Florida to better understand the public health 
impact of tic disorders, including TS, for individuals and their 
families and the community.
  One of the areas being assessed is education, as they are looking at 
the effect of TS on standardized test scores, grade retention, and the 
presence of an individualized education program. Significantly, they 
are also measuring teachers' understanding of TS, and this information 
will be used to inform and improve outreach programs.
  I urge my colleagues to support full funding of this program again 
this year so we might expand awareness of TS and lead to a better 
quality of life for people such as Jackson and families across the 
Nation who are affected by this disorder.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Health Care

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have listened to some of my friends 
across the aisle talking about the vote in the House to repeal what has 
now come to be known as ObamaCare, which the official title is the 
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But I think history has now 
demonstrated it is not the Affordable Care Act; it is the 
``Unaffordable Care Act.''
  My colleagues suggest the only way we can possibly protect people 
from preexisting disease exclusions under their insurance policy or 
make sure young adults up to 26 years old can remain covered under 
their parent's coverage is to pass this $2.5 trillion monstrosity. That 
is not the case. We could easily address these other issues as well as 
affordability if we were to take a step-by-step approach to try to make 
sure the patient-physician decisionmaking process is preserved, while 
making health coverage more affordable for more Americans.
  But unfortunately that was not the approach taken under ObamaCare. In 
fact, under ObamaCare, there was almost no attention paid to trying to 
make coverage more affordable. The focus was on expanding coverage, an 
admirable goal but one that ignored affordability almost entirely. We 
now know ObamaCare was based, the vote in favor of and the public 
support, such as it is for ObamaCare, was based on a litany of what has 
now proven to be broken promises. The promise that if someone likes 
what they have, they can keep it, we know that is not true. More and 
more employers are dropping their employer-provided coverage for their 
employees.
  The President himself said a family of four would actually see their 
premiums reduced an average of $2,500 a year. What has happened? 
Premiums continue to go up, roughly at the rate of 10 percent a year.
  The President said, and I heard my colleague from Maryland just say, 
ObamaCare cuts the deficit. How they can spend $2.5 trillion and take 
$\1/2\ trillion more from Medicare, an already fragile, unsustainable 
program--unless we fix it--and that cuts the deficit is, I think, 
beyond the understanding of most Americans. Certainly, it is beyond 
mine.
  I would like to ask my colleague this question: What we know is that 
now the Supreme Court has decided the constitutionality of ObamaCare. 
The Supreme Court has said--and under our system of government it is 
the Supreme Court that is the final word on these matters. It said the 
only way ObamaCare could be constitutional is for the individual 
mandate to be considered a tax--a tax. Indeed, it is a tax, a broad-
based tax on the middle class.
  I want to know how many votes in the House, how many of our 
colleagues in the Senate would have voted for ObamaCare if it had been 
called what it is, a middle-class tax increase--a middle-class tax 
increase. I think it is important to have a vote in the House today, 
and I think it is important to have a vote in the Senate, as Senator 
McConnell has proposed to do, to see whether, based on the fact that 
the Supreme Court has finally decided this is a tax on the middle 
class, whether it would enjoy the support across the aisle it did in 
2009 and 2010.
  But I wish to talk a moment more about taxes and indeed the 
challenges that face small businesses and working families across the 
country and the need for the Senate to stop contributing to the class 
warfare rhetoric and gamesmanship that seems to encompass us 118 days 
now before the general election and the importance of actually 
addressing taxes in a constructive manner, in a way that will helpfully 
get our economy growing again.
  To that end, it is my sincere hope that the majority leader will 
allow an open amendment process on this piece of legislation and allow 
it to go forward and give Senators the opportunity to offer ideas about 
how to improve this legislation and help small business job creation.
  What we do know for a fact is that unless Congress and the President 
act before December 31, 2012, American taxpayers will face the single 
largest tax increase in American history. Why is that? Because the tax 
provisions we passed in 2001 and 2003 and then again in 2010, under 
President Obama, will expire at the end of this year.
  For example, in less than 6 months, the highest individual tax 
bracket will rise from 35 percent to just under 40 percent. I think it 
is important for everyone to realize we are just talking about Federal 
taxes. We are not talking about State taxes or local taxes. Many 
States--thank goodness not Texas but many States--have a State income 
tax which is added to the Federal tax burden. Of course, virtually 
everyone in the country pays some form of sales tax.
  We need to think about, when we add to the tax burden of the American 
people, what that means in terms of their cumulative tax burden, 
including Federal, State, and local taxes.
  Unless Congress acts, people in the lowest tax bracket will see a 50-
percent tax increase. Indeed, the marriage penalty will increase, the 
child credit will be cut in half, and taxes on capital gains and 
dividends will increase.
  Why are lower taxes on capital gains and dividends important? Well, 
on capital gains it is important because we want to incentivize people 
to make long-term investments, to create jobs.
  Why is the lower dividend rate important? Many seniors who are 
retired depend on dividend income from their retirement funds in order 
to help pay their cost of living.
  The bottom line is unless Congress and the President act before 
December 31--and I submit it is important to act sooner rather than 
later to send a signal to the markets and job creators about their tax 
burden on January 1--every taxpayer in the country will pay higher 
taxes.
  Unfortunately, instead of engaging in a serious manner on this issue, 
the President earlier this week reverted to his old playbook of class 
warfare and gamesmanship. He advocated again another policy which has 
failed to pass

[[Page 11133]]

the laugh test, if you think about it. The President previously 
proposed the so-called Buffet rule--named for Warren Buffet--and said 
if we pass the Buffet rule and raise taxes, our problems would all be 
solved.
  Do you know how much revenue would be generated by the Buffet rule if 
it passed? It would be enough revenues to run the Federal Government 
for 11 hours--less than half a day.
  Well, I have to admit the President's recent announcement that he 
wants to raise taxes on small businesses has left me scratching my 
head. I remember back in 2010, when President Obama said raising taxes 
during a fragile economic recovery ``would have been a blow to our 
economy.'' That is what President Obama said in 2010. But in 2012, he 
seems to be singing an entirely different tune. At the time, in 2010, 
economic growth was roughly 3.1 percent. That is when President Obama 
said raising taxes would be a blow to our economy. Do you know what the 
economic growth numbers are today? Our economy is growing at roughly 2 
percent of GDP, gross domestic product. Instead of 3.1 percent, it is 
growing even slower right now.
  Of course, as I mentioned, this tax increase the President and the 
majority leader are proposing is on top of the ObamaCare taxes. It is 
not just the individual mandate I alluded to earlier that will penalize 
people who don't buy government-approved health care, but that is on 
top of approximately 20 different other tax increases that are part of 
the ObamaCare legislation. Not only do these new taxes break the 
President's own pledge not to raise taxes on individuals who make less 
than $200,000 a year or families making less than $250,000 a year, but 
it also creates barriers to new investment and job creation.
  Recently I attended a meeting downstairs with Bob Zoellick, head of 
the World Bank, and the president of the New York Federal Reserve 
office--a gentleman whose name escapes me. The president of the Federal 
Reserve in New York said: When talking with business people across the 
country, I ask them what is your attitude, your mood? Are you going to 
invest or sit back on the sidelines? He said almost universally the 
message is: We are done. We are not doing anything else until 
Washington--in other words, Congress and the President--figure this 
out.
  Who in their right mind would want to start a new business with the 
uncertainty as far as taxes are concerned, or the burdens that are 
imposed upon individuals and small businesses because of ObamaCare? I 
mentioned that in addition to what the Supreme Court found to be a 
tax--the individual mandate--ObamaCare includes a new 3.8-percent 
surtax on capital gains, dividends, rents, and interest earned by many 
taxpayers. This new surtax goes into effect next year, in 2013.
  Another thing I found amazing in terms of the audacity of those who 
supported ObamaCare in 2009 and early 2010 is that a lot of the taxes 
that were included in the bill didn't go into effect until after this 
next election. Isn't that an amazing coincidence?
  Enacting this permanent tax hike was a mistake then, and it continues 
to be a mistake now. It will discourage savings and investment, reduce 
productivity, and it will depress wages and the standard of living for 
millions of Americans.
  According to one nonprofit economic policy research and educational 
organization, a 2.9-percent tax increase would depress economic growth 
by 1.3 percent. You heard me a moment ago say our economy is growing 
roughly at 2 percent. This think tank says they estimate a 2.9-percent 
tax increase would depress economic growth by 1.3 percent, and it would 
reduce capital formation by 3.4 percent. Those are numbers that come 
out of, obviously, a think tank, but that means fewer jobs and a lower 
standard of living for many Americans. The damage to job creation and 
economic growth would be even greater from a 3.8-percent investment 
tax. You don't have to be an economist or a rocket scientist to figure 
out that higher taxes are going to depress economic activity. Indeed, 
it is all about incentives. If we create incentives for people to be 
productive, work hard, and make investments, then they will respond. If 
we raise the bar and make it more expensive and harder, they are going 
to do less of it. It is that simple.
  Taxpayers, including small businesses, are already scheduled to get 
hit with the largest tax increase in history at the end of the year, as 
I have already mentioned.
  I will close on this, as far as this subject is concerned: We know 
the key to job creation is to grow the economy and allow small 
businesses to flourish, invest, and create jobs. That is what we are 
missing now. Government has grown and grown and grown. It has spent 
money it didn't have under the stimulus bill passed early in the Obama 
administration. Do you know what the projection was at that time that 
unemployment would be today if we passed this spending bill using 
borrowed money? The President's administration said unemployment would 
be at 5.6 percent. Yet it continues to persist at over 8 percent. So we 
know that obviously didn't work.
  I believe it is important that we put into place an insurance policy 
against any Senate effort to increase taxes on small businesses. For 
that reason, I have offered time after time a proposal that would 
require a supermajority to raise taxes on small businesses. The last 
time I raised this proposal, when we considered the 2010 budget--which 
is actually the last time the Senate passed a budget, but that is 
another subject altogether--the amendment passed with the support of 82 
Senators, including 42 Democrats, many of whom still serve in the 
Senate.
  Raising taxes on small businesses that represent the primary engine 
of job growth in this country is not the answer to getting our economy 
back on track.
  I know about 400,000 small businesses in Texas that employ 4 million 
people especially cannot afford to pay higher taxes, particularly at 
this time. We know it is small businesses that create the vast majority 
of new jobs.
  Given that the administration has said it is committed to creating 
jobs, I am left wondering why they would want to increase taxes on 
those we are depending upon to do just that. I know the millions of 
Americans who remain out of work are wondering the same thing today.


                          Voter Identification

  Mr. President, I want to make a brief comment about the voter 
identification debate. This is particularly important in my State, but 
it is important across the country, because many States have passed 
commonsense voter identification laws to protect the integrity of the 
ballot and prevent dilution of the vote for majority and minority 
members and everyone across the board, and to protect against voter 
fraud.
  Yesterday Attorney General Holder spoke in Houston, TX, at a 
gathering of the NAACP. I am sorry to say his remarks were completely 
inappropriate and misleading. Mr. Holder knows--or he should know--that 
the Texas law that requires a photo ID in order to cast a ballot will 
be issued free of charge to any voter who asks for one--free of charge.
  He conveniently ignores the fact that the Supreme Court of the United 
States has previously--in an Indiana case--dispositively held that 
voter ID laws are constitutional and necessary to protect the integrity 
of the vote. This is the low point of the Attorney General's remarks. 
He once again defamed my State and our State legislature by equating 
our commonsense voter ID law with a poll tax.
  By invoking the specter of Jim Crow racism, the Attorney General is 
playing the lowest form of identity politics. Mr. Holder knows better. 
This rhetoric is irresponsible and a disgrace to the office of the 
Attorney General. Shame on him.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page 11134]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          Growing the Economy

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor today because 
of the good news I have heard recently, that the Senate is going to 
spend the next couple of weeks, maybe the whole month, talking about 
tax policy. I think that is very encouraging, because this is one of 
the issues I was hoping we would deal with early on, when I got here 
last year. And I am, quite frankly, surprised it has taken this much 
time, a year and a half, to pivot to this issue. I am hopeful--I don't 
know if it has been determined yet--but I am hopeful on this 
legislation currently before the Senate, the minority will be given an 
opportunity to introduce ideas. I think that is important for this 
place to work well.
  I have read the history of this distinguished place and it only works 
well, it only functions when the ideas of both sides are allowed to be 
heard. I know we can count votes here, and from time to time we may 
have a chance to pass a few things, but when one is in the minority, as 
I am, it is harder to get ideas passed. But I would love to at least 
get a vote on some of these ideas we are hoping to push forward, and 
our hope is that will happen. So let's hope that works out.
  What I want to remind us all about a little bit today is what our 
goal is. We can't arrive at the right solutions if we don't know 
exactly what it is we are trying to get to. Our goal, I believe--and 
there is a consensus now throughout this country, and it is actually 
something that unites both political parties--needs to be to grow the 
economy. That is our goal, to grow the economy. And what will result 
from growing the economy is that good will happen for everybody.
  How does the economy grow is the first fundamental question we have 
to answer. The economy grows when two things happen: either someone 
starts a business or someone grows their existing business. That is 
what leads to economic growth. It is that simple. Someone starts a new 
business because they think they can make money at it or someone goes 
into their existing business and says, I think we can make more money, 
let's grow this thing. That is how the economy grows.
  So the issue before us here as Federal policymakers has to be what 
can the Federal Government do to help that kind of growth. In essence, 
what the Federal Government can do is to encourage people and make it 
easier for people to either start a business or to grow their business. 
So if that is our goal, then every time a measure comes before this 
body--tax policy, regulatory policy--what we should ask ourselves is, 
does this make it easier or harder for someone to start a business? 
Does it make it easier or harder for someone to grow an existing 
business? Does this measure make it easier or harder for the economy to 
grow? Because if we are indeed united by this goal of growing the 
economy, that should be the measure of anything we take on. And it is 
through that lens that I want to examine some of what we are talking 
about right now. Because it seems to me, at least in some of the 
policies I have heard proposed this week, that maybe some folks have 
the goal wrong. Because if we closely examine some of these policies, 
it sounds as if the goal is, let's take a limited economy that isn't 
growing and let's divide it. And primarily it sounds like, let's take 
this limited economy that isn't growing and let's allow us to take 
money from people who are maybe making a little too much, give it to 
the government, and the government can then spend it on behalf of 
people who maybe aren't making enough.
  I know that may sound appealing to the folks who are among those 
Americans who aren't making enough money, but I want you to know 
something: It never works. That idea never works. Here is why it never 
works. It actually never works because, first of all, the money doesn't 
get to you. When you give government money to spend, it invariably 
doesn't usually spend it very well. In fact, when you give government 
money to spend, the people who end up getting that money are the people 
who can afford to hire people to come to Washington and influence how 
the money is spent. So sometimes the money never even gets to you, if 
in fact you allow the government to do this.
  But it is more complicated than that. It can actually cost people 
their jobs, and here is why. How you create businesses or how you 
expand an existing business is pretty straightforward. Someone is in 
business, someone makes some money or gets a hold of some money and 
they decide to take that money and invest it. They use the money they 
have made and they reinvest it in their business so the business grows 
or they use the money they have made to start a brandnew business. This 
stuff works. This is how the American economy has grown and how we 
became the most prosperous people on Earth.
  I know this works not just because I read about it in a magazine. I 
know it works because I have lived it. As I have detailed and talked 
about in the past on this floor, my father was a bartender. He worked 
at a hotel as a bartender. My mother had a lot of different jobs, but 
for a while she worked as a maid in a hotel. The reason I talk about 
this is to explain how and why my mom and dad had a job that paid them 
money to raise us and give us a chance to do all the things my siblings 
and I were able to do. Someone made some money, they took that money 
and opened up this hotel. That is why my parents had a job. They didn't 
have a job because the President of the United States back in 1965 or 
1975 gave them a job. They had a job because someone who made money 
took that money and used it to start a new business or to grow an 
existing business and hire them. They also had a job because other 
people who had money decided to use that money to go on vacation and 
they came to Miami Beach or to Las Vegas, when I lived in Las Vegas, 
and they spent that money at these hotels.
  The point is, people had money, and they either invested it or spent 
it. And that allowed a bartender and a maid--my mother and father--to 
raise my siblings and me and to give us opportunity. That was true in 
the 1950s, in the 1960s, in the 1970s, in the 1980s, in the 1990s, and 
it is still true. That is what is needed to grow this economy. And the 
problem is, if we go after these people, if we go after the money they 
have made and give it to the government, maybe they will decide not to 
open that new business or maybe they will decide this is not the year 
to take that vacation or instead of taking the 5-day vacation, they 
take the 3-day vacation. And you know who gets hurt? The bartender and 
the maid and the people who work in these places. Because money has to 
go somewhere. If you are taking it out of the hands of the people who 
invest it and spend it, they can't invest it or spend it, and it is 
people who are trying to make it--like my parents were--who get hurt by 
it.
  So we have to get our goal right. Because if our goal is to grow the 
economy, we don't have to call trick plays. What we can do at the 
Federal level to grow the economy is pretty straightforward. All we 
have to do is talk to the people who grow the economy. If we go out and 
talk to the people who have a great idea and are trying to start a 
business, they will tell us what they are looking for. It is pretty 
straightforward stuff: tax reform.
  What do we mean by tax reform? Simple. We want a Tax Code that is 
stable, predictable, and affordable. Of course we have to have taxes. 
Government needs revenue to be able to pay for what we all expect from 
government. But it has to be a predictable system and it has to be an 
affordable system. If taxes get too high, people may decide not to 
invest it in this country or to leave it in the bank, and that doesn't 
help anybody. So the point is we need to have a Tax Code that is 
stable, predictable, and affordable.
  We need regulations that are the same: stable, affordable, and 
predictable. Look, we need regulations; right? I want this water to be 
clean. I don't want the water to poison me. We don't want to walk out 
on the street and breathe in air that will hurt us. There

[[Page 11135]]

is a role for regulation. The problem is that most Federal regulations 
are set by bureaucrats who work for the government, and all they think 
about is can this regulation maybe help. They do not think at all about 
the impact of that regulation on businesses. That is not part of the 
equation. When they sit down and write a regulation, that is not part 
of the equation at all. So we end up having these regulations that may 
not even help that much but hurt a lot; that help wipe out entire 
industries, but the impact on helping the environment or whatever else 
is nebulous at best. So we have to change that.
  That is why we need to pass a law here like the REINS Act, which says 
any regulation that has an economic impact beyond a certain amount of 
money should have to be approved by elected people, who are 
accountable, who have to measure both the effectiveness of the 
regulation but also whether it is going to cost jobs or wipe out an 
industry. Because that is important too. Protecting our industries and 
our sources of job creation is as important as some of these other 
things we are trying to protect through regulations and they have to be 
balanced against one another. We do not want to simply be making 
decisions in a vacuum.
  Along those lines, something that is both a tax and a regulation is 
ObamaCare. Look, we have a health insurance problem in America. There 
is no denying that. But there are better ways to deal with it. The 
problem is this bill that passed has created a tremendous amount of 
uncertainty. For example, it says if you have more than 50 full-time 
employees, there are certain requirements you have to meet. So imagine 
if you are a company with 48 or 49 employees. This may not be the year 
to hire the 50th. And maybe you are going to be the 50th, but now you 
don't get hired or, worse, maybe you will decide this is the year to 
turn all your employees into part-time employees. That is not good for 
the workers. Yet that is the impact this law is having, not to mention 
the fact it is a tax increase.
  That is what the IRS does. The IRS collects taxes. And guess who you 
have to prove you have insurance to. And not just any old insurance, 
but insurance they deem to be acceptable. The IRS. Millions of 
Americans now every year will have to prove to the IRS they have 
insurance or they will owe the IRS money. That is a tax, and that is 
not going to help job creation, especially if you are a small business.
  I outlined this last week. Imagine a small business run by a husband 
and wife with two kids, and the business--not them, but their 
business--makes $95,000 a year. It will cost them between $4,000 to 
$6,000 to buy health insurance. If they do not, they will owe the IRS 
$2,000. Tell me that is good for that business. Or imagine if you are 
thinking about going into business and you realize this is what is 
going to happen to you and you decide not to go into business. That is 
not good for growth. That is why this law needs to be repealed and it 
needs to be replaced.
  Something else we need in this country is a pro-American energy 
policy. Do people realize the American innovator has come up with this 
technology over the last 5 years that now has made us a very energy-
rich country? I don't know if people fully understand how energy-rich 
America is. If you want a small glimpse of what it can mean to our 
future, go to North Dakota. They are having a jobs boom. They can't 
find enough people to work there.
  Energy is important and we need to start behaving like an energy-rich 
country, with a true all-of-the-above strategy where the energies we 
choose are decided by the marketplace and not by politicians. When 
politicians decide which energy source to use, you know who wins? The 
people with the best lobbyists. The people with the best lobby. The 
people with the most political influence. That is how we got a 
Solyndra-type situation, where a company that was going to go bankrupt 
got all this money--your tax dollars--and meanwhile America is sitting 
on over 100-some-odd years of natural gas at our disposal and no 
concise national energy policy to utilize it.
  Let me tell you why energy matters. If we can get energy costs down 
and stable and predictable, manufacturing will start coming back to 
America. That is one of the leading costs of manufacturing, energy. We 
are an energy-rich country. Some of those factories that closed, we can 
actually get them to come back here. Imagine what that would do for 
economic growth, not to mention the fact that America could potentially 
now begin to sell overseas as well, creating yet another industry and 
all the things that come with it.
  How about free and fair trade? There is an emerging middle class all 
over the world now. One of the great things that has happened over the 
last 20 years is that all over the world there are now people who a 
decade ago were living in poverty and can now afford to buy the 
products we invent and build, people all over the world, by the way, 
who can now afford to take vacations. And do you know where they want 
to come? To the United States of America. They want to come to Florida. 
They also want to come here.
  I think that is fantastic, that now there are millions of people all 
over the world who can afford to visit the United States and leave 
their money at our hotels, at our restaurants, and at our amusement 
parks. That creates jobs, that creates growth, free and fair trade, 
that allows the American people to build things we can sell overseas to 
other places and lowers the cost of buying certain things here.
  Last year, we ratified the free trade agreement with Colombia, 
Panama, and South Korea. We are already seeing the economic benefits of 
that in south Florida. Imagine if we were able do that with more 
countries in a free and fair way. It has to be fair.
  One last thing we could probably do to help grow this economy is deal 
with the long-term debt. And that is what it is, it is a long-term debt 
problem that hovers all over all of this conversation and creates 
uncertainty. People are afraid--especially people with lots of money 
are afraid--to invest in the American economy because they look at this 
debt problem, they look at this political process's inability to deal 
with it, and they think, Do you know what. That country is destined for 
confiscatory tax rates. They are going where Europe is going. We don't 
want to invest in a country that is going to wind up like Europe in 5 
years. That is why we have to deal with the long-term debt, and the 
sooner the better.
  To deal with the long-term debt, by the way, you have to deal with 
what is causing it. That is why it is so important we save Medicare. 
Medicare is a very important program. My mother is on Medicare. I would 
never support anything that hurts my mother or people like her. But 
people in my generation need to understand that if we want to keep 
Medicare the way it is for our parents and if we want Medicare to even 
exist when we retire, Medicare is going to have to look different for 
us, for 41-year-olds. We have to save Medicare. And to deal with the 
long-term debt, we have to deal with that. That is what is driving part 
of the debt. That is not being driven by foreign aid, which is less 
than 1 percent of our budget. The debt is not being driven by food 
stamp programs. The debt is not being driven by defense spending.
  Look, if money is being misspent or wasted, it is never a good idea 
to do that. If there are ways to save money on foreign aid, we should 
save it. If there are ways to save money in the food stamp program, we 
should save it. If there are ways to save money in the defense budget, 
we should save it. But that is not what is driving our long-term debt. 
To pretend we are going to get 100 percent of our savings from 25 or 20 
percent of our budget leads to the kind of catastrophic cuts we talk 
about in this town, because no one wants to touch the big issues that 
have to be dealt with.
  What would happen if we did these six things? Let's say that 
tomorrow, overnight, magically these things happened: We got real tax 
reform, real regulatory reform, we repealed and replaced ObamaCare, we 
had a pro-American energy strategy, we expanded free and fair trade, 
and we had a plan in place that began to deal with the long-term debt 
in a serious and sustainable

[[Page 11136]]

way. Let me tell you what would happen: explosive economic growth, 
primarily by the creation of jobs.
  Do you know what more jobs means? It means, No. 1, more taxpayers. It 
means you can now generate revenue for government to pay for what we 
all want government to do, and you don't have to raise tax rates to do 
that. It means you have more taxpayers who are now paying into the tax 
system who give you the revenue you need to bring the debt under 
control. Everything gets easier if the economy grows. The debt gets 
easier, our budgets get easier.
  Jobs also mean more customers for your business. If someone is 
unemployed, it is hard for them to spend money. It is hard for them to 
buy a house, much less the things that go in it. It is hard for them to 
take vacations. More jobs means more stability for your business or for 
the place you work in. More jobs means more taxpayers, it means more 
customers for your business. And, by the way, it means a more stable 
society, a place where hard work can earn them a decent wage so they 
can save money for their kids' college, so they can save money for 
their retirement, so they can buy a home and furnish it, so they can 
afford to take a couple weeks vacation a year with their families. 
Millions of Americans can't do that anymore.
  Millions of Americans have done everything we have asked of them. 
They went to school, they graduated. They were told if they did that, 
they could find a job that paid them a decent wage, and they are 
struggling to do that now.
  By the way, all of the strategies for growth aren't at the Federal 
level. It is important that States take on the issue of education 
reform. It is important for us as parents to be honest with our kids. 
In the 21st century, it is going to be hard to find a job if all you 
have is a high school diploma. It is that simple.
  If you look at the unemployment rate between people who have a 
college degree or a post-high school degree and those who don't, it is 
stunning. It is stunning. If you don't have more than a high school 
education, you are going to struggle to succeed in this new century. We 
have to let our kids understand that. It is our job as parents and as a 
community to do that.
  By the way, it is important for us to work with the States, as I 
outlined earlier, to modernize our education system. Why have we 
stigmatized career education? Why can't we graduate kids from high 
school with both a diploma and an industry certification and a career? 
We need to begin to teach our kids to compete with the world, not just 
with other States. These are other things that have to happen as well.
  The point I wanted to drive today is we need to remind ourselves of 
what the goal is here. The goal is growth. The goal is, What can we do 
at the Federal level to help grow the economy? Ultimately, the economy 
grows because of the private sector, because someone who has made some 
money takes that money and invests it by starting a new business or by 
growing their existing business. We should find ways to make that 
easier and encourage people to do that. That has to be our goal. It 
doesn't require trick plays; it doesn't require some complicated new 
gimmick. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. The American people 
haven't run out of good ideas. Americans haven't forgotten how to start 
businesses or even entire new industries. Even as I speak to you right 
now, I am 100 percent convinced that within walking distance of this 
building there is someone somewhere drawing up the great next American 
company business plan on the back of a napkin or a scrap piece of 
paper. And if we give them a chance to do it, they are going to do it.
  We are still the same people we have always been. There is nothing 
wrong with the American people. They just need a little help from their 
government. I think if we get our goals right around here, we can do a 
few simple but important things that allow Americans to do, once again, 
what we do better than any country or any people in the history of the 
world, and that is create prosperity and create opportunity.
  Madam President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, before I get into the substance of my 
remarks, I heard the concluding remarks of my colleague, Senator Rubio, 
talking about ideas and education and small business growth.
  I agree with his basic concept that we are still the greatest country 
in the world, that we encourage entrepreneurs and people with great 
ideas, that education means a great deal to making that happen; that no 
other country inspires young people, middle-aged people, even older 
people to start new businesses. I hope it means he is going to vote for 
the proposal that is now before us. Because what this proposal does is 
take that young person within walking distance of Washington, DC, who 
has a great idea and, once they start a business, allows them to get 
that business to move more quickly. There are lots of those businesses, 
and probably some within Washington, DC, as well. So I hope my 
colleague from Florida will vote for our Small Business Jobs and Tax 
Relief Act.
  The proposal will spur economic growth. It will create nearly 1 
million new jobs in this country. If my Republican colleagues care 
about small business in America, they would work with us to pass this 
commonsense bill immediately instead of playing procedural games that 
are thinly veiled attempts to block these tax cuts that spur hiring. 
The bill is based on bipartisan ideas that have traditionally enjoyed 
Republican support, yet they are obstructing their passage. Why are our 
Republican colleagues changing their tune? The only explanation is that 
Republicans continue to block proposals that will help create jobs and 
spur our economic recovery for their own political gain.
  This is a simple proposal. It is a smart proposal. It is a tax cut 
proposal. In my home State of New York, small businesses from 
Cattaraugus to Clinton County are poised to grow and make the jump to 
the next level. These business owners know the economy is slowly 
turning a corner, but we are not there yet to full unthrottled growth, 
so they are looking for Congress to do more--not less--to spur hiring.
  This initiative is aimed at the small businesses that are truly the 
lifeblood of our Nation, and we need to help them jumpstart expansion 
plans this year. There is simply no time to waste.
  There is a business in Cortland, NY, central New York, called 
Precision Eforming. It is a great small business that would use this 
tax cut to buy a new piece of equipment called a Dipcoater to help the 
company create high-end acoustics such as hearing aids. With the 
Dipcoater, Precision Eforming will increase yield and need to hire new 
employees.
  There are stories like this throughout my State. Napoleon Engineering 
Services, a new ball-bearing plant in Olean, hopes to hire more 
employees and will purchase new equipment for its growing business. 
Quinlan's Pharmacy and Medical Supply in Livingston County wants to add 
an additional location in Schuyler County. In Staten Island, the owner 
of a small restaurant chain recently told me this proposal could help 
him expand to additional locations.
  Simply put, this bill makes equipment purchases and capital 
improvements for thousands of small businesses cheaper, and, by doing 
that, provides a real jolt to the economy. In fact, it is estimated 
that every $1 of tax cuts devoted to writing off the cost of a 
business's purchases generates about $9 of GDP growth. Let me repeat 
that. One dollar of tax cuts devoted to writing off the cost of a 
business's purchases generates nine times that in GDP growth. Why 
wouldn't we do it? Economists of every stripe will tell you that hiring 
incentives like the ones in

[[Page 11137]]

this bill are the best ways to kick-start an economy and get people 
back to work. Why wouldn't we do it?
  In fact, a new nonpartisan analysis of the proposal before us has 
determined it will create nearly 1 million jobs this year. Look at your 
State: 22,000 in Washington State, 10,000 in Nebraska, 11,000 in Iowa, 
40,000 in Pennsylvania, 63,000 in my home State of New York, 77,000 in 
Texas. Huge numbers of new jobs will be created by this proposal. Why 
won't our colleagues move forward on it?
  It is estimated that 93,000 jobs will be added to the construction 
industry, 61,000 new jobs added to manufacturing. The report concludes 
that the proposal's impact would be felt across every State and in a 
range of industries, with a significant jump in employment in 
construction and manufacturing. The proposal is targeted toward the 
mom-and-pop Main Street businesses that will benefit most from this 
relief.
  You want to talk about job creators? You want to help job creators? 
Well, these small business owners are real job creators and they are 
the ones who make this country run. They come in early, they stay late, 
they work hard, and they deserve a tax break.
  Here lies an important contrast between what we are proposing and a 
different tax cut proposal that the House Republicans have passed. The 
House Republican proposal is neither focused on true small business nor 
does it make the tax cut dependent on a company doing any hiring at 
all. Our proposal rewards actual job creation by true small businesses, 
rather than giving more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who 
may not create a single job. They have profits; they get a cut in their 
taxes for their profits even if they fire people. Does that make any 
sense? Our bill's commonsense measures have had broad bipartisan 
support. There is no reason Democrats and Republicans alike should not 
support them now. The relief in this bill would be a grand slam for our 
economy as a whole. It puts more people to work, expedites the 
expansion of successful small bills throughout the country, expands 
businesses to new communities, and keeps money flowing through local 
economies. For too many business owners, this relief simply cannot 
wait. Let's get this bill to the President's desk and get our business 
owners started on the developments that will propel them into the next 
decade.
  Once we pass this bill, we must work together to give certainty to 
American families that they will not see a mass tax hike at the end of 
the year. We should all agree our small businesses deserve tax cuts and 
a Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act that will help them hire 
workers. We should all agree no middle-class families should face a tax 
increase at the end of the year. Let's take care of our areas of 
agreement and then we can turn to debate on whether our country can 
afford to give more tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent.
  I yield the remainder of my time and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, as chair of the Small Business 
Committee of the Senate, I am pleased to come to the floor to give some 
supporting remarks for Senator Schumer's small business tax reduction 
bill. The bill will invest, basically, $20 billion to the bottom line 
of small businesses--owners of businesses that are dynamic and that are 
growing. I would like to make that distinction. It is not all small 
business that will get tax relief. It is small businesses that are 
dynamic and growing and adding employees or increasing wages.
  The bill is smartly and narrowly targeted to motivate and to reward 
those small businesses, a subgroup of the 28 million small businesses 
that exist in the country today, many of which are in the Senator's 
State, Minnesota, that has some very high-growth, high-potential small 
business development in the medical field, I understand. In my State, 
it would be those businesses that are growing because of the increased 
demand for energy and the new technologies that are coming out, not 
only for oil and gas production, which is important, but also other 
sources of energy. In Ohio and Michigan, it could be those small 
business suppliers that are rallying around the emerging and 
strengthening automobile industry, which President Obama and the 
Democratic Members of this Congress had so much to do with salvaging.
  Our business is not just throwing money against the wind. It is 
taking precious taxpayer dollars and targeting them to those businesses 
that are growing. That is why, as the chair of the Small Business 
Committee, I strongly endorse Senator Schumer's proposal over the 
proposal that came from the House of Representatives.
  The House of Representatives' bill basically is taking $40 billion 
that we do not have--we do not have the $20 billion either but one is 
half the cost--taking $40 billion and throwing it at businesses, 50 
percent of which, according to the CBO study, will accrue to the 
highest income earners in the country--over $1 million. It is not 
targeted. It is just about business profits, which are important. I 
know businesses are in business to make profits. I have no problem with 
that. We want our businesses to be profitable. But the Schumer 
proposal, relative to the Cantor proposal, is targeted to those 
businesses making a profit and reinvesting it in the business to grow--
hiring workers and putting behind this recession we are coming out of--
a recession because of poor policies of previous administrations--
coming out of this recession to help grow the economy.
  We can give tax cuts in a variety of different ways. If we had all 
the money in the world, maybe we could afford to do both, but we are 
not that fortunate. We have to make choices. That is what we do on the 
floor of this Senate every day, make choices, make distinctions between 
wise ways to spend money and poor ways to spend money.
  I suggest, if we have $20 billion to spend, if everybody agrees we 
have at least that, that the Schumer approach is much more efficient, 
will be much more effective, will get much more bang for the buck than 
the Cantor approach.
  I commend Senator Schumer for putting his bill on the floor, the 
Small Business Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. According to 
the National Economic Council, the tax credit would provide $20 billion 
in direct tax relief for businesses that hire new workers or increase 
wages, and it could encourage an additional $200 to $300 billion in new 
wages and jobs this year.
  This tax credit, as I said, makes sense. It will help create jobs. 
According to the Congressional Budget Office report released last year, 
the CBO report from November of 2011, policies that have the largest 
effect on output and employment per dollar of cost in 2012 and 2013 are 
the ones that would reduce the marginal cost of hiring. That is exactly 
what the Schumer bill does.
  Firms that make capital investments in 2012 would be allowed to 
deduct the full value of the investment on their 2012 return. We know 
this kind of targeted tax cut can spark demand that small businesses 
have been clamoring for. This tax cut is an extension of a tax 
provision that expires in 2011 and had yielded an estimated $50 billion 
in added investments and lowered the average cost of capital for 
business investment by over 75 percent, according to the National 
Council of Economic Advisers.
  We have had a lot of experience in the Small Business Committee and 
in the Finance Committee, on which Senator Schumer serves, in the last 
couple years designing and implementing tax cuts for the middle class, 
tax cuts for the job creators. Again, if we look very objectively, 
considering the Schumer proposal costs half as much as the Cantor 
proposal and will probably do three times if not four times better, it 
is a no-brainer which one is more effective; that is, the Schumer 
proposal.

[[Page 11138]]

  Our hope is if Senators come to the floor and begin to look more 
carefully at the Schumer proposal versus the proposal that came from 
the House, they will realize the benefit of the Schumer approach and 
give it the 60 votes we need to move it forward and will reject the 
Cantor approach as being too expensive relative to the other option 
that is on the table and much less effective. In the event the Senate 
decides to do neither, which might happen because there have been 
logjams around here for a while now, I have to say I was very proud of 
my colleagues Barbara Boxer and Jim Inhofe for working to break the 
logjams in a spectacular way just 2 weeks ago on the Senate floor when 
they finally negotiated a 2-year transportation bill, the flood 
insurance bill, the RESTORE Act, and the student loan reduction bill, 
which is the remarkable work the Congress did last week.
  In the event the Cantor proposal fails and the Schumer proposal 
fails, I am hoping to offer an amendment that the leadership is 
considering now that was put together by the Snowe staff and the 
Landrieu staff over the course of the last several weeks. The only name 
on this right now is mine, but it has been put together by a variety of 
Senators who have been working across the aisle for months on items 
that are very important to the small business community.
  Again, we have 28 million small businesses in America; 22 million of 
them are single employers. In other words, they are self-employed 
professionals who are doctors, lawyers, landscape architects, 
architects, other service providers, network professionals, and IT 
professionals who are working in their own business and employ 
themselves. They are very valuable. We encourage entrepreneurship in 
America. We may have more entrepreneurs per capita than any place in 
the world. We believe in it and we are excited.
  We are also excited for our businesses that start with two or three 
employees, and before we know it they have 200 or 300 employees. Then, 
when we close our eyes and open them, they have 2,000 employees. That 
is very exciting. We call them the gazelles. We look for accelerating 
opportunities.
  As I said, we put this package together with the significant input of 
Senator Snowe and her staff, along with input from Senator Kerry, who 
has been an extraordinary leader in this way. Senator Merkley, Senator 
Cardin, and a list of other Senators whom I am going to refer to have 
been working for years on some of these issues. I wish to make sure I 
give them the credit for these issues.
  First in our package is the very popular and very effective 100-
percent exclusion of capital gains for investments in small businesses. 
It was part of the small business tax extenders package. President 
Obama has recommended this and Senator Kerry is the lead sponsor, along 
with Senator Snowe, on the Finance Committee.
  Let me give a little background. Until 2009, noncorporate taxpayers 
were allowed to exclude 50 percent of the gain from the sale of the 
stock of a qualified small business if taxpayers held the stock for 5 
years. The Recovery Act increased the 50 percent to 75 percent and the 
Small Business Act of 2010 subsequently increased it to 100 percent. As 
of January this year, it was reverted down to 50 percent and startup 
investments are no longer entitled to the preferred capital gain 
treatment.
  Our proposal would basically take this up to 100 percent exclusion 
from the sale of capital gains that noncorporate taxpayers purchased in 
2012 and 2013 and hold for 5 years. It has bipartisan support. As I 
said, Senator Kerry has been the lead advocate. Senator Snowe has 
worked side by side with him, and along with Senator Moran, Senator 
Warner, Senator Coons, and Senator Rubio have all called for this 
provision to be permanent. I wish we could make it permanent. This bill 
will not make it permanent, but we will extend it for another year and 
a half.
  According to the Kauffman Foundation paper published earlier this 
year--and the Kauffman Foundation, for those who don't know, is the 
leading think tank. It is not political at all. It is just a middle-of-
the-road, well-respected think tank on small business development. They 
published a paper earlier this year, the 100-percent exclusion ``boosts 
the after-tax returns on such investments in startups and should induce 
substantial levels of new investments in startup firms.'' They further 
estimate that making this provision permanent would increase risky 
investments by, conservatively, 50 percent more than the overall cost 
of the provision. So they are supporting this provision very strongly 
and would like to see it permanent, but we can only afford in this 
package to have it for the next year as we again build our way out of 
this recession.
  I guess, from a conservative point of view, one of the good things 
about this provision--after we vote on the Schumer proposal and the 
Cantor proposal--it only scores at $4 billion. We get a tremendous 
benefit for a very small investment of taxpayer money, relatively 
speaking. Not that $4 billion is chump change, but compared to the $20 
billion we are considering for the Schumer package and the $40 billion 
for the Cantor package, we think we can take that $4 billion and, 
similar to yeast, make it stretch and grow to affect a lot of people 
and to spur a lot of investment.
  The next provision is the small business tax extenders, the increased 
deduction for startup expenditures. Again, this has been a Snowe and 
Merkley initiative. I think Senator Merkley has truly stood up to fight 
for this.
  Under current law, taxpayers can elect to deduct up to $5,000 of 
startup expenditures in the taxable year in which they start a trade or 
business. The $5,000 is reduced--but not below zero--by the amount by 
which the startup costs exceed $50,000.
  Examples of potential startup costs: studies of potential markets, 
products, labor markets or transportation systems; advertisements for 
the opening of a new business, et cetera; compensation for consultants 
who help get one's business started.
  The Small Business Jobs Act temporarily increased the amount of the 
startup expenditures entrepreneurs could deduct from their taxes in 
2010 from $5,000 to $10,000, with a phaseout threshold of $60,000. 
Senator Merkley fought to have this provision in the Small Business 
Jobs Act. This proposal has been repeatedly endorsed by the National 
Association for the Self-Employed and the National Federation of 
Independent Businesses.
  As part of his ``Startup America'' legislative agenda, President 
Obama has called for making this permanent. Again, my amendment doesn't 
make it permanent, but it does make it effective through 2013.
  According to a Kauffman Foundation survey, on average, new firms 
inject about $80,000 into their businesses during the first year of 
operation. The vast majority of small business owners--between 80 
percent and 90 percent--also invest significant amounts of their own 
money. I wish to underscore this. The way this amendment came together 
is we conducted in the Small Business Committee--and had very good 
turnout--about three or four high-level roundtables, where instead of 
just having 2 or 3 people testify, we had 20 people at a roundtable 
show up. For 2 hours, in a very informal setting, they were answering 
questions, such as: What is the best thing we could do to help you now? 
What are the barriers to growth? What does a healthy ecosystem for 
small business look like and what could we do to strengthen and make 
healthier that ecosystem in America? That is where these ideas came 
from.
  Of course, Senator Merkley picked up on some of this and understood. 
The Kauffman Foundation was there. They said that even though I have 
talked a lot on the Senate floor about how small businesses need to 
borrow money--and many do--when they start a company, they don't want 
to borrow money unless they absolutely have to because the chances of 
it not working are pretty significant. Most new startups fail, and so 
people do not want to go into debt unless they have to or unless they 
are a little bit more sure their idea is going to work.

[[Page 11139]]

  The benefit of this proposal is that we are actually rewarding the 
risk-takers who are digging into their savings and taking second 
mortgages out on their homes and putting some of their other savings at 
risk behind their idea. What we are saying is if they do that, we will 
give a significant tax break, considering it costs about $88,000 to 
start an average business. So this is targeted to those risk-takers. It 
is not just taking money out of the Treasury and throwing it at all 
small businesses. It is taking that money--and this is only $4 billion 
total--and saying: Ok. Let's target it to those individuals who are 
putting their lives on the line. They are putting their livelihood on 
the line and their future on the line. What can we do to support them? 
I am a very big believer in this provision, and I thank Senator Merkley 
for bringing it to us.
  I see Senator Casey and Senator Shaheen are on the Senate floor to 
speak and that my time has expired. Since I am going to be on the floor 
most of the afternoon explaining this amendment, I would be happy to 
yield the floor.
  I see Senator Sessions is here and ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Casey speak for 10 minutes, Senator Sessions for the next 5 or 10 
minutes and Senator Shaheen for 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, if the Senator would make that 10 
minutes, I think that will be fine.
  Mrs. LANDRIEU. I will amend that to 10 minutes each in the order of 
Senator Casey, Senator Sessions, and Senator Shaheen.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I wish to commend the senior Senator from 
Louisiana not only for her work on this legislation but for her many 
years laboring in the vineyard, so to speak, on small business issues 
and job-creation strategies to help our small business owners across 
the United States.
  I rise to speak about this legislation as well because when I go to 
Pennsylvania and travel across our State, I get two basic messages from 
the people of our State. They are very clear. They say two things: 
First, work on job creation. Put your time into putting in place ways 
to create and incentivize the creation of jobs. The second message is 
work together and get things done. Work with people in both parties to 
move a strategy forward to create jobs.
  I think this legislation does both. It is focused on creating jobs, 
especially as it relates to our small business owners and their workers 
and their communities, but it also is a way to bring Democrats and 
Republicans together to create jobs. The Small Business Jobs and Tax 
Relief Act will, indeed, help small businesses hire people by reducing 
the cost to small firms of bringing on a new worker or increasing their 
hours or pay. The economics of this are clear and compelling. By 
providing small businesses with new incentives to hire, we can create 
jobs and bolster economic recovery.
  Small businesses are at the center of the economy of the United 
States and are vital to our recovery. I know in Pennsylvania there are 
nearly 250,000 small businesses. Four out of every five firms in the 
State are small businesses. This legislation is commonsense legislation 
and I hope will have strong bipartisan support when we vote on the bill 
itself.
  It includes a business payroll tax incentive similar to legislation I 
introduced back in the year 2010 that will make it easier for small 
businesses to grow and to encourage economic growth throughout the 
country. It will give businesses a 10-percent income tax credit on new 
payroll for hiring new workers or increasing employee wages. It is, in 
fact, targeted legislation. It is targeted to small business owners. It 
is because it is capped at $500,000 per firm or 10 percent of a payroll 
increase of $5 million.
  In addition to being targeted, it is timely. It will be available 
immediately for any new hires or increased wages for the remainder of 
2012.
  Thirdly, it is very effective. The Congressional Budget Office, known 
around here by the acronym CBO, said a tax credit based on increased 
payroll would create the most jobs and have the greatest positive 
impact on America's gross domestic product when compared to other job 
creation policies that have been proposed. Under this legislation small 
businesses that hire a new worker would, on average, see more than 
$4,000 in tax savings per worker hired. That is a substantial help to a 
small firm, and people can just do the math as they hire more than one 
person. That is a smart step in the right direction to help these small 
businesses themselves as well as boost job creation throughout our 
country.
  As the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, our committee just 
produced a report recently--I know my colleagues can't see all the 
lettering on this report I am holding, but it is a very simple report 
that is just a couple of pages--outlining in very clear fashion the 
impact that small businesses have on our economy in terms of the 
predominance of small businesses when we consider businesses across the 
board. The name of the report is ``Tax Incentives for Small Business 
Hiring and Investment: Strengthening the Backbone of the Economy.'' In 
fact, that is the truth. The backbone of the American economy is our 
small business sector.
  The report finds that enacting a tax credit for businesses that hire 
additional workers or increase the hours and wages of existing 
employees will help both sustain and accelerate the recovery. Across 
the Nation, 79 percent of business establishments are either single-
establishment businesses with fewer than 100 employees or are parts of 
multi-establishment companies with total employment of under 100 
employees.
  Small businesses are responsible for more hiring in the U.S. economy 
than medium-sized or large businesses. As the labor market has begun to 
recover, small businesses have led the way again and again. If we look 
at the time period of February 2010 to February 2012, small 
establishments were responsible for 46 percent of the hires versus 34 
percent for medium-sized businesses and 20 percent for large 
establishments.
  This is a critical point: Small firms accounted for nearly half of 
the hiring from early 2010 to early 2012. Small businesses truly are 
the engines that power our economy.
  The recent monthly unemployment reports, which show job growth at a 
slower pace than earlier in the year, underscore the need to provide 
new incentives to hire and invest in businesses. Many small firms want 
to hire more workers, and they also want to increase hours. This 
legislation will help them do that.
  In addition to the payroll tax credit, the legislation will extend 
the 100 percent depreciation deduction for major purchases through the 
end of 2012 so that businesses that want to make a big investment--a 
new building, a new significant piece of equipment--can get the benefit 
of that this year. An extension of this business expensing would reduce 
the cost of investment and promote economic growth.
  So, in summary, the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act would help 
create jobs and strengthen the economy and move our recovery forward. 
These are objectives we all share. I hope we can move forward in a 
bipartisan manner to pass this legislation because, in the end, it 
meets that two-part test my constituents give to me every day; that is, 
they want me to do everything I can to help create jobs, and they want 
me to do it in a bipartisan way. This legislation, in fact, does this.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.


                              Health Care

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, this afternoon the House of 
Representatives voted 244 to 185 to repeal the President's health care 
law, the Affordable Care Act. It was a bipartisan vote. A number of 
Democrats voted in support of the law, although not as many as voted 
originally to pass it, because a

[[Page 11140]]

lot of the Democrats, even those who voted against it, got shellacked 
in the last election, and it was a pretty rough, intense debate.
  The American people never felt comfortable with this legislation. I 
believe it will be repealed. I do not believe it will be implemented. 
The reason is, whether one likes it or not, we simply do not have the 
money.
  I wish to talk about that today. I am the ranking Republican on the 
Budget Committee, and I wish to share some thoughts with my colleagues 
as we wrestle with what to do on health care and how to undo the 
legislation that passed by the narrowest single margin in this Senate 
on Christmas Eve and was based on false accounting.
  President Obama promised, before a joint session of Congress in 2009, 
to spend $900 billion over 10 years on the law. He said:

       Now, add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost 
     around $900 billion over 10 years.

  $900 billion is a lot of money. It is almost twice the defense 
budget.
  The President went on to say in support of this health care 
legislation that it would reduce the debt of the United States. We are 
going to add all of these new people to the insurance rolls, and it is 
going to pay for itself and reduce the debt. No one really believed 
that, but that is what the arguments were and the representations that 
were made.
  But once we add up all the different spending provisions in the 
health care law, including closing the doughnut hole, implementation 
costs, including all of those IRS agents and other spending in the 
legislation, the total gross spending for the law over the 2010-2019 
period--the 10-year budget window used at the time it was enacted--was 
actually $1.4 trillion. I will just show this to my colleagues with 
this chart because it is very important. The President promised the 
American people in his speech before a joint session of Congress that 
it would cost $900 billion. People knew it would cost more. But even 
then, in the initial 10 year budget window, as he proposed, when we 
count up all the spending in the Congressional Budget Office estimates 
of the legislation, including the enforcement mechanism through the IRS 
agents, closing the doughnut hole and other spending in the law outside 
of the major coverage provisions, the law spends $1.4 trillion over 
that same 10 year period. That is almost 50 percent more right there. I 
think that fact is indisputable. I will ask my colleagues to come tell 
me if I am wrong.
  I would just note parenthetically, one of the most important 
components of health care reform should have been resolving the doc 
fix. Under current law, we are projected, without legislation that 
takes effect, to reduce Medicare payments to doctors by roughly 30 
percent by the end of this year.
  At the time the health care law passed, the cost of a permanent doc 
fix added up to about $200 billion to $250 billion over a 10 year 
period. Democrats originally included the doc fix in earlier drafts of 
the bill. But in the end when they looked at the numbers, if they 
included the doc fix--which is critical and needs to be fixed 
permanently; not continuing to hang out there every year and to be 
fixed by borrowed money--then the bill couldn't have continued in 
surplus. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it 
wouldn't continue to be paid for as the President was saying. So they 
just didn't do it. They just decided they wouldn't fix one of the most 
important issues in health care, and it remains that way today.
  So, as I work through this, we are using nonpartisan Congressional 
Budget Office numbers.
  Most of the major spending provisions in the law, as our colleagues 
should know, do not take effect until 2014. So the true 10-year score 
should be 2014 through 2023. That is the 10-year window of full 
implementation. How much will the bill cost then? Each year it goes up 
because until 2014 we don't really see a 10-year full cost of the 
legislation.
  So what Democrats did was--and the President deliberately did, with 
help from his OMB Director, Mr. Peter Orszag--they manipulated CBO's 
scoring conventions. In the initial 10 year budget window they only 
included 6 years of spending on the major coverage provisions so that 
CBO would appear to score it over 10 years and say it would only cost 
$900 billion. That delay tactic was a pure budget gimmick. So we can 
look at this chart and see that from 2014 through 2023, each year these 
red lines represent a situation in which we are closer and closer to 10 
years of full implementation and how much the cost will be.
  So we go from 2014, and the next 10 years, as the bill is fully 
implemented, and it will cost $2.6 trillion, almost three times the 
amount the President promised it would cost.
  So people ask: How do we get in a situation where we are borrowing 40 
cents of every dollar we spend? This kind of deception. A CEO in a 
court of law would go to jail if he proposed using that kind of 
accounting in his business practice and asked people to invest in his 
stock.
  Analysis by my staff on the Budget Committee, based on the estimates 
and growth rates the Congressional Budget Office utilizes, finds that 
the total spending under the law, including the other spending not 
directly related to the coverage provisions, will amount to at least 
$2.6 trillion, and could be much more.
  Now, how did they get this done? It is a sad state of affairs, 
frankly. The Obama administration, Mr. Orszag, the Office of Management 
and Budget Director who works directly for the President, also asserted 
that ``health care reform is entitlement reform.'' In other words, this 
is going to fix an entitlement danger--the problems we have with 
Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid; entitlement programs, each one 
of which are growing at fast rates that are unsustainable, that will 
head to bankruptcy in the years to come.
  However, a simple comparison of the Federal Government's unfunded 
obligations for health care programs, before and after the health care 
law was enacted, clearly proves that the President's health care reform 
is not entitlement reform. It will not improve our long term spending 
trajectory. It will not make these programs more viable in the future. 
It did not put Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid on a sustainable 
path. Those programs remain disastrously unsustainable.
  The President does not even talk about that any more. Here we are 
running into a reelection campaign and the country is facing a colossal 
financial danger from unsustainable debt, and the President would not 
even talk about it. He says things are getting along fine. I think it 
is a failure of leadership for him not to talk honestly with the 
American people about our fiscal challenges.
  So before the President's health care law was enacted, unfunded 
obligations for the Federal health care programs totaled $65 trillion 
over a 75-year period. That is how much we are going to run short in 
money to pay for the obligations we have incurred under Medicare and 
Medicaid--and some other programs, but those are the big ones. After 
the recent passage of this health care bill, however, the figure, 
according to my staff's estimates, has gone up to $82 trillion. So the 
difference in the two numbers is what has been added to the unfunded 
liabilities of the United States. By the way, $17 trillion is 2\1/2\ 
times the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, which is $7 
trillion.
  If my colleagues think I am in error about any of these numbers, I 
hope they will correct me. Perhaps I am, but we work hard to be 
accurate about them, and I don't believe I am off in any substantial 
degree.
  The bottom line is this: We cannot afford this law and the additional 
burden it places on our country's finances.
  We must repeal this health care law in its entirety and replace it 
with reforms that will improve our finances and reduce health care 
costs for Americans, not drive up their costs. This bill, whether you 
like it or not, will not be implemented. We simply do not have the 
money. At this time of high unemployment, and almost no growth, it will 
be hard to do the things that are necessary, that we have to do: fix 
Social Security, fix Medicare, provide for

[[Page 11141]]

the common defense. Those things have to be done. We have no money to 
pay for a $2.6 trillion program over a 10-year period. We have to save 
these programs we are committed to first.
  The President's health care law will not be fully implemented until 
2014. It is not too late to stop it now. And we are going to have to, 
simply because the finances of this country will not allow for it to go 
forward.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am pleased to come to the floor this 
afternoon to join my colleagues, Senator Landrieu and Senator Casey, in 
talking about the importance of addressing some of the concerns that 
face small business.
  Senator Casey said something that I think is very important. He said, 
when he goes around Pennsylvania, one of the things he hears from his 
constituents is that they expect us to work together here in 
Washington, in the Senate, in Congress, to get things done for the 
people of this country. I hear that from my constituents. I am sure the 
Presiding Officer hears that from her constituents. People throughout 
the country expect us to work together, and they want to see us address 
the economic challenges we are facing in this country.
  Well, one of the best ways to address the fiscal issues we are facing 
is to be able to grow this economy. Nothing is more important to 
growing the economy, to creating jobs, than small businesses.
  Senator Casey talked about the recent report that came out from his 
congressional committee talking about the importance of small business. 
The fact is that over the last decade, businesses with fewer than 250 
employees accounted for nearly 80 percent of all new hires. Economists 
tell us that about two-thirds of the jobs that are going to be needed 
to get us out of this recession are going to come from small 
businesses.
  In New Hampshire, small businesses are particularly important. We are 
a small business State. Over 95 percent of all New Hampshire companies 
have fewer than 500 employees. About 85 percent of New Hampshire 
companies have fewer than 20 employees.
  We have to look at how we can help those small businesses continue to 
grow.
  Yesterday afternoon, I met with a group of small business owners from 
New Hampshire. They were all owners of construction companies. The 
construction industry in New Hampshire has been one of those industries 
that has been hardest hit in our State, and these businesses still need 
help. These business owners need help if they are going to be able to 
keep their businesses prospering and create jobs.
  The legislation that is before us, the Small Business Jobs and Tax 
Relief Act, will help these small businesses.
  The Landrieu amendment that I want to speak specifically to is 
critical as we look at how we can provide additional help to these 
small businesses. I want to talk specifically to two provisions that 
are in the Landrieu amendment, also known as the SUCCESS Act.
  The first one would deal with export issues. What I have learned, as 
I have been working with business and looking at how we can improve our 
economy and help create jobs, is that giving those small businesses 
access to international markets is critical.
  What we know is that about 95 percent of the markets are outside of 
the United States, and yet only 1 percent of our small and medium-sized 
businesses actually export. So what we have to do is help in every way 
we can through our policies to give them access to those international 
markets.
  Senator Ayotte and I both serve on the Small Business Committee. We 
represent New Hampshire. Last year we held a field hearing in New 
Hampshire, and we heard from small businesses in our State about what 
we can do here in Washington that might help them export. As a result 
of what we heard, we have introduced some stand-alone legislation. But 
provisions in that stand-alone legislation have been incorporated into 
the SUCCESS Act--the amendment that Senator Landrieu is going to be 
offering.
  Those provisions would help our small businesses. One, they would 
improve governmentwide export promotion. Right now we have a lot of 
independent silos, independent efforts that exist in different agencies 
to help small businesses with exporting. What we want to do is provide 
more coordination among those independent programs.
  It would also increase State events that are targeted to help small 
businesses export. Both provisions, as we heard from our small 
businesses in New Hampshire, are important to them, as they think about 
what they can do to improve their chances of exporting, getting into 
those international markets, and having the jobs that can be created as 
a result.
  So that is one of the provisions in the Landrieu amendment, the 
SUCCESS Act, that I think is very important. Senator Ayotte and I and 
our staffs have worked very hard on this.
  Another provision that again is from stand-alone legislation that was 
introduced by Senator Landrieu, Senator Snowe, Senator Isakson, and 
myself--so it is also bipartisan legislation--would extend the 504 
refinancing program through the Small Business Administration.
  As I go around New Hampshire, I still hear the small businesses in my 
State saying that they are still having challenges accessing credit. 
Well, extending the 504 refinancing program is to me a no-brainer as we 
think about how we can give those small businesses access to credit. 
What these provisions would do is extend for a year and a half the 
ability for the Small Business Administration to continue refinancing 
short-term commercial real estate debt into long-term fixed-rate loans, 
again, through the existing 504 loan program--something that makes 
eminent sense, something that we ought to do.
  So those are two provisions I have worked on specifically with other 
Members of this body. They are provisions that are bipartisan. I think 
they have a lot of support. If we can get this amendment to the floor, 
I think there will be a lot of support for it. And it reflects all of 
the provisions of the SUCCESS Act that Senator Landrieu has been 
putting together.
  Again, I want to end with where I started; that is, the people of New 
Hampshire and the people of this country expect us to work together to 
address the issues facing the country. Nowhere is that more important 
than in what we need to do to help create jobs and helping small 
businesses have the support they need so they can create the jobs that 
are going to get us out of this recession. Providing long-term help to 
those people who are unemployed is absolutely critical. This 
legislation would help do that. I hope our colleagues, when it comes to 
the floor, will decide this is one more way we can help small 
businesses create jobs and grow this economy.
  I thank Senator Landrieu for her leadership and Ranking Member Snowe 
on the Small Business Committee for her leadership and hope we can move 
this legislation forward this week.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New Hampshire 
for not only being such an aggressive and fine and thoughtful member of 
the Small Business Committee, but for her constant encouragement to me 
and to Senator Snowe to try to pull together some of the ideas that we 
all can agree on and move forward.
  It may not be the most perfect package, it may not be the most 
extensive package, but as the Senator from New Hampshire said, it is a 
package that most all of us can agree to, and it has a pricetag of only 
$4 billion.
  That is a lot of money. But compared to the Republican proposal that 
has come over here from the House at $40 billion, and the Schumer 
proposal, which I support because it is much more targeted and much 
more responsible at $20 billion, this $4 billion amendment could have a 
tremendous

[[Page 11142]]

bang, a tremendous leveraging power for its cost. And the two proposals 
Senator Shaheen explained beautifully actually have zero cost because 
the 504 program is a program that pays for itself. All we are doing is 
extending its authorization so people--and there are thousands of them 
in Louisiana, in Rhode Island, in New Hampshire, and other States--who 
are caught paying higher interest rates on short-term loans for 
commercial buildings--and I am sure we all know someone in that 
category--can now, if this amendment passes, go to their local bank--it 
is not a government program; it is a partnership with the local banks 
and through the SBA--and refinance their building and get a longer term 
loan.
  In fact, I am told that this program, this 504 program, is basically 
taking up the majority of the space in this lending, that still the 
lenders are very weak. They are not extending credit out in a long 
fixed rate. They are lending short term. They are lending with 
adjustable rates. As the Presiding Officer knows, and many others, when 
a person is starting a small business and taking so much risk, one risk 
that can be eliminated is the cost of their money. It is very 
comforting to a small business owner--who has to borrow, who does not 
have the savings or has run through their savings or the equity in 
their home and they have to extend and take that risk--to be able to 
have a fixed, longer term rate.
  So again, this proposal came from Senator Isakson, who truly is 
acknowledged as the expert in this entire Chamber on commercial real 
estate and on residential real estate. He is known and respected on 
both sides of the aisle. This is his proposal with Senator Shaheen. I 
thank him for his leadership.
  Also, the Senator spoke about the export coordination. Again: zero 
cost; just smarter government, at no cost. We need more of that around 
here: smarter government, less spending. That is what Senator Shaheen's 
proposal does, which is a portion of this amendment, the Small Business 
Export Growth Act.
  Let me reiterate that 95 percent of the world's customers are located 
outside of the borders of the United States. It might be shocking to 
people in America to realize this, but we represent only 4 to 5 percent 
of the population of the Earth. We think of ourselves as the biggest 
and the best, and we are the best. We are not necessarily the biggest 
when it comes to population, though.
  So there are growing markets all over the world. Mr. President, 95 
percent of our customers and a majority of the market are outside of 
the boundaries of the United States. What we are recognizing is, right 
now only 1 percent of the 28 million small businesses in America 
export. Why would that be? One, it can be intimidating for a small 
business, even though they have a great product, they have a great 
idea, they have great technology. And India needs that technology or 
some countries in Africa might absolutely want that product or that 
service. The small businesses are intimidated. They do not have the 
accountants, they do not normally have access to high-powered, 
expensive lawyers and trade executives and experts. So that is what our 
government--and, frankly, State governments are doing this. Smart 
governments at the State level--whether it is California, Oregon, 
Louisiana--all States are now recognizing: Gee, we need to get behind 
our small businesses in our State and help them to export.
  I was very proud to put a substantial investment in the jobs act of 
2010, which gave competitive grants to States. And it is remarkable; 
just a little bit of investment at the Federal level is leveraging a 
tremendous amount of excitement at the State and local level as those 
governments accept those grants and then put them to work.
  In Louisiana, our department of economic development has been very 
aggressive in using its step grants. So, again, this is not an 
additional grant program. This Shaheen-Ayotte proposal has no cost. It 
is perfecting, coordinating this export initiative by establishing an 
interagency task force between the SBA, the USDA, and the Ex-Im Bank. 
It is really encouraging cooperation that now does not exist at the 
Federal level and requires the SBA, in coordination with other 
agencies, to conduct one outreach event in each State per year, which I 
think would really help to motivate our State governments and our 
stakeholders at the State level to be helpful.
  Let me go back to the beginning. We have the SUCCESS Act amendment. I 
talked earlier about 16 provisions in this amendment. We talked about 
the 100-percent exclusion of capital gains. We have talked about the 
increased deduction for startup expenditures, which is Senator 
Merkley's provisions.
  Now I want to talk about the S corp holding period. This has come out 
of the Finance Committee. Senator Snowe and Senator Cardin have been 
very strong advocates of this provision. Under current law, when a 
corporation becomes an S corporation--and there are, of course, 
benefits to becoming that kind of corporation--right now it is required 
to hold its business assets for 10 years or pay punitive taxes. In our 
mind, this 10-year holding period is too long. It ties up assets that 
could be sold to raise capital. In 2010, in our small business bill, we 
reduced this holding period to 5 years so businesses would be better 
able to manage their planning cycles. So this proposal is to extend the 
5-year holding period through 2012 and 2013. You know, potentially, if 
we could afford it, we would like to make this proposal permanent, but 
in the Landrieu SUCCESS Act amendment, it would extend it through 2012 
and 2013 and has a minimal cost.
  The next provision is a carryback provision--up to 5 years of general 
business credits. This is a proposal about which Senator Snowe feels 
very strongly. The proposal would extend the carryback period from 1 
year to 5 years for general business credits earned in 2012 and 2013. 
It would provide tax refunds to businesses that were previously healthy 
but are currently running losses.
  The proposal would improve the effectiveness of business credits that 
are intended to expand investment and employment. The provision would 
allow businesses greater immediate benefit from credits designed to 
encourage specific types of activity. By providing businesses with 
greater opportunity to claim business credits, the provision would also 
give an infusion of cash to businesses, which might promote investment. 
So that is another provision of our SUCCESS Act.
  Section 179 is probably the most popular part of our amendment and, 
again, Senator Snowe has championed this in the Finance Committee. Many 
Finance Committee members are completely aware of section 179 in the 
Tax Code, which deals with expensing that many restaurants and 
retailers use. Basically, it provides a credit for them if a small 
business buys machinery and equipment or property contained in or 
attached to a building other than structural components, such as 
refrigerators, grocery store counters, office equipment, gasoline 
storage tanks, pumps at retail service stations, even livestock, 
including horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, other fur-bearing animals--
all of the equipment or products or purchases small businesses make to 
run their businesses. This would allow an immediate writeoff of up to 
$500,000 for this kind of property. So, again, it is $2.3 billion over 
10 years. It is the most expensive part of this whole amendment, but we 
think it is $2 billion well invested to encourage those small 
businesses to make these investments now, to get jobs and expansion 
opportunities underway.
  Twenty-six national business groups, such as the NFIB, the U.S. 
Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Home Builders, and the 
National Association for the Self-Employed, have endorsed this and have 
sent a letter to us with very enthusiastic support.
  The next section is expanding access to capital for entrepreneurs. 
This was actually mentioned in President Obama's State of the Union 
Message to us when he talked about his small business proposals. He 
outlined maybe half a dozen things, a few of which we have implemented 
and a few of which we

[[Page 11143]]

have not yet implemented. This was on his bucket list, if you will. And 
I am a strong proponent of this provision.
  We created a small business investment company in a bipartisan way 
decades ago. It has been one of the most successful programs created to 
spur business development in the country. It basically operates on a 
sustainable level and does not cost the Federal Government anything. It 
is like venture capital--not really like venture capital--it is like an 
investment; not a bank but a nonbank investment company that was 
created many years before I became chair of this committee. It is 
something that was done through Democratic and Republicans 
administrations because it worked.
  All this does is raise the statutory cap from $3 billion to $4 
billion, and it increases the amount of leverage of licensees from $225 
million to $350 million. They are bumping up against that $3 billion 
cap. It has been very successful. We would like to take it to the next 
level. And, of course, some of the most successful funds within SBIC 
are bumping up against their $225 million cap per fund. So this is one 
of the great ideas that came out of our roundtable. Again, not only 
does President Obama support it, it has my strong support and Senator 
Snowe's, the ranking member of the Small Business Committee.
  The next provision would be the SBA 504 refinance. This extends for a 
year and a half the ability of the SBA 504 Loan Program. We talked 
about this. Senator Shaheen spoke about this, and I have already 
explained it. So this is really the Isakson-Shaheen-Snowe proposal.
  The next is the small business lending activity index. This is 
something I have put forward. We have talked with the banks and the 
SBA. They are all on board and accepting of this concept. It is a way 
to measure the small business lending activity that is being done at 
the city-State level through the 7(a) and 504 Lending Program.
  It was very curious to me, when I became chair of this committee, 
that we did not have the measurements in place to actually judge 
whether some of our programs were really working. Were they working 
really well or working moderately or were they very weak? So I have 
instructed my staff and we have been working together to see in every 
way if we measure and really record the activities of the Small 
Business Administration. It is only a $1 billion agency, one of the 
smaller agencies of the government, but that billion dollars comes from 
taxpayers and we want to make sure that money is spent well and wisely.
  So this legislation, again, is at no cost. It can be done within the 
current budget. It will be called the lender activity index. It will be 
posted on the SBA Web site. It will have the name of the bank, the 
number of SBA loans made by each bank, the total dollar amount of SBA 
loans, the ZIP Code of bank activity, the industries lent to, so we can 
sort of see how our banks are lending and to what areas, the stage of 
the business cycle, and then whether it was a woman-owned, minority-
owned, or veteran-owned business, if that information can be obtained. 
It is very simple. We made sure the language is easy for the banks. 
They already have to report this data; it is just not in a useable 
format. This will require them to put it in a useable format.
  The next is access to global markets. This is what Senator Shaheen 
spoke about. So the major part of this bill is tax cuts to businesses 
and then some oversight of the SBA, tightening up, coordinating our 
export strategy. And then the next and final part of this--or next to 
last part of our amendment is basically access to mentoring, education, 
strategic partnership.
  In our roundtable--I am not going to go into all of the details of 
these items, but the bottom line is that in our roundtable, experts--
business owners and the Kauffman Foundation and others--came to us and 
said: Senator, you are right, businesses need capital. You are right, 
we need access to global markets. You are right that we need a fair tax 
code. But what businesses also need is technical advice and support and 
training, and we need more education, entrepreneurship education.
  The Small Business Administration is not the education agency, so we 
have been very careful not to mission creep. We have designed a couple 
of proposals that can encourage better activity within the SBA to form 
partnerships with nonprofits and even for-profits, not-for-profits, and 
schools to promote entrepreneurship appropriately. The Federal 
Government can be a model. It is only one model. But we believe 
technical training is important. We have partners already established--
the women's small business centers and minority business centers. 
Getting them to be more effective and providing additional counseling 
is very important.
  Finally on this amendment, access to government contracting is 
another method for small businesses to be able to grow. Governments--
whether it is Federal, State, or local--are huge purchasers of goods 
and services, and if our contracting laws are right and if they are 
enforced, then small businesses in America will have an opportunity to 
get started by competing for government contracts or to grow by 
receiving government contracts. And they are more likely to grow. If a 
big business gets a contract from the government, they can sometimes 
absorb that contract and make their company more efficient, giving more 
work to the people who are already there. And there is nothing wrong 
with that; that is business. But when a small business gets a 
government contract, most of the time it results in additional hiring 
because small businesses have to be lean and agile. So they might have 
five people but they have a lot of expertise. They land a contract from 
the government that they are most certainly qualified to do, and then 
they have to hire. So they have to hire 10 people to carry out that 
contract, which is why I have been very supportive--Senator Cardin has 
been a champion on this issue and Senator Levin as well--of giving 
small businesses an opportunity for contracting. That will really help.
  In conclusion on this amendment--I see other Members coming to the 
floor. I wish to speak for another 5 or so minutes. I came to the floor 
today to support the underlying bill, which is the Schumer tax cut 
provision that is targeted tax relief to small businesses in America. I 
hope our Members will support that.
  If for any reason they don't support that, or even if we do, we will 
still have an opportunity, I hope, to vote on the Landrieu amendment. I 
say that humbly because this amendment has been put together by Senator 
Snowe and her staff with me and members of the Small Business Committee 
on both sides of the aisle. We picked up some great ideas from 
individual legislation that had been filed, and it got unanimous 
consent and review, talking to many people.
  So we don't believe it is controversial. We know it doesn't cost that 
much--$4 billion--and we believe it will have a tremendous and 
immediate impact on small businesses in America.
  I wanted to give that explanation. We have received a tremendous 
amount of support today from a variety of organizations.
  I see my colleague on the floor. I will yield the floor at this time 
and perhaps will take a few more minutes before 6 o'clock.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am awaiting Senator Durbin and 
Senator Enzi. I will be happy to listen to the Senator from Louisiana 
if she would like to continue for a while until they come. I plan to 
speak for a few minutes after they speak on a different subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, there are a few other things I would 
like to say.
  I wanted to take a minute to respond to something that Senator Rubio 
said earlier, and Senator Sessions, while I was on the floor. I have 
great respect for those two Members, but he came to the floor with a 
fairly critical diatribe, if you will, against some of President 
Obama's policies. I have not been a great supporter of the President's 
energy policies, and I actually appreciate

[[Page 11144]]

some of the views Senator Rubio holds about the fact that we need to 
drill more in this country.
  I want to show something I think Florida should be mindful of and 
suggest that the Senator from Florida could start making that speech at 
home in Florida because Florida is one of the States that virtually 
produces no energy, from any source. It has been a bone of contention 
with me for many years that we have had Senators come to the floor and 
talk about what so-and-so doesn't do and what so-and-so doesn't do.
  I want to remind the Senator from Florida that the gas that keeps the 
lights on in Florida actually comes from the Mobile Bay. These are the 
pipelines that Mississippi and Alabama and Texas--9,000 miles of 
pipelines and drilling--have off of our shore and onshore to provide 
gas and lights to Florida.
  This is a chart that is very interesting. Before America can be 
energy independent or energy secure, each State should be energy 
secure, or each region. The country is not made up of smoke and 
mirrors; it is made up of 50 States. If every State and every region 
would do its part, either producing or conserving or a little of both, 
we could actually get there. But I get a little tired of the lectures 
criticizing us--particularly from States that neither conserve nor 
produce.
  California gets a little bit of a break, even though they consume 
more energy than any State. They are a net consumer of energy. We are 
down here, a net producer. The States that produce more energy than 
they consume are Wyoming, West Virginia, Louisiana, New Mexico, Alaska, 
Kentucky--and North Dakota should be on here now because this was some 
years ago. Probably Montana also would be on here now.
  The Senator from Florida is coming and lecturing everybody about 
producing, and his own State produces virtually nothing and consumes 
everything. I wanted to say that I find that offensive. California gets 
a little bit of a pass from me because if we look at another chart, 
they do more to sort of consume energy through government regulations, 
which I know the other side doesn't like. They think we don't need any 
regulations, and that is their view. California has a lot of 
regulations--maybe too much for me as well--but they are doing a lot to 
conserve. Florida doesn't. Maybe if Florida started doing a little 
drilling, it would help the United States to be more energy 
independent.
  My second point: I want to answer something Senator Sessions said. I 
will try to find my document on that in a minute. Senator Sessions came 
to the floor a few minutes ago and talked about the cost of the health 
care bill. The health care bill has some expensive components to it. 
The purpose of the health care bill, remember, Mr. President--because 
the occupant of the chair was in the middle of that battle--was 
designed to reduce the overall cost of health care for the Nation 
because the percentage of the gross national product going to health 
care was moving up dramatically and frighteningly--from 12 percent a 
few years ago to 14 percent, to 16 percent, and it was on its way to 19 
percent. It was on its way to 19 percent before Barack Obama got sworn 
into office.
  I am getting tired--and the American people are getting tired--of the 
same diatribe coming from the other side of the aisle about how the 
cost of the Affordable Care Act is causing the country to go off the 
edge. This country was going off the edge before President Obama even 
became President. They know that. But they are just bound and 
determined to keep talking about the same old thing day in and day out, 
about how the Affordable Care Act is wrecking America. The only thing 
wrecking America is their stubbornness.
  I want to put this into the Record. When President Clinton was 
President, as you know, it was the last time we had a surplus. It was 
the Republican President and the Republican leadership that turned that 
surplus into a deficit. The ship had already hit the iceberg before 
President Obama took his oath of office. Now they want to blame the 
entire deficit on the Affordable Care Act.
  When the Affordable Care Act is implemented--now that the Supreme 
Court has said it is most certainly constitutional--instead of fighting 
it every step of the way, it would, in the long run, save money.
  They want to talk about this tax, tax, tax, tax. I want to call what 
they do the ``no care tax,'' because that is the Republican position. 
Before there was the Affordable Care Act, people in America were losing 
care rapidly. Small businesses were dropping their insurance. They 
could not afford it anymore. These premiums have been going up for a 
long time. The Affordable Care Act didn't drive the premiums up; they 
were going through the ceiling. We had to do something to try to stop 
it.
  When President Obama came into office, and we saw that the trends 
were going up, in our efforts to try to get the budget back into 
balance it was obvious that we had to do something with health care. 
But they keep talking about tax, tax, tax. I remind them that before we 
passed the Affordable Care Act, there was a tax on every insurance 
policy that people in America had because it was a tax for the 
uninsured. It was about $1,200. That tax was on the backs of the 
American people before President Obama ever became President, before we 
even began debating the Affordable Care Act.
  The other cost that was going on in this country was the people who 
didn't have Medicare, who didn't have Medicaid, and didn't have 
insurance--and it was a rising number of people without insurance. And 
as States cut back on their Medicaid, a rising number of people who 
didn't have Medicaid went to our hospitals, our private hospitals, our 
public hospitals, and our not-for-profit hospitals. Do you know what 
the Republicans want to tell them. Just treat those people for free. 
There is no one to reimburse you for this cost. Medicaid will not 
reimburse them because they are not 65. They don't have private 
insurance. And the Governors cut back on Medicaid because they can't 
bear to go look for some tax loopholes that people might not need in 
order to provide working Americans with health care.
  They are too busy campaigning for their next election, so they told 
all the hospitals: You all go ahead and take care of these people for 
free. So when a non-paying customer went to a hospital, whom do you 
think picked up the tab for that? The paying customer.
  So before President Obama became the President, before we started 
trying to figure out a way out of this terrible mess, there was a huge 
tax on the backs of the American people and a huge debt having to be 
paid every year by every hospital in America. Why don't they talk about 
that? They don't.
  I hope the American people will listen because I am so tired of that 
same old speech. I have heard it for 3 years--before the debate, during 
the debate, and I guess we are going to hear it up to the election. I 
hope the American people will listen. Don't let them talk about the tax 
that is supposedly in this bill. The Affordable Care Act is alleviating 
a tax burden. It alleviates a terrible tax burden, an invisible tax 
that has been on the American people, and a heavy burden on the backs 
of the taxpayers--and immoral in some ways, as well--with working 
Americans working 50, 60 hours a week, and when they get sick, they 
have nowhere to turn.
  Instead of putting their proposals on the table, they decided they 
wanted to block and tackle and stop and not contribute anything. I 
think the country will make a good decision. I think the country likes 
the fact that their kids can stay on their health care plan until they 
are 26, and they like the fact that when they get sick with cancer or 
diabetes they cannot be kicked off their health insurance. Particularly 
businesses would like it if the States would step up and cover some of 
these lower wage workers, and the burden would not fall on us.
  For every Governor--and mine may be one--who rejects the expansion of 
Medicare, who do they think has to pick this up? It is the small 
businesses.
  The burden should be shared for our lower income workers broadly, not 
on

[[Page 11145]]

the backs of businesses that are struggling. That is the way we 
designed this program. The Federal Government said: We know it is 
tough. We know it is an expansion. Do you know what. We will pick up 
the 3 years 100 percent to give you some time, to help you so you can 
look at your Tax Code, and you might be able to find out and let me get 
this one more thing off my chest. Who made up the rule that the Federal 
Government is in charge of the health of every American citizen? Do 
Governors have any responsibility for health? Are we supposed to just 
do everything up here? Do mayors and Governors have any responsibility 
for the health and welfare of the people they serve? I suggest the 
Governors--some of them--get off the campaign trail, get back to their 
offices, and start putting health care legislation together--
particularly some of the Republican Governors.
  I am glad I said that. I am happy to turn over the microphone. I 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        Marketplace Fairness Act

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have come to the floor in support of 
Senator Enzi of Wyoming, Senator Durbin of Illinois, and a group of 
other Senators and House Members who are working on legislation called 
the Marketplace Fairness Act.
  I am going to let them do their own speaking. I am their chief self-
appointed cheerleader. Senator Enzi has been working on this ever since 
he has been in the Senate. He has a special passion for it as a former 
owner of a shoe store in Wyoming.
  Let me see if I can phrase it this way. If I were to ask the 
question, What do Governor Chris Christie, Governor Mitch Daniels, 
Governor Jeb Bush, Governor Haley Barbour, Al Cardenas, chairman of the 
American Conservative Union, Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia, and 
Governor Paul LePage of Maine all have in common, one might say they 
are all Republicans, and that is true. One might say they are all 
conservatives, and that is true.
  The other thing one could say about those Governors and Republicans 
and conservatives is that they all support the Enzi-Durbin Marketplace 
Fairness Act. What is the Marketplace Fairness Act and why do they 
support it? The Marketplace Fairness Act is an 11-page bill about a 
two-word issue, and the issue is States rights.
  The reason I am such a strong supporter and a cosponsor of what they 
are doing is because when I, in my former life, used to be Governor of 
Tennessee, nothing would make me angrier than Washington politicians 
who would try to tell me what to do about my own business. We have a 
legislature in Tennessee and in Wyoming and we have a Governor and we 
know what services we want and we have a range of options of taxes to 
pay for that. It was always my position we could make our own decisions 
about how to do that.
  What Senators Enzi and Durbin and others of us are saying is that 
States have a right to decide what taxes they impose and from whom to 
collect them. If the States of Tennessee or Wyoming say: We are going 
to have a sales tax and we are only collecting it from half the people, 
it has the right to be wrong. That is what I mean by States rights.
  If I were in Tennessee, I would say: Surely, you will not have a 
State sales tax and only collect it from some of the people. You would 
collect it from all the people who owe it. Surely, you will treat all 
your businesses that are in a similarly situated situation the same 
way. That would be my position if I were Governor or in the 
legislature, but I will let them decide that.
  What we have advanced in the Senate, which has 13 cosponsors, is a 
piece of legislation that makes it clear States can decide for 
themselves whether to collect State sales taxes from some of the people 
who owe it or from all the people who owe it. I will give an example 
and then I will sit down and listen to Senator Enzi and let him talk.
  This past week I had a birthday, and my wife gave me an ice cream 
maker from Williams-Sonoma, which I am sure is going to add a few 
pounds as the months go on. So there we were over the Fourth of July 
holiday, and I wanted to get some of the stuff one needs to make ice 
cream. You can buy ice cream starter from Williams-Sonoma and it comes 
in a can and it makes the project a lot easier and you can buy 
chocolate syrup and they will mail it right to your house. You can do 
all these things online, of course, or I could have driven back to 
Nashville and gone to the store in Nashville and bought it all there. 
If I had bought all that stuff in Nashville, I would have paid 
Nashville's 9.25 percent sales tax. If I buy it online, I wouldn't have 
to pay the tax when I bought it, except that Williams-Sonoma collects 
it. So I went on the Internet, put it on my credit card, and there was 
the amount of money it cost to buy the stuff for my ice cream maker. 
Right at the end of it, it added the tax on, the same sales tax I owed 
and would have paid if I had been at Williams-Sonoma in Nashville. So I 
pushed the button, off it went, they collected the tax from my credit 
card, sent it to the State of Tennessee, and it was done.
  Twenty years ago, that wouldn't have happened with an out-of-State 
seller. It was too cumbersome. The technology wasn't advanced, the 
Internet wasn't as fast, and the States had not gotten their acts 
together. It was all very confusing, and the Supreme Court said you 
can't impose that on States--requiring an out-of-State seller to 
collect the sales tax that is owed--even though it may be owed. Today, 
it is different. It is as easy to figure out the tax as it is to Google 
the weather in your hometown. In fact, it is easier. It is easier to 
have the tax collected online than it is to go into the store and do 
it.
  In any event, in the State of Tennessee, Governor Haslam and the 
Lieutenant Governor--and I can guarantee we are a conservative State--
want the right to decide that for themselves. I know what they are 
going to do, if they have the right to collect the sales tax from 
everybody who owes it instead of just some of the people who owe it. 
They are going to lower the tax rate for everybody. They might get rid 
of the only vestige of an income tax we have, or the food tax might go 
down. They might spend some more money for teachers' salaries. That is 
their business.
  But I am here to say that Senators Enzi and Durbin and others have 
solved a big problem for this country, and the reason why this bill is 
inevitable and why I hope it will pass this week or next week or the 
next week--and why I believe the House of Representatives is going to 
pass it as well--is because it is a simple 11-page bill about a 2-word 
issue: States rights. That is why Governor Christie and Governor 
Daniels and Governor Bush and Congressman Pence and many Republicans 
and many conservatives are saying let's pass it. Let's get out of the 
way and let States make their own decisions, and then the States can 
decide from whom they want to collect their sales taxes.
  I congratulate Senator Enzi--and Senator Durbin--on his work and I 
look forward to working with Senator Enzi and I hope this year we can 
continue to turn this bill the Senator has worked on for more than a 
dozen years into a law.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, 
is far too modest. Yes, I have been working on this since I got to the 
Senate, but he is the one who got it shortened down to 11 pages and 
made it a States rights bill. The States are realizing their rights 
anyway, and there are attempts at making changes in the sales tax law 
in order to cover this huge loss of revenue they are experiencing, but 
it doesn't work unless we do what the Supreme Court urged us to do when 
they issued the Quill decision back in the

[[Page 11146]]

1990s, which is to pass a national law that clarifies how this tax 
would be collected if the States choose to do it.
  I am very pleased Senator Durbin joined us on this issue. Practically 
every State is losing money because of the tax that is only being 
collected for people who buy instate, and when they buy out of State, 
they are used to it being collected and it isn't collected. So half the 
time the State is not getting its money, and we need to change that 
before States come to the Federal Government and say we need some money 
for this project and then that sometimes gets worked into a bill. We 
are out of money at the Federal level. We have eliminated earmarks, so 
we can't do what we used to do, and we probably shouldn't have done it 
then. At any rate, we are borrowing 42 cents on every $1 we spend, so 
we don't have any money to give to the States.
  But the States do have this authority, an authority to do a sales 
tax. Of course, they didn't anticipate they were just going to tax the 
businesses that were in their State that were paying a property tax and 
were hiring local people and were participating in all the community 
events and telling everybody out of State they didn't have any 
responsibility in it. There has always been an effort to get their 
responsibility too. I am glad we have this opportunity to discuss the 
small business jobs and tax bill, but in this amendment to it--which 
would be known as the Marketplace Fairness Act--we are talking about 
fairness. We do expect everybody will be treated fairly.
  So let's start with a common-day practice that is happening in our 
Nation's retail markets today. If someone buys the book ``The Hunger 
Games'' at the local bookshop in town, they will pay more for the book 
from the brick-and-mortar store than if they bought the book online. 
There is nothing different about the brick-and-mortar store's book 
versus the book purchased on the Internet except the sales tax they 
have to pay. If they choose to do so, States should have the 
flexibility and the ability to fix this inequality.
  Sales taxes go directly to State and local governments. They bring in 
needed revenue for maintaining our schools, fixing our roads, and 
supporting our law enforcement. As I like to add, have you ever tried 
to flush your toilet on the Internet? If sales over the Internet 
continue to go untaxed and electronic commerce continues to soar, 
revenues to State and local governments will plummet. But if Congress 
fails to authorize States to collect tax on remote sales and electronic 
commerce continues to grow, we are implicitly blessing a situation 
where States will be forced to raise other taxes, such as income or 
property taxes, to offset the growing loss of sales tax revenue. Do we 
want this to happen? No, we don't.
  The Marketplace Fairness Act was written in the aftermath of the 
Supreme Court's 1992 Quill decision. Congressional involvement is 
necessary because the ruling stated the thousands of different State 
and local tax rules were too complicated and onerous to require 
businesses to collect sales tax unless they had a physical presence--
store, warehouse, et cetera--in the purchaser's home State.
  The Supreme Court essentially stated Congress needs to decide how to 
move forward. I strongly believe now is the time for Congress to act. 
Many Americans don't realize when they buy something online or order 
something from a catalog from a business outside their own State, they 
still owe the sales tax. For over a decade, Congress has been debating 
how to best allow States to collect the sales taxes from online 
retailers in a way that puts Main Street businesses on a level and fair 
playing field with the online retailers.
  The Marketplace Fairness Act empowers States to make the decision 
themselves. If they choose to collect already existing sales taxes on 
all purchases, regardless of where the sale was--whether it was online 
or in a store--they can. If they want to keep it the way they are, the 
States can do that.
  I have been working on this sales tax fairness since joining the 
Senate in 1997. As a former small business owner, it is important to 
level the playing field for all retailers--in-store, catalog, and 
online--so an outdated rule for sales tax collection does not adversely 
impact small businesses and Main Street retailers. As a State 
legislator, I know we never passed a law, as I said, that discriminated 
against the instate people. We never put a burden on people who pay the 
property tax, who hire local residents and participate in the community 
events while telling those out of State we want them to have our money, 
but they do not have to do anything in return. We never intended to 
give the out-of-State businesses a free ride. That is what the local 
legislators are all concerned about.
  On November 9, 2011, Senators Durbin, Alexander, Tim Johnson, and I 
introduced, with six of our other colleagues, in a very bipartisan way, 
the Marketplace Fairness Act to close this 20-year loophole that 
distorts the American marketplace by picking winners and losers, by 
subsidizing some businesses at the expense of other businesses and 
subsidizing taxpayers at the expense of other taxpayers. All businesses 
and their retail sales and all consumers and their purchases should be 
treated equally and fairly.
  I wish to provide some highlights of what the Marketplace Fairness 
Act accomplishes:
  The bill gives States the right to decide to collect or not to 
collect taxes that are already owed. The legislation would streamline 
the country's more than 9,000 diverse sales tax jurisdictions and 
provide two options by which States could begin collecting taxes for 
online and catalog purchases. The bill gives States two voluntary 
options that would allow them to collect the State sales taxes that are 
already owed if they choose.
  The first option is the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, 
supported by 24 States that have already passed laws to simplify their 
tax collection rules. The second option puts in place basic minimum 
simplification measures States can adopt to make it easier for out-of-
State businesses to comply.
  The bill also carves out small businesses so they are not adversely 
affected by the new law by exempting businesses with less than $500,000 
in sales online or out-of-State sales from collection requirements. It 
is very important there is an exemption for startup and small 
businesses if they have less than $500,000 of sales in 1 year. Once 
they reach the $500,000, then the next year they have to begin 
collecting the tax. This small business exemption will protect small 
merchants and give new businesses time to get started.
  Don't let the critics get away with saying this kind of 
simplification cannot be done. In the early 1990s, when the Quill 
decision was handed down, the Internet was still in diapers and cell 
phones came with bags and looked like bricks. Cell phones now have 
Internet capability, and software, computers, and technologies have all 
advanced at an exponential pace. The different rates and jurisdiction 
problem is no problem for today's programs.
  As a former mayor and State legislator, I also strongly favor 
allowing States the authority to require sales and use tax collection 
from retailers in all sales, if they choose to do so. We need to 
implement a plan that will allow States to generate revenue using 
mechanisms already approved by their local leaders. We need to allow 
States the ability to collect the sales taxes they already require, if 
enacted. This would provide $23 billion in fiscal relief for the States 
for which Congress does not have to find an offset. This will give 
States less of an excuse to come knocking on the Federal door for 
handouts and will reduce the problem of federally attached strings. It 
will give States a chance to reduce property taxes or other taxes.
  The Marketplace Fairness Act is not about new taxes. No one should 
tax the use of the Internet. No one should tax Internet services. I do, 
however, have concerns about using the Internet as a sales tax 
loophole. Sales tax collection is already required by my home State of 
Wyoming no matter how or where we buy something, if it is not taxed by

[[Page 11147]]

the State we get it from. We are supposed to fill out our own form and 
submit the information. Nobody is used to filing that kind of form or 
doing that kind of tax collection, and they never know whether the tax 
is owed or how much it is, particularly on small purchases.
  It is always collected at the stores by the stores in state. We have 
to make the system simpler so they don't have to fill out forms. Under 
Wyoming law, online purchases are already subject to a sales tax; it 
just can't be collected and given to our State. The situation is very 
similar to that of other States.
  Senators Durbin, Alexander, and I have worked tirelessly to assist 
the sellers, States, and local governments to simplify sales and use 
tax collection and administration. We have worked with all interested 
parties to find a mutually agreeable legislative package to introduce. 
Many hours have been dedicated to finding the right solution.
  I want to publicly commend and thank Senators Durbin and Alexander 
for taking a leadership role in working on this important policy issue.
  Ten years ago, the bills we considered to try to close this loophole 
were not adequate to solve the problem. Marketplace Fairness does solve 
the problem. It is simple. It is about States' rights. It is about 
fairness. At a time when States' budgets are under increasing pressure, 
Congress should give State and local governments the ability to enforce 
their own laws. I strongly encourage my colleagues to support amendment 
No. 2496, known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, and get it enacted 
into public law this year.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Alexander of Tennessee and 
Senator Enzi of Wyoming, cosponsors of this measure and participants in 
this colloquy on the floor today. I am sorry I wasn't here at the 
outset, but I am grateful for their participation and comments they 
have made, and especially for their commitment to this cause.
  I think Senator Enzi--and I would give special thanks to Senator 
Alexander, who stepped in at a very important moment and helped us 
craft a part of this bill--helped us craft an agreement on this bill 
and brought some new approaches to it which have been extremely 
helpful.
  The notion of offering this as an amendment is a show of good faith 
on our part and a show of commitment to the seriousness and the 
importance of this issue. The fact that many Democrats and Republicans 
can join together in this bipartisan manner is an indication that this 
bill cuts across party lines. I think it gets down to a basic issue, as 
it says, of fairness.
  The economy is clearly getting better. There are better days ahead; 
jobs are being created and our economy is growing stronger. There may 
be times when the job numbers are disappointing and the stock market 
stumbles, and we continue to face challenges in Europe and other 
places, but we are improving.
  Businesses in Illinois and across the country are starting to see 
customers come back. Small retailers in my home State of Illinois are 
pushing the slogan ``buy local'' in their effort to urge consumers to 
come back to local stores, farmers markets, and shoe stores, instead of 
buying online. These efforts support local brick-and-mortar sellers who 
contribute to the community in so many different ways. They sponsor the 
local baseball teams, they collect sales and use taxes that pay for 
services such as fire, police, and trash collection, and they provide 
good-paying local jobs.
  While these efforts have been successful, many local retailers share 
with me how frustrating it is to lose business because online retailers 
have a built-in advantage that I have seen firsthand. While local Main 
Street businesses collect State and local taxes and use taxes, their 
online competitors don't. In Illinois, this can mean an 8-percent 
differential in price. This encourages customers to buy everything from 
electronics to books online to avoid paying sales tax and use taxes.
  A couple examples:
  Bob Naughtrip, owner of Soccer Plus in Palatine and Libertyville, IL, 
describes how his biggest online competitor can offer a discount of 
more than $10,000 because it doesn't have to collect sales and use 
taxes. Bob sells sporting equipment to local sports clubs, and it is 
not unusual for these clubs to make purchases that exceed $100,000 a 
year. He can't compete when the competition has a $10,000 price 
advantage, so he loses the business.
  Matt Lamsargis, owner of the Springfield Running Center--a person I 
have come to know--and Bob Thompson, owner of BikeTek, both in my 
hometown of Springfield, told me when I visited their small businesses 
last year they are victims of ``showrooming,'' they call it. They lose 
business when customers walk into the store, look around, maybe even 
try on the clothing and shoes or even get fitted just right, write down 
a few numbers, then walk out the door and order the product over the 
Internet at a discount, because the Internet seller doesn't collect 
sales tax and these local retailers have to. Ironically, some of the 
customers, dissatisfied with their online purchases, come back to the 
same store to complain about a product they didn't even buy there. So 
we have got to find a way to make this a fairer marketplace.
  Why can't State and local governments require online retailers to 
collect sales and use taxes? For 20 years, State and local governments 
have been prohibited from enforcing their own sales and use tax laws 
because of a Supreme Court decision in Quill v. North Dakota where the 
Court clearly stated that only Congress has the authority to solve this 
problem.
  Last year, Senator Enzi, Senator Alexander, and I introduced the 
Marketplace Fairness Act with additional cosponsors. We now have 13 
bipartisan sponsors. This bipartisan group of Senators understands that 
to truly help small businesses grow and create jobs, we need to make 
sure they compete on a level playing field. The Marketplace Fairness 
Act would do that. That is why it is being filed as an amendment to the 
Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act.
  Our amendment is about saving Main Street businesses and the jobs 
provided by those businesses. This bill does not mandate the States but 
it allows States, if they choose, to require online and brick-and-
mortar retailers to play by the same sales tax rules. The bill 
eliminates the built-in price advantage that has distorted the market 
for 20 years.
  It includes, as Senator Enzi recently said, a small seller exemption 
for those selling less than $500,000 worth of commodities a year. If 
Grandma Bennet's apple butter is being cased up and sold to the tune of 
$10,000 or $20,000 a year online because her smart grandson has given 
her advice on how she can retail this online, she doesn't have to start 
collecting sales tax until she has sold $500,000 worth of goods; in the 
next year, she collects sales tax. So we are trying to be sensitive to 
smaller businesses and, as Senator Enzi said, startup businesses.
  This bill includes 240 organizations. I ask unanimous consent that 
the list of those organizations be printed in the Record after my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. DURBIN. This is an issue where the International Association of 
Firefighters and AFSCME stand together with the National Retail 
Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, and the Consumer 
Electronics Association. What an amazing coalition.
  Amazon.com, the largest retailer online in America, supports our 
bill. Yet the largest online retailer, in supporting this bill, still 
has Members of the Senate questioning whether they are going to react 
positively. They are on record in favor of this.
  It is also supported by groups such as the U.S. Conference of Mayors, 
the National Association of Counties, and the National Council of State 
Legislators. The National Governors Association supports the 
Marketplace Fairness Act, because these State and local governments are 
losing about $23 billion a year on uncollected sales tax. In Illinois, 
we are losing about $1 billion a

[[Page 11148]]

year, about 15 percent of our current deficit. It would make a 
difference if we could collect this. Again, the States would have to 
make that decision. We don't force it on them.
  This has the support of eight Democratic Governors and 13 Republican 
Governors, including Governor Quinn of Illinois, O'Malley of Maryland, 
McDonnell of Virginia, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and Haley from the 
State of South Carolina. Recently, Governor Chris Christie from the 
State of New Jersey publicly came out in support and said:

       I too--along with Governors like Governor Daniels and 
     others--urge the federal government and Congress in 
     particular to get behind . . . legislation to allow states to 
     be able to make these choices for themselves. . . .

  Governor LePage, a Republican Governor from the State of Maine, wrote 
a letter of support saying, ``The Marketplace Fairness Act does not 
raise taxes.'' The point he makes and the argument here is this is not 
a new tax.
  So if this bill has such broad bipartisan support, why haven't we 
passed it? Well, we need 60 Senators. The majority leader has said to 
me and Senator Enzi, ``Show me the votes.'' And that is what we are 
trying to do--bring together a bipartisan group that will support this, 
that understands it is simple fairness for small businesses that create 
jobs and opportunities all across America. And with the sales taxes 
they collect, they provide for local police and firemen, for the sewers 
and streets, and the things in life that we come to take for granted in 
our cities across America. We want to make sure the online retailers 
are making the same contribution.
  So I urge my colleagues, when this amendment comes before them, to 
support it on a bipartisan basis.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                Support for the Marketplace Fairness Act

       American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial 
     Organizations; Abbell Credit Corporation, Chicago, IL; Acadia 
     Realty Trust, White Plains, NY; AFL-CIO Department for 
     Professional Employees; Airgas, Inc.; Alabama College 
     Bookstore Association; Alabama Retail Association; Alaska 
     Veterinary Medical Association; Alliance of Wisconsin 
     Retailers; Amazon.com; American Apparel and Footwear 
     Association; American Booksellers Association; American 
     Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; American 
     Federation of Teachers; American Specialty Toy Retailing 
     Association; American Veterinary Medical Association; Arizona 
     Retailers Association; Arkansas Grocers and Retail Merchants 
     Association; Association for Christian Retail; Association of 
     Washington Business; AutoZone, Inc.; Balliet's LLC; Barnes 
     and Noble, Inc.; Beall's, Inc.; Bed, Bath, & Beyond, Inc.; 
     Ben Bridge Jewelers, Seattle, WA; Best Buy Co., Inc.; Blake 
     Hunt Ventures, Inc., Danville, CA; Build-A-Bear Workshops, 
     Saint Louis, MO; Buy.com; California Association of College 
     Store; California Business Properties Association; California 
     Retailers Association; California Veterinary Medical 
     Association; Carolinas Food Industry Council; CBL & 
     Associates Properties, Inc., Chattanooga, TN; Cencor Realty 
     Services, Dallas, TX; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; 
     Certified Commercial Investment Member Institute; 
     Chesterfield Blue Valley, LLC, St. Louis, MO; Christian 
     Booksellers Association; City of Carrollton, Texas; College 
     Stores of New England (MA, CT, RI, ME, VT, NH); College 
     Stores Association of New York State.
       College Stores Association of North Carolina; Colorado 
     Retail Council; Colorado Veterinary Medical Association; 
     Connecticut Retail Merchants Association; Consumer 
     Electronics Association; Consumer Electronics Retailers 
     Coalition; The Container Store, Dallas, Texas; The 
     CortiGilchrist Partnership, Ilc, Al Corti, Principal, San 
     Diego, CA; D. Talmage Hocker, The Hocker Group, Louisville, 
     KY; David Hocker & Associates, Inc., Owensboro, Kentucky; DDR 
     Corp., Beachwood, OH; Delaware Veterinary Medical 
     Association; Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc.; DLC Management 
     Corp., Tarrytown, NY; Donahue Schriber Realty Group, Costa 
     Mesa, CA; Economic Alliance of Snohomish County, WA; Edens & 
     Avant, Columbia, SC; Evergreen Devco, Inc., Glendale, CA; 
     Fairfield Corporation, Battle Creek, MI; Federal Realty 
     Investment Trust, Rockville, MD; FedTax, David Campbell, CEO; 
     Florida Retail Federation; Food Marketing Institute; Foot 
     Locker, Inc.; Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America; 
     Forest City Enterprises, Inc., Cleveland, OH; Gap Inc., San 
     Francisco, CA; Garrison Pacific Properties, San Rafael, CA; 
     General Growth Properties, Chicago, IL; Georgia Association 
     of College Stores; Georgia Retail Association; Georgia 
     Veterinary Medical Association; Glimcher Realty Trust, 
     Columbus, OH; Governing Board of the Streamlined Sales and 
     Use Tax Agreement; Government Finance Officers Association; 
     Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association; The Greeby 
     Companies, Inc., Chicago, IL; Hart Realty Advisers, Inc., 
     Simsbury, CT; The Home Depot, Inc.; Hy-Vee, Inc.; Idaho 
     Retailers Association; Idaho Veterinary Medical Association; 
     Illinois Association of College Stores; Illinois Retail 
     Merchants Association; Illinois State Veterinary Medical 
     Association; Independent Running Retailer Association; 
     Indiana Retail Council.
       Indiana Veterinary Medical Association; Institute of Real 
     Management; International Association of Fire Fighters; 
     International Council of Shopping Centers; International 
     Economic Development Council; International Federation of 
     Professional and Technical Engineers; Iowa Retail Federation; 
     Iowa Veterinary Medical Association; J.C. Penney Corporation, 
     Inc.; JCPenney; Jewelers of America; Jo-Ann Stores, Inc.; 
     John Bucksbaum, Private Real Estate Investor/Developer, 
     Former Chairman and CEO of General Growth; Kemper Development 
     Company, Bellevue, WA; Kentucky Retail Federation; Kentucky 
     Veterinary Medical Association; Kimco Realty Corporation, New 
     Hyde Park, NY; The Kroger Company; L. Michael Foley and 
     Associates, LLC, La Jolla, CA; Limited Brands, Inc.; Los 
     Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce; Louisiana Retailers 
     Association; Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association; Lowes 
     Companies, Inc.; Maine Merchants Association; Maine 
     Veterinary Medical Association; Malcolm Riley and Associates 
     Los Angeles, CA; Marketing Developments, Inc. MI; Marshall 
     Music Co., Lansing, MI; Mary Lou Fiala, CEO, Loft Unlimited, 
     Ponte Vedra Beach Florida; Maryland Retailers Association; 
     Massachusetts Veterinary Medical Association; Meijer, Inc.; 
     Michigan Association of College Stores; Michigan Retailers 
     Association; Michigan Veterinary Medical Association; Mid 
     States Association of College Stores (IA, NE, KS, MO); Middle 
     Atlantic College Stores; Minnesota Retail Association; 
     Minnesota Veterinary Medical Association; Missouri Retailers 
     Association; Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers 
     Association; NAIOP, Commercial Real Estate Development 
     Association; NAMM, National Association of Music Merchants; 
     National Association of Chain Drug Stores; National 
     Association of College Stores.
       National Association of Counties; National Association of 
     Real Estate Investment Trusts; National Association of 
     Realtors; National Bicycle Dealers Association; National 
     Conference of State Legislatures; National Education 
     Association; National Governors' Association; National 
     Grocers Association; National Home Furnishings Association; 
     National League of Cities; National Retail Federation; 
     National School Supply and Equipment Association; Nebraska 
     Retail Federation; Nebraska Veterinary Medical Association; 
     The Neiman Marcus Group, Inc.; Nevada Veterinary Medical 
     Association; New Atlantic Independent Booksellers 
     Association; New England Independent Booksellers Association; 
     New Jersey Retail Merchants Association; New Jersey 
     Veterinary Medical Association; New Mexico Retail 
     Association; Newspaper Association of America; North American 
     Retail Dealers Association; North Carolina Retail Merchants 
     Association; North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association; 
     North Dakota Retail Association; Northern California 
     Independent Booksellers Association; Ohio Association of 
     College Stores; Ohio Council of Retail Merchants; Oklahoma 
     Veterinary Medical Association; Outdoor Industry Association; 
     Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association; Pennsylvania 
     Retailers' Association; Performance Marketing Association; 
     Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council; Petco Animal Supplies, 
     Inc.; PetSmart, Inc.; Planning Developments, Inc., MI; The 
     Pratt Company, Mill Valley, CA; Professional Beauty 
     Association; Properties, Inc., Chicago, IL; The Rappaport 
     Companies, McLean, VA; Real Estate Roundtable; Realtors Land 
     Institute; REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.); Reininga 
     Corporation, Healdsburg, CA; Retail Association of 
     Mississippi.
       Retail Association of Nevada; Retail Council of New York 
     State; Retail Industry Leaders Association; Retail Merchants 
     of Hawaii; Retailers Association of Massachusetts; Rhode 
     Island Retail Federation; Rocky Mountain Skyline Bookstore 
     Association (CO, MT, NM, WY); Safeway, Inc.; Sears Holdings 
     Corporation; Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce; The 
     Seayco Group, Bentonville, AK; The Sembler Company, St. 
     Petersburg, FL; Service Employees International Union; 
     ShareASale; Simon Property Group, Indianapolis, IN; Soccer 
     Dealer Association; Society of Industrial and Office 
     Realtors; South Carolina Association of Veterinarians; South 
     Carolina Retail Merchants Association; South Dakota Retailers 
     Association; Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance; 
     Southwest College Bookstore Association (AR, LA, TX, OK, NM, 
     MS); Steiner + Associates LLC, Columbus, Ohio; Stirling 
     Properties, Covington, LA; Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, 
     Inc., Greensboro, NC; Target Corporation; Taubman Realty 
     Group, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Tennessee Retail Association;

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     Tennessee Veterinary Medical Association; Texas Retailers 
     Association; The Timberland Company; Tractor Supply Company; 
     Tri-State Bookstore Association; The UAW; U.S. Conference of 
     Mayors; Utah Food Industry Association; Utah Retail Merchants 
     Association; Utah Veterinary Medical Association; Vermont 
     Retail Association; Vestar Development Co.--Phoenix AZ; 
     Virginia Retail Merchants Association; Virginia Veterinary 
     Medical Association; Wal-Mart Stores, Bentonville, AR; 
     Washington Retail Association; Washington State Veterinary 
     Medical Association; WDP Partners, LLC, Phoenix, AZ; The 
     Weitzman Group, Dallas, Texas; Wendy's Company; West Virginia 
     Retailers Association; West Virginia Veterinary Medical 
     Association; Western Development Corporation, Washington, DC; 
     Westfield, LLC., Los Angeles, CA; Wisconsin Association of 
     College Stores; Wisconsin Veterinary Medical Association; 
     Wolfe Properties, LLC, St. Louis, MO; World Floor Covering 
     Association; Wyoming Retail Association; Wyoming Veterinary 
     Medical Association; Zumiez, Inc., Everett, WA.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all remaining 
time postcloture be yielded back and the Senate adopt the motion to 
proceed to S. 2237.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________