[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11411-11422]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 BRING JOBS HOME ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. I move to proceed to Calendar No. 442, S. 3364.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 442 (S. 3364), a bill to 
     provide an incentive for businesses to bring jobs back to 
     America.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a cloture motion at the desk in 
reference to this legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented 
pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.

[[Page 11412]]

  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 442, S. 3364, a bill to provide an 
     incentive for businesses to bring jobs back to America.
         Harry Reid, Debbie Stabenow, Sheldon Whitehouse, Al 
           Franken, Richard J. Durbin, Sherrod Brown, Richard 
           Blumenthal, Jeff Merkley, Christopher A. Coons, Robert 
           P. Casey, Jr., Benjamin L. Cardin, Jeanne Shaheen, 
           Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Charles E. Schumer, Jack Reed, 
           Barbara A. Mikulski, John D. Rockefeller IV.

  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum required 
under rule XXII be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, once again I am disappointed, as I think 
most people in this country are, on an issue as timely as this, 
outsourcing jobs, that we once again are being stymied on moving to 
that legislation. We are going to have a vote. The rules are we cannot 
have a vote on this until 2 days go by, so that is a vote on Thursday. 
If cloture is invoked on that, then we are only on the bill, and then 
to get off of it would take another series of days. I think to get 
final action on this is going to take a week.
  It is so unfortunate that we have to go through this. We have gone 
through this so many times. There is, I repeat, not an issue more 
timely than this--outsourcing jobs. Whether it is the Olympic uniforms 
or the many other jobs that have been lost around the country, the 
American people are tired of it, but I think it is unfortunate the 
Republicans are stopping us from being able to start legislating on 
this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
support the motion we have before us to begin consideration of my bill, 
the Bring Jobs Home Act. I thank my leader for making this a priority 
and thank the President of the United States for also making this a 
priority as we move forward.
  Let me start on process, to say it is true, of course, as the leader 
indicated, we could be simply on this bill and working to complete it 
and pass it. But unfortunately, as happens on everything now, when the 
leader attempts to move to a bill, there is an objection to that. When 
there is, it puts us into a situation where we have to spend several 
days trying to overcome a potential filibuster to be able to move to 
the bill. So, process-wise, that is where we are.
  From a substance standpoint it is absolutely critical that we move to 
this bill and that we pass it. The great recession and the financial 
collapse of 2008 were absolutely devastating to our economy. We know 
that during that time, 8 million Americans lost their jobs and many are 
still struggling to get out of their own deficit hole because of what 
happened. These are people who worked all their lives and played by the 
rules, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.
  Many of these people were folks who worked in manufacturing, many in 
my great State of Michigan. We are so proud that we make things in 
Michigan. We do not have a middle class, we do not have an economy 
unless we make things. That is what we do in Michigan. For decades, 
this has been the foundation of our economy. Frankly, it created the 
middle class of our country and we are proud it started in Michigan 
with the beginning of the automobile industry.
  It is no coincidence that as those jobs have disappeared over the 
decades, the middle class has begun to disappear as well and families 
are in more and more difficult situations personally as a result of 
that. Those jobs have been the driving force of our economy for 
decades, as I indicated. Those jobs are the jobs that allowed the 
``greatest generation'' to build the greatest economy in the world, the 
greatest economy we have ever seen. Those jobs led to tree-lined 
streets with at least one car in every driveway, and the freedom to 
raise a family and send them to college and maybe have the cottage up 
north and be able to take the family on vacation and have the American 
dream.
  Today in fact that dream is in jeopardy and every American family 
knows that. But it does not have to be that way. In the last decade, 
companies shipped 2.4 million jobs overseas. To add insult to injury, 
American taxpayers were asked to help foot the bill.
  It is amazing. When I explain that to folks in Michigan, they say you 
have to be kidding--or they say other things I cannot repeat on the 
floor of the Senate. Just imagine if you are one of those workers in 
Michigan or in Virginia or in Ohio or in Wisconsin or anywhere in this 
country who maybe was forced to train your overseas replacement before 
you were laid off. Imagine what your reaction would be--more colorful 
than I have been able to state here. When an American worker is asked 
to subsidize the moving expenses, as they do today under current tax 
policy--the moving expenses and costs so their own job can be shipped 
overseas--there is something seriously wrong with our Tax Code and with 
our priorities.
  It does not have to be that way. In fact, we can change that. We can 
change that this week on the floor of the Senate by passing the Bring 
Jobs Home Act and sending it to the House and then sending it to the 
President where I know he will enthusiastically and immediately sign 
it.
  Instead of rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas, we want to 
reward companies for bringing jobs home. That is the whole point of 
this bill. We stop the tax deduction for moving expenses related to 
moving jobs overseas. That is what this bill does. Right now you can 
deduct those expenses as part of your business expenses. We say: No 
more. Second, we say: However, if you want to come home, we will 
happily give you that deduction for the costs of moving back to the 
United States and we will add an additional 20 percent tax credit for 
those costs of bringing jobs back to the United States. That is what we 
are doing in the Bring Jobs Home Act.
  This is common sense. Unfortunately it is not that common these days, 
but it is common sense and it is good economic sense as well. It is so 
important that we pass this bill. We talk about tax reform. We talk 
about having a lot of tax loopholes. This is one we can eliminate right 
now, together, on a bipartisan basis. Let's start here, the No. 1 
loophole, we will close it; No. 1 priority, jobs in America.
  I know some of my colleagues do not believe these jobs are ever 
coming back. I hear that all the time. We in Michigan have been seeing 
that same defeatist argument for 20 years. But in fact that is not 
true. One of the things I am proudest of in the last 3\1/2\ years is 
that we have refocused on advanced manufacturing, making things in 
America, in this country. We have a lot more to do but we have in fact 
refocused on jobs here at home and we are seeing, because of that, a 
whole range of policies--whether it is the advanced manufacturing tax 
cut I offered in the Recovery Act, that allows a 30-percent writeoff 
for clean energy manufacturing jobs, or whether it is the retooling 
loans we put in place to be able to help retool plants to be able to 
modernize in the name of advanced manufacturing. It is bringing jobs 
back.
  We put in place some initial actions that are making a difference and 
we are now seeing every month that manufacturing is having an uptick. 
It has been one of the only areas where pretty much every month we have 
begun to see a slow return. We are beginning to see some of these jobs 
come back as a result. Our companies are doing the calculations, 
finding out that bringing jobs home makes good business sense. It is 
time our Tax Code stops standing in the way and actually has caught up 
with what many businesses are doing.
  Ford Motor Company brought jobs back from Mexico to support advanced 
vehicle manufacturing at their newly retooled Wayne Assembly Plant in 
Wayne, MI. Chrysler is growing and expanding their operations here in 
the United States, investing--95 percent I believe is the last number 
which I heard of their investments are being done in America. We are 
proud to have

[[Page 11413]]

them investing in Detroit and in Michigan. Last week we saw a report 
that GM is about to go on a ``hiring binge.'' I love this, I love 
anything called a hiring binge, as they bring almost all of their 
information technology needs back in-house, and to America.
  We have a great company in Detroit--actually from New Jersey, now in 
Detroit--Galaxy Solutions, that has an ``outsource to Detroit'' effort 
going on to bring IT back from places such as India and Brazil and 
China. We have on the side of one of our largest buildings this great 
sign that says ``outsource to Detroit.'' If we are going to outsource 
somewhere, let's outsource to our American cities. We love the fact 
that they are part of the effort to rebuild and refocus on Detroit.
  We have companies that want to invest in America. We have stories 
about GE coming back. We have stories in every State of companies that 
are bringing jobs back to America. We have men and women who want to 
work. We have companies that are looking at bringing jobs back. CNBC 
called it ``the stuff that dreams are made of.''
  I think going forward the great economic resurgence for us is 
involved in advanced manufacturing, making things in America and 
bringing our jobs back to America. It is more than time. It is what our 
workers are dreaming of. We are proud in Michigan of our workforce, 
these folks who know how to work, they want to work, they work hard 
every day. I have to say that efforts such as ``outsource to Detroit'' 
are giving them a new chance to do that, as well as the other efforts 
that are going on around Michigan.
  There are so many opportunities right here in America. We have the 
great new ideas. We have the ingenuity and the innovation. We have to 
make sure we have the right policies to make it happen, that we are not 
doing anything in our Tax Code that encourages jobs to go overseas; 
that we do everything possible to support efforts to bring them back 
and then to reinvest and to expand upon research, development, 
innovation, retooling the plants we have, reinvesting in communities, 
reinvesting in our cities, and focusing on a strategy of American jobs. 
That is what everyone wants us to be doing.
  There is a great place to start and that is with our Tax Code so that 
it catches up with what leading-edge business leaders already know. 
American businesses, American workers can compete with anybody in the 
world if we have a level playing field and we give them a chance to do 
it.
  This is a moment, I believe, for us to indicate very strongly to 
everybody in the country that we get it and that we are not going to 
allow the Tax Code to continue to create a situation where if someone 
wants to close up shop and move overseas they can get a tax writeoff as 
a result. That makes absolutely no sense. I cannot imagine any other 
country in the world allowing that to happen.
  When I think about places such as China, where at this point they 
say: Come on over, we will build the plant for you. Forget about a 
retooling loan; we will build the plant for you. Of course, then we 
will steal their patents, and there are a lot other challenges, but: 
Come on over and we will build the plant for you. The last numbers I 
saw showed that China was spending $288 million a day--probably more 
now--on clean energy policies and manufacturing, and new cutting-edge 
efforts to try to compete and beat us in an area we should own.
  Between our universities and our businesses and our great workforce 
we ought to completely own these technologies. I am very proud to say 
that Michigan is now No. 1 in new clean energy patents. We were proud 
to open, last Friday, the first U.S. Patent Office outside of 
Washington, DC, in Detroit, MI, as a result of that. There are great 
ideas happening all over this country right now, innovators--frankly, 
people who have lost their jobs and they are now back in their garage 
or basement or the extra bedroom, with new ideas. We want to create 
businesses to support their creation of businesses by incentivizing 
them, not having a Tax Code that incentivizes somebody to move 
overseas.
  This legislation I think is pretty simple. It is about bringing jobs 
home to America. We are going to stop writing off the costs, allowing 
that business to be subsidized by all of us, including the people they 
lay off, in order to move overseas. Instead, we are going to say no, if 
you move overseas you are on your own. But if you want to come back we 
are happy to allow you a business deduction for those moving expenses 
and we will add another 20 percent toward the costs of your expenses on 
top of it. That is what we should be doing. That is smart tax policy. 
It is common sense. It is one step in a series of things we need to do 
in order to be able to bring jobs home and make things in America 
again. I hope we will see an overwhelmingly positive, bipartisan vote 
on this bill. It would send a wonderful message that we can work 
together.
  We worked together not long ago to pass a farm bill with a strong 
bipartisan vote because we need to make and grow products in America. 
That is how we make an economy; that is how we have a middle class. We 
came together, and I am very appreciative of everyone coming together 
and working with me and Senator Roberts to get that done. This is 
another opportunity. It is another way for us to come together and say: 
We get it. We understand what is going on in the country.
  Let's work together and get the job done. I strongly urge colleagues 
to come together and pass the Bring Jobs Home Act.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               Tax Reform

  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I rise to speak about progrowth tax 
reform. One week ago Monday, President Obama proposed to raise taxes on 
over 1 million small businesses in this country. Even though he said in 
the past that we cannot raise taxes in a recession and that higher 
taxes will hurt our economy and hurt job creation, he proposed raising 
taxes on more than 1 million small businesses across this country.
  Last week I came to the floor to talk about why that is not the right 
approach and to discuss the approach we should take, the right 
approach. I pointed out that his approach--the administration's 
approach--has made our economy worse since he took office.
  Here are the facts, and they speak for themselves. Today we have 8.2 
percent unemployment. We have had over 8 percent unemployment for 41 
straight weeks. We have more than 13 million people who are out of work 
and another 10 million people who are underemployed. That is 23 million 
people who are either unemployed or underemployed. Middle-class income 
has declined from an average of $55,000 down to $50,000 since the 
President took office. Food stamp usage is up. There were 32 million 
food stamp recipients at the beginning of the Obama administration; 
today there are 46 million recipients. We have gone from 32 million 
people on food stamps to 46 million people on food stamps. Home values 
have dropped from an average of $169,000 to an average of about 
$148,000.
  Let's talk about economic growth. GDP growth is the weakest for any 
recovery since World War II. In the last quarter, the rate of growth 
was 1.9 percent over the prior quarter. There were 82,000 jobs created 
in the month of June. We need 150,000 jobs gained each month just to 
keep up with population growth and to reduce the unemployment rolls.
  Those are some of the statistics.
  When I spoke on the Senate floor last week, I also read a letter from 
one of my constituents back home who is a small business owner. He owns 
an Ace Hardware store. In his letter, he stated very clearly and very 
eloquently that the President's approach with small business is hurting 
our economy. I am not going to read the full letter, but I do want to 
read a couple of lines from his letter.

[[Page 11414]]

  His letter states:

       The president's programs not only limit my company's 
     potential to grow, but they destroy any incentive to work and 
     hire more people. I just don't know if he doesn't understand 
     what he's doing, or just doesn't care.

  I am taking that right out of a small businessperson's letter. Keep 
that last line in mind for just a minute.

       I just don't know if he--

  President Obama--

     doesn't understand what he's doing, or just doesn't care.

  I referenced that because the President gave a speech last Friday in 
Roanoke, VA. In his speech, he followed up on his plan to raise taxes 
on small businesses. I am going to read right from the President's 
speech. I think it gives insight as to his view of small business and 
how our economy works.
  He said:

       There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree 
     with me--because they want to give something back. They know 
     they didn't--look, if you've been successful, you didn't get 
     there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm 
     always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I 
     was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. 
     It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let 
     me tell you something--there are a whole bunch of hardworking 
     people out there.
       If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you 
     some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. 
     Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system 
     that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in 
     roads and bridges. If you've got a business--you didn't build 
     that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get 
     invented on its own. Government research created the Internet 
     so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

  So that is right out of the President's speech in Roanoke, VA, last 
Friday. I think these comments provide real insight into President 
Obama's view of our economy and the role of small business in our 
economy. He says we have all had help in our lives, and that is 
certainly true. There is no question about that, and I don't think 
anyone disputes that.
  He makes it clear that he believes government, not small business, is 
the driver of our economy. He says it is government that paves our 
roads and invented the Internet. In essence, it is government that made 
successful people successful and government that makes our economy go.
  That is just not right. It is small business that makes our economy 
go. It is small business that made our economy the envy of the world. 
It is small business that serves as the backbone of our economy, that 
employs our people, that generates tax revenue to build our roads, 
creates innovation like the Internet, and that provides Americans with 
the highest standard of living in the world. Small business is the 
engine that drives our economy, and we need to get it going. We don't 
do that by raising taxes and growing government. Clearly, that is not 
the way to go.
  The President says everyone needs to pay their fair share. Well, of 
course everyone needs to pay their fair share, but the way to ensure 
that gets accomplished is with comprehensive progrowth tax reform and 
closing loopholes. Let's extend the current tax rates for 1 year, and 
let's set up a process to pass comprehensive progrowth tax reform that 
lowers rates, closes loopholes, that is fair, that is simpler, and that 
will generate revenue to reduce our deficit and our debt through 
economic growth rather than through higher taxes. The reality is that 
is the only way to go--along with reducing government spending--that 
will get our debt and deficit under control and get our people back to 
work. To be successful, this effort needs to be bipartisan, and the 
clock is ticking.
  So let's get started. Let's give small business in this country the 
legal, tax, and regulatory certainty to encourage private investment 
and innovation. That is the American way. That is the real American 
success story. We can do it, and we need to make it happen now.
  Thank you, Madam President, and I yield the floor. I would also 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           FDA Investigation

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I come to the floor to address my 
colleagues about a Federal agency that has forgotten that this Federal 
agency is supposed to be working for the American people. This is an 
agency that has gotten too big for its britches. Some of the officials 
have forgotten who pays their salary.
  The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to protect the American 
people, except lately the only thing the FDA bureaucrats seem to have 
any interest in is protecting themselves. According to whistleblowers 
and published reports in the Washington Post and in the New York Times, 
the agency in charge of safeguarding the American public and providing 
for the public safety has trampled on the privacy of its very own 
employees. The FDA mounted an aggressive campaign against employees who 
would dare to question its actions and created what the New York Times 
termed an ``enemies list'' of people it considered dangerous. It kind 
of reminds us of President Nixon and the IRS going after enemies.
  The Food and Drug Administration has been spying on this enemies 
list. The FDA has been spying on the personal e-mails of these 
employees and everybody these employees contacted. That includes their 
protected communications even with those of us in Congress.
  We would not have known the extent of the spying if internal FDA 
documents about it had not been released on the Internet, apparently 
just by accident. We would not have known how the FDA intentionally 
targeted and captured confidential, personal e-mails between the 
whistleblowers, their lawyers, and those of us in Congress.
  In these internal documents, the FDA never wanted the public to see 
that it referred to whistleblowers as ``collaborators.'' FDA refers to 
congressional staff as ``ancillary actors.'' FDA refers to newspaper 
reporters as ``media outlet actors.'' These memos make the FDA sound 
more like the East German Stasi than a consumer protection agency in a 
free country.
  At the beginning of Commissioner Hamburg's term, she said 
whistleblowers exposed critical issues within the FDA. That seems to be 
a very approving comment. She vowed to create a culture that values 
whistleblowers. That appears to be a very approving statement. In fact, 
in 2009 she said: ``I think whistleblowers serve an important role.''
  I wanted to believe Commissioner Hamburg when she testified before 
the Senate committee during her confirmation. I wanted to believe her 
when she said she would protect whistleblowers at the Food and Drug 
Administration. However, the facts now appear very different.
  In this case, the FDA invaded the privacy of multiple whistleblowers. 
It hacked into the private e-mail accounts and used sophisticated 
keystroke logging software to monitor their every move online.
  When an FDA supervisor was placed under oath in the course of an 
equal employment opportunity complaint, that employee--that 
supervisor--testified that the FDA was conducting ``routine security 
monitoring.'' That is entirely false. This monitoring was anything but 
routine. It specifically targeted five whistleblowers. It intentionally 
captured their private e-mails to attorneys, to Members of Congress, 
and to the Office of Special Counsel. The internal documents showed 
that this was a unique, highly sophisticated, and highly specialized 
operation.
  According to the Office of the Inspector General, the Food and Drug 
Administration had no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing by these 
whistleblowers. This massive campaign of spying was not just an 
invasion of privacy; it was specifically designed to intercept 
communications that are protected by law. The Office of Special

[[Page 11415]]

Counsel is an agency created by Congress to receive whistleblower 
complaints and to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. The law 
protects communications with the special counsel as a way to encourage 
whistleblowers to report waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement, and 
threats to the public safety, and to do that reporting without fear of 
retaliation. The FDA knew that contacts between whistleblowers and the 
Office of Special Counsel are privileged and confidential, but the 
James Bond wannabes at the FDA just didn't seem to care what the law 
said.
  In the end, the self-appointed spies turned out to be more like the 
bumbling Maxwell Smart. Along with their own internal memos about 
spying, the fruits of their labor were also accidentally posted on the 
Internet. It is tens of thousands of pages of e-mails and pictures of 
the whistleblower computer screens containing some of the very same 
information the FDA bureaucrats were so keen to keep secret.
  When I started asking questions about this, FDA officials seemed to 
suffer from a sudden bout of collective amnesia. It took them more than 
6 months to answer a letter from last January starting my investigation 
of this issue. When I pushed for a reply during those 6 months, FDA 
told my staff that the response would take time to make sure it was 
accurate and complete.
  When I finally got the response on Friday, it doesn't even answer the 
simplest of questions, such as who authorized this targeted spy ring, 
and isn't it a coincidence that just Friday, before the New York Times 
article was going to come out, they finally answered a letter going way 
back to my questions of January. Worse than that, though, it is 
misleading in its denials about intentionally intercepting 
communications with Congress.
  When I asked them why they couldn't just answer some simple 
questions, they told my staff that the response was under review by the 
``appropriate officials in the Administration.'' The nonanswers and the 
doublespeak would have fit right into some George Orwell novel.
  Of course, when my staff dug deeper and asked if the response was 
being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget, the Food and 
Drug Administration responded: No, it wasn't being reviewed by OMB.
  FDA refused to identify who within the administration was holding up 
the FDA's response to my letter. Now, that is in an administration that 
said on January 20, 2009, they are going to be the most transparent in 
the history of this country. FDA refused to say how long it had been 
sitting on that person's desk or why it had been approved by the 
political officials outside the FDA. Who is this shadowy figure 
conducting some secret review of the FDA's responses to this Senator's 
questions? Why was there all of a sudden interest in exerting political 
control over the correspondence of this supposedly independent Federal 
agency? And when we use the words ``independent Federal agency'' around 
here, we mean not subject to political control.
  We need answers, and we need answers now. I have been demanding 
answers for 6 months. For the past 6 months, FDA has been telling me to 
just be patient. The FDA has been telling me they have a good story to 
tell--and those are their words, ``a good story to tell.''
  Apparently, though, there is someone in this administration--
President Obama's administration--who didn't want them to say anything 
for as long as they could possibly get away with not saying anything. I 
finally got Commissioner Hamburg on the phone in June of this year. 
Commissioner Hamburg personally assured me the FDA was going to fully 
cooperate with my investigation. Yet the FDA has provided me with 
nothing but misleading and incomplete responses.
  The FDA has failed to measure up to Commissioner Hamburg's pledge of 
cooperation. The FDA buried its head in the sand in hopes I would lose 
interest and go away. They don't know me very well. That is not going 
to happen.
  I don't care who is in charge of the executive branch--Republican or 
Democrat--I am going to continue demanding answers. When government 
bureaucrats obstruct and intercept my communications with protected 
whistleblowers, I am not going to stop. When government bureaucrats 
stonewall for months on end, I will not stop. When government 
bureaucrats try and muddy the waters and mislead, I will not stop. I 
intend to get to the bottom of it.
  I will continue to press the FDA until we know who authorized spying. 
Can my colleagues imagine spying in American government, a transparent 
government--supposed to be transparent--spying on whistleblowers who 
are protected by law and who have a special office set up to protect 
them, and spying on communications between a lawyer and their client?
  Someone within the FDA specifically authorized spying on private 
communications with my own office and with several other Members of 
Congress. Someone at FDA specifically authorized spying on private 
communications with Congressman Van Hollen's office. Someone at FDA 
specifically authorized spying on private communications with the staff 
of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Someone at FDA specifically 
authorized spying on private communications with the lawyers for 
whistleblowers, and those lawyers are called the Office of Special 
Counsel.
  These whistleblowers thought the FDA was approving drugs and 
treatment it shouldn't. These whistleblowers thought the FDA was caving 
to pressure from the companies who were applying for FDA approval. They 
have a right to express those concerns without any fear of retaliation 
whatsoever, if the law is going to be followed--the law protecting 
whistleblowers. But after doing so, two of these whistleblowers were 
fired, two more were forced to leave FDA, and five of them were 
subjected to an intense spying campaign.
  Senior FDA officials may have broken the law. They authorized the 
capturing of personal e-mail passwords through keystroke logging 
software. That potentially allowed them to log in to the 
whistleblower's personal e-mail accounts and access e-mails that were 
never even accessed from a work computer. Without a subpoena or 
warrant, that would be a criminal violation.
  After 6 months, FDA finally denied that occurred. However, that 
denial was based on the word of one unnamed information technology 
employee involved in the monitoring. We need a more thorough 
investigation than that.
  I have asked the FDA to make that person and several other witnesses 
available for interviews with my staff. We will see how cooperative FDA 
plans to be now. I will continue to press the FDA to open every window 
and every door. Eventually enough sunlight on this agency will cleanse 
it.
  FDA gets paid to protect the public, not to keep us in the dark. 
Secret monitoring programs, spying on Congress, and retaliating against 
whistleblowers--this is a sad commentary on the state of affairs at the 
FDA.
  I know there are hard-working and principled rank-and-file employees 
at the FDA who care very much about their mission to protect the 
American public from harm. Unfortunately, all too often those rank-and-
file employees are unfairly tarnished by others, such as those involved 
in this spy ring.
  This is a sad commentary on President Obama's promise to the American 
people that this would be the most transparent administration in 
history. The American people cannot lose faith in the FDA. 
Unfortunately, after this debacle, some of that faith may deteriorate. 
The FDA has a lot of work to do to restore the public's trust.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              The Economy

  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, the American people are struggling. Our

[[Page 11416]]

economy is barely keeping its head above water. Millions of citizens 
remain out of work. President Obama has spent trillions in taxpayer 
dollars, and there is nothing to show for it. He talks about 
investments--investments in infrastructure, in roads, and in bridges--
while he has spent trillions. Where are the roads? Where are the 
bridges? Where is the new electrical grid?
  This reckless spending is a sin of commission. But the 
administration's sins of omission are perhaps worse.
  With businesses and families lacking any certainty at all about their 
tax rates next year, the President and his liberal allies have, 
nonetheless, steadfastly refused an extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax 
relief.
  Even worse, they are so committed to raising taxes on small 
businesses--the same small businesses that must be cultivated to get 
our economy and job growth moving again--that he and his Democratic 
allies in the Senate have put their feet down and are denying tax 
relief to anyone unless they get their way on tax increases.
  And make no mistake about it, increasing taxes is what they intend to 
do. They intend to do it so they can spend more. They live to raise 
taxes. It is almost as though their only source of pleasure is hiking 
taxes. Taking money out of the private sector and controlling it for 
their liberal agenda is like some power trip for the left.
  And do not fall for that red herring fiscal responsibility argument 
advanced by my friends on the other side. If you look at comparable 
policy between the Hatch-McConnell amendment and the Democratic 
leadership's position, they differ by about $41 billion for the policy 
for 2013. That $41 billion represents 1.1 percent of the spending 
proposed in the President's budget for 2013. The House budget, rejected 
by our friends on the other side, would reduce the deficit by 
restraining spending by $180 billion--more than four times the deficit 
reduction that would be achieved through the tax hikes insisted upon by 
the Democrats.
  But what does that tax increase mean in terms of harm to the economy?
  My friends on the other side of the aisle should consider this: 
Today, a study commissioned by the National Federation of Independent 
Business, the S Corporation Association, and the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce confirmed again that the President's attempt to stick it to 
the rich is going to end up skewering small businesses and the families 
who work for them, or would like to work for them.
  This report, published by Ernst & Young--one of the great accounting 
firms in this country--and authored by Dr. Robert Carroll and Gerald 
Prante, found that if the President gets his way, the economy will be 
1.3 percent smaller than it would be and there would be 710,000 fewer 
jobs.
  Study after study confirms that the President's policies prioritize 
spreading the wealth around over growing the economy and creating jobs.
  The Vice President spoke yesterday about the values of Republicans 
and the values of Democrats. Naturally, he spoke pejoratively about 
Republican values. I disagree with him, naturally, on his negative 
assessment, but I do agree that there is a clear distinction--a clear 
choice--between the values embraced by Republicans and Democrats.
  Republicans want to grow the economy and create jobs so that American 
families can thrive. However, to judge by their single-minded pursuit 
of tax increases, President Obama and his liberal allies appear to 
value a politics of class envy and wealth redistribution. Having 
Washington bureaucrats manage the economy in the name of wealth 
equalization is their first priority, regardless of any evidence that 
this tax policy undercuts economic growth and job creation.
  Unfortunately, the President's economic ethic is significantly 
hampering our economic recovery with disastrous consequences for 
America's families.
  Today, Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, testified 
before the Senate Banking Committee. As the Senate's Democratic 
leadership and the President ignore the fiscal cliff, Chairman 
Bernanke's words are a somber reminder of what we face if we do not 
address the fiscal cliff.
  He testified that the recovery ``could be endangered by the 
confluence of tax increases and spending reductions that will take 
effect early next year if no legislative action is taken.'' He stated 
that the public uncertainty about the resolution of these issues is a 
negative drag on the economy, and he concluded that addressing this 
cliff ``earlier rather than later would help reduce uncertainty and 
boost household and business confidence.''
  But instead of addressing these critical economic issues, the Senate 
spent another day voting on the same doomed piece of partisan 
legislation. Rather than take on the hard work of addressing the fiscal 
cliff that our economy is approaching, we spent precious time yesterday 
debating the DISCLOSE Act. For those who are not aware, this is a bill 
that had one purpose: to discourage political engagement by President 
Obama's opponents.
  It takes a pretty bad bill to unify the ACLU; that is, the American 
Civil Liberties Union, and the NRA against it. But the DISCLOSE Act has 
brought the lion and the lamb together against it.
  It is bad enough that we spent all of yesterday debating a bill that 
has no shot of becoming law. It is even worse that we devoted nearly an 
entire day today to debating the same bill again. In the meantime, the 
American people continue to suffer under this weak economy. And to 
defend their lack of action, the President and his allies have engaged 
in some revisionist fiscal history.
  I want to begin by correcting the record on this revisionist fiscal 
history. I will follow that with a discussion of the other side's 
insatiable appetite for taxes and spending.
  We have recently been debating whether we should adopt the 
President's policy to raise taxes on small business. We have also 
discussed the tax monster that is stalking the American people under 
the guise of ObamaCare. In both of these debates, we have heard a good 
deal of fictional accounting.
  These accounts share much with other stories we have heard from the 
other side over the past decade. You hear it from our friends in the 
majority whenever the Senate discusses spending or tax policy. I have 
noticed that the arguments boil down to two points.
  My friend and colleague, the former chairman and ranking member of 
the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Grassley, came up with this 
thumbnail description of this creative historical account:
  First, all of the so-called good fiscal history of the 1990s was 
derived from the partisan tax increases of 1993. That is their 
argument. And second, all of the supposedly bad fiscal history taking 
place within the past 10 years is to be blamed on the bipartisan tax 
relief plans originally enacted during the last administration and 
continued under the present administration.
  You could go one step further and, as a policy premise, refine that 
thumbnail description to two short sentences. First sentence: Lower 
taxes are bad. Second sentence: Higher taxes are good.
  Not surprisingly, these revisionist historians support higher taxes 
and higher government spending. Not surprisingly, the revisionists 
oppose cutting taxes and cutting government spending.
  I direct folks to the Senate floor remarks I made on Valentine's Day 
last year. It is important to reiterate the main point of those 
remarks. Our friends on the other side assert that raising taxes was 
the key to a growing economy in the 1990s, and raising taxes could work 
this magic again.
  A quick look at the data from the 1990s shows this assertion can be 
summarily dismissed.
  I have a chart. According to the Clinton administration's Office of 
Management and Budget or OMB, the impact of the much bragged about tax 
hike bill of 1993 was minimal. The Clinton administration OMB concluded 
that the 1993 tax increase accounted for only 13 percent--as you can 
see, the green bar on the circular chart--the 1993 tax increase 
accounted for only 13 percent of

[[Page 11417]]

deficit reduction between 1990 and 2000. Thirteen percent puts the 1993 
tax increase behind other factors, such as defense cuts, other revenue, 
and interest savings. The data clearly shows that tax increases did not 
drive the deficit reduction.
  As a matter of fact, only 13 percent of the positive fiscal history 
of the 1990s is due to the 1993 tax increase. That is it--13 percent. 
It is right here on the green part of the chart.
  Well, what about the last decade? The period of 2001 to 2010 saw a 
lot of deficits. From what you hear from our friends on the other side, 
those deficits are a direct result of the tax relief that benefited 
virtually every American taxpayer. Yet CBO data tells us a different 
story.
  On May 12, 2011, CBO released a recap of the changes over the last 
decade. At the start of 2001, as everyone agrees, CBO projected a 
surplus of $5.6 trillion. Over the decade, deficits of $6.2 trillion 
materialized. That is a swing of $11.8 trillion. What did CBO say were 
the causes?
  My friends on the other side might be surprised to learn that the 
answer is not primarily tax relief. Higher spending accounts for 44 
percent of the change. Higher spending, no question about it.
  Let me repeat that. Higher spending was the biggest driver of the 
deficits of the last decade.
  Economic and technical changes in the estimates accounted for 28 
percent of the change. So all tax relief, including the tax relief 
passed by Democratic Congresses and tax relief signed into law by 
President Obama, accounts for 28 percent. The tax relief legislation, 
much maligned by our friends on the other side, accounts for less than 
half of the fiscal change attributable to tax relief. Specifically, the 
bipartisan tax relief bills of 2001 and 2003, including the AMT patches 
in those bills, accounted for 13.7 percent of the fiscal change of the 
last decade.
  That is not Orrin Hatch speaking, it is the nonpartisan congressional 
scorekeeper, CBO.
  So how much of the bad fiscal history of the last decade is 
attributable to tax relief? Twenty-eight percent. That is it. That 
includes the tax cuts in partisan bills such as the stimulus. If you 
isolate the bipartisan bills that are the object of sharp criticism 
from our friends on the other side--the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts--you 
will find that those bills account for only 13.7 percent of the fiscal 
change in the last decade.
  Abnormally low levels of spending contributed significantly to the 
surpluses of the 1990s. Abnormally high spending drove the deficits of 
the past decade. Abnormally high spending is driving our current 
deficits, and it will drive our future deficits as well.
  To my friends on the other side, if we focus instead on hiking taxes 
way above their historic averages, we are misleading and mistreating 
the problem. The reason for our previous surpluses was low spending, 
and the reason for our current deficits is high spending. We cannot tax 
our way to fiscal health.
  I now turn to a second issue that demands a response. It has a 
corollary of the theme underlying the revisionist fiscal history I have 
discussed. It is the insatiable appetite for taxes and spending that we 
see from the President and my friends on the other side.
  Last week, President Obama once again called for tax increases in 
order to fund his so-called progressive vision of government. I am 
specifically speaking of the President's latest proclamation that the 
tax relief of 2001 and 2003--tax relief supported by the President and 
40 Senate Democrats in 2010--should not be extended for people earning 
$250,000 or more a year. This was breathlessly reported in some 
quarters of the fourth estate as if it constituted news. In my opinion, 
the more proper and accurate response would be to borrow from President 
Ronald Reagan when he said ``there you go again'' to Jimmy Carter in a 
1980 debate.
  Perhaps ironically President Reagan was responding to President 
Carter's comments on a national health insurance proposal. President 
Reagan was more right than even he knew.
  Getting back to taxes and the role of government, President Reagan 
was essentially making the same point this chart shows, which is 
liberal logic. No matter what problems face the left, the answer is 
always the same solution. Health care is too expensive; raise taxes. 
Spending is out of control; raise taxes. Gas prices are too high; raise 
taxes. Too many people are unemployed; raise taxes. It is a broken 
record.
  Again, no matter what problem faces the left, the answer is always 
the same. More taxes are always needed in order to increase the size 
and scope of the government in people's lives.
  The Supreme Court recently affirmed the point of this chart--the 
liberal solution to rising health care costs and lack of coverage were 
tax increases.
  The propensity of President Obama and his ideological allies to raise 
taxes is nothing new, and it is widely acknowledged as well. Back in 
August of 2008, David Leonhardt wrote a piece in the New York Times 
that quoted then-candidate Obama. It is titled ``Obamanomics,'' and 
here is what he said:

       If you talk to Warren, he'll tell you his preference is not 
     to meddle in the economy at all--let the market work, however 
     way it's going to work, and just tax the heck out of people 
     at the end and just redistribute it. That way you're not 
     impeding efficiency, and you're achieving equity on the back 
     end.

  In order that people may peruse the whole story, I ask unanimous 
consent that the Internet Web address to Mr. Leonhardt's piece be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Aug. 24, 2008]

                              Obamanomics

                          (By David Leonhardt)

       http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/magazine/24Obamanomics-
t.html

  Mr. HATCH. For those of us not invited to the local Dairy Queen for a 
Blizzard with the oracle of Omaha, the Warren cited in this quote is 
none other than Warren Buffet. He is a friend of mine--you know, the 
same Buffett from which the Buffett rule or Buffett tax is named.
  Setting aside the ridiculous notion that Americans are as oblivious 
to taxes as cattle are to the purposes of the slaughterhouse they are 
being led into, this quote very accurately illustrates the liberal 
attitude toward taxes, which is that they always need to go up.
  This chart illustrates government revenue as a percentage of GDP. 
Look at that. The purple line is total government. The red line is 
Federal Government. The green line is State and local government. When 
we combine them, we get the purple line, which is well over 25 percent 
for most of the time, from 1970 up to 2010.
  There are some fluctuations, but over the last 40 years, revenues 
have been roughly stable. We can see in the past 10 years a dip around 
the time the so-called Bush tax relief was enacted, followed by a 
rebound as the tax cuts promoted growth, followed by a dip in revenues 
as the recession set in. We can see that it came down around 2000, went 
up a little more, and then came down again.
  According to the CBO, as of June 5, 2012, Federal revenues averaged 
17.9 percent of GDP over the past 40 years. The same CBO report--the 
2012 long-term budget outlook--forecasts that under current law, 
Federal revenues will be 18.7 percent of GDP next year in 2013 and will 
be 23.7 percent of GDP in 2037.
  Somebody could say that current law is not realistic and some tax 
provisions that are scheduled to expire will likely be extended. To 
account for this, CBO has an alternative fiscal scenario which assumes 
the extension of certain tax policies through 2022.
  CBO assumes this would lead to the Federal revenues increasing to 
18.5 percent of GDP in 2022, with that level being preserved going 
forward. We definitely know that President Obama doesn't support the 
assumptions that are part of CBO's alternative fiscal scenario because 
earlier this week he called for taxes to increase on hundreds of 
thousands of small businesses--almost 1 million small businesses and 
business owners.

[[Page 11418]]

  The question remains, Why do my friends on the other side think taxes 
always need to go up? The answer to this question is more complex than 
I am going to discuss right now, but part of the answer is that taxes 
need to go up in order to increase the size and scope of government in 
the lives of all Americans.
  Here is another chart that compares State and Federal Government 
revenues, which we have just examined, with total government spending. 
We will notice Federal Government spending is the purple line on the 
top most of the way through except where it intersects with the red 
line, which is total government revenue. All of a sudden total 
government revenue goes down, but total spending seems to go up between 
2005 and 2010.
  We can see that over the past 40 years it looks like spending has 
been inclined to move up, but only in the past few years does it jump 
to unprecedented heights. Virtually every action taken by the Obama 
administration and Democratic Senate leadership has amounted to an 
increase in the size and scope of government.
  The continuing government takeover of health care is just the single 
most prominent example right now. On all fronts, President Obama's 
expansion of government is on the march, trampling whatever gets in its 
way.
  The chart behind me is a combination of Federal and State spending. 
If we are just talking about the Federal Government, in the CBO 
document I cited earlier, it is projected that debt will eventually 
reach 200 percent of our economy--that means of the GDP--that health 
care spending will rise to record levels, and that Medicare and Social 
Security are on a path to disaster.
  Getting back to the chart, the combined State and Federal spending 
and revenues--the purple line--what I find particularly striking is the 
large gap between the spending and revenue lines. Once again, as CBO 
has indicated, that gap is likely to increase to more than twice the 
size of our whole economy. We are already at 103 percent of GDP.
  If I recall correctly, Spain is a little more than half of that--
around 70 percent. Yet Spain is considered in real trouble in Europe. 
Once again, as CBO indicated, that gap is likely to increase to more 
than twice the size of our whole economy.
  Finally, here is a chart of Federal and State government spending as 
a percentage of GDP. Look at this.
  I apologize for being repetitive, but if there is one message that 
should be taken from my remarks today, it is one that I and others have 
been making a long time. That message is that the United States doesn't 
have a tax problem; it has a spending problem.
  We keep hearing that Republicans are too beholden to an antitax 
ideology, and that any resolution of our debt crisis will require that 
Republicans get with the program and acknowledge the need for increased 
taxes.
  As I have shown, this characterization of our fiscal and political 
problems is not close to half right. By far, the greatest cause of our 
fiscal shortcomings is increased spending.
  Our increasingly precarious fiscal situation did not arise from a 
dramatic decrease in taxes but, rather, is being caused by a dramatic 
increase in Federal spending. There is a continual effort underway to 
deny this reality but reality it remains.
  I have a chart that summarizes the latest tactic being used to 
convince people that exploding government spending is not the disaster 
it appears to be, and this is called the rich guy chart. As John 
Stossel has pointed out, people like free stuff. The problem with free 
stuff from the government is that nothing is free. To quote John 
Stossel, ``It's an Uncle Sam scam.'' Stossel was specifically 
discussing the ability of people to exploit a tax credit for electric 
vehicles in order to acquire golf carts, but the principle applies to 
any instance where the government supposedly provides something for 
nothing. This is where the cartoon of the rich guy behind me comes in. 
Goodies from the government are a lot less appealing when there is a 
pricetag involved, and many people would like to decide how they are 
going to spend their own money. The left's preferred solution to this 
little quandary is to have someone else foot the bill.
  For President Obama, that someone else is, in his words, ``the 
rich,'' which includes all these small businesses that are formed in 
subchapter S corporations and other passthrough entities, including 
partnerships, LLCs, and so forth--small businesses that are vital to 
our economic recovery.
  Unfortunately, that approach is just as realistic as the cartoon I am 
using to illustrate my point. While many of us may not while away our 
leisure time down at the club playing whist with monocled robber 
barons, a lot of us probably know of small businesses in our 
communities that employ us or our neighbors and provide goods and 
services that consumers want and our economy demands.
  When liberals are talking about this guy in the top hat with the 
monocle, they are talking about the hard-working small business owner. 
So when President Obama talks about increasing taxes on the rich, he is 
talking about increasing taxes on around 940,000 small business owners 
who are already in the top two tax brackets. A lot of people who would 
not pay the Obama tax increase work for someone who would be hit by it. 
What we have seen is that President Obama and his allies want to 
increase the size of government and, in part, they want to fund this 
expansion with higher taxes on so-called rich people.
  I want to conclude my remarks with a question. If we are getting more 
government, what are we getting less of? I am going to go back to the 
chart I displayed earlier of government spending as a percentage of 
GDP.
  This one right here. We can see government spending is going up, but 
what is going down as a result? What does the area on the top of that 
chart, which is diminishing, represent? This is a subject that lends 
itself to prolonged discussion, but for one answer we can get back to 
Mr. Leonhardt's piece in the New York Times. This is the same piece 
from August 24, 2008, and contains a quote from then-candidate Obama 
critiquing his friend Warren's argument.
  President Obama said:

       I do think that what the argument may miss is the sense of 
     control that we want individuals to have in determining their 
     own career paths, making their own life choices and so forth. 
     And I also think you want to instill that sense of self-
     reliance and that what you do will help determine outcomes.

  Let me refer to the Obamanomics II chart. If candidate Obama was in 
the midst of an internal struggle over the appropriate role of 
government back in 2008, that struggle is over--self-reliance lost and 
taxing the heck out of people and redistribution won. It runs through 
the theme of his revisionist fiscal history, and it is the ethic 
underlying the insatiable appetite my friends on the other side have 
for taxes and spending.
  This, in and of itself, is not anything new for liberals and 
progressives. Once again, I will quote my friend Ronald Reagan in my 
response to the President's plan to tax the heck out of people in the 
name of redistribution: ``There you go again.''
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, one of the foremost threats to our economy 
is the fiscal cliff. This is an issue my Republican colleagues and I 
have been talking about for several months now, calling for more 
transparency in the sequestration that will occur at the end of the 
year, a replacement of the defense sequester, and actions to prevent a 
massive tax increase on the American people.
  Senate Democrats--who have only recently acknowledged the looming 
fiscal cliff--are now threatening to go over the cliff unless 
Republicans agree to increasing taxes on America's small businesses 
during this difficult economic period.

[[Page 11419]]

  Think about that. Senate Democrats are willing to put our economy at 
serious risk and our national security in jeopardy unless Republicans 
agree to a massive tax increase on America's small businesses.
  The headline from a news story in the Washington Post from over the 
weekend says, ``Democrats Threaten To Go Over Fiscal Cliff If GOP Fails 
To Raise Taxes.'' They quote, ``Senior Democrats say they are prepared 
to weather a fiscal event that could plunge the nation back into 
recession,'' if the New Year arrives without an acceptable compromise--
which they have defined to be a major tax increase on small businesses 
in this country.
  Think about the impact of that and what that means to people across 
this country. We have had now, for the last 3 years, a complete failure 
in the Senate to produce a budget. We are now faced with this fiscal 
cliff which consists of the sequestration, the across-the-board cuts 
that would occur early next year if nothing is done to prevent them, 
the tax hikes, and we are going to reach the debt limit, all 
threatening our economy in an already anemic recovery.
  It is hard to overstate the magnitude of the tax increases that are 
going to hit our economy starting next year if we don't act. Over the 
next 10 years, this tax increase would result in nearly $4.5 trillion 
in new taxes on American families and entrepreneurs. What does that 
mean to the average family in this country? The Heritage Foundation 
recently published a study that estimated the tax increase per tax 
return in every State. For example, for my State of South Dakota the 
Heritage Foundation estimates that the average tax increase per tax 
return would be $3,187 in the year 2013.
  I would say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, many of 
whom I think generally believe in Keynesian economics, that the average 
family in South Dakota could do more to stimulate our economy and 
create new employment by keeping their $3,187 and spending it as they 
see fit, not as Washington sees fit to spend it on their behalf.
  Taxmageddon is a very apt description that has been applied to this 
fiscal cliff when you consider the impact of these tax increases not 
just on individual families but on our entire economy. Until recently 
we could just speculate about the impact of these tax increases on our 
fragile economy, but the magnitude of the damage was in dispute. Not 
anymore. Last month, the Congressional Budget Office gave us the most 
definitive estimate yet of the impact of the nearly $\1/2\ trillion of 
tax increases that would hit in 2013 when combined with the more than 
$100 billion of spending cuts that would occur under the sequester I 
mentioned earlier.
  The Congressional Budget Office projects the combination of the 
massive tax increases and the sequester will result in real GDP growth 
in calendar year 2013 of only one-half of 1 percent. Think about that, 
one-half of 1 percent. We are right now growing somewhere--they think--
in the range of 1.9 percent or 2 percent this year. But next year, the 
real GDP growth would amount to only \1/2\ percent. And the picture is 
even bleaker if you consider that CBO projects that the economy will 
actually have a decrease in GDP of 1.3 percent in the first half of 
2013.
  So you have the Congressional Budget Office saying that over the 
entire year of 2013, the likelihood is we will grow at one-half a 
percentage point if we don't address the fiscal cliff. But in the first 
half of next year, we actually see a decrease of 1.3 percent of 
economic growth. According to CBO, a reduction of 1.3 percent of 
economic growth in the first half of next year would ``probably be 
judged to be a recession.'' That is according to the Congressional 
Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan authoritative referee we use to 
evaluate the impact of the spending and debt tax issues.
  This morning, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, 
Ben Bernanke, testified before the Senate Banking Committee, and he 
said:

       Fiscal decisions should take into account the fragility of 
     the recovery. That recovery could be endangered by the 
     confluence of tax increases and spending reductions that will 
     take effect early next year if no legislative action is 
     taken. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that if 
     the full range of tax increases and spending cuts were 
     allowed to take effect--a scenario widely referred to as the 
     fiscal cliff--a shallow recession would occur early next 
     year. . . .

  That is according to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of 
Governors Ben Bernanke in his testimony as recently as this morning. He 
talked about a shallow recession occurring next year and the 
endangerment of the recovery that is under way if we have this 
confluence of events happen at the end of the year.
  He went on to say:

       These estimates do not incorporate the additional negative 
     effects likely to result from public uncertainty about how 
     these matters will be resolved.

  In other words, the economic uncertainty that is associated with all 
these things happening at the end of the year are impacting the economy 
today as people are looking at how they are going to make investment 
decisions, and that our economy is likely to experience negative 
effects from that public uncertainty above and beyond the direct 
impacts that CBO has incorporated into its analysis.
  So let's be very clear about what the fiscal cliff means. We are not 
talking about a slight slowdown of a few tenths of a percent. What we 
are facing is the difference between positive growth on the one hand--
which will mean more jobs and higher incomes--and a potential recession 
on the other hand. We can, and must, provide Americans some certainty 
as to what their taxes are going to be next year.
  The House of Representatives has already agreed to hold a vote to 
extend all of the existing tax rates before the August recess in order 
to avert the fiscal cliff. They are going to act on this sometime 
before we go out in August to extend all of the rates before the end of 
the year so there is certainty for those who are making economic 
decisions.
  Unfortunately, thus far the Senate and the Senate Democratic 
leadership has only agreed to hold a vote on a plan to raise taxes on 
nearly 1 million small businesses. This tax increase on individuals 
earning more than $200,000 a year and families making more than 
$250,000 a year will raise taxes on more than half of all income in 
America earned by S corporations, sole proprietorships, LLCs, 
partnerships, and other passthrough businesses that pay their taxes at 
the individual rates.
  A point of clarification: That applies to a lot of mom-and-pop 
businesses in this country. We are talking about that restaurant owner, 
that electrician, many of whom are organized in the fashion in which 
their income flows through their individual tax return and they pay at 
the individual tax rate. The Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated 
that the number of businesses that would be impacted by that is 
940,000. So almost 1 million small businesses would see their taxes go 
up as a result of the fiscal cliff and tax rates expiring at the end of 
the year for those individuals who are making more than $200,000 and 
families making more than $250,000 a year.
  According to the National Federation of Independent Business, the 
small businesses most likely to be hit by the Democratic tax increase 
employ 25 percent of the total workforce. So we are talking not just 
about the small businesses that are going to be faced with higher 
taxes, but we are also talking about a huge portion of the American 
workforce in this country. Twenty-five percent of the employees in this 
country work for those small businesses that, according to the Joint 
Committee on Taxation, will see their taxes go up as a result of the 
President's proposal.
  We essentially have in front of us three choices:
  We can let all the tax rates expire, which we know is going to plunge 
our economy back into a recession; we can do what our Democratic 
colleagues want to do, which is to raise taxes on successful small 
businesses and entrepreneurs, slowing our economy even further and 
risking--according to the Congressional Budget Office and the Chairman 
of the Federal Reserve

[[Page 11420]]

Board--a recession; or, we could do what the House of Representatives 
will soon pass and what I would suggest, and that is we can prevent a 
tax increase from hitting anyone and give the lackluster economic 
recovery at least a chance to gain some steam.
  That is what we ought to do. We ought to do what the House of 
Representatives is going to do, and that is to extend the rates for a 
year so that people in this country have some certainty as to what 
their tax rate is going to be at the end of the year.
  I hope my colleagues here in the Senate--and the Senate Democrats in 
particular--will realize the severity of the fiscal cliff, and come to 
the table to prevent this massive tax increase and the unbalanced and 
troubling cuts that will occur to our national security if we don't 
take steps to avert this fiscal cliff.
  We have to prevent the dangerous cuts to our national defense that 
are scheduled to go into effect under sequestration by finding savings 
elsewhere in the budget. In order to do that, we need a detailed plan 
from the administration as to how they plan to implement the sequester.
  Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have called for more 
transparency on the sequester from this administration, but they have 
so far failed to produce a plan. That is simply unacceptable. I will 
continue to work to see that a requirement be enacted so the 
administration will finally be transparent with the American people and 
give all Members of Congress a clear idea as to where the cuts are 
going to be applied.
  Our economy is weak. We know that growth in the first quarter was a 
mere 1.9 percent. Expectations for the second quarter have been 
downgraded. We have witnessed now for 41 straight months unemployment 
above 8 percent. We have 23 million Americans who are either unemployed 
or underemployed and 5.4 million Americans who have been unemployed for 
a long period of time.
  We have a weak economy. The amazing thing about this debate is that 2 
years ago the President of the United States said that raising taxes 
would strike a blow to the economy. That was at a time when we had 3.1 
percent economic growth. We now have, as I said, according to the 
estimates, 1.9 percent economic growth for the first quarter of this 
year, and expectations for the second quarter have already been 
downgraded. So with 41 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent, 
23 million Americans underemployed or unemployed, and the weakest 
recovery literally since the end of World War II, now is not the time 
to raise taxes.
  Who in their right mind would think it would make any sense at all to 
raise taxes when you have an economy that is growing at such an anemic 
rate, particularly given the fact that 2 years ago, when we had more 
robust economic growth, the President said at that time that it would 
strike a blow to our economy if we raised taxes. Here we are with 
economic conditions that are much worse, circumstances that have 
deteriorated since then, and he is proposing a tax increase on 1 
million small businesses that will have a ripple effect all across our 
economy and hurt job creation at a time we cannot afford that.
  There was another study, an analysis that came out today done by 
Ernst & Young in which they analyzed the tax hikes that would occur on 
small business next year and came to the conclusion that it would cost 
700,000 jobs in our economy, that it would cost us 1.3 percent of 
economic growth--which is again consistent with what the Congressional 
Budget Office has said--and that it would reduce wages to people in 
this country by 2 percent.
  So you now have the Ernst & Young study out there which suggests that 
not only does this impact the small businesses out there that are going 
to see their taxes go up, but it puts at risk and in jeopardy jobs for 
hard-working Americans and a wage base that would actually shrink if, 
in fact, we drive the car over this fiscal cliff.
  We cannot afford to do that. It is irresponsible to have people out 
there saying that they are so anxious to prove some point or to win 
some argument on raising taxes that they are willing to see this 
country run the risk of plunging into a recession and raising the 
number of people who are unemployed in this country. It really is.
  I have to say that when I saw some of the remarks and some of these 
stories and some of the reporting about statements that are being made 
by our colleagues on the other side and Members of their staff with 
regard to the fiscal cliff and the willingness on the part of many of 
our colleagues to suggest that this country could go through and endure 
even more difficult economic times than what we are already 
experiencing, even higher unemployment than what we are already seeing, 
it was really pretty remarkable and truly unfortunate.
  I hope folks will walk back from that position, walk back from those 
remarks, and enter into a discussion about how we might be able to 
provide the necessary economic certainty for our job creators and our 
small businesses, how we can get people back to work, how we can grow 
and expand this economy.
  Frankly, extending the tax rate should only be the first part, the 
short-term solution. The long-term solution is to get tax reform, 
comprehensive tax reform. People on both sides of the aisle agree with 
that. If we could enter into a discussion about how we could reform our 
Tax Code in such a way that it broadens the tax base, lowers the rates, 
does away with loopholes and deductions, coupled with entitlement 
reform--that we all agree has to be dealt with or we are going to 
continue to see the country on a fiscal trajectory that is completely 
unsustainable over time, is going to lead to the situation we see many 
European countries dealing with today--that is what we ought to be 
focused on.
  We ought to be providing certainty to our businesses, extending rates 
at least for now until such time hopefully next year when we all agree 
we need to sit down and solve this tax mess we have in this country, 
this Tax Code that has become way too complicated, and come up with 
something that is more simple, more clear, more fair, and something 
that makes us more competitive in the global marketplace. Right now, we 
are losing to a lot of countries around the world simply because we 
have a tax code that makes American businesses noncompetitive in the 
international marketplace.
  Tax reform, entitlement reform, a comprehensive energy policy, 
regulatory reform--it is not that hard to fix this if we have the will, 
the political will to do it. But we cannot start by saying to small 
businesses in this country that we are going to raise your taxes next 
year, run the risk of plunging the country into a recession and 
increasing the number of people in this country who are unemployed.
  That is the exact wrong prescription. We ought to be providing 
certainty, extending the rates, and getting into a discussion and 
hopefully action on legislation that would reform the American Tax Code 
to make us more competitive in the world, do away with the costly, 
overreaching, excessive, and burdensome regulations that are making it 
more difficult and more expensive to do business in this country; an 
energy plan that makes sense, that relies upon American sources of 
energy; and a spending plan, a budget--something the Senate has not 
done now for 3 years, an actual budget. Lo and behold, go figure that 
we could actually do a budget in this country that puts us on a more 
sustainable fiscal path by reforming entitlement programs, that will 
actually save Social Security and Medicare for future generations of 
Americans. That is the long-term prescription for what ails America. 
But certainly in the short term it makes matters much, much worse when 
we talk about piling a tax increase on the very people we are looking 
to, to create jobs and get this economy back on track.
  I hope this Congress will come to its senses about this and that we 
will vote down any proposal that would raise taxes on hard-working 
small businesses and entrepreneurs in this country and instead give 
them the certainty they

[[Page 11421]]

need for the months ahead, until such time as we can deal with the 
issue of tax reform.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. 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. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask consent to speak as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             The DREAM Act

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, 11 years ago I introduced the DREAM Act to 
allow a select group of immigrant students with great potential to 
contribute more fully to America. The DREAM Act said that in order to 
qualify, they had to earn their way to a legal status and they had to 
have come to the United States as children, be long-term U.S. 
residents, have good moral character, graduate from high school, and 
agree to serve in our military or at least complete 2 years of college.
  These young people literally came to the United States as infants and 
children. They grew up in this country. They went to school with our 
kids. They are the valedictorians, the athletes, and even the ROTC 
leaders in schools across America. They did not make the decision to 
come here; they were just kids. Their parents made the decision. As 
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, immigrants who were 
brought here illegally as children ``lacked the intent to violate the 
law.'' It is not the American way anyway to punish children for the 
wrongdoing of their parents.
  I am going to continue to work on this DREAM Act. It has been 11 
years. I will work on it as long as I have to to get it done; it is 
that important. But the young people who are eligible, who would be 
eligible for it, cannot wait any longer. Many have already been 
deported to countries they never remembered and with languages they do 
not speak. There are still some at the risk of deportation.
  That is why the Obama administration decision a few weeks ago to stop 
the deportation of young people who would be eligible for the DREAM Act 
was the right thing to do. The administration says we will allow these 
immigrant students to apply for a form of relief known as deferred 
action that puts their deportations on hold and allows them, on a 
temporary renewable basis to live and work legally in America. I 
strongly, strongly support this decision. I think it was a humane 
decision by the President of the United States on behalf of these young 
people.
  When the history of the civil rights era we have lived through since 
the 1960s is written, this will be an important chapter. The 
administration's deportation policy has strong bipartisan support. It 
was 2 years ago that Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana joined 
me in a letter to the President asking me to do this. Last year, 
Senator Lugar joined me, along with 22 other Senators, to sign a letter 
to the President asking the same thing, and what do the American people 
think about President Obama's decision on the DREAM Act students? It 
turns out that 64 percent of likely voters--including 66 percent of 
Independents--support the policy, compared to 30 percent who oppose it.
  Earlier, my colleague and friend from Iowa Senator Grassley gave a 
speech on the Senate floor about this decision by the President. At one 
point in time, Senator Grassley was a cosponsor of the DREAM Act. We 
wouldn't know it from his speech today. He has changed his position on 
this bill just like so many other Republicans. Let me take a few 
minutes to respond to his specific points.
  He claimed the President's policy to not deport the DREAM Act 
students is going to hurt the American economy. I couldn't disagree 
more. Granting deferred action of DREAM Act students will make us a 
stronger country giving these talented immigrants a chance to be part 
of America and its future.
  Studies have found DREAM Act students can contribute literally 
trillions of dollars to the U.S. economy given a chance to be a part of 
it. We are not talking about importing new foreign workers into the 
United States to compete with Americans, we are talking about taking 
young people who are educated in our schools at our expense, trained 
and ready to give something to America and giving them a chance. They 
are going to be tomorrow's doctors, engineers, teachers, and nurses. We 
shouldn't squander their talents and all the years we invested in 
educating them by deporting them at this important point in their 
lives.
  Senator Grassley said President Obama ``circumvented Congress to 
significantly change the law all by himself.'' With all due respect, I 
don't think that is how it happened. The Obama administration's new 
deportation policy is lawful and appropriate. Throughout history, all 
governments--and our Federal Government--have had to decide whom to 
prosecute and not to prosecute. It is called prosecutorial discretion. 
It is based on law enforcement priorities and resources. Every 
administration, Democratic and Republican, has stopped deportations of 
low-priority cases, as they should.
  Just last month, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the Federal 
Government has broad authority to decide whom to deport. Justice 
Anthony Kennedy, appointed by George H.W. Bush, wrote the opinion for 
the Court. This is what he said:

       A principal feature of the removal system is the broad 
     discretion exercised by immigration officials . . . 
     Discretion in the enforcement of immigration law embraces 
     immediate human concerns. Unauthorized workers trying to 
     support their families, for example, likely pose less danger 
     than alien smugglers or aliens who commit a serious crime.

  The administration's policy is not just legal, it is realistic and 
smart. Today there are millions of undocumented immigrants in the 
United States. It is physically and literally impossible to deport 
them. So the Department of Homeland Security has to decide priorities. 
Shouldn't the highest priority be to deport those who are most 
dangerous to the United States? I think even the Senator from Iowa 
would have to concede that point. The Obama administration has made 
that its priority.
  Senator Grassley calls the administration's deportation policy an 
amnesty. That is not right. The DREAM Act students will not receive 
permanent legal status or citizenship under the President's policy. 
They have temporary renewable legal status. It is temporary renewable 
legal status.
  During his speech, Senator Grassley read a quote from an interview 
the President gave last year to support his claim that the President 
had changed his position on the DREAM Act, but he only read part of the 
quote. Here is what Senator Grassley read:

       This notion that somehow I can just change the law 
     unilaterally is just not true . . . the fact of the matter is 
     there are laws on the books that I have to enforce. And I 
     think there's been a great disservice done to the cause of 
     getting the DREAM Act passed and getting comprehensive 
     immigration passed by perpetuating the notion that somehow, 
     by myself, I can go and do these things. It's just not true.

  That is what Senator Grassley read. Here is the rest of the quote.

       What we can do is prioritize enforcement--since there are 
     limited enforcement resources--and say, we're not going to go 
     chasing after this young man or anybody else who has been 
     acting responsibly, and would otherwise qualify for legal 
     status if the DREAM Act passed.

  That is what the President said. I wish Senator Grassley had read 
that in the Record. The President has done what he has the authority to 
do as our Chief Executive Officer to exercise prosecutorial discretion.
  I personally discussed this with Secretary Napolitano. She has 
assured me that the Department of Homeland Security is going to follow 
the President's lead but is going to have strict enforcement of fraud. 
If any young person commits fraud in this process, there will be a 
price to be paid. Senator Grassley should know that, and he shouldn't 
question it absent evidence to the contrary.
  I might say it is sad we have reached this point that so few 
Republicans

[[Page 11422]]

would stand for these young people. There was a time when Senator Hatch 
was the lead sponsor in this bill, and I was begging him to cosponsor 
it. Then it reached a point where he only voted for it, and then it 
reached a point where he voted against it.
  Senator Grassley has voted for this bill in the past too. In 2006, 
when the Republicans lost control of Congress, the DREAM Act passed the 
Senate out of an amendment to the comprehensive immigration bill 62 to 
36. There were 23 Republicans who voted for it. Unfortunately, the 
Republican leaders in the House refused to take up that bill in 2006. 
Republican support for the DREAM Act has diminished over the years. I 
have to say I noted the lack of volume and firepower in criticizing the 
President on this DREAM Act decision. I think many of our Republican 
colleagues realized the American people do support this two to one, and 
it is the right thing to do.
  I am going to do what I have done on 48 other occasions and try to 
make this DREAM Act discussion more than an abstract conversation. I 
wish to make sure people understand who is involved in these decision 
processes.
  This is a photograph of Maria Gomez. Her parents brought her from 
Mexico to Los Angeles when she was 8 years old. She started school in 
the third grade with English as a second language. By the time she was 
in sixth grade, 3 years later, she was an honor student.
  In middle school, Maria discovered art and architecture. She began 
her dream of becoming an architect. In high school, Maria was active in 
community service and extracurricular activities, captain of the school 
spirit squad, president of the garden club, and a member of the 
California Scholarship Federation. She graduated 10th in her class with 
a 3.9-grade point average.
  Maria was accepted by every college she applied to. Her dream was to 
attend UC Berkeley, the only State college in California that offers 
architecture to undergraduate students, but she couldn't afford it. 
Maria, and the other DREAM Act students, are not eligible for any 
Federal assistance to go to school. Instead, she decided to live at 
home and to attend UCLA. She was a commuter student. She rode the bus 
to and from UCLA, 2\1/2\ hours each way each day.
  While she was a full-time student, she worked to clean houses and did 
babysitting to help pay for tuition. She graduated from UCLA with a 
major in sociology and a minor in public policy. She was the first 
member of her family to graduate from college. She was determined to 
achieve her dream of becoming an architect. She enrolled in the Master 
of Architecture Program at UCLA. She was the only Latino student in the 
program. She struggled financially. At the time, she had to eat at the 
UCLA food bank. Because she couldn't afford housing near the campus, 
she spent many nights in a sleeping bag on the floor of the school's 
printing room.
  Last year, Maria received her master's degree in architecture and 
urban design. She said:

       I grew up believing in the American dream and I worked hard 
     to earn my place in the country that nurtured and educated 
     me. . . . Like the thousands of other undocumented students 
     and graduates across America, I am looking for one thing, and 
     one thing only: the opportunity to give back to my community, 
     my state, and the country that is my home, the United States.

  I ask my colleagues who are critical of the DREAM Act and President 
Obama's new policy: Would you prefer that we deport Maria Gomez back to 
Mexico at this point in her life, a country that she has not lived in 
since she was a small child? She grew up here. She has overcome amazing 
odds to become successful. This determined young woman can make America 
a better nation.
  Thanks to President Obama's new policy, Maria is going to be able to 
work. I hope she will be able to get a license as an architect in her 
State. A future President could change this policy so Maria's future is 
still in doubt because we haven't enacted the DREAM Act. Maria is not 
the only one. There are tens of thousands similar to her.
  The DREAM Act would give Maria, and others similar to her, the 
opportunity to be our future architects, engineers, teachers, doctors, 
and soldiers.
  Today, I again ask my colleagues to support the DREAM Act. The 
President's new deportation policy is a step in the right direction, 
but ultimately it is our responsibility. He has done his part. We need 
to pass this humane and thoughtful bill and give people such as Maria 
Gomez a chance to make America a better place to live.

                          ____________________