[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2039-2059]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   AMERICAN FAMILY ECONOMIC PROTECTION ACT OF 2013--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 388, 
which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 18, (S. 388) a bill to 
     appropriately limit sequestration, to eliminate tax 
     loopholes, and for other purposes.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that in addition 
to the two cloture votes on bills dealing with the sequester today, 
there be set a time, to be determined by the majority leader in 
consultation with the Republican leader, that without intervening 
action or debate the Senate proceed to a rollcall vote on the motion to 
proceed to my alternative bill dealing with the sequester which is now 
at the desk.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object and will say 
just a few things.
  Unless we act by midnight tomorrow, Friday, across-the-board cuts 
will kick in. They are going to start kind of slowly, but they are 
going to ramp up really quickly. So the question for us today is, Are 
we going to act to replace these across-the-board cuts?
  The proposal we have put forward would prevent the cuts with a 
balanced plan. Our plan will protect air safety, our food supply and, 
most importantly, our national security. And frankly, Mr. President, 
air safety, which I mentioned, food supply--that is also part of our 
national security in addition to our military.
  The alternative that has been put forward by my friend the Republican 
leader would not replace the cuts. As I said earlier this morning here 
on the floor, one of my colleagues in the Democratic caucus said at our 
caucus on Tuesday that he understood what the Republicans were going to 
put forward, and he said it would be like sending the President an 
order: We have already decided you are going to have to cut off three 
fingers, and we are giving you the alternative to decide which one you 
cut first.
  The Republican alternative would not replace the cuts but would call 
for making the cuts in some different way. Republicans call their 
proposal ``flexibility.'' In fact, it is anything but that. Their 
proposal is entirely inflexible on one key point: not a single dollar 
of revenue, not a single tax loophole would be closed.
  Now, remember, Mr. President, the one proposal we have forward says 
that if you make $5 million a year, you will have to pay 30 percent tax 
minimum. That is it. That does not sound too outrageous. That is why 
the American people agree--Democrats, Independents, and 60 percent of 
Republicans.
  Now the Republican side seeks a third vote on the Ayotte amendment, 
which would replace the cuts with a parade of even more unfair cuts and 
penalties on immigrants, people receiving health care under ObamaCare, 
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, those kinds of things.
  I also have trouble understanding, as I do--I frankly do understand 
why, as I read in the paper, Ayotte, McCain, and Graham do not like the 
Republican proposal--haven't we ceded enough power to the President?
  So it is not our fault over here that the Republican leader chose to 
offer not the Ayotte alternative but instead chose the Republican 
alternative that we are going to talk about and vote on later today.
  I return to my main question again briefly. Are Republicans really 
filibustering a vote on replacing the sequester? My question is, Would 
the Republican leader modify his consent to allow for simple up-or-down 
votes on each of the two alternatives? Would it make a difference if we 
allowed votes on three bills, including the Ayotte alternative? I would 
be happy to have three votes if the Republican leader would simply 
allow the votes to be held at majority thresholds.
  So I have asked that. I can do it formally. I would be happy to do so 
if there is any taking of my request here. But this having been the 
case, if my friend the Republican leader says: Yes, why don't you put 
that in proper form--and I would be happy to do that--then we would 
have votes on all three, with a simple majority on each one of them. 
Not hearing someone say: Great idea, then I object to the request of my 
friend from New Hampshire.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would say to my friend the majority 
leader that I would object. He can either propound such a consent or 
not, whatever he chooses, but I would object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection to the original 
request?
  Mr. REID. Yes, I did that.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, obviously we regret that we have not been 
able to reach an agreement. I am especially disappointed that we are 
unable to consider the Ayotte amendment, which is an alternative to the 
sequestration. A flexibility of sequestration would still sooner or 
later have the same Draconian effects on our national security.
  I also would point out to my colleagues that what we are about to go 
through is in some respects a charade because we know the proposal on 
that side will not succeed with 60 votes, and the proposal on this side 
will not succeed with 60 votes. Meanwhile, the clock moves on until 
sometime tomorrow night.
  Some of us warned for a long time about the effects of sequestration, 
and if we want to have a blame game, then I will take blame, everybody 
takes blame. But isn't it time that we prevented what our military 
leaders in uniform, who have made their careers and their lives serving 
and sacrificing for this country, say would harm and inflict terrible 
damage on our ability to defend this Nation, our inability to train and 
equip the men who are serving? I always appreciate very much when 
Members on both sides of the aisle praise the men and women who are 
serving in the military. I am always pleased to see that. But shouldn't 
we be thinking about them now? Shouldn't we be thinking about those men 
and women who are serving who literally do not know what they are going 
to be doing tomorrow--like the crew of the aircraft carrier that they 
decided not to deploy to the Middle East at a time when tensions are 
incredibly high?
  I would also point out to my colleagues that this is not a fair 
sequestration. Most Americans believe this is half out of defense, half 
out of nondefense. It is not.
  Under the formulation of the sequestration, about half of the 
spending we engage in is exempt, such as compensation for the 
President, such as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, such as 
payment to the District of Columbia Pension Fund, such as the Host 
Nation Support Fund for Relocation. All of these and many others were 
made exempt, which meant the cuts and the reductions in defense were 
even larger, and, obviously, those who designed this legislation 
decided that the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and relocation 
funding was more important than national defense because we didn't 
exempt national defense.
  That is disgraceful.
  Nineteen percent of discretionary spending is out of defense. We are 
asking for a 50-percent cut out of defense, on top of $87 billion that 
has already been enacted under Secretary Gates, on

[[Page 2040]]

top of $487 billion in defense which is already on track to be cut. The 
percentage of gross national product for defense continues to decline.
  What are we doing?
  A few days ago there was a wonderful ceremony in the White House 
where a brave young American received the Congressional Medal of Honor. 
I happened to go to an evening function at a pizza place with him and 
his comrades who fought. A book was written by Jake Tapper, an 
excellent book--I recommend it to all of my colleagues--about eight of 
their comrades who were killed. Here we are unable to make sure these 
young men and women serving in harm's way have the equipment, the 
training, and everything they need to defend this Nation. We are doing 
the men and women who are serving this Nation a great disservice, and 
the President did them a disservice when he said in the campaign: Not 
to worry, sequestration won't happen. The President of the United 
States said that. I didn't say it. The three of us traveled this 
country warning about the effects of sequestration. Of course, we now 
know the idea came from the White House. That is the blame game, and I 
will be glad to engage in this game.
  Can't we at least come to some agreement to prevent this? Are we 
going to lurch from one fiscal cliff to another? If we want to do that, 
that is one thing.
  General Odierno is one of the great leaders I have had the 
opportunity of knowing for many years. General Odierno, the Chief of 
Staff of the Army, a man who has decorations from here to there, said 
he cannot replace the men and women who are serving in Afghanistan 
under this sequestration because he doesn't have the ability to train 
their replacements. Isn't that an alarm for us?
  We are going to go through a charade here. In a little while we are 
going to have a vote on the Democratic proposal, and it will not get 
sufficient votes; and the same thing here on this side, and the clock 
will tick.
  Tomorrow, on the last day, the President is going to call people over 
to the White House to see if we can address it. Where was he in the 
last year?
  Again, I am not taking the floor today for the blame game. I am 
pleading for the men and women who are serving this Nation in harm's 
way who every single day have a hell-of-a-lot tougher time than we do. 
Can't we do something on their behalf to sit down with the President of 
the United States, who is Commander in Chief, and get this issue 
resolved before we do great damage to our national security?
  I thank Senator Ayotte for her proposal. It contains real reductions 
in spending so we don't have to go through this sequestration. On the 
one side, now we have a choice between ``flexibility,'' which nobody 
really knows exactly what that means--and on the other side, obviously, 
a proposal that really bears no relevance to the issue that faces us.
  I thank my colleagues for the time. If I sound a little emotional on 
this issue, it is because I am. It seems to me we, at least on this 
issue of national security and the men and women who serve our Nation, 
should come together. I stand ready to put everything on the table to 
prevent what could be, in the words of the departing Secretary of 
Defense, a devastating blow to our ability to defend this Nation in 
what I could make an argument are the most dangerous times.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire who authored this 
amendment which Senator McCain and I support. She spent a lot of time 
and effort trying to fix sequestration in the first year and trying to 
look at programs that are not as essential to the Nation, in my view, 
as the Department of Defense.
  Let me put this in perspective. I don't need a poll to tell me what I 
think about this. The majority leader referenced some poll out there 
about where the American people are. I appreciate polling. It is a tool 
all politicians use. I don't need one here to know where I stand.
  The question is, Do the people in South Carolina think I am right or 
wrong? I will have an election in 2014. I am certainly willing to stand 
before the people of South Carolina and say what we are doing in this 
sequestration proposal is ill-conceived, dangerous, and despicable.
  Let's start with the Commander in Chief. This is what Mr. Lew said, 
our new Treasury Secretary:

       Make no mistake, the sequester is not meant to be policy. 
     Rather, it is meant to be an unpalatable option that all 
     parties want to avoid.

  That was their view of sequestration.
  According to Bob Woodward and comments since, this idea came out of 
the White House. The White House thought that if we created a penalty 
clause for supercommittee failure called sequestration, where we would 
have to take $600 billion of the $1.2 trillion out of the Defense 
Department, that would make the supercommittee more likely to achieve a 
result. If we took $600 billion out of nondefense, that would put 
pressure on the supercommittee to get the right result.
  We are going to spend $45 trillion over the next decade. The next 
question for the country is, Could we save $1.2 trillion without 
destroying the Defense Department and raising taxes? Yes, we could if 
we tried. Put me in the camp that this is an achievable spending cut. 
This is not something that is unachievable.
  What Senator McConnell said is very important. Two-thirds of the 
budget, almost, is exempt from sequestration. When you hear Republicans 
say surely we can find $85 billion out of $3.5 trillion in spending--to 
my Republican colleagues, stop saying that. That is not accurate. We 
are not cutting $85 billion out of $3.5 trillion. We are cutting $85 
billion out of about 1.3, 1.25, because the Budget Control Act took off 
the table two-thirds of the government from being cut.
  I will get to the President in a minute, but let me talk a little bit 
about my party, the party of Ronald Reagan, the party of peace through 
strength. This is the party that believes--at least we used to--the No. 
1 obligation of the Federal Government, before it does anything else, 
is to get national security right. That was what made Ronald Reagan.
  That is what I believe. I don't need a poll to tell me that. I don't 
care if 90 percent of the people in the country said the Defense 
Department is not my primary concern when it comes to Federal 
budgeting. Count me in the 10 percent.
  The party of Ronald Reagan, even though it came out of the White 
House, this very bad idea, agreed to it. What did we agree to? We 
agreed to take off the table two-thirds of the Federal Government.
  Pell grants. My sister received a Pell grant when my parents died. It 
is a very important program. It helps people go to college who are low-
income Americans. In 2008 it was $16.25 billion and in 2013 it is 
$41.57 billion.
  Food stamps. A lot of people need help, I understand that. The Food 
Stamp Program has doubled since 2008.
  I guess the Republican Party believes the Pell grants, food stamps, 
the FAA, and home mortgage interest deduction, and all this other stuff 
in the Federal Government should be shielded, but those who have been 
fighting the war that protects us all from radical Islam should be on 
the chopping block. Ronald Reagan should be rolling over in his grave. 
Shame on everybody who agreed this was a good idea on our side.
  I cannot tell you how disgusted I am with the concept that when it 
comes time to cut--because the budget politicians can't reach an 
agreement--we fire the soldiers and keep the politicians and every 
other social program intact and put half the cuts on those who are 
fighting the war.
  So the next time you go to a military base, good luck. We will look 
those men and women in the eye--I don't see how you could. I don't see 
how you could go onto a military base or see somebody in the airport, 
shake their hand and thank them for their service given the fact you 
have taken the Defense Department and made it something not very 
special anymore.
  Secretary Panetta said: After 10 years of these cuts we would have 
the

[[Page 2041]]

smallest ground forces since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 
1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history. This isn't like the 
drawdowns in the past when the potential enemy was disabled and in some 
way rendered ineffective. We are still confronting a number of threats 
in the world. It would decimate our defense. It would cripple us in 
terms of our ability to protect this country.
  It would result in the hollowing out of our forces. It would terribly 
weaken our ability to respond to threats in the world. It is a ship 
without sailors. It is a brigade without bullets. It is an airwing 
without enough trained pilots. It is a paper tiger. In effect, it 
invites aggression. A hollow military doesn't happen by accident; it 
comes from poor stewardship and poor leadership.
  I couldn't agree more.
  To my Democratic colleagues, we are not going to raise any more taxes 
to spend money on the government. The next time I raise taxes, we are 
going to try to get out of debt. We are $17 trillion in debt, and every 
time there is a crisis in this Nation you want to raise taxes to pay 
for the government we already have. We have enough money to run this 
government. We need to spend it better.
  To my Republican colleagues, there is not enough flexibility in the 
world to change the top line number. You either believe Secretary 
Panetta or you don't. You either believe every military commander--I 
don't trust everything a general tells me, but the question for me is 
do I trust all generals who tell me the same thing. Can all of them be 
wrong? It is one thing to have a dispute with a general or an admiral, 
but when every general and admiral tells you the same thing--and if we 
don't believe them, we need to fire them--we act accordingly.
  As to the President, you have one obligation that nobody in this body 
has. You are the Commander in Chief of the United States. They trust 
you, they need you, and your primary goal is to take care of those in 
uniform and their families.
  Mr. President, you have let them down. My party let them down, but 
you are different from any other politician. You are the Commander in 
Chief. How you could have considered this as an acceptable outcome just 
makes me sick to my stomach. I don't know how any Commander in Chief 
could have been comfortable with the idea that if the supercommittee 
fails, we are going to cut the military. You haven't lifted a finger in 
the last year to do anything about it. You finally go to a naval base 
down in Virginia, after the election, a few days before this kicks in.
  To me, this is pathetic leadership by the Commander in Chief. This is 
an abandonment of the Republican Party's belief in peace through 
strength. This is a low point in my time in the U.S. Congress.
  We are not going to raise taxes to fund the government. We are going 
to raise taxes in my construct to pay down debt and fix entitlements. I 
cannot tell you how ashamed I am of what we have done to those who have 
been busting their butts for the last 11 years, to those who have been 
deployed time and time again, and to their families.
  The thank-you you receive from your President and your Congress is we 
are going to put your way of life on the chopping block. God, if we 
can't do better than that then all of us should be fired--politicians.
  Mr. McCAIN. I would ask the Senator to yield to respond to one 
question.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, if I may interject, I believe I have 
the floor.
  Mr. McCAIN. I have the right to ask a question from the person who 
has the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Carolina has 
yielded for a question.
  Mr. McCAIN. My question is, does the Senator think the American 
people appreciate and understand what this does to the lives of the 
American men and women who are serving? For example, those who are 
serving on that aircraft carrier they said was going to deploy for many 
months and was cancelled at the last minute, the training plans which 
are now going to be cancelled, the deployments which will be changed--
not to mention the massive layoffs in the defense industry, which 
sometimes are not easily replaceable. That is my question.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Well, I don't know if they do or not. We have done 
everything we can--the three of us--to tell them what is coming our 
way. All I can say is that every general and admiral who has told us 
the same thing, I respect what they are telling us. Leon Panetta is a 
Democrat, but he is dead right. He has been a great Secretary of 
Defense. I trust their judgment.
  I know enough about the military budget to know if we take $600 
billion out of their budget, on top of the $487 billion, plus the $89 
billion, we are going to make them less able to defend our Nation, 
putting our men and women at risk, and that is what this debate is 
about.
  I wish to thank Senator Ayotte, who came up with an alternative to 
avoid this without raising taxes.
  My time is up. I don't know who is next, but I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to interject just for a moment 
to sort out the order on the floor.
  I apologize to the Senator from Arizona for the last exchange. I 
thought I had the floor at that point. I understand now this is a 
colloquy.
  I think Senator Ayotte seems to be in order, but the chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee is here, so perhaps she could be recognized at 
the conclusion of Senator Ayotte's remarks. I see Senator Inhofe, so if 
he could follow Senator Mikulski and then I will follow Senator Inhofe, 
I offer that as a proposal.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object, I don't need to be in this 
lineup. I will be talking later on. I only wanted to ask one question 
of Senator Ayotte when she has the floor.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The Senator has that right, and she will yield to 
him.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Ms. AYOTTE. I thank the Chair, and I thank very much the Senator from 
Rhode Island for allowing me the opportunity to continue and for 
sorting out the order on the floor.
  Mr. INHOFE. Would the Senator yield for a question before she starts?
  Ms. AYOTTE. I will, and then, obviously, I would like to make a few 
comments.
  Mr. INHOFE. Yes, of course. The question is this--and I know the 
Senator already knows this, but others may not know, and I want to make 
sure they are aware.
  I am in support of the Senator's bill. I am a cosponsor of the bill 
and have been since way back when the Senator first started with Jon 
Kyl a long time ago.
  Ms. AYOTTE. I thank the Senator for that.
  Mr. INHOFE. I agree with what was said by both the Senator from 
Arizona and the Senator South Carolina. In fact, it was my request that 
Senator Ayotte's measure be the Republican alternative. So I just 
wanted to make sure everyone knew that. I think it is a good idea.
  Ms. AYOTTE. I thank the Senator for his statement and for his support 
and I certainly join in the comments and concerns that were just raised 
by my colleagues Senators McCain and Graham.
  Here is where we are. We are in this position where, frankly, as 
Senator McCain said, this is a charade. Both parties are acting out 
this play where we are going to have one vote on the Democratic 
alternative that is going to fail, and then we are going to have 
another vote on one Republican alternative that is going to fail. So I 
put pen to paper and came up with some other ways to cut spending, 
which comes to about $250 billion in savings over the next 10 years, in 
order to address sequester and also to have an alternative because I 
believe the American people see through this charade of what is going 
to happen today and

[[Page 2042]]

that, ultimately, as prior speakers have said, the sequester was set up 
to be resolved in a way where we had alternative savings that did not 
undermine our national security and some of the core services that 
could be put at risk in the way the sequester is structured.
  I firmly believe, when we look at what has happened, this bill was 
ill-conceived from the beginning. I didn't support it. I didn't vote 
for it. One of the fundamental problems with it was it was a kick-the-
can-down-the-road exercise where we gave our responsibility to find the 
$1.2 trillion in savings--the sequester--to a supercommittee, rather 
than the Senate and the Budget Committee doing our job of budgeting and 
prioritizing.
  So stepping back, that is what has led us here. But I am also 
disappointed in my Republican colleagues, and that is why I offer an 
alternative of spending cuts, because it seems to me, the way this is 
structured we have already taken $487 billion in reductions to our 
defense. I serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. For 1 year on 
that committee, I have been listening to our military leaders at every 
single level when asking them about the sequester. From the highest 
leaders, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of 
Defense, we have heard things such as we are going to shoot ourselves 
in the head, we are going to hollow out our force, and America will no 
longer be a global power, which is what General Dempsey once told us, 
as a result of sequestration.
  This morning, we had leaders of our military before the Armed 
Services Committee and I asked Assistant Secretary Estevez: If we go 
with the flexibility approach, does this address the impact on our 
national security? In other words, will this address making sure we can 
still meet the needs of our national security?
  Let us not forget this is happening at a time when Iran is marching 
toward a nuclear weapon, when we have conflict in Syria, and when we 
are still at war. By the way, with this sequester, the way it impacts 
the Department of Defense, our war funding was not exempt. Over 50 
percent of spending, as this was set up from the beginning, was exempt 
from the sequester, which of course is no way to find savings 
throughout the whole government, but we didn't exempt the war funding.
  So at a time of war, I asked the Assistant Secretary: Does the 
flexibility solve the problem to our national security? And he said: 
Certainly, flexibility will help us deal with it, but it will not solve 
the problem in terms of our national security.
  So that is why I decided to come up with some alternative savings. My 
proposal will not get a vote today. I think it is a time when, frankly, 
we should be bringing more ideas to the floor, not less ideas, and 
debating this vigorously in the Senate, instead of where we are right 
now, which is a charade. We are going to have one vote and another vote 
and then we are all going to go to our respective sides and say: OK, 
American people, we know there are real risks, particularly to the 
safety of this country, that we should be addressing. From my 
perspective, I believe we can address them through alternative spending 
cuts.
  Through all this, we have the President, who has called leaders of 
both parties tomorrow to the White House. I have spent a year working 
on this issue. He was at the Newport News shipyard the other day. We 
were there in July talking about the impact on that shipyard. We 
traveled to States around the country--to military facilities--to talk 
to the people there at those facilities about the impact of sequester. 
I think the President should have been on this much sooner, but now it 
is time for his leadership as the Commander in Chief--leadership we 
could have used this past summer when we were all talking about it. We 
could have been in a position to try to resolve it then rather than 
continuing to be in these crisis moments in which we find ourselves in 
the Senate.
  Where I am left on all this is that we owe it to our men and women in 
uniform to find alternative ways to save the money, still protecting 
our national security. Also, so people understand how this plays out, 
the way the cuts are taken in 2013--during a shorter period, not a full 
period--OMB has estimated on the defense end it is about 13 percent, on 
top of the $487 billion in reductions, and in nondefense spending it is 
about 9 percent over the additional $487 billion.
  So I would just simply ask for a time to stop this charade, and it is 
my hope we could actually get down to resolving this in a responsible 
way for our country. That is why I put pen to paper. People can be 
critical of my proposal, but I think that now is the time when we 
should have a vote on every proposal and we should have every idea come 
to the table because it is a time to stop the charade and it is a time 
to solve this problem. Let's make sure we protect our country at a very 
dangerous time.
  I will continue to work to do that for our country. I think we can do 
it, still addressing our deficit, still with savings, but we certainly 
need to do it, and having the charade vote we are going to have today 
will not solve it. The American people deserve better and we should be 
giving them better and solving this.
  I thank the Chair for allowing me the time, and I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of the 
Democratic alternative that would cancel the sequester for this year.
  Before the Senator from New Hampshire leaves, I would like to take a 
minute to compliment her on her energy, her passion, and the fact that 
she actually wants to present ideas to be discussed. I think that is 
excellent. I want her to also know I support the concept she is 
advocating of no more delay; that we cannot solve America's fiscal 
situation and also important public investments we need to make in 
research and innovation and keep our fragile economy going by just 
punting now. I think we agree on that.
  The other thing we agree on is the goal to get our fiscal crisis in 
order, to strengthen our economy, and to keep America strong. We just 
are going to disagree on the means. But that is OK. That is called 
America. That is called the Senate. That is called debate. Let's let 
the world watch and hear that we actually have ideas, and just as we 
are doing this minute, we can do it with civility and with interest in 
what is being said. I found what the Senator from New Hampshire had to 
say very interesting, and I will have a few comments about that and 
what the Senator from South Carolina said, but I wanted her to know 
that I do think we must begin to move with urgency. I do think the 
politics of delay, ultimatum and brinkmanship, should come to an end. I 
like the idea of debating ideas and look forward to that both in 
conversation and so on.
  I just wanted to say that to her.
  Ms. AYOTTE. Would the Senator from Maryland yield for a brief 
comment?
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Yes.
  Ms. AYOTTE. I thank the Senator, and I wanted to first say I know she 
is the new chair of the Appropriations Committee and I congratulate her 
on that. As we go forward, as we look at why we are where we are, if we 
can get back to regular order in the Senate, with a budget and a 
regular appropriations process, I think we would do a great service for 
the American people and eliminate this crisis-to-crisis mode. I know, 
as the new chair of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Mikulski will 
play a leadership position in doing that.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I absolutely will. Just to respond, first of all, I 
have a great vice chairman, Senator Richard Shelby, from the other side 
of the aisle, who shares that same idea.
  What does the regular order mean? It means we bring out one bill at a 
time; that we don't have a $1 trillion bill on the floor at one time, 
where we can't discuss it, debate it, analyze it, and certainly no more 
of these 7,000-page bills, where we find things have parachuted into 
the bill in the middle of the night.
  I agree with my colleague and I look forward to that, and I must say 
I have

[[Page 2043]]

enjoyed working with her and look forward to doing more of the same.
  Ms. AYOTTE. I thank the Senator.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I do want to speak in support of the 
bill that is offered as our Democratic alternative. It is a balanced 
solution to preventing the dysfunctional, disruptive, across-the-board 
spending cuts called sequester. Sequester is a Washington word and a 
Washington invention we came up with during the budget crisis debacle 
in August of 2011, where we would cut $1 trillion over 10 years or $110 
billion at a time. That was supposed to have been resolved through the 
supercommittee, but that didn't happen. It was supposed to have been 
resolved through the fiscal cliff, all the way up to New Year's Eve. 
What happened? We punted. We delayed for 2 months, and so here we are.
  While we are facing the Draconian implications of the sequester, we 
do have an answer. That answer is composed of a balanced approach, 
where we look at increased revenue and strategic cuts that will not 
cripple our economy nor weaken America's strength here or abroad.
  What does it do? Yes, it does go to increased revenue. The revenue we 
are talking about is to close these juicy loopholes, to end these 
outrageous tax earmarks that happen in the stealth of the night. Look, 
we got rid of earmarks on the Appropriations Committee. Let's get rid 
of tax earmarks on the Finance Committee, and this is one of the ways 
to do it.
  I want to compliment the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Whitehouse. 
He has done incredible research on just exactly what these cushy, 
lobbyist-driven tax breaks are.
  Our closing the loopholes cuts spending, and it also protects the 
middle class, ensures essential government services, and keeps America 
strong. What does it do? Yes, it does reform the Tax Code. The first 
loophole it closes is something called the Buffett rule. It saves $53 
billion and it means wealthy taxpayers will pay lower effective tax 
rates than the middle class. In plain English, and this is what Warren 
Buffett said, a billionaire should pay the same tax rate as somebody 
who makes about $55,000 a year.
  Guess what. We Democrats believe in entrepreneurship. We believe in 
rewarding hard work. So that tax doesn't kick in until your second 
million. If I were a billionaire, I would take that deal. I am not a 
billionaire. But, more importantly, neither are 99 percent of the 
American population.
  We also eliminate a special loophole to the oil and gas industry for 
$2 billion where they get oil from tar sands. That would be also 
subject to a tax. But my favorite one is it eliminates tax breaks for 
shipping jobs overseas, another significant amount of money.
  I am an appropriator, so let me talk about spending cuts. We have 
come up with spending cuts: Yes, 27.5 in domestic spending, and 27.5 in 
defense.
  Let me start first with defense, because much has been said about 
defense. Many tables have been pounded, many chests have been thumped 
talking about it. And we do have to look out for our military. But our 
$27.5 billion recognizes the reality of boots on the ground. The 
reality of boots on the ground. Our troops are coming home. They will 
all be home by the summer of 2014. Our defense cuts kick in in 2015, so 
nothing we do will in any way dilute, diminish, end or terminate money 
that would go to our men and women in harm's way. So our cuts don't 
kick in until 2015, and then it will be $3 billion a year over a 9-year 
period, which our generals and our Acting Secretary of Defense, 
Secretary Hagel, now concur with. So we are OK with defense. And, most 
of all, the military is OK with it.
  Then we also cut domestic spending. Here, we cut $27 billion in the 
farm bill. It eliminates subsidies we don't need to do anymore. The 
Presiding Officer is from an agricultural State. We love your cheese. 
We even from time to time cheer on the Green Bay Packers. So we know 
agriculture is important. But essentially, we have a tax subsidy 
structure that goes back to the 1930s--a different economy, a Dust 
Bowl, people vacating homes in Oklahoma and following the grapes of 
wrath trail to California. So we came up through the New Deal with a 
way of subsidizing farms, restoring the land, and restoring people to 
their land. But a lot of those subsidies aren't needed anymore and, 
quite frankly, a lot goes to agra business for crops not even planted. 
So working with the Agricultural Committee--Appropriations didn't do 
this out of the blue--we come up with $27.5 billion.
  Much is said about asking Democrats if we know math. Yes, we know 
math. We have $27.5 billion cuts in domestic spending, $27.5 billion 
cuts in defense kicking in in 2015. That is $55 billion. Getting rid of 
tax-break earmarks and making those who make more than $2 million a 
year pay their fair share, we come up with 110. Quite simply, that is 
our plan.
  I spoke quite a bit during this week about the impact of sequester. 
Sequester was never meant to happen. We have got to end sequester. We 
could do it this afternoon. For all those people who are crying their 
tears and don't want it, do they want to protect America's middle 
class, the 99 percent, or do they want to protect billionaire tax-break 
earmarks? That is the choice. So they can rally: We don't want to pay 
more taxes. You can't have a government without paying taxes. And 
ordinary people pay them every day.
  Do you know what drives me wild? There is this fix the debt crowd 
flew in. I watched them fly in. I loved it. They stayed in Washington 
where they could take expense account deductions while they came to 
lobby us. And how did they come in? On their subsidized tax-break jets 
and their expense accounts that they could deduct, from sushi to 
Cabernet. They came to tell us to raise Social Security. Then they told 
us to raise the age in Medicare because, after all, people live longer. 
Maybe when you have all that wealth you can afford health care and you 
don't need Medicare. Nobody has to take Medicare. If you don't need it, 
you don't have to take it. If you don't need Social Security, you don't 
need to take it.
  My whole point was, often the very solutions are given by people who 
get the most tax breaks. That is a pet peeve of mine.
  But really what hurts me is this: I represent some of the great 
iconic institutions in America--the National Institutes of Health, the 
National Security Agency, each doing its own work to protect the 
American people. The Federal Drug Administration--I have 4,000 Federal 
employees keeping our drugs and medical devices safe for the American 
people. And food safety. We have to make sure those people work so our 
private sector works and we keep our economy strong.
  The Democratic alternative is sound from the standpoint of policy, it 
is sustainable and reliable. We could end sequester this afternoon.
  I will be back to talk more about it. But I think we have a good idea 
here. Let's not follow the politics and let's not dither in the U.S. 
Senate.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, would the Senator from Rhode Island 
yield for a question?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield for a question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. I thank the Senator, the gentleman from Rhode Island.
  I wish to ask a question clarifying the procedure. My understanding 
is there is time reserved for me after the Senator from Rhode Island 
finishes with his comments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. No order has been forthcoming to that effect 
yet.
  Mr. TOOMEY. But there will be time available?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Having the floor, why don't I propose now that at the 
conclusion of my remarks Senator Toomey be recognized.
  Mr. TOOMEY. I have no further questions. I thank the Senator from 
Rhode Island.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator from 
Pennsylvania will be next.
  The Senator from Rhode Island.

[[Page 2044]]


  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am rising today in strong support 
of Leader Reid's proposal to stop the sequester. We need to reduce our 
debt and deficit. We should do so in a thoughtful manner.
  We have so often on this floor heard our Republican friends criticize 
Democratic legislation as job killing: a job-killing bill, a job-
killing proposal. We hear that all the time. Often that charge has been 
without much factual support, but it is part of the common rhetoric in 
this room. But now we face an event that actually is expected to cause 
the loss of 1 million jobs, and yet so many Republicans support these 
cuts in their fixation, frankly, on what economists call budget 
austerity, cutting your way out of a recession.
  How has the budget austerity record worked? There is a record now, 
because a lot of countries have tried it--from Spain to Portugal to 
Greece, countries slashed spending to address deficits in the name of 
budget austerity. Their record? Lousy. Persistent double-digit 
unemployment and negative economic growth.
  The U.S. unemployment rate of 7.9 percent--which is actually even 
higher in my home State--is for sure too high, but it is far better 
than the rate of 26 percent unemployment in Spain and Greece, the 
record of 16 percent unemployment in Portugal. Our 2.3 percent growth 
rate may seem inadequate, and it is; but as we recover from the deepest 
recession we have seen since the Great Depression, it is much better 
than the negative growth rates in the countries that took the austerity 
path. The results are clear. The evidence is in from the austerity 
experiments. The countries that cut the deepest have been hurt the 
most.
  If we want to continue growing our economy and creating jobs, we need 
to resist the European path that is championed by Republican austerity 
advocates. We need to maintain the balanced approach that has brought 
the U.S. economy up out of recession--admittedly, not fast enough. But 
look at what the alternative has been.
  Leader Reid's bill would replace the indiscriminate cuts of the so-
called sequester with targeted cuts to agricultural subsidies and 
defense spending--as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee 
said--after the troops are home when the costs can necessarily come 
down, paired with revenue not from raising taxes but from closing a 
loophole, a tax loophole that allows the highest paid people in America 
to pay lower tax rates than regular middle-class families.
  I heard the passion of Senator McCain--and I respect him immensely--
on the harm the sequester will do to the military. We have a way out. 
It is a question of priorities. Do you really want to protect the 
military from these cuts or is it more important to protect the low tax 
rates of billionaires? That is the choice, and that is the choice they 
are making. Leader Reid's is a smart and balanced bill, and I hope it 
will pass.
  To put this into some context about where we are on spending cuts, 
the ranking member of the Budget Committee said this week that 
President Obama was opposed to spending cuts. I have the transcript of 
what he said in committee here: The President believes no spending, 
even wasteful spending, should be cut.
  Well, let's look at the facts. Through the Budget Control Act of 2011 
and several other measures, we have cut spending almost $1.5 trillion 
in the budget period of the next decade. When you include interest 
savings--the top part--from that reduced borrowing, it comes to $1.7 
trillion in spending cuts and associated interest savings.
  On the revenue side, we have only generated a little over $700 
billion from ending the Bush tax cuts for the top 1 percent--at least 
over $450,000 in income--and from the associated interest savings. This 
together puts us $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction toward our goal of 
$4 trillion in total deficit reduction that most economists agree is 
needed to stabilize our budget. But notice, in the balance between 
spending cuts and new revenues, spending cuts are ahead by $1 trillion.
  The ranking member of the Budget Committee said President Obama 
believes no spending, even wasteful spending, should be cut. And he is 
$1 trillion ahead on spending versus revenues. We have cut $7 of 
spending for every $3 of revenue, even though right now U.S. Government 
revenue is at its lowest percentage of GDP in more than 50 years, more 
than half a century. Our proposal going forward is 50/50, spending cuts 
and revenues. So let's not pretend we are immune to or allergic to 
spending cuts. There have been more spending cuts than new revenues. We 
have tried to find a balanced approach and so far, in this $2.4 
trillion, we have not even looked at tax loopholes, at spending that 
happens through the Tax Code that mostly benefits big corporations, 
special interests, and super-high-end American earners.
  Take a look at how big that amount is. We collect, in individual 
income tax revenue, a little over $1 trillion every year from 
individuals. But the total liability of individuals under the Tax Code 
is over $2 trillion. What happens to this other $1.02 trillion? It 
flows back out. It never comes into the government as revenues. It goes 
back to people as tax deductions, loopholes, and various ways that we 
spend money through the Tax Code.
  If you look at the corporate income tax side, it is about the same. 
We look at our corporations--which, by the way, contribute about one-
sixth as much into our national revenue as they used to. They are at an 
all-time low in terms of contributing to our national revenues in the 
last couple of decades--60 years, I want to say. They are at $118 
billion that actually gets collected and becomes revenue. And there is 
another $157 billion that is corporate tax liability, but we let them 
get it back through loopholes in the Tax Code. You put them together 
and you have $1.16 trillion that we can use to help defeat or replace 
the sequester.
  It is a big deal to look at the tax spending as well as just the 
revenues that come in. We have done nothing on that yet. That should be 
part of this discussion. That is what we do in the proposal I put out.
  Last year we spent a great deal of time in this body debating whether 
the top income tax rate should be 35 percent or 39.6 percent, and we 
ultimately set the rate at 39.6 percent for families whose income is 
over $450,000. But what we know is that many of those families will 
never pay anything close to that rate. The Tax Code is riddled with 
those special provisions that I talked about, the loopholes, the tax 
spending that disproportionately benefits high-income folks. They are 
special deals for special interests. Of them all, perhaps the most 
egregious is the so-called carried interest loophole that allows 
billionaires--literally billionaires--to pay lower tax rates than 
regular families. That is why in the last election it became apparent 
that Mitt Romney was paying something like an 11-percent tax rate.
  It is not just Mitt Romney. The IRS tracks the effective tax rates 
paid by the top 400 highest income earners in the country. In 2009, the 
last year they have data, the top 400 earned an average of over $200 
million each, 1 year's income, over $200 million each. What did they 
pay in taxes on average? About 20 percent. About 20 percent on average. 
Some paid more. The nominal rate was supposed to be 35 percent. How 
many Mitt Romneys are there paying 11 percent in order to average to 20 
percent? And 20 percent is the same rate that an average firefighter 
pays in Rhode Island, or a brickmason pays in Rhode Island. Don't tell 
me a billionaire hedge fund manager cannot pay a higher tax rate than a 
brickmason.
  It is not just the top 400. The Congressional Research Service 
estimates that about a quarter of people in America who make more than 
$1 million a year, about a quarter of them pay lower tax rates than 
over 10 million middle-income taxpayers. In that sense the Tax Code is 
upside-down in favor of these high-income earners. Loopholes let them 
do that.
  So we cut across all these loopholes with the so-called Buffett rule. 
They are supposed to pay 39.6 percent. The Buffett rule says: Ok, take 
all the loopholes you want, but you cannot go below 30 percent. We will 
let you take

[[Page 2045]]

off 9.6 percent of the rate the law says you are supposed to pay but 
you cannot go below 30 percent. You can't go to 11 percent. You cannot 
be paying lower than a brickmason pays. That is in our sequester 
replacement bill. It produces $71 billion.
  High-earning professionals can perform another trick. They can avoid 
paying Social Security and Medicare taxes simply by calling themselves 
corporations for tax purposes. You heard the Republican Presidential 
candidate say corporations are people. This is the flip side. These 
people are corporations. If you make enough money you can afford to 
turn yourself into a corporation to dodge paying your Social Security 
and your Medicare contributions. So the second item on my list closes 
that loophole too, which is another $9 billion.
  The next item on the list contributes $3 billion by ending special 
depreciation rules for private jets. Private jet owners can depreciate 
their aircraft faster, for tax purposes, than commercial aircraft. I am 
very happy for anybody who is successful enough to have a private jet. 
But that luxury need not be subsidized by taxpayers. Setting aside the 
need for this because of the sequester, this is a change that makes 
sense just on fairness grounds. It stands on its own and it is another 
$3 billion.
  The fourth provision in my bill would end tax breaks for big oil 
companies. Over the past decade the big five oil companies have 
collectively enjoyed over $1 trillion in profits--yes, trillion with a 
T. Repealing taxpayer giveaways to them is something we should be doing 
anyway. It is another $24 billion toward getting rid of the sequester.
  The final provision in my plan helps replace the sequester by ending 
a tax break that, unbelievably, rewards manufacturers that close up 
shop in the United States and move jobs to other countries. It does 
that by allowing those corporations to indefinitely delay paying taxes 
on profits from those foreign overseas operations. Ending the deferral 
loophole for companies that manufacture goods overseas for sale to 
American customers is something we should do anyway to support our 
domestic manufacturers. It adds almost $20 billion toward replacing the 
sequester cuts.
  Each one of these five provisions would make the Tax Code more fair 
for ordinary Americans. I love our chairman of Appropriations. She can 
speak to issues on the floor of the Senate like nobody else. When she 
said these are cushy, lobbyist-driven earmarks, she is dead right. They 
do not deserve to stand on their own. And we can get rid of some of the 
smelliest ones and spare ourselves the sequester and the loss of a 
million jobs at the same time? Gosh, I think we ought to be doing that.
  I strongly support Leader Reid's bill to replace the sequester cuts 
with a 50/50 mix of revenue and spending. But I also want to show we 
can avoid the sequester for the coming year by looking at the vast tax 
spending we do through loopholes and gimmicks in the Tax Code--usually 
for the benefit of powerful corporations, special interests, and very 
high-income individuals. When you set that against the economic harm 
the sequester is going to cause to our country, closing those loopholes 
should be a higher priority, on economic grounds and on grounds of 
fairness.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.


                         House Passage Of VAWA

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Pennsylvania for allowing me to go first. I assure him I will be very 
brief. I know the distinguished Senator from Washington State is here. 
She has an interest in what I am going to say because of her very 
strong support of the Violence Against Women bill.
  Earlier this month, the Senate came together in the best tradition of 
the chamber to pass the Leahy-Crapo Violence Against Women 
Reauthorization Act with a strong bipartisan vote. I am happy to report 
that the House of Representatives just passed the Senate-passed bill. 
This vital legislation will now go to the President, and it will be 
signed into law. It will help victims of rape and domestic violence and 
victims of human trafficking who could not wait another day for us to 
act. This action of Congress will prevent terrible crimes and help 
countless victims rebuild their lives.
  Today Congress showed that we still can act in a bipartisan way. I 
thank Senator Crapo for being my partner on this legislation from the 
beginning, and I was glad when he and Senator Murkowski, another 
steadfast supporter, joined me on a bipartisan letter earlier this week 
asking Speaker Boehner to pass this legislation to help all victims of 
domestic and sexual violence. Today, the House followed the Senate's 
example, and listened to the call from thousands of survivors of 
violence and law enforcement by passing this fully-inclusive, life-
saving legislation with a bipartisan vote.
  We made the Violence Against Women Act our top priority this Congress 
but it should not have taken this long. Our bill was written with the 
input of law enforcement, victims, and the people who work with victims 
every day to address real needs. None of the commonsense changes it 
included should have been controversial. Still, at a time when we face 
gridlock and stonewalling on even the most compelling issues, I am glad 
to see that we could find a way to cut through all of that to help 
victims of violence.
  This new law will make lives better. It will encourage and fund 
practices proven to help law enforcement and victim service providers 
reduce domestic violence homicides. It will lead to more investigation 
and prosecution of rape and sexual assault crimes and more services 
provided to victims of those crimes. It will also help eliminate 
backlogs of untested rape kits to help those victims receive justice 
and security promptly.
  This reauthorization, like every VAWA reauthorization before it, 
takes new steps to ensure that we can reach the most vulnerable victims 
whose needs are not being met. For the first time, it guarantees that 
all victims can receive needed services, regardless of sexual 
orientation or gender identity. This law strengthens protections for 
vulnerable immigrant victims. It ensures that colleges and universities 
will do more to protect students from domestic and sexual violence. 
This reauthorization also takes important new steps to combat the 
appalling epidemic of domestic violence on tribal lands and to ensure 
that no perpetrators of this terrible crime are above the law.
  The bill that the President will sign also includes the Trafficking 
Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which continues and strengthens 
effective programs to help us take on the scourge of human trafficking. 
It is unacceptable that 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 
the evils of sex trafficking and labor trafficking, forms of modern day 
slavery, still exist around the world and even in the United States. It 
has been too difficult, but I am glad that Congress is finally acting 
once again to address trafficking.
  I will never forget going as a young prosecutor to crime scenes at 
2:00 in the morning and seeing the victims of these awful crimes. As we 
worked on this bill, I heard the moving stories in hearings and rallies 
and meetings of those who survived true horrors and had the courage to 
share their stories in the hopes that others could be spared what they 
went through. We have finally come together to honor their courage and 
take the action they demanded.
  I thank the many Senators and Representatives of both parties who 
have helped to lead this fight, and the leadership of both Houses who 
have prioritized moving this vital legislation. I thank Representative 
Cole for his steadfast dedication to help preserve the protections for 
Native women. But most of all, I thank the tireless victims, advocates, 
and service providers who have given so much of themselves to ensure 
that this legislation would pass and that, when it did, it would make a 
real difference. Lives will be better because of their work and because 
of this law.

[[Page 2046]]

  I yield the floor and thank my colleagues.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I rise to address the issue of the 
sequestration and the Democratic and Republican alternatives. But I 
want to start by expressing how disappointed I am that we are having 
the debate in this fashion. This is certainly among the very most 
important issues we are grappling with--should be grappling with as a 
Senate, as a Congress, as a Federal Government. Getting ourselves on a 
sustainable fiscal path is as important as anything we can be doing. 
The sequestration is an important part of that, and unfortunately the 
majority party here does not want to have a full and open debate and 
will not permit multiple amendments from both sides.
  I don't know how many ideas there are on the Democratic side. I know 
there are at least three or four or five different ideas on the 
Republican side. Frankly, I think any sensible approach to this ought 
to have a full and open, robust debate and I am happy to vote on every 
one of them. I will vote against some, I will probably vote for others. 
But why in the world would we say there can only be two choices, one 
Democratic choice and one Republican choice? I have to say I am 
extremely disappointed that we have gotten to this point where we 
cannot have an open debate and amendments on a wide range of ideas, 
because the challenges require that kind of response. It is very 
disappointing that the majority party refuses to conduct that debate 
and appears unwilling to have those votes.
  Nevertheless, I have developed a bill, together with Senator Inhofe, 
which I think is a much more sensible way to achieve the savings we 
badly need. I will say unequivocally, we need to trim spending. We 
cannot continue spending at the rate we have been spending money. We 
cannot continue trillion dollar deficits. We have a $16 trillion debt. 
The massive deficits and the accumulated debt are today costing us jobs 
and holding back our economy, so we need to begin the process of 
getting spending under control. Frankly, the sequester barely starts 
that process.
  The President has been campaigning around the country, spreading this 
idea that somehow we are going to have a complete economic disaster and 
meltdown if this modest spending discipline goes ahead. We keep hearing 
about austerity. The question is, what austerity? Let me put a little 
context into what we are talking about here.
  First of all, over the last 12 years, the Federal Government has 
doubled in size. We spend 100 percent more now than we did a dozen 
years ago. After this huge run-up in the size of Federal spending, this 
sequester--if it goes into effect or its equivalent--would reduce 
spending by 2.3 percent. After growing by 100 percent, we cannot find 
2.3 percent? By the way, that is budget authority, which means 
permission to spend the actual amount that would be spent during this 
year would go down by about 1.2 percent. That is less than one-half of 
1 percent of our economy.
  Here is the other thing. This is how much austerity we are talking 
about: If the savings of the sequester go into effect, total spending 
by the government in 2013 will be greater than spending was in 2012. So 
let's just be clear about what is going on here. This is not nearly the 
amount of savings we need. This is merely one step in the right 
direction. While government has been growing, the economy has not. We 
have had all of this spending growth. We have had massive deficits. 
What have we gotten in return? The worst economic recovery from any 
recession since the Great Depression.
  We have an unemployment rate that is persistently unacceptably high. 
Eight percent is the official measure of unemployment, but when we take 
into account the people who have given up looking for work altogether, 
it is much higher than that. The fact is economic growth doesn't depend 
on a bloated government that is always growing.
  In fact, we will have stronger economic growth as soon as we begin to 
demonstrate that we can get on a sustainable fiscal path, as soon as we 
can start to take the threat of a fiscal collapse off the table by 
showing we can get spending under control. It is absolutely essential 
for the sake of our economy and job growth that we achieve the savings 
of this sequester.
  I am the first to acknowledge there are a couple of problems with the 
way this legislation goes about it, and that is the reason I introduced 
this legislation along with Senator Inhofe. The two big problems are, 
first, the savings hit our defense budget disproportionately. The 
defense budget is about 18 percent of total spending, but it is half of 
this whole sequester, and that is after we have already cut defense 
spending. I am very sympathetic to the concern that this imposes a real 
problem on our defense budget.
  The second problem is that the cuts are not very thoughtfully 
designed. There is no discretion or flexibility. The categories that 
are subject to the sequestration are spending cuts across the board. 
There are huge categories that are not subjected, such as the entire 
Social Security Program and many others that are not affected at all. 
But for those programs that are cut, there is no ability to discern 
which programs ought to be cut more or which ones ought to be cut less 
and which ones, perhaps, should not be cut at all.
  The bill Senator Inhofe and I have introduced and will be voting on 
today--at least the cloture motion--addresses both of these problems. 
It does require that we achieve the savings of the sequester--and that 
is very important--but it would allow the President flexibility in how 
it is achieved so we don't have these very ham-handed, poorly designed, 
across-the-board cuts.
  If the bill passes, the President will be able to go to his service 
chiefs on the defense side, he could go to his agency and department 
heads on the nondefense side and say: OK. Look, you have been used to 
budgets that keep growing and growing, and that is what has been 
happening. This year you are going to have to cut back a little bit. It 
will be a few pennies of every dollar. Look for the programs that are 
working least well or not at all. Look for areas where there is waste 
and inefficiency. Look for redundancies, and that is where we are going 
to trim a little bit, and we will hit these goals.
  That is what competent managers in any business would do. That is 
what families have to do, and that is what State and local governments 
have to do. That is what we need to do here, and that is what this bill 
would enable the President to do. He would have to find the areas where 
we can make the cuts without causing great disruption.
  This is not a blank check for the President. There are constraints on 
what the President could do under the legislation that Senator Inhofe 
and I are proposing. For instance, there could be no tax hike. We don't 
think we need still more tax increases after all the ones we have 
recently been through. The defense cuts could not be any greater than 
what is contemplated in the current sequestration. Under Senator 
Inhofe's approach and mine, they could be less. The President could 
choose to follow the advice of his senior military advisers and cut the 
defense budget a little bit less and shift this elsewhere.
  I am one who believes our defense budget should not be exempt from 
scrutiny, from spending discipline, and some cuts, but I think they 
ought to be done carefully and thoughtfully.
  The President would not be able to increase any amounts. This is not 
an exercise in just shifting money to another account. It is a question 
of where we can do the cuts most thoughtfully and sensibly. Any cuts in 
the defense budget would have to be consistent with the National 
Defense Authorization Act that has been passed. The President would 
have to achieve 100 percent of the savings; that is part of this. He 
could not use any gimmicks to do it. There would be no phony cuts in 
the future offset by promises for cuts at another time. There would be 
none of that. It would have to be straightforward and honest.
  Finally--and I think this is an important part--Congress would have a 
final say. When the President--under this approach if it were to pass 
and be signed into law--would be required to

[[Page 2047]]

propose an alternative series of cuts, and then Congress could vote to 
disapprove them if Congress chose to do that. Ultimately, Congress 
would still control that important element of the purse strings, but we 
would allow the President to find the most sensible way to do this.
  The President is saying he does not want this flexibility. That is 
kind of unbelievable to me. He is going around the country scaring the 
American people and threatening all kinds of disastrous things he says 
he will have to do. Then in the same breath he says: By the way, don't 
give me the flexibility to do something else. I don't understand that. 
It seems to me the obvious thing to do is to do these cuts in a way 
that would not be disruptive and would not do harm.
  Let me give one particular example: A good example is the FAA. If the 
sequester goes into effect on the FAA, the budget there will be cut by 
$670 million. That is from a total of just about $17 billion.
  The President and the Transportation Secretary have said if the 
sequester goes into effect, they are going to lay off air traffic 
controllers; they might have to shut down control towers; we will have 
long delays at airports with flights being canceled. All kinds of 
problems. It is interesting to note, if the sequester goes into effect, 
the amount of funding available to the FAA will still be more than what 
the President asked for in his budget.
  In his budget request was the President planning on laying off air 
traffic controllers and shutting down airports and control towers? I 
rather doubt it. So if we gave the President the flexibility just 
within the FAA budget, the President could adopt the kinds of savings 
that he proposed in his own budget and have enough money to pay all of 
the air traffic controllers and keep the airports running. The point is 
even within the FAA's budget, there would be no service disruptions 
whatsoever. They are not necessary.
  Our bill would give the President even more flexibility. He would be 
able to achieve savings in other areas. In other words, he would not 
have to hit a particular savings number for the FAA. He might find 
savings in other places. Let me suggest we have an unbelievably lengthy 
list of opportunities to reduce excessive and wasteful government 
spending. Instead of closing down air traffic control facilities or 
military bases or FBI offices, maybe what the President could do is cut 
back on Federal employee travel.
  We spend $1 billion a year for Federal employees to go on conferences 
and trips. Maybe we could cut back on the cell phone subsidies where we 
buy cell phones for people, costing $1.5 billion a year. We spend 
millions of dollars on an old-fashioned style trolley in St. Louis, 
millions on a sports diplomacy exchange program. We have 14,000 vacant 
and underutilized properties. We spend money for a cowboy poetry 
festival and $1 million for taste-testing foods to be served on Mars.
  I don't know about anybody else, but I think some of these are a 
little less important than keeping our air control system intact and 
safe. To me, it seems like common sense that we ought to give the 
President the discretion he needs to reduce the spending on the less 
vital things and continue to fund the important things.
  We don't have to only go after wasteful spending, we have an 
unbelievable number of redundancy in duplicate programs. I have just a 
few examples. We have 80 different economic development programs spread 
across the Federal Government. We have 94 different programs to 
encourage the construction of green buildings. We have 47 different job 
training programs.
  Doesn't it make sense if we are going to have some savings that we 
look to those programs that are not working so well? It cannot be that 
every program is equal. I guarantee that some of them are not working 
so well. I would like to think that the administration has metrics for 
performance and it knows which ones are performing better and which 
ones are not. We could concentrate the cuts on those that are not 
working or we could decide to consolidate this huge plethora of 
programs and save a lot of money and overhead in administrative and 
bureaucracy costs.
  There is just any number of ways to achieve savings. Senator Tom 
Coburn has made an enormous contribution to our Federal Government by 
providing exhaustive litanies of duplication, redundancies, waste, and 
excesses. In addition to what I have mentioned, that would be a very 
useful place to begin in terms of finding alternatives.
  I would simply say we have a simple choice here. This sequester is 
going into effect. Nobody here suggests they have the votes or they 
have a way to prevent it. So the question is, Are we going to achieve 
these savings through badly designed spending cuts that make no attempt 
whatsoever to distinguish between more sensible government spending and 
less sensible government spending or will we adopt this bill that 
Senator Inhofe and I have introduced which will give the President the 
flexibility to cut where the cuts would not be painful, where there is 
waste, and where there are excesses? We are talking about what will 
amount in actual outlays to a little over 1 percent of the total 
government spending. This is a government that has doubled in size in 
the last 12 years.
  The people in Pennsylvania who I represent don't believe that every 
dollar of government spending is spent wisely and prudently and is 
necessary. They know that there is a lot of waste.
  This is all about the next 6 months. As we know, the $1.2 trillion in 
savings in subsequent years is achieved by statutory spending caps. In 
those years the savings will be figured out by the Appropriations 
Committee, which is where this should be happening. I wish we had taken 
up an appropriations bill over this last year, but we didn't. At least 
given the reality that we face, we have an opportunity to avoid the 
kind of calamity and disaster that is being threatened and is 
completely unnecessary.
  I hope we will do the commonsense thing and adopt a bill that will 
give the President the flexibility he needs to make these cuts in a 
rational and sensible fashion. We need to achieve the savings for the 
sake of economic growth and job creation. This is no time to trade 
higher taxes for more spending, as my Democratic colleagues would 
prefer. This is a time to make sensible cuts in spending. We can do 
that, and I urge adoption of the measure that Senator Inhofe and I have 
proposed.
  I yield back the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, in the last 2 weeks we have learned 
more and more what the across-the-board cuts for sequestration really 
mean for our families and our communities that we all represent. We 
have heard of workers who are on pins and needles about getting a 
layoff notice. We have heard from businesses that are expecting fewer 
customers. We heard from school superintendents wondering how they are 
going to absorb deeper cuts on the budgets that are already extremely 
tight.
  After 2 years of watching our economy lurch from crisis to crisis, I 
think we can all agree the American people have dealt with more than 
enough of this. That is why I am here today urging our colleagues to 
support the American Family Economic Protection Act which will replace 
the automatic cuts from sequestration in a responsible and a fair way.
  Our legislation builds on the precedent that was set in the year-end 
deal, and it is in line with the balanced approach that the American 
people favor. It would replace the first year of the sequestration with 
equal amounts of responsible spending cuts and revenue from the 
wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations. Half of the deficit 
reduction would come from responsible cuts evenly divided between 
domestic and defense spending.
  As the drawdown from Afghanistan is completed, our bill will make 
targeted reductions in an overall defense budget which will be phased 
in responsibly as the drawdown from Afghanistan is completed and are in 
line with the strong military strategy for the 21st century.

[[Page 2048]]

  Our bill would eliminate the direct payments to farmers that have 
been paid out even during good times for crops that are not grown. 
Those are the kinds of cuts we can and should make, because responsibly 
tackling our debt and deficit is crucial to our country's long-term 
strength and prosperity.
  But to do this in a way that puts American families and our economy 
first, we are all going to have to do our fair share, and middle-class 
families and seniors and the most vulnerable Americans shouldn't be 
asked to share the whole burden alone.
  Our bill would replace half the sequestration with new revenues from 
the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations. It calls on the 
wealthiest Americans to pay at least the same marginal tax rate on 
their income as our middle-class families pay. It will help reduce the 
deficit by eliminating a tax break that encourages companies to ship 
jobs overseas and by getting rid of a special tax loophole for oil 
companies. At a time when there are so many American families 
struggling just to get their kids off to college or to pay their 
mortgage or to put food on the table, it only seems fair to ask those 
who can afford it the most to contribute to this national challenge as 
well.
  My Republican colleagues will say the year-end deal closed the door 
on revenue. Most of them seem to think that closing loopholes for the 
richest Americans is too high a price to pay--even to replace the 
serious cuts to defense that are going into effect. Instead, they say 
all we need is more spending cuts.
  But that is not how the American people see it. More than a month 
after the year-end deal, 76 percent of Americans--and, by the way, 56 
percent of Republicans--favored a combination of spending cuts and 
revenue increases to reduce our deficit.
  We also know the American people want an end to the cycle of looming 
deadlines and uncertainty and political posturing we are seeing here in 
Washington, DC. They have spent enough time wondering if infighting in 
Congress will affect their paycheck or the businesses they have worked 
hard to rebuild or the future they want for their children. I think we 
can all agree our constituents deserve a solution and some certainty.
  So our legislation meets Republicans halfway. It reflects the 
balanced approach the majority of the American public wants. It 
protects families and communities we represent from slower economic 
growth and fewer jobs and a weakened national defense. And it allows us 
to move past this sequestration debate toward a fair, comprehensive 
budget deal that provides certainty for American families and 
businesses.
  While the Democrats have taken a balanced and responsible approach in 
our sequestration replacement bill, Republicans have gone in a very 
different direction. They seem to be more focused today on trying to 
make sure President Obama gets the blame for these cuts than actually 
trying to stop them. We have all been hearing from our constituents. 
They want us to come together to solve this problem. They want to see 
compromise. They want to see a balanced replacement. But the Republican 
Inhofe-Toomey bill fails to meet these expectations. It does not solve 
the problem. It doesn't stop sequestration. It is not a compromise. I 
urge all of our colleagues to oppose it.
  The Republican Inhofe-Toomey bill would keep in place the massive 
cuts to both domestic and defense spending. It wouldn't replace them; 
it would lock them in. Instead of making the tough decisions required 
to replace those cuts with responsible deficit reduction the way our 
bill does, the Republican bill simply hands the problem off to the 
President. Instead of taking a balanced approach--the approach that is 
favored by the vast majority of the American people--the Republican 
bill would protect the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations 
from paying even a penny more in taxes to help us solve this, while 
pushing the entire burden of deficit reduction onto the backs of our 
families and our communities and national defense programs. Their bill 
would protect defense spending from cuts, open up nondefense spending 
to more cuts, and specifically prohibit raising revenue to replace the 
cuts.
  One of my Republican colleagues who is very concerned about the cuts 
to defense spending that would be locked in by this Republican bill 
called this approach ``a complete cop-out.'' That same Republican said 
if something such as this were to pass, Republicans would be forcing 
President Obama to make impossible choices and then ``every decision 
he'll make, we'll criticize.''
  Another Republican opposed this approach as well, saying, ``I believe 
the appropriations process belongs in the legislative branch.'' That is 
us.
  The Republican bill will be devastating to our economy. The 
Congressional Budget Office has estimated that sequestration would 
cause 750,000 workers to lose their jobs by the end of this year. They 
estimate the economy would shrink by six-tenths of a percent by the end 
of the year. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday that 
rearranging these cuts would not have any substantial impact on the 
near-term economic picture.
  Republicans have spent months talking about how they would not raise 
taxes on the rich and that we need a cut-only approach. But now they 
can't even agree on a bill that names a single cut. They want the 
President to do it. Leader Reid and Leader McConnell agreed to have 
these votes we are having today over 2 weeks ago, and it took the 
Republicans until last night to decide what they were even going to 
bring to the table. After all that time, they decided to play political 
games and not make any of the tough choices.
  Tackling our debt and deficit responsibly is a serious issue, so I 
hope Republicans get serious. I hope they will listen to their 
constituents, come back to the table, and work with us on a responsible 
replacement to these automatic cuts that are scheduled to begin 
tomorrow.
  I urge my colleagues to support our approach, the American Family 
Economic Protection Act, and to oppose the Toomey-Inhofe bill.


                                  Vawa

  Before I yield the floor, I wish to say that I am very pleased the 
House of Representatives just took up and passed the long delayed, very 
hard-won, and badly needed victory for millions of women in this 
country, the Violence Against Women Act that was just passed. That 
means that after over 16 months of struggle, tribal women in this 
country, the LGBT community, immigrants, and women on colleges campuses 
will now have the tools and resources this life-saving bill provides.
  The passage of VAWA today is validation of what we all have been 
saying on this side, and I am proud of the Senate for its bipartisan 
work. I see Senator Crapo here today, and I thank him for his 
leadership on this critical issue.
  I have heard from so many women throughout this months-long battle, 
and I especially want to mention one woman today: Deborah Parker, a 
member of the Tulalip Tribe from my home State who happened to be here 
the day many months ago when Congress wanted to dump the tribal 
provisions in order to move the bill. She stood up with all the courage 
she could muster and told the story she had never told before about the 
abuse she had suffered while she was a very young girl and watching the 
same person who abused her abuse other tribal members because she had 
nowhere to go for recourse.
  Today, that changes, for Deborah Parker and for thousands and 
thousands of other tribal members and other women and men in this 
country. I am very proud of the bipartisan work and I am very excited 
that this President is going to sign this bill into law and pass 
something that is going to make a difference in the lives of many 
Americans.
  Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Madam President, as I look at my watch, the clock is 
ticking toward midnight. Midnight becomes March 1, and that is the 
point at which

[[Page 2049]]

the sequester kicks in, which is the across-the-board cuts--hardly 
massive when this year it will be about 1.2 percent of our total 
outlays this year. So, I am not sure how the word ``massive'' can be 
used with any credibility; but, nevertheless, this is going to happen.
  Republicans have proposed a way to address the President's concerns--
the very concerns that have been stated on this floor--including the 
concern that across-the-board cuts is no way to govern because it 
doesn't separate the essential from the nonessential. I think we as 
Republicans couldn't agree more. It is not the best way to govern, 
because it treats everything on an equal basis and basically says that 
every Federal program, no matter what its performance over the years, 
doesn't deserve a look at how to adjust it for its lack or strength of 
performance. It doesn't separate what the essential functions of the 
Federal Government are from the ``this is what we would like to do but 
can't afford to do right now.'' So, to say that this government and the 
out-of-control spending that has occurred over these last several years 
is totally functional and that every penny we have spent is wisely 
spent and has been done in the interests of the taxpayer and protecting 
their hard-earned dollars, and that the money we are extracting from 
them through ever-increasing taxes--some of which happened less than 2 
months ago on every American; every American's paycheck was reduced. It 
is not just the millionaires and billionaires who took the hit, because 
$620 billion over 10 years of money comes out of Americans' paychecks. 
So, for someone to say that what we are doing is massive when this year 
it amounts to a 1.2-percent cut in total spending, when virtually every 
business in America, every family in America has had to tighten its 
belt, given the recession and the slow economic growth, when we 
continue to have 23 million unemployed or underemployed people in this 
country, and then to simply say we don't have a spending problem, as 
the President famously said, defies common sense.
  We don't need fancy explanations or fancy words such as ``sequester'' 
for the American people to understand what is happening here. They see 
their States having to tighten their belt. They see the companies they 
work for having to tighten their belt. And, as families, they see 
themselves having to cut back on some of their spending or some of 
their future plans because they no longer can afford to do it. The only 
entity they see in the United States not addressing a fiscal imbalance 
is the U.S. Government.
  In an attempt to deal with this a year and a half ago, Congress 
passed the so-called sequester. The sequester was a fallback in case we 
weren't able to come to grips with the problem we have and reach an 
accommodation, an agreement, on how to address it in the best way 
possible. This was the fail-safe. And all the attempts, starting with 
the President's own commission, which he rejected, and then the Gang of 
Six proposals, and then the supercommittee of 12, all of the efforts, 
many of them on a bipartisan basis, for whatever reason did not 
succeed. So, what was put in place to drive a solution, didn't drive a 
solution, and as a result, here we are with a sequester. But, to say 
the sequester cutting, this year, 1.2 percent from total spending, is 
going to make the sky fall and cause a total economic meltdown and keep 
people from getting on their planes and keep us from ordering meat 
because meat inspectors can't go to the meat processing plants to 
certify the quality of the meat, and all of the things the President is 
out campaigning for, for his own program--it was the President's idea. 
Maybe it was his staff, but he certainly had to agree to it. It was 
proposed by the President and now he is out campaigning against it. In 
fact, it wasn't that long ago when he said if it didn't go into effect, 
he would veto it. So there has been a real change here, and I won't go 
into the motivation for all of that.
  There is also talk about balance. Balance is a code word for new 
taxes and for more taxes. It has been said over the past couple of 
years, during the campaign and leading all the way up to the fiscal 
cliff vote, that Republicans would refuse to give in on any kind of tax 
increase, even if it was on millionaires and billionaires. In the end 
the President won that battle and Republicans supported it. Even though 
we did not believe that was the best way to go forward to get our 
economy to grow and to provide the kind of economic growth we are all 
looking for, we supported that. Now, we here we are just two months 
later with the same tired phrase that Republicans won't take 1 penny 
from the rich when they just took $620 billion from the rich; 
therefore, what we need are more taxes on the American people to 
achieve balance.
  It seems the White House has an obsession with solving this problem 
through increasing taxes and not wanting to make the hard decisions to 
cut even 1.2 percent of our total budget--2.4 in succeeding years. To 
say we cannot, through our oversight responsibility, find 2.4 percent, 
and this year 1.2 percent, of waste, of corruption, of misuse of 
programs that no longer are viable--maybe they were well-intended in 
the past but they certainly have not proven themselves worthy of asking 
taxpayers to keep sending their hard-earned money to Washington in 
order to cover that spending--when Senator Coburn, Senator Toomey, when 
many of us--I have been standing here every day in virtually every 
session basically saying, just through waste and ineffective programs 
we can easily come up with this amount of money. Everyone else in 
America has had to do it. Why can't we?
  The charge we have heard over and over is that this is such a 
terrible way to address it that we need the flexibility so these 
agencies can move the money around and take the money from the 
nonessential programs to keep the security at the airports with the FAA 
and the air traffic controllers and also keep the meat inspectors and 
the others who are essential.
  In order to keep them from having to take the hit, we came up with 
the idea--Senator Toomey and Senator Inhofe--that gives the executive 
branch the flexibility. That is what they have been asking for all 
these years. If we have to have the sequester, just do not do it across 
the board because it forces us to do things we do not want to do. But 
if we had the flexibility--if you could give us the flexibility--then 
we could move the money within the accounts and we would still reach 
the same amount of cuts--the 1.2 percent of this year's budget--but we 
would have the flexibility to not have to scare people or keep people 
waiting in lines at airports for 4 hours and do all the things, all the 
doomsday scenarios that have been proposed by the President and his 
Cabinet members.
  We bring that forward and then suddenly there is a 180-degree 
reversal on the other side, which basically says: No, no, no. We do not 
want flexibility. That is not the way to do it. Well, what do you want? 
Yesterday you wanted flexibility. Today we gave it to you, and today 
you are saying: No, we do not want that. It sounds like what they want 
is only a solution to this problem if there is a big increase in taxes.
  This word ``balance,'' which I say, is a code word for taxes. I just 
came from the Joint Economic Committee where a very respected 
economist, Michael Boskin, said: Balance is not 50-50 if you want 
economic growth because every dollar you raise in taxes is a hindrance 
to economic growth. He said: I am not saying there should not be 
increases in taxes. But the ratio should be ``5 or 6 to 1.'' If you 
want to position this country for growth, you need about five to six 
times the amount of spending cuts as taxes increased.
  So balance--50-50--according to a very respected economist and many 
others--I do not know of anybody who said raising taxes encourages 
growth because it takes money out of the private sector and gives it to 
the public sector. But rather than get into that argument today, what 
the President defines as balance is simply evermore taxes to solve our 
problem, when we know that after 4 years of effort here that has not 
worked, and it will not work.

[[Page 2050]]


  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Indiana yield for a 
unanimous consent request? I will yield the floor right back.
  Mr. COATS. I am happy to do that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding the motion to proceed currently pending, at 2:30 p.m. 
the Senate resume the motion to proceed to S. 16 and the Senate proceed 
to the cloture votes on the motions to proceed as provided under the 
previous order, with the time until 2:30 p.m. equally divided between 
the two leaders or their designees; further, all other provisions of 
the previous order remain in effect.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for yielding.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am going to wrap up because my colleagues 
want to speak also.
  But, let me say this: I have been saying from this platform, and I 
have been saying from everywhere people will listen that we need to 
move to a solution to the problem. The solution to the problem 
involves, I believe, three or four essential elements, and I think 
there is widespread consensus on this among liberals, conservatives, 
Democrats, Republicans, economists, and others. Unless we address that 
which is growing out of control--which is our mandatory spending--no 
matter what we do on the spending level and no matter what else we do, 
we are not going to solve this problem and we are going to keep 
careening from short-term fix, short-term measure to the next one, from 
fiscal cliff to fiscal cliff.
  Already, we have another cliff which people have not paid much 
attention to at the end of this month, where we have to fund the 
government for the rest of the year. That will be another drama, soap 
opera, played out before the American people. In May, we hit the debt 
limit.
  None of this is necessary. None of this had to happen if we had taken 
the steps we knew we needed to take that were presented in the Simpson-
Bowles presentation to the President years ago and, unfortunately, 
rejected that and basically said we are headed for catastrophe, we are 
headed for insolvency because this mandatory spending is growing out of 
control and the amount of discretionary spending we have which we can 
control is ever shrinking.
  Yes, we need to sort out the fat, the duplication. My colleagues and 
I have been laying out things that I do think any American who looks at 
it carefully would say: Of course we do not need that, of course that 
is not an essential function of the Federal Government. It has had a 
miserable performance as a program. Why do we keep throwing money at 
it, particularly at a time of austerity when so many people are out of 
work.
  Yes, we need to do that. But that needs to be coupled with what I 
think there is almost full agreement on: The need for comprehensive tax 
reform. That is where closing the loopholes, which Republicans are 
willing to do in order to lower the rates, to make us more competitive 
and make our Tax Code much simpler and much fairer--that needs to 
happen. Of course, it cannot happen if we take closing loophole money 
and use it for spending, which is what the President wants to do 
instead of using it to make our code simpler, fairer, and make us more 
competitive around the world and to promote growth.
  That is a proven process. Unless we put that together with some 
regulatory reform--but most important of all and most essential of all 
is to address the runaway mandatory spending, which if not addressed 
will undermine the sanctity and the solvency of entitlement programs 
such as Social Security and Medicare. The trustees--do not trust a 
Republican conservative saying this--the trustees of the programs have 
said: ``You have to deal with this, and the longer you put it off, the 
tougher it is and the more painful it will be.''
  This morning, again, Dr. Boskin and even Dr. Goolsbee--the 
President's former Economic Council head--said you have to do this, you 
have to take it on. You are taking it on to, one, save the programs, 
two, save the country from bankruptcy, and, three, give us the 
opportunity to have funds to pay for the essential functions of 
government.
  We are not against government. We want it to be leaner, more 
efficient, more effective. My State has taken measures that quintuple 
what is being talked about here. We ended up achieving a surplus. We 
have a AAA bond rating. We have made our State government the most 
efficient, effective government with taxpayer dollars of any State in 
the country.
  It can be done, and it can be done here. But what we have that is 
different from what our States have is the fact that mandatory 
spending--that spending which we have no control over--is eating our 
lunch. Until we step up and deal with it, we are not going to solve 
this problem; we are going to keep careening from crisis to crisis.
  The real issue is--at this point, with the sequester going in place--
can we step up and sensibly adjust it through flexibility in terms of 
how we reach that goal? Can we summon the will and the political 
courage to do what we all, I believe, know we need to do; that is, 
simply to do what is right for the future of America--America's 
interests not our own political interests?
  Finally, in my opinion, that cannot be done, despite all the time, 
all the efforts made, many on a bipartisan basis--Simpson-Bowles was 
bipartisan, the Gang of 6 was bipartisan, the Committee of 12 was 
bipartisan. It is not true we are at a standoff in terms of how to go 
forward. What we have not had is leadership from the White House. 
Something of this magnitude cannot be done without Presidential 
leadership, and the President has refused to do anything other than 
plead on a campaign basis for yet evermore taxes, which he calls 
balance.
  So that is our challenge.
  We need you, Mr. President, to lead the way. We will work together 
with you in putting together a package which achieves the right ratio. 
We will work together to do what is right for the future of America and 
not what is right for our political future this year or next.
  I guess we are pleading with the President. Similar to Presidents of 
the past--Ronald Reagan, a Republican, and Bill Clinton, a Democrat, 
took on the toughest issues and together we worked for the benefit of 
our people and for the future of this country and we made enormous 
strides in that regard. But it would not have happened had the 
President not become engaged. At this point, the only engagement the 
President has made is to call for higher taxes and go out and campaign 
against those of us who are trying to sincerely address this problem.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.


                       Violence Against Women Act

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to 
applaud the passage by the House, just a little while ago, of the 
Violence Against Women Act.
  I wish to also congratulate my colleagues, Senator Leahy, my neighbor 
from Vermont, and Senator Crapo, who is on the floor today, for their 
leadership in getting this legislation passed so early in this session 
and for helping to see that it got shepherded through the House where 
it had been so challenging.
  This is legislation that treats all victims equally regardless of 
whether they are Native Americans, whether they are members of the LGBT 
community, whether they are immigrants. It supports law enforcement by 
providing critical funding for police officers and prosecutors so they 
can hold abusers responsible. It supports crisis centers for women and 
families, to provide for immediate needs such as shelter and 
counseling.
  On behalf of the thousands of women and families in New Hampshire who 
will benefit because of this reauthorization, I wish to thank all the 
268 Members of the House who voted for it and all the people in the 
Senate where it had such a broad bipartisan majority.

[[Page 2051]]

  Again, I thank my colleagues, Senators Leahy and Crapo, for the 
leadership they provided in getting this done.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I too want to stand to congratulate the 
House for their passage of the Violence Against Women Act. I thank the 
Senator from New Hampshire for her kind remarks.
  I am honored to have worked on this bill with Senator Leahy and my 
other colleagues in the Senate. Senator Leahy and I have worked 
together for years on issues of domestic violence and stalking, and 
this is one of the key endeavors we needed to get across the finish 
line. Now we see that we will, and we will send this important 
legislation to the President.
  I would also like to commend the advocates across the Nation and 
specifically the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence 
who have worked tirelessly on this issue.
  As a longtime champion of the prevention of domestic violence, I am 
glad to see there are areas in Congress where we can come together to 
support these important causes.
  This act provides critical services to victims of violent crime as 
well as agencies and organizations that provide important aid to those 
individuals. For nearly two decades, the Violence Against Women Act has 
been the centerpiece of our Nation's commitment to ending domestic 
violence, dating violence, and sexual violence. This legislation 
provides access to legal and social services for survivors. It provides 
training to law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, attorneys, and 
advocates to address these crimes in our Nation's communities. It 
provides intervention for those who have witnessed abuse and are more 
likely to be involved in this type of violence. It provides shelter and 
resources for victims who have nowhere else to turn.
  There is significant evidence that these programs are working not 
just in Idaho but nationwide. The U.S. Department of Justice reported 
that the number of women killed by an intimate partner decreased by 35 
percent between 1993 and 2008. In 2012 it was reported that in 1 day 
alone, 688 women and their children impacted by violence sought safety 
in an emergency shelter or received counseling, legal advocacy, and 
children's support.
  These important provisions are making a difference in the lives of 
people across this Nation. I again wish to commend all of my colleagues 
who supported this legislation and helped to move this critical piece 
of legislation to the President's desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the vote we are 
going to have today at 2:30 regarding sequestration, and I wish to 
strongly support the notion of giving the executive branch the 
flexibility it needs over the next 7 months to work through this 
situation in a more graceful way.
  To put this in perspective for the American people, we are going to 
spend $47 trillion of your money over this next decade. It was 
incumbent upon a bipartisan group about a year ago to try to come up 
with about $1.2 trillion in savings over that 10-year period. Believe 
it or not, that didn't happen. The sequestration was a method to ensure 
that at least there was some reduction in the growth of spending. I do 
want to say that there have been a lot of discussions about reductions 
in spending.
  The overall effect of sequester over this 10-year period is not to 
reduce any spending but to slow the growth of spending over the next 10 
years. We are one of the few entities in the world that don't budget 
off of last year's spending. It is not like your city, your county, 
your State government, your household, or your business. We budget off 
of projections and growth.
  The task a year or so ago was for six Republicans and six Democrats 
to come up with $1.2 trillion. It is beyond belief that this did not 
occur. The sequester was put in place as a mechanism to ensure that 
there at least was some slowing of growth. The first 7 months of the 
sequester is the most ham-handed portion of it. It is cut at the PPA 
level. It is across the board and focused on two important categories. 
I agree that it is ham-handed, and the only thing worse than 
sequestration, in my opinion, would be kicking the can down the road on 
some much needed fiscal discipline here in Washington.
  I hope what we will do today is get behind a very thoughtful proposal 
that would say: Look, we are still going to reduce spending by this 
amount, but we are going to give the executive branch, because this 
first 7 months is handled so differently that what happens after that--
by the way, appropriators live within a top-line number, but they are 
able to weigh in on how that money should be spent, again, in two more 
specific categories than just the overall budget. So it is just this 
first 7 months.
  I was at home last week in Tennessee and spoke with diverse groups of 
citizens.
  Democrats thanked me for being willing to give some flexibility to 
the President to work through this.
  Businesses obviously held this as incredibly intelligent. They need 
to deal with these kinds of issues right now. Many of them over the 
last several years have had to do the same kind of thing. Obviously, to 
them, it is very intelligent to give the executive branch a degree of 
flexibility where they have some transfer authority to work through 
this in a more graceful way.
  Republicans thanked me because it was a way for us to at least begin 
turning the curve in a different direction and certainly still having 
the cuts that are necessary in growth, I might add, not in real 
spending. That is where we are.
  We have a proposal, the Toomey-Inhofe proposal, which gives the 
executive branch the flexibility to work through this. It is my 
understanding they don't want that flexibility. I can't imagine being 
President of the United States and having something that I thought was 
a little bit ham-handed and having Congress say: Look, we will candidly 
defer to you to make some transfers.
  I have spoken with some of the folks in our security apparatus in 
this Nation. They said this to me: Corker, look, we understand we are 
going to have some reductions, but if you would just give us some 
flexibility, we could work through this gracefully. We could live 
within these constraints.
  Speaking of these constraints, I want to say that there is a number 
that has been thrown out of $85 billion over the next 7 months. Again, 
know that this is Washington's language. We are really only talking 
about half that in real expected outlays. We have budgeted amounts and 
then we have outlays. We do things very differently than do most people 
back home. This is not nearly the amount of reduction people are 
talking about as far as real money flowing out.
  I strongly support the Toomey proposal, the Inhofe proposal. I hope 
others will join in and at least move to debate this issue. I have a 
sense that is not going to be the case today. Maybe next week when some 
things happen, some others will be open to doing this.
  I can't imagine why anybody in this body, if they think draconian 
things are happening in a specific area and some judgment could be used 
to really alleviate that, I can't imagine why anybody in this body 
would not want to give administrators of these various agencies the 
ability to have some degree of transfer authority to make it work 
better. I don't imagine there is a business in our country, whether it 
is a one-man shop or a large corporation, that wouldn't want that 
flexibility. I can't imagine a Democrat or a Republican really thinking 
it is a bad idea to give the administration the ability to be more 
graceful in dealing with this.
  Today it looks as though we might have a partisan vote. It is a 
shame.
  Again, this is ham-handed. We can make it work better. Hopefully, on 
March 27, if we continue on this course until that time--obviously, to 
me, the only thing worse than this ham-handed approach is not enacting 
the $1.2 trillion in cuts. This needs to happen, in my opinion.
  Maybe on March 27 when the appropriators come forth with a continuing

[[Page 2052]]

resolution, they will have shifted this around to a degree that we end 
up with the same amount of spending reductions. This is the way regular 
order should work here, the way the Senate should work, the way the 
House should work. It is not that far down the road.
  As a matter of fact, I am understanding that if the Appropriations 
Committee wanted to, they could pass out an omnibus--not a CR but an 
omnibus--that has already gone through the checks. I think the two 
staffs have been working; I am talking about at the House and the 
Senate. It is my understanding that they could pass something out in a 
week. I think maybe there are going to be some discussions about this 
later in the majority leader's office. Hopefully, he will give the 
green light to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee to move 
ahead with something like this, which would be very sensible, in my 
opinion. I think most people around here would love to see something 
actually happen under regular order.
  These reductions are necessary, in my opinion, to get our fiscal 
house in order. Much more needs to be done beyond this $1.2 trillion--
much, much more. I don't think there is anybody who doesn't believe 
that deficit reduction greater than $1.2 trillion needs to occur. Right 
now we are focused on the cuts side. We focused on the income side at 
the end of the year.
  As we move ahead and are able to deal with these issues under regular 
order, where committees have looked at the impact, this is the best way 
to go forward.
  Again, sequester will kick in tomorrow. I think we all understand 
that. There is a better approach. There is a bill that would allow the 
executive branch to have the flexibility it needs to work through this 
in a way that is least harmful to the American people, and if that 
doesn't work, another step with a continuing resolution in 3 or 4 
weeks--there is another way of hitting this in an intelligent way.
  I hope we have the opportunity to work this out in a way that is 
better for the American people. At the same time, I hope we will not 
back away at all from at least $1.2 trillion in spending reductions. I 
wish we would move later this year into real tax reform, which is 
really where all the money is.
  To the American people, the reason we are moving to sequester and the 
reason we are cutting discretionary spending is we don't have the 
courage in the Senate to deal with entitlements. When the word 
``entitlement'' comes up, everybody runs for the hills. They know where 
the money is--62 percent of our spending, which in 10 years, combined 
with interest, will be 90 percent of our spending.
  The reason we are here today is this body has not come to terms with 
the fact that we need to reform entitlements for them to be here for 
future generations and certainly people who are getting ready to 
retire.
  This situation is a shame, and so we are going through this pain 
again due to a lack of courage in the Senate to address the real issues 
of the day. That is a shame, and what you are going to see playing out 
is solely because of that.
  I have a bill which would deal with that. Lamar Alexander, my 
colleague from Tennessee, is a cosponsor. It was based on Bowles-
Simpson, Domenici-Rivlin--bipartisan concepts.
  For some reason, when it comes to dealing with the real issues of 
America, this body runs for the hills. Hopefully, soon we will be 
brought back together and we will deal with this in a mature way, deal 
with the real issues our Nation is dealing with, solve them, put it in 
the rearview mirror, and all of us will come together and focus on 
those things that would make our country stronger.
  I ask unanimous consent that all quorum calls before the votes at 
2:30 p.m. today be equally divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORKER. 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. SESSIONS. 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. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we have heard a lot of discussions 
recently about the author Bob Woodward and his comments about spending 
and the sequester. It is important for us to understand this. This is 
not an easy matter. We have a lot of confusion, I think, as to what has 
been happening in the Senate. So from my perspective, as ranking member 
on the Budget Committee, I wish for all of us to understand the issue 
that is at stake.
  Here is what Bob Woodward said in his Washington Post Op-Ed earlier 
this week:

       So when the President asked that a substitute for the 
     sequester include not just spending cuts but also new 
     revenue, he's moving the goalpost.

  And when the President talks of spending cuts, he's referring to some 
other spending cuts somewhere in the government so that they do not 
fall so hard on defense, for example.
  But Bob Woodward goes on to say--referring to the President's request 
for a substitute--that was not the deal he made.
  So we need to all remember what happened was that in August of 2011, 
after the American people were aroused and spoke strongly in the 2010 
election, the debt ceiling was reached. We couldn't borrow any more 
money. Since we are borrowing almost 40 cents out of every dollar, it 
amounted to a 40-percent cut in spending, had we not raised the debt 
ceiling. So it was important to raise the debt ceiling, but it was also 
important to do something about the surging debt. So a bipartisan 
agreement was reached, and the agreement essentially said we will 
reduce spending $2.1 trillion, and we will raise the debt ceiling $2.1 
trillion.
  The good news, for those who wanted to keep spending, was that we 
spread the spending cuts over 10 years. But we have already reached the 
debt ceiling again. We have already spent $2 trillion more than we took 
in. We have to deal with that again very soon.
  I would like to say this to my colleagues: That agreement called for 
no tax increases; it called for a modest reduction in the growth of 
spending. Instead of going up $10 trillion, it would go up $8 trillion. 
Instead of adding $9 trillion to the debt of the United States, we 
would add $7 trillion to the debt of America by simply constraining the 
rate of growth in spending. It was not cutting spending. Except the way 
the sequester part of that agreement was reached, the cuts fell 
disproportionately on defense and maybe a few other programs. And over 
10 years, defense would take a real cut. This isn't war costs. This is 
a fundamental problem.
  What I would say to my colleagues is this: Please don't come in and 
say, there are loopholes we can close or we can tax the rich more here 
and we can do this, that, and the other in order to bring in more 
revenue and to spend more. You see? But we agreed to a new baseline in 
spending. It passed the House and the Senate and the President signed 
it into law. He agreed to it. And he was the one who insisted on the 
sequester, even though he has denied it since. He got that, he and his 
budget director, Mr. Lew, whom he just promoted to Secretary of the 
Treasury. So he agreed to that. And closing loopholes is simply a tax 
increase, of course.
  So if we agree at some point to close loopholes, it ought to be part 
of tax reform and it ought to be part of reducing the deficit, not 
funding new spending. Because, you see, we have agreed to this new 
baseline. When the President says don't do the sequester, the sequester 
amounts to $1.1 trillion out of the $2.1 trillion in reduced spending. 
So he is talking about increasing spending over the amount he just 
agreed to 19 months ago. He is talking about increasing spending at a 
time this Nation has never faced a more serious systemic financial debt 
crisis. And his excuse is that we will close loopholes.
  But you see, reducing the amount of new debt we incur over 10 years 
from $9 trillion in to $7 trillion is not enough.

[[Page 2053]]

The budget commission, experts, everybody knows--ask anyone in this 
Senate, liberals and conservatives, and I don't think a single one 
would say that increasing the debt by $7 trillion over 10 years is 
good. Our current debt is $16 trillion. This is not a healthy trend.
  We know we can't give away the cuts we just agreed to. What would we 
tell the American people? We already told them: We know you are unhappy 
that we are raising the debt ceiling, we know you are mad at us for 
putting the country in this situation, but we are going to cut 
spending, trust us. Trust us. And then here we waltz in, less than 2 
years later, with the President saying that we cannot cut as much as we 
promised, as agreed to and signed into law. He says that is too much. 
He tells us that he is not going to help us find a smarter, more 
effective way to do the cuts.
  I don't think that is good policy. What I urge my colleagues to do, 
and I believe it is the right thing, is to make the decision--and we 
have no choice but to make it--that we are not going to give up the 
little bit of spending cuts we achieved in 2011, which are not spending 
cuts but a small reduction in growth in spending. We should advise the 
President that we stand ready--and I am confident I can speak for the 
Republicans in this Chamber that we stand ready--to try and spread 
those cuts out in a way that is smarter and is less painful, because 
everybody should tighten their belt to help get this country on a sound 
path. We are willing to do that, but we should state we are not willing 
to allow the President to breach his agreement--as Mr. Woodward said, 
the deal he made--that he signed, that is in law and that has created a 
new spending baseline. We should not give up on that 19 months after we 
agreed to it. What a mockery that makes of the integrity of our 
government and the commitment to fiscal responsibility.
  Let's work together on this. We had a big tax increase in January and 
a spending agreement in August of 2011. So now let's get on with it and 
operate in the world we are in. I don't believe we will avoid the 
sequester by raising taxes and increasing spending over the level to 
which we agreed. It won't happen. So we might as well get serious and 
figure out a way to help make this work in a more rational way.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today, as we debate proposals for avoiding 
the so-called sequester, we find ourselves in a uniquely awkward 
position. Not only is there general disagreement about what brought us 
here, who is responsible, who is to blame, et cetera, but we also 
disagree about where ``here'' is to begin with.
  President Obama has been touring the country giving speeches 
describing just how bad the sequester will be and why Republicans are 
to blame for it. This is, of course, par for the course for this 
President, whose motto seems to be: Why solve a problem when you can 
campaign on it? You would think, after having won the election, the 
President would be the first to acknowledge the election is over. But 
nearly 4 months after election day, the President's campaign road show 
continues.
  The problem with the President's sequestration campaign is that, once 
again, his claims are at odds with the facts. Everyone in Washington 
knows that, despite the President's efforts to put the blame on 
Republicans, the sequester was his idea to begin with. The record is 
clear and it is not in dispute. The idea for the sequester was pitched 
by the President's then-OMB Director Jack Lew as a negotiating tactic 
to get Republicans to vote in favor of raising the debt ceiling. Not 
only did the idea originate in the White House, the President 
threatened to veto House-passed legislation designed to replace the 
sequester.
  Moreover, in these final weeks leading up to the March 1 deadline, 
the President spent more time on his national sequestration campaign 
than he has in sitting down with Republicans to reach an agreement on a 
replacement package. So if the sequester goes into effect--and at this 
point it appears it will--the American people should not blame 
Republicans in Congress, who have been working in earnest to replace 
it. No, the blame should fall squarely on President Obama, who proposed 
the idea in the first place and has refused to work on a passable 
solution.
  So that is how we got here. The bigger, more complicated problem is 
determining where ``here'' actually is. The President and his allies 
have spent a lot of time misleading the American people on that as 
well.
  If you describe the sequester using the worst possible numbers, it is 
an $85 billion reduction from $3.5 trillion of yearly Federal outlays--
yes, that is $85 billion out of $3.500 trillion. When all is said and 
done, it is a reduction of less than 2.5 percent from overall Federal 
spending. And, as the Congressional Budget Office has made clear, not 
all of the $85 billion in reduction will even take the form of reduced 
spending this year. Even if it did, keep in mind that $85 billion would 
represent less than 9 days of Federal spending, based on the rate of 
spending last year. Once again, that is if you describe it in the worst 
possible terms.
  For a moment, let's go with those numbers.
  The President would have the American people believe that a 2.4-
percent reduction in Federal spending out of $3.6 trillion will cripple 
our government and irreparably damage our economy, even an economy that 
the President must have felt was strong enough to absorb a $600 billion 
tax hike back on New Year's Day. The ramifications of the 2.4-percent 
spending reduction are so great, according to the President and his 
allies here in Congress, that the only alternative is to raise taxes 
yet again.
  I will be the first to admit there are better, more responsible ways 
to reduce the deficit than the President's indiscriminate sequester. 
But these scare tactics don't even pass the laugh test. Does the 
President really expect the American people to believe our government 
is so fragile it cannot absorb a 2.4-percent spending cut--less than 9 
days' worth of Federal spending--without inflicting massive damage on 
the American people and our economy? Apparently so.
  Once again, I am describing the sequester in the worst possible terms 
just to demonstrate the outlandish nature of the President's arguments. 
However, when you look at whether the sequester even represents a 
reduction in spending, you find the claims are even more absurd. In 
fact, when you look at whether we are cutting spending at all relative 
to past periods, you can easily see we are not, even with the 
sequester.
  The so-called spending cuts in the sequester are measured against 
2010 spending levels. We should all remember that in fiscal year 2010, 
spending levels were highly elevated as a result of the President's 
stimulus and other ``temporary'' spending measures passed in response 
to the financial crisis and recession. So, in other words, the 
sequester reduces spending only if you are measuring against an 
extremely high baseline that was, at that time, supposed to be 
temporary.
  Whether something is an increase or decrease depends on what you are 
measuring against. If you measure relative to a big number--such as the 
Democrat-fueled spending of 2010--then proposed spending looks like a 
cut. But if you look at spending levels relative to more reasonable 
spending baselines, you will find that future spending will actually be 
up even with the sequester in place. For example, you will see what 
post-sequestration spending looks like relative to a more reasonable 
baseline.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, baseline estimates for 
post-sequester discretionary budget authority total $978 billion for 
fiscal year 2013. The average during the Bush years, in inflation-
adjusted fiscal year 2013 dollars, was $957 billion. Neither of these 
figures includes spending on wars or emergencies, so this is an apples-
to-apples comparison.
  In adjusted current dollar terms, post-sequester spending this year 
will be more than $20 billion higher than the average during the Bush 
years. Someone may have to refresh my memory, but I don't believe the 
government

[[Page 2054]]

ceased to function during the Bush years. I certainly don't remember 
hearing anyone express concern about the elimination of basic 
governmental services. In fact, I don't think anyone remembers the Bush 
years as being a time of spending restraint here in Washington. Indeed, 
we have all heard President Obama claim it was the extravagant spending 
of the Bush administration that, in part, caused our current budget 
woes. Yet now the President is telling the American people that a 
return to those spending levels will devastate our country, leaving 
children hungry and our border unprotected.
  Not surprisingly, the President and the Democratic leadership's 
solution to this problem is more tax hikes, which makes these claims 
about the impact of sequestration all the more transparent. Indeed, it 
appears that the President's current campaign on the sequester is less 
about reaching an agreement to replace the sequester than it is about 
satisfying his drive to once again raise Americans' taxes while also 
serving his desire to vilify Republicans, no matter what the costs to 
the American people.
  I don't want to minimize the negative impact the sequester may have 
in some areas. I think there are very few of us who would not like to 
see the President's indiscriminate sequester replaced with more 
responsible spending reduction alternatives. There are alternatives to 
the approach we are debating today. But whatever we do, we should do it 
through regular order.
  Today we are yet again debating a bill that has bypassed the relevant 
committees of jurisdiction. Regular order has become the exception 
rather than the rule around here, which is extremely frustrating I 
think to both sides. There are consequences to skipping the established 
committee process. If legislation does not go through the relevant 
committee, it is not studied and vetted. It simply shows up out of the 
majority leader's office before anyone has a chance to even look it 
over. Bypassing regular order is simply shortsighted. Yes, short-
circuiting the committee process prevents Members from having to take 
tough votes in committee. But taking tough votes to enact legislation 
is part of being in the Senate--or at least it used to be. These days, 
no one in the majority has to take a difficult vote. The majority 
leader has made sure of that.
  I have a chart that has the title ``Honest Leadership and Open 
Government.'' You can see the large letters at the top and the small 
letters right against the podium Senator Reid is at. My friends on the 
other side of the aisle won the Senate majority in the 2006 elections 
by campaigning on this theme. Unfortunately, in the 6 years since they 
have been running things here in the Senate, things have gone exactly 
the other way. Backroom deals are the rule, regular order is the 
exception, open government is the casualty, and committees are ignored 
with aplomb.
  I have and will continue to urge my colleagues to support the 
restoration of regular order here in the Senate because, in the end, it 
yields better legislative results, and it is a much more fair way to 
legislate and involves everybody, not just a few people in one office.
  Despite the fact that the President and congressional Democrats just 
got over $600 billion in tax increases out of the fiscal cliff deal, 
the Democratic leadership's bill that we are debating today contains 
even more tax increases.
  The Congressional Budget Office wrote earlier this month that over 
the next 10 years, revenues as a percent of GDP will average 18.9 
percent. Over the last 40 years, according to CBO, revenues have 
averaged 17.9 percent of GDP. So over the next 10 years, Federal 
revenues are set to exceed the historical average.
  At the same time, government spending, which is projected by CBO to 
reach about 23 percent of GDP in 2023--an historical average--will be 
on an upward trajectory and will remain far in excess of the 40-year 
average of 21 percent. So the problem is not that the American people 
are undertaxed, it is that Washington is overspending.
  Given this basic point, I have filed a motion to commit the 
Democratic leadership's bill to the Finance Committee to strike all the 
revenue increases and replace them with spending cuts. And to help 
further the process, I have prepared a menu of spending cut options to 
select from. These proposals come from Dr. Tom Coburn's book, ``Back in 
Black: A Deficit Reduction Plan.''
  During the 2008 campaign, the President promised to find spending 
cuts by going through the budget, line by line. Dr. Coburn has done 
what the President promised but failed to do. Today, I am drawing from 
a small body of Dr. Coburn's hard work.
  For instance, instead of the latest incarnation of the Buffett tax, 
we could, according to ``Back in Black,'' save $71 billion over 10 
years by instituting a 5-year freeze on locality pay adjustments for 
Federal workers or we could reduce travel budgets of Federal agencies. 
That would save just over $43 billion over 10 years.
  Another revenue increase in the majority leader's bill that could be 
replaced with a spending cut is the elimination of what some Democrats 
have described as a tax break for shipping jobs overseas. Indeed, we 
have seen this proposal pop up several times over the last few years.
  However, as some may recall, the Chief of Staff of the Joint 
Committee on Taxation wrote a letter to Senator Stabenow and 
Representative Pascrell, the authors of a bill to close this so-called 
loophole, that stated,

       Under present law, there are no specific tax credits or 
     disallowances of deductions solely for locating jobs in the 
     United States or overseas.

  I previously challenged my colleagues to come and point out to me if 
they thought that was incorrect. To date, no one has tried to meet that 
challenge. Yet efforts continue to raise a tax under the guise of 
closing a loophole where no loophole exists.
  One spending cut from Dr. Coburn's book that could be used as a 
substitute for closing the Democrats' phantom loophole is to reduce the 
Federal limousine fleet back to the level it was in 2008. According to 
Dr. Coburn's book, the government owned 238 limousines in 2008. By 
2010, that number had grown to 412. What changed in government between 
2008 and 2010 that required an increase of over 73 percent in the 
number of limousines needed to shuttle bureaucrats? If anyone knows, 
please let the American people know. Going back to the 2008 level of 
Federal limousines would save the government $115.5 million over 10 
years.
  There are numerous other places where we can cut spending 
immediately. Instead of pursuing the Democrats' tax hike strategy or 
the President's indiscriminate sequester, we should instead sensibly 
restrain spending through proposals such as these.
  I anticipate that some of my friends on the other side will argue we 
should pursue these spending cuts in addition to passing more tax 
hikes. My response is that we should be saving all of these revenue 
raisers for future tax reform efforts.
  There is a growing bipartisan consensus here in Congress in favor of 
comprehensive tax reform. The leaders in both the tax-writing 
committees are committed to this effort, and I believe we have a real 
opportunity to accomplish something on tax reform this year. However, 
if we start closing loopholes and eliminating preferences now in order 
to raise revenue to avoid the sequester, they won't be there to help us 
lower marginal tax rates later on when we are working on tax reform, 
which will make an already difficult process that much harder.
  Ultimately, if we follow the path my Democratic colleagues want us to 
take, we will be raising taxes on the American people while at the same 
time hampering future tax reform efforts. This is simply not the way to 
go, particularly when there are perfectly reasonable spending cuts 
available to replace the President's sequester.
  As I said, whatever we do, we ought to do it through regular order. 
That is why I have filed this motion to commit and why I hope my 
colleagues will support it.

[[Page 2055]]

  While I am waiting for someone to represent the majority, because I 
am going to have a unanimous consent request that I understand will be 
objected to and I want to protect the majority's right to do that, as 
much as I don't agree with it. I know there is an agreement in place 
for consideration of the sequestration bill and I don't want to stand 
in the way. But at some point we need to have a real bipartisan 
conversation about a return to regular order. For too long we have been 
avoiding the committee process here in the Senate and I think the 
results speak for themselves.
  I want to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to find 
a way to restore the deliberative traditions of the Senate by allowing 
the committees to do its work. If we can return to regular order, the 
words ``honest leadership and open government'' will be more than a 
campaign slogan. The American people should expect nothing else.
  I understand my unanimous consent will be objected to, and so I ask 
unanimous consent that I be immediately recognized to make this 
unanimous consent as soon as the distinguished chairman of the Finance 
Committee arrives.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam 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. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I thank my friend from Utah for his 
comments. I think it is important, since we have two votes coming up 
starting in less than 30 minutes, that we talk a little bit about the 
background, where we are today and what we are going to be faced with 
in these votes and what the options are.
  Back about 5 weeks ago, when it looked as though sequestration was 
going to kick in, there was concern. I understand there is a lot of 
concern on the domestic side and on the defense side, but my concern is 
mainly on the defense side. I am the ranking member of the Senate Armed 
Services Committee. I am concerned about what has been happening under 
this administration in the last 4 years, the disarming of America and 
the devastation that has taken place already. A lot of people do not 
realize, under this administration we are now projecting cuts already 
to hit $487 billion in defense.
  If sequestration should come in, it would raise that to $1 trillion, 
and $1 trillion over that period of time is, in fact, devastating. The 
Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, came out immediately and said: This 
cannot happen; we cannot adequately defend America if we allow this to 
take place. He was talking about sequestration.
  Sequestration, I think people kind of lose sight of what it is. It is 
the equal cutting all the way across all of these accounts in order to 
come up with a savings, which I think is kind of interesting. Here we 
are talking about all this anguish we are going through right now just 
for $1.2 trillion, when you stop and realize in the President's own 
budget, over 4 years he has a $5.3 trillion increase. So we are talking 
about 10 years to come up with $1.2 trillion when he was accountable 
for $5.3 trillion in 4 years. That is not even believable. When I say 
it back in my State of Oklahoma they shake their heads and think there 
must be some miscommunication, it cannot be right.
  The problem has been, in this administration, over the past 4 years 
all the cuts have come from the military. They have not come from 
anywhere else. It is an oversimplification, but you can make the 
statement that they are cutting--I will yield to my friend from Utah 
because I understand he has a unanimous consent request. I will be 
happy to do that, but I ask unanimous consent the floor be returned to 
me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank my colleague for his courtesy. I appreciate it.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following the two 
cloture votes today, it be in order for me to make a motion to commit 
S. 388 to the Finance Committee, the text of which is at the desk, and 
the Senate proceed immediately to vote on the motion without 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, this Senator was probably not paying 
enough attention. This is the Senator's motion to recommit?
  Mr. HATCH. It is the motion to recommit.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I respect my Ranking Member's attempt to 
alter the leader's bill to strike the revenue increases in this 
legislation.
  However, I think time is at a premium and we need to consider the 
Reid legislation today.
  Recommitting the bill to the Finance Committee will delay a solution 
to the sequestration cuts for weeks, if not months, and I believe most 
Members believe we should address the issue here and now. There is no 
time to waste.
  We will have a full opportunity to discuss additional deficit 
reduction ideas in the coming weeks when we consider the budget 
resolution, the continuing resolution and the extension of the debt 
limit.
  I agree we need to cut our debt and get our fiscal house in order. We 
know there are places to trim the fat in Federal programs.
  To give families and businesses certainty, we must agree on a 
balanced, comprehensive plan to cut the debt that includes both revenue 
and spending cuts. The math will not work any other way.
  A long-term balanced plan will bridge the budget battles and make 
real progress solving our deficit problem.
  A balanced plan will also encourage businesses to invest, enable 
investors to return to the markets with confidence, and, most 
importantly, put Americans back to work in a growing economy.
  And I look forward to working with Senator Hatch, taking on these 
fiscal challenges and crafting policies that create more jobs and spark 
economic growth.
  The only way we will be able to get past these budget battles is by 
working together--Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate. We need 
to work together.
  However, at this time I object to the motion to recommit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Look, this place is not being run on regular order. The 
committees are being ignored. The committees are established to be able 
to intentionally look at these matters and hear both sides and hear the 
top experts in the country. I feel very badly that this simple motion 
has to be objected to. I feel badly because I know neither of the 
amendments that will be filed, that will be heard or voted on, are 
going to pass. One reason they will not is because we have not followed 
the regular order.
  Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HATCH. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. INHOFE. I asked unanimous consent I be recognized after the two 
of you went through this. Can I inquire as to about how much longer it 
will be? I am the author of the bill that is coming up in just a few 
minutes.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Will the Chair indicate the time remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 22 minutes.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I ask which side has the 22 minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I will be glad to yield time to my friend from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. I appreciate that. It is my understanding, responding to 
my friend, that the other author of this bill, Senator Toomey, wants to 
be heard for 2 minutes prior to the vote. I would like to be heard for 
a few minutes of time.
  Mr. BAUCUS. At this time?

[[Page 2056]]


  Mr. INHOFE. Right after his time, yes.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I don't fully understand. I am happy to yield 10 minutes 
to the Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. I appreciate that.
  Prior to the time we propounded the unanimous consent request, I was 
talking about my frustration about what has been happening fiscally in 
this Senate during the last 4 years and the mere fact that under this 
administration we have increased deficits by $5.3 trillion. Now we are 
trying to come up with something far less than that in a period of 10 
years. To me, people look at that and say: What is this all about? But 
that is not the reason I bring this up.
  I bring this up because the amount of money that has come out of the 
military is actually a reduction. If you look at the increase in the 
spending in the last 4 years, it has all come out of defense accounts, 
so it is defense that has taken the hits on this. Government has 
expanded approximately 30 percent across the board. At the same time 
our military has been reduced in terms of our budget for defense 
accounts.
  Anyway, when this came up a few weeks ago, I thought it was not going 
to happen. I thought we were going to have something come up and change 
this whole idea of having to make these reductions. So what I did at 
that time was draft a bill. The bill merely said if we are stuck with 
sequestration, let's allow the chiefs--speaking of the military--to 
reevaluate everything that is included so they can look and see where 
we can take cuts and it will not be as devastating.
  In fact, I called each one of the five service chiefs and I said: 
Would it be less devastating if you were able to take the same amount 
of money out but take it out selectively, out of accounts where it 
would be not as significant?
  They said: Yes, it would.
  I said: Would you be able to prepare for this in the next 4 years?
  The answer is yes. That is where we are today. They said they are 
able to do that.
  The frustrating fact is this President--I am getting criticized on 
both sides. People are saying you are giving too much to the President. 
We are not because we have safeguards in here, which I will explain in 
a minute. But at the same time, the President comes out and says he 
will issue a veto threat against this bill. What does this do? It gives 
flexibility for the President.
  I am going to read something. This is a statement that President 
Obama said on February 19, 2013. He said:

       Now, if Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take 
     place, it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will 
     eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy 
     and medical research. It won't consider whether we are 
     cutting some bloated program that has outlived its 
     usefulness, or a vital service that Americans depend on every 
     single day. It doesn't make those distinctions.

  He goes on to say that he wants that flexibility. This is the 
President asking for it on February 19, 2013. Here we come along with a 
bill that gives him that flexibility with certain restrictions so that 
he can't pick and choose areas that we find are against the policy that 
has been set. I will give an example.
  We had the National Defense Authorization Act. It was one that took 
months and months to put together. It took a long time to put together, 
and we made evaluations, with a limited budget, on what we could do. 
All this does is say if we have to make some changes from the across-
the-board cut, let's make them consistent with the National Defense 
Authorization Act.
  In other words, all those weeks and months of work by the Senate 
Armed Services Committee and, I might say, the House Armed Services 
Committee would not be in vain. Those cuts would be consistent with the 
intent, to make sure the President would do this.
  A lot of people say we can't trust the President; he is going to put 
more cuts in places where it would not be in keeping with what the 
Senate Armed Services Committee wants. But we have a provision called a 
congressional disapproval mechanism. That means if the President 
doesn't do what the intent of this legislation is, then we can go ahead 
and disapprove it.
  We have those two safeguards. One is they have to follow the criteria 
that is consistent with the Senate Armed Services Committee, the 
national defense authorization bill, which is the House and the Senate. 
To be sure we will be able to do that it has the disapproval mechanism.
  People do not realize the costs of this. If you take the same amount 
of money that we are talking about in sequestration and allow the 
service chiefs to massage this and make changes, give them flexibility 
to go after programs that are not as significant as some that might 
otherwise be cut--the bill allows the President to listen to the advice 
of his military leadership and offset some of the devastating impacts 
of sequestration. If the sequester is allowed to take place and the 
congressional resolution is not fixed, the Department of Defense stands 
to waste billions of dollars through the cancellation of contracts.
  People don't think about this. We make commitments backed by the 
United States of America that we are going to do certain things. A lot 
of these are contracts such that if they are terminated it could cost 
quite a bit of money.
  The termination of multiyear contracts is something that we would be 
concerned about. Providing the Department of Defense flexibility to 
determine how these cuts will be implemented will let us take this into 
consideration.
  At this point, I ask the Senator from Pennsylvania how much time he 
would like for his concluding remarks.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. I 
will only ask for a minute or two to make my closing comments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I appreciate that very much. He has been 
a great partner. I have given a background of what went on 5 weeks ago 
and our discussions with the service chiefs. I was hoping this day 
would not come and that we would not be faced with the continued 
devastation of our military, but the time is here. Tomorrow is the 1st 
of the month.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania and I have come up with a bill that 
will be voted on, and it will minimize the damage and still preserve 
the cuts that are mandated and are out there.
  One of the problems we have not talked about is the continuing 
resolution. When I was talking to the different service chiefs, one was 
General Odierno, who is in the Army. He said that just as devastating 
as how the CR is set up, this corrects that problem at the same time. 
We have something that is not going to cost any more money. Believe me, 
a lot of my closest friends--for instance, in the House of 
Representatives--think it is a good thing that we are making these 
mandatory cuts. They cannot argue with that, but we can at least 
minimize the damage in these cuts.
  I will read something that shocked me when I saw the President had 
issued--I am not sure if it is a veto message. I am told it was a veto 
message.
  Here we have a bill that gives him flexibility with the restrictions 
we talked about. Yet he says he is now going to veto it. It is worth 
reading this again, and we need to make sure we get this in the Record.
  This is his quote on February 19, 2013. This is the President 
speaking.

       Now, if Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take 
     place, it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will 
     eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy 
     and medical research. It won't consider whether we're cutting 
     some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness, or a 
     vital service that Americans depend on every single day. It 
     doesn't make those distinctions.

  We are now giving him a vehicle that makes those distinctions so we 
have that flexibility. It has the safeguards to take care of the 
problems that have been brought up. I think it is not a good solution, 
but right now it is the only solution.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

[[Page 2057]]


  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I would like to thank and compliment the 
Senator from Oklahoma, who has been a terrific leader and ally. I 
appreciate his hard work and the work product we have come up with.
  At the end of the day, it is not complicated. It is pretty simple. Do 
we go ahead with indiscriminate across-the-board cuts that give us no 
ability whatsoever to establish priorities, to recognize that some 
spending is more important than others, or do we adopt this flexibility 
approach and give to the President of the United States the flexibility 
for him to turn to his service chiefs and say to them: Folks, is there 
a better way to do this? I am sure they know best what their needs are. 
I am sure they can come up with a better set of spending cuts than 
these across-the-board cuts that are in law.
  Similarly, on the nondefense side, any competent middle manager of 
any business in America knows that when they have to tighten their 
belt, they go through and prioritize. So when the President and the 
Secretary of Transportation go around the country saying: Oh, we are 
going to have to lay off air traffic controllers; we are going to have 
to shut down towers; we are going to have delays, none of it is 
necessary. It is not necessary if we pass this legislation because it 
would give the President the flexibility to cut the items that would 
not be disruptive to our economy, and it would not be disruptive in any 
meaningful way.
  I gave the example earlier of the FAA. The FAA would have more money 
postsequester than what the President even asked for. Obviously, what 
the President needs is the discretion to be able to make some cuts 
where they can be best be borne.
  After having a total budget that has grown 100 percent over the last 
12 years, we can find the 2.3 percent that is needed now. These are 
flexibility measures we would give the President for the remainder of 
this fiscal year. Thereafter, the savings we will achieve will happen 
through the spending caps and, therefore, will be decided by the 
Appropriations Committee.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Republican alternative.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, earlier this week, I shared with the 
Senate the consequences of sequestration for the budget of the 
Department of State and foreign operations and its impact on the 
security of the United States. Funding for the entire Department of 
State and foreign operations budget amounts to only about 1 percent of 
the Federal budget, not the 15 or 20 percent some mistakenly believe.
  That 1 percent includes funding to operate our embassies and 
consulates in over 290 countries, to carry out diplomacy in dangerous 
environments like Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, respond to 
humanitarian crises, and build alliances with security and trading 
partners. Sequestration would harm these efforts by cutting assistance 
for diplomatic security at a time when everyone agrees we need to do 
more to protect our Foreign Service officers overseas.
  On the development side, sequestration will mean cuts to global 
health programs that prevent the spread of AIDS and pay for vaccines 
for children, protect maternal health, and combat malaria and 
tuberculosis. It will also mean reductions for funding for disaster and 
refugee aid at a time when an increasing number of victims of drought, 
famine, and extremist violence around the world need assistance.
  As has been pointed out repeatedly, sequestration was included in the 
Budget Control Act as an incentive to negotiate. The idea was that it 
would have such catastrophic consequences that rational minds would 
replace it with a thoughtful and balanced approach to deficit 
reduction.
  That has not happened. To the contrary, just 1 day before the 
sequester is to take effect, our friends on the other side of the 
aisle, who favor cutting government programs and particularly those 
that help the neediest, seem to have decided that they would rather see 
sequestration take effect rather than close tax loopholes that only 
benefit the wealthy and pad growing corporate profits.
  However, as President Obama and others have been warning for weeks, 
allowing these Draconian cuts to go into effect tomorrow will have a 
tremendously negative impact on jobs all across the country and on 
essential services provided by our government.
  The American people elected us to come to Washington to work together 
and make tough decisions. It is well past time for a certain amount of 
reasonableness to come back to Congress. I have always believed that a 
balanced approach of pairing decreased spending with increased revenues 
is a far better way to deal with our budget deficits than 
sequestration. That is what we did with President Clinton in the 1990s, 
and we saw record budget surpluses.
  We simply cannot cut our way out of this deficit. We created this 
situation partly by putting two wars on the Nation's credit card. We 
already have reduced the debt by $2.5 trillion, with the vast majority 
of those savings coming from spending cuts. Just as most private 
businesses adjust their prices prudently over time, we cannot finish 
the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone.
  We must understand that even in these difficult budgetary times we 
cannot sacrifice the future of critical Federal programs in education, 
in health care, and in national security that affect hard-working 
families across the country, every single day. The American people want 
and expect us to take a balanced approach. They know it isn't wise to 
protect endless corporate loopholes and tax breaks for the wealthiest 
Americans instead of investing in our schools, our factories, our 
roads, and our workers. Yes, they want us to get our books in order--
but in a balanced way where everyone pulls equally.
  Today the Senate has the opportunity to avoid this devastating 
sequester by voting for the American Family Economic Protection Act, 
which does just that. This balanced legislation will delay 
sequestration by replacing it with a combination of new revenues and 
targeted spending cuts. These spending cuts would reduce the deficit in 
a responsible way, eliminating unnecessary direct payments and farm 
subsidies and implementing reasonable and responsible defense spending 
reductions beginning when the war in Afghanistan is expected to end. 
This legislation would also generate revenue, equal to the amount of 
spending cuts included, by eliminating oil industry tax loopholes, 
denying deductions to companies that ship jobs overseas, and ensuring 
that millionaires do not pay a smaller share of their incomes in taxes 
than the typical middle-class family.
  The American Family Economic Protection Act provides us with a clear, 
balanced proposal that would avoid the devastation of sequestration. I 
look forward to the opportunity to support this responsible approach to 
deficit reduction and hope all Senators will join me in doing the same.
  If we choose to not act responsibly and do not pass this legislation 
today, I am afraid sequestration will go forward and would mean 
devastating cuts around the country and for Vermont. Without action, 
sequestration would mean that Vermont schools would lose more than $2.5 
million for primary and secondary education and the education of 
children with disabilities, while putting the jobs of teachers and 
aides at risk. Vermont would stand to lose more than $1 million in 
environmental funding to ensure clean water and air quality, as well as 
prevent pollution from pesticides and hazardous waste.
  Vermont would lose roughly $2.6 million in funding for medical 
research and innovation funding from NIH and $400,000 in funding from 
the National Science Foundation, costing the State 53 jobs. Vermont 
would lose funding for the grants that support law enforcement, 
prosecution and courts, crime prevention and education, corrections, 
drug treatment and enforcement, and crime victim and witness 
initiatives. Sequestration would mean Vermont would lose $101,000 in 
funding for job search assistance, referral, and placement, meaning 
3,700 fewer people will get the help and skills they need to find 
employment, just when they need it most.

[[Page 2058]]

  In Vermont, sequestration would impact public health. Fewer children 
will receive vaccines for diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, 
tetanus, whooping cough, influenza, and hepatitis B due to reduced 
funding for vaccinations. Across-the-board cuts mean Vermont will lose 
about $270,000 in grants to help prevent and treat substance abuse, 
resulting in around 500 fewer admissions to substance abuse programs. 
And the Vermont Department of Health will lose about $55,000 resulting 
in around 1,400 fewer HIV tests. Sequestration would mean the state 
would lose funding used to provide meals for seniors and services to 
victims of domestic violence.
  If we do not pass the American Family Economic Protection Act today, 
our States will lose funding for community development block grants and 
housing vouchers helping to put a roof over families' heads, we will 
lose funding for cancer screenings, childcare, and Head Start programs 
helping to get our Nation's children ready for school.
  We cannot afford to allow this self-inflicted devastation move to 
forward. The bottom line is that getting our fiscal house in order must 
go hand in hand with policies that promote economic growth, create 
jobs, and strengthen the middle class--all things that President Obama 
and Democrats in both Houses of Congress are eager to do if only we had 
more cooperation from our friends across the aisle. We simply cannot 
cut our way out of this. We cannot allow an unbalanced approach that 
would once again require that deficit reduction be achieved solely 
through spending cuts, and would disproportionately impact low-income 
Americans and middle-class families. And we should not allow politics 
and posturing to dictate our actions here today. The American people 
expect more from us. I hope the Senate will end the filibuster of this 
legislation and allow an up-or-down vote so that we can show our 
constituents that we are capable of putting the interests of the Nation 
first.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, the sequestration spending cuts that 
are scheduled to begin tomorrow would cause pain and hardship across 
our country. These cuts will be devastating to workers, small 
businesses, middle class families, and children.
  The list of essential programs and services that will be affected by 
sequestration is long. So today, I would like to focus on just a few of 
the more than 50 agencies funded by the Financial Services and General 
Government Appropriations Subcommittee, which I chair.
  My subcommittee helps small businesses get the loans they need. It 
keeps Wall Street watchdogs on the job. And it funds the agencies that 
stand up for consumers and stand guard against unfair and deceptive 
business practices. But the largest single appropriation in my 
subcommittee goes to our Nation's tax collector--the IRS.
  At about $12 billion, the IRS budget is a major expense. But cutting 
the IRS budget is short-sighted instead of reducing our deficit, 
shrinking the IRS makes our deficit larger.
  That's because short-changing the IRS makes it easier for tax cheats 
to avoid paying what they owe.
  Last year alone, about $400 billion in taxes owed were never paid.
  Mr. President, I was a CEO for many years. If there is one thing I 
learned in my time at ADP, it is that you can't run a company without 
revenues. And you surely can't run a country without revenues. The 
sequestration plan Republicans insisted on will slash the IRS and 
sacrifice revenues. In fact, for every dollar the sequester cuts from 
the IRS, our deficit will increase by at least $4.
  These cuts make no sense. But these IRS budget cuts are just the 
beginning of our problems. Under sequestration, as many as 1,900 small 
businesses won't get loans, which would mean 22,000 fewer jobs at a 
time when millions are looking for work. Wall Street watchdogs like the 
SEC and CFTC will be forced to go home, leaving investors on Main 
Street vulnerable to wolves on Wall Street. And cuts to the Judiciary 
could jeopardize one of the most important aspects of our life: the 
safety of our families. That is because we will have fewer probation 
officers to supervise criminal offenders in our communities. Courtrooms 
will be less safe because of cuts to their security systems. And cuts 
to mental health and drug treatment programs could lead to more 
offenders relapsing into lives of crime.
  The Federal Bar Association agrees. They wrote in a letter last week 
to Chairman Mikulski and me that, Funding reductions could jeopardize 
the supervision of thousands of persons under pretrial release and 
convicted felons released from federal prisons, compromising public 
safety in communities across the Nation.
  Mr. President, I voted against the legislation that put us on the 
path to sequestration because I was concerned about the effects of 
reckless cuts on everyday Americans. Just look at what sequestration 
will do to Head Start a program that helps our most vulnerable children 
learn how to learn: 70,000 kids could be kicked out of Head Start, 
including 1,300 in New Jersey.
  We had a chance today to vote on a bill to replace these cuts with a 
balanced approach to deficit reduction, but our Republican colleagues 
insisted on protecting loopholes for the wealthy and big corporations. 
I hope that they will reconsider their position in the coming weeks, 
and work with us to undo these damaging cuts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask for an opportunity to respond to 
the Senator from Pennsylvania and then yield to the Senator from Iowa.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, we just met with Secretary of 
Transportation Ray LaHood, a former Congressman from Illinois. He said 
the opposite of what the Senator from Pennsylvania said. The Secretary 
of Transportation said exactly the opposite of what the Senator just 
said.
  The sequestration is going to force him to reduce the payroll in his 
department. The largest payroll source is the Federal Aviation 
Administration and the largest cohort within that administration is the 
air traffic controllers. Sequestration is going to result in an 
announcement by the Department of Transportation within the next 
several days--if we don't avoid it with a vote on this Senate floor--of 
restrictions on airports across the United States because of 
sequestered air traffic controllers.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I will when I am finished.
  We know we are going to have to tell them they are only going to be 
able to work 4 days out of the week. It is mindless to stand on the 
Senate floor and say we can cut $1 billion out of the Department of 
Transportation and no one will feel it. Come on. Get real. We have 7 
months left in this year. These agencies are trying to come up with the 
savings, and the only places they can turn are very limited.
  Ashton Carter, Deputy Secretary of Defense, just went through with 
what they are facing. These are not easy because the sequestration was 
never meant to be easy. It is hard.
  Please don't sugarcoat it and say there is a magic wand out there to 
find $1 billion in the Department of Transportation and that if the 
President would just look closely, I am sure we can do it. It is not 
that simple.
  The Senator has been involved in the supercommittee, and he has been 
involved in looking at this budget. He knows that on a bipartisan basis 
we can find savings. There is money to be saved in every single agency 
of government, but you don't do it with a heavy-handed sequester 
approach.
  Please don't suggest we are favoring the idea of air traffic control 
being limited in America. I want it expanded. Unfortunately, the 
sequestration is going to limit it in the State of Illinois and in the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
  I will yield for the Senator's question.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, it is hard for me to follow this. The 
Senator is decrying the effects of the sequestration, and what Senator 
Inhofe and I

[[Page 2059]]

are offering is a way to minimize the damage.
  In the President's submitted request for the FAA, did he contemplate 
laying off air traffic controllers or closing towers? I know the 
answer. The President's budget--which he submitted to Congress and is a 
public document--requested a certain funding for the FAA.
  Mr. DURBIN. For the next fiscal year?
  Mr. TOOMEY. For the current fiscal year, the President's most recent 
request. The President's request was for less money than the FAA will 
have if the sequester goes through. I don't think the President was 
planning to lay off air traffic controllers.
  Mr. DURBIN. Reclaiming my time, this is getting perilously close to a 
debate, which I will tell those in attendance never happens on the 
floor of the Senate. I will tell the Senator at this time we are 
dealing with the CR and last year's appropriations for the Department 
of Transportation; that is what Secretary LaHood is using. He is using 
the Budget Control Act numbers. So the President's request, 
notwithstanding--I am not sure how the Senator voted, but there was a 
bipartisan vote for limiting the amount of money that could be spent in 
this fiscal year. I voted for it, and that is what the Secretary is 
operating under.
  The reality is this: Even with the Inhofe amendment, $1 billion has 
to be cut from the Department of Transportation, and the flexibility 
notwithstanding, the options are so limited at this point in time.
  I will tell the Senator pointblank that I believe we need to reduce 
this deficit. Sequestration is a terrible way, but there is an 
alternative. There will be an alternative this afternoon, and we will 
ask the Senator from Pennsylvania and to the Senator from Oklahoma: Are 
they prepared to say we are going to limit the direct agriculture 
support payments to farmers who have had the most profitable years in 
their lives and don't need them? Are they prepared to say that people 
making $5 million a year in income ought to pay the same tax rate as 
the secretaries who work for them? If they are, we can avoid the worst 
parts of the sequestration. If they are not, be prepared, we are in for 
a pretty rough ride.
  Mr. INHOFE. Would the Senator yield?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. This has been very interesting. This is not what I was 
going to speak on. I was going to speak on the amount of cuts we have 
already taken in our appropriations bill on Labor, Health, Human 
Services, Education, NIH, and Centers for Disease Control.
  I could not help but hear my friend from Pennsylvania talk about the 
President's budget as though that is controlling this. Would the 
Republicans want to adopt everything in the President's budget? I don't 
think so. They might want to select this or that or this or that, but 
are we now hearing from my friends on the other side that we should 
just carte blanche rubberstamp the President's budget? I sure hope not.
  I remind my friends that the Constitution of the United States 
clearly says this body has two functions: taxing and spending--not the 
President and not the executive branch. The executive branch can 
propose whatever budget they want, it is up to us to decide both how to 
collect the taxpayers' money and how to spend it. It does not matter to 
me exactly what the President proposes. What I want to know is how do 
we--as Senators and as Congressmen--feel about where we should be 
investing our money and on what we ought to be spending the taxpayers' 
money.
  The idea that somehow the President's budget says this or that and 
that people can pick and choose whatever they want with it, I submit 
again, I will bet my friends on the other side will not say: We will 
just adopt the President's budget as it is and we will go with that. I 
don't think they are ready to do that. I would not even do that for a 
President of my own party.
  I wish to talk a second, again, about sort of the intransigence on 
the part of my friends on the Republican side--not only in this body 
but in the other body--of not countenancing any other funding or 
raising of revenues. I keep hearing the Speaker say: We gave revenues 
last month, that we had $700 billion of revenues last month; now it is 
time to talk about spending cuts.
  What the Speaker has done is he has drawn an arbitrary starting line 
of January 2013. What about last year and the year before when we 
adopted over $1.4 trillion in spending cuts that have already been 
adopted? What about the starting line there? That is when we started to 
address the $4 trillion we needed by 2020 to stabilize our debt.
  We have come up with about $1.4 trillion in spending cuts and about 
$700 billion in revenue. It is not the idea that we have already given 
up and that we have collected enough revenue. That is not it at all. 
Going forward we need a balance between revenues and spending cuts.
  I want to read some of the things we have done in our own committee 
last year. We had $1.3 billion in cuts. We eliminated the education 
technology state grants, which a lot of people kind of liked. The Even 
Start Program was eliminated. The tech-prep education state grants were 
eliminated. The mentoring children of prisoners was eliminated; the 
foreign language assistance was eliminated; the civic education was 
eliminated; The Alcohol Abuse Reduction Program was eliminated. The 
career pathways innovation fund was eliminated.
  Many of these programs were started by my friends on the Republican 
side at some time in the past, some were started by Democrats, but most 
of them were started jointly with Republican and Democrats. What I am 
pointing out is that we have already cut a lot of things out of Health 
and Human Services, education, NIH, and the Centers for Disease 
Control. I can tell that you Dr. Francis Collins, the head of NIH, 
warned that the sequester will slash another $1.6 billion from NIH's 
budget at the very time when we are on the cusp of having some good 
breakthroughs in medical research. A lot of medical researchers have 
been lined up and doing some great programs out there. Now all of a 
sudden they are going to have the rug pulled out from underneath them, 
but that is what is going to happen.
  I might mention the kids with disabilities and what is going to 
happen with the funding for the IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act. I am told about 7,200 teachers, aides, and other staff 
who help our communities and our schools cope with kids with 
disabilities who come into schools--because under IDEA we are providing 
that kind of support--are going to be cut. But it is going to be cut.
  So this idea that somehow we can keep cutting and cutting and cutting 
and we are going to get to some magic land where we can continue to 
function as a society just isn't so. We need revenues. That is what is 
in the bill the majority leader has proposed, revenues that will help 
us reach that point where we can have both spending cuts and revenues 
and stabilize our debt at a reasonable percentage of our GDP.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the 
mandatory quorum call in relation to the cloture vote on the motion to 
proceed to S. 16.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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