[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1952-1953]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2015--MOTION TO 
                                PROCEED

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to H.R. 240.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 5, H.R. 240, a bill 
     making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security 
     for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other 
     purposes.


                               ObamaCare

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, many Americans have already started the 
process of filling out their tax returns. It is a stressful time of 
year, but thanks to ObamaCare many are sure to find it even more 
stressful. Part of this is because of ObamaCare's $1 trillion-plus in 
tax increases.
  If you have health insurance ObamaCare has a tax for that. If you 
don't have health insurance, ObamaCare has a tax for that too. Whether 
government bureaucrats deem your coverage generous or not generous 
enough, ObamaCare has a tax for you.
  Some of these taxes are paid by consumers directly. Others are passed 
along in the form of higher premiums, increased costs, and lost 
opportunities, but many fall on the shoulders of the middle class.
  There is more to the issue, too, because ObamaCare has done what many 
thought impossible, it has made a mind-numbingly complex Tax Code even 
more so.
  For the first time, the government will be asking on our tax returns 
if we had health insurance for every month of last year. If someone 
didn't--well, you guessed it--ObamaCare has a tax for that, too, but 
this is only a portion of the cost and complexity ObamaCare threatens 
to impose on millions this tax season.
  This is how one health law expert put it:

       It will be very easy to find people who are unhappy with 
     [ObamaCare's] . . . new tax obligations--people who have to 
     pay a penalty, who have to wait forever to get through to 
     somebody at the I.R.S. or have to pay back a lot of money 
     because of overpayments of premium tax credits.

  This is from an expert who supports ObamaCare.
  The truth is ObamaCare is a law that just keeps on giving, giving 
headaches to the middle class. It meant millions of cancellation 
notices, it meant higher costs for many, and now this.
  Remember, too, the IRS, the same agency charged with processing our 
tax returns, is now in charge of implementing vast sections of 
ObamaCare. The same agency that spent so much time trying to silence 
free speech--the same agency that awarded bonuses to employees who owed 
back taxes--is an agency charged with enforcing ObamaCare's web of 
complexity.
  Americans are right to question the IRS's competence to handle so 
much sensitive information. We just received another reminder of that 
recently.
  One of the Obama administration's own inspectors general released a 
damning report of this troubled agency. The report found that the IRS 
recently rehired hundreds of individuals who had left the agency under 
clouds of misconduct.
  It took back individuals who had engaged in sexual harassment, 
criminal misconduct, and fraud and on at least one occasion ignored 
case file notes that warned ``Do not rehire.''
  The tax collector for America even rehired people who willfully 
failed to file their tax returns.
  I know the chairman of the Finance Committee plans to dig into issues 
such as these. He wants answers. We all do. The American people deserve 
them. They are tired of seeing a government that has lost focus on 
them, and they are tired of enduring ObamaCare's growing list of failed 
promises.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.


                           Necessary Absence

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am not going to be able to be here the 
rest of the week. More than likely I have a personal matter I have to 
deal with.


                       Tribute to Kathie Alvarez

  Mr. President, I wish to take a minute to talk about somebody whom I 
have worked with for 30 years in the Senate, and that is Kathie 
Alvarez, who has done such a great job of calculating our votes, 
tabulating our votes, and just being somebody who is always here.
  We have had a great relationship. I know nothing about her politics. 
I just know something about her personality, which is warm. She has a 
great sense of humor, and I am going to miss her a great deal.
  I wish her the very best. She has now worked in the Senate for some 
30 years. For everyone who has had any dealings with her, which is 
everyone serving in the Senate, I am sure their experiences have been 
just like mine, a very pleasant experience.
  Again, I wish her the very best in the future, whatever that might 
be, and someday if she needs a letter of recommendation or something, I 
would be happy to give her one.


                              The Economy

  Mr. President, during the past 6 years of the Obama administration 
there have been 12 million jobs created. Remember when President Obama 
took office--because of the Bush administration and their activities--
we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. So I think it speaks well of what 
has taken place over the past 6 years to be able to talk about creating 
12 million private sector jobs. Not everyone has benefited from these 
jobs, but a lot of people have.
  We in Nevada wish we were doing much better, but we are doing much 
better than we were. In fact, in Nevada the unemployment rate fell to 
its lowest level since 2008 last month, but

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these are private sector jobs. If we had just a little bit of help with 
public sector jobs, we would be back to the Clinton years. The economy 
would be on fire.
  The Environment and Public Works Committee is the ``Environment and 
Public Works'' Committee. The senior Senator from Oklahoma has been one 
of the leaders on that committee for a long time. He and I disagree 
greatly with what he does and what he believes dealing with the 
environment part of that committee.
  But we have significant agreement on the other part of that 
committee, the public sector--environment and public works. He has been 
out front talking about the need to do something with the highway bill, 
to create these jobs which are good for the economy.
  I know he and Senator Boxer are working to do something with a new 
highway bill, and I am behind them. I hope they can work something out. 
It would be so important if we could do something to help the public 
sector, and no place is better to go than to do something with 
infrastructure.
  We have a $3 trillion deficit with infrastructure in this country: 
bridges collapsing, bridges in a state of disrepair, and of course 
highways. Most highways in America get a C-minus grade at best. So 
there are a lot of things we can do to help the economy and do 
something to take all of the pressure off the private sector.
  Unemployment is down 5.7 percent. The stock market, all three of 
them, are at alltime highs. Manufacturing is doing quite well.
  The automobile industry--we struggled when the great General Motors 
was going bankrupt, Chrysler was going bankrupt, and Ford was hanging 
on. We stepped forward and said we have to do something about saving 
one of America's great industries; and we did that.
  Quite frankly, we received so much criticism from the Republicans. 
They were willing to let the automobile sector go bankrupt. We started 
Cash for Clunkers, we did all kinds of things, and now these companies 
are thriving and rightfully so.
  The automobile industry has rebounded, and that is an understatement. 
A number of economies are on the right track. I state, for the second 
time this morning, does that mean everyone has benefited? The answer is 
no, but a lot of us have benefited.
  But throughout all of this, in America--this great country of ours--
the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, the middle 
class is being squeezed, and that we have to recognize.
  Let's talk about the economy, 12 million private sector jobs. Could 
we do better? The answer is yes. It would have been great had we not 
been thwarted, stopped because of a number of filibusters. We would 
have a minimum wage for the entire country. We weren't able to get that 
done. That would be great for the middle class.
  It would be good if we could do something about the largest debt 
America has. It is not credit cards, it is student loan debt. I have 
admiration for the senior Senator from Illinois as to what he has done 
about student debt. He has spoken out that some of the things going on 
in our country dealing with education are absolutely wrong. But one 
thing that is wrong is we are placing a burden on these young men and 
women who are going to college and their families.
  There are many things we should have done that we didn't do to help 
the middle class, including equal pay for equal work, but that didn't 
happen. We need to look at what has happened with the Republicans 
dealing with the economy. They are doing things that are not helping.
  Look at the Politico paper today. They talk about what the 
Republicans are doing with these riders on the money to fund Homeland 
Security. At a bare minimum that would increase the debt some $30 
billion.
  We can say that for each DREAMer--there is about 600,000 of them--the 
Republicans want to deport every one of these DREAMers. The average 
cost of deporting these people is $10,000 each. Do the math--$10,000 
times 600,000, that would all go toward increasing the debt.
  So shutting down the Department of Homeland Security is where we are 
headed, and it is such a shame--or having a continuing resolution. Each 
of these would be a disaster for our economy. If Republicans refuse to 
fund Homeland Security, tens of thousands of employees that Secretary 
Johnson is in charge of would have to be furloughed. He says up to 
30,000. Others would be ordered to come to work and not be paid.
  The Republicans are saying, well, we may not close down. We may fund 
it, but we may do it at last year's levels, which would be a disaster 
for the States. There are programs Secretary Johnson funds that are so 
important to States: Terrorism centers; there is a great big one in 
Arizona that is waiting to be funded. If we have a CR, a continuing 
resolution, it will not be funded. We have programs relating to K9 
units within police departments that are so important to local 
governments, State governments, and they would not be funded.
  Secretary Johnson laid out on all the TV shows this past weekend 
about what would happen if we didn't fund the Department of Homeland 
Security or what would happen if we had to go with a continuing 
resolution.
  SAFER grants, even with firefighters, are so tremendously important 
for States such as Nevada and around the rest of the country.
  So, my Republican colleagues, who now have a huge majority here in 
Congress, why don't you work to improve the economy, not hurt the 
economy? Let's pass a clean bill and send it to the President. America 
deserves a safe homeland. Even conservative newspapers such as the Wall 
Street Journal criticized the Republicans yesterday about what they are 
doing with homeland security and what they failed to do with 
immigration. They have been so critical of the Republicans. The 
Republicans have a huge majority, and as the Wall Street Journal said 
yesterday, why don't they use it to the advantage of the American 
people, which they haven't done.
  Would the Chair announce the business of the day.


                       Reservation Of Leader Time

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the leadership time 
is reserved.

                          ____________________