Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would be glad to yield to the majority leader. Order Of Business

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I hope to take 5 minutes on the 2-year budget and how I hope, and many of us hope, that it will be something the Democrats and Republicans can agree on to change the way Washington works. I will be glad to defer that, knowing the importance of moving ahead on Indian affairs.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I greatly appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from North Dakota. He himself is an expert on appropriations and budget matters, both at the Federal level and at the State level. It would be my hope that as this subject I am about to talk about moves ahead, it would be something that would interest him as well. 2-Year Appropriations I can make my point quickly and simply. We have heard a lot this year that the people of this country would like a change in the way we do business in Washington, DC. One way to do that is change how we go about our business. That means I would prefer, and I believe almost all of us would prefer, and I know the people would prefer, that we focus on big issues and we come up with good principled ideas. And then we debate those principles, and then we reach across the aisle, because it takes 60 votes to get anything done here to come to a result. We did that on the economic stimulus, we did that on energy, we did that on terrorism, and it didn't mean we didn't have debates. We had big debates. That is why we are here. But we came to a result and the result had to be bipartisan. I am not so interested in the bipartisanship as I am interested in the result. I heard Rick Warren speak the other day, and he said he wasn't so interested in interfaith dialog as he was interested in good works. I think that is what the people want to see from us. My suggestion for good works and for results is that we adopt a 2-year appropriations budget process, as described by the Senator from Alabama and as advocated by the Senator from New Mexico, Senator Domenici. This is not a Republican idea, this is not a Democrat idea, this is a good idea. It has the support of Senator Feingold from the other side, and it has the support of the independent Senator, Senator Lieberman, so I would hope it has strong support all across the aisle here. Let me give an example or two of why it would make a difference. When we debate the higher education bill in a few weeks, I am going to ask permission to bring on the floor several boxes containing all the rules and regulations that 6,000 higher education institutions in this country must wade through in order to accept students who receive a Federal grant or a loan. The stack of boxes is about that high--that many rules and regulations. But this new higher education bill that we will likely pass doubles the number of rules and regulations. Maybe some of them are needed, but what we haven't had time to do is go through that stack of boxes as tall as I am to see if we can cut the regulations in half. We don't have time to do that. If we spent every other year drawing up a budget and our appropriations bills, and then, in the odd year, going back through rules, laws, and regulations already on the books, I think we would have a strong force for fewer rules, fewer regulations, and fewer laws. And also more effective, if not less, spending. A second example. The State of Missouri has told the Department of Transportation that with the Federal money we already give the State of Missouri, they can repair every broken bridge they have in 5 years. They can do this as long as we let them do it first under their rules and regulations, without waiting for our appropriations process. In other words, if we let them build the bridges and then we buy the bridges to reimburse them, according to specifications, we don't have to spend any more money to fix all the broken bridges in Missouri. What that should indicate to us is the gross inefficiency of our appropriations and budget processes when it comes to building roads, when it comes to making contracts, when it comes to waging war. Our process wastes billions of dollars a year. No wonder the people of this country are upset with us. Final action on appropriations measures has occurred, on average, 86 days after the start of the fiscal year. And our fiscal year starts when? On October 1. I mean, who else begins their year on October 1? That is not the Chinese calendar, it is not most Americans' calendar, but it is our fiscal calendar. So everybody has to adjust their business to a strange year, and then we never meet it. My hope is that this year we can honor Senator Domenici and ourselves. We can add a Democratic name right up there with his, as prominently, and we can say to the country: We are going to change the way Washington does business. We are going to do it in a bipartisan way. We are going to adopt a 2-year budget for spending. We are going to spend every other year revising and repealing laws and make the Government run efficiently. And we are going to get our appropriations and budgeting done on time. We can save the taxpayers dollars so that States, cities, companies, and countries that deal with the United States of America can do so in a timely and efficient way. I thank the President, and I thank again the Senator from North Dakota and the Senator from Alaska for allowing me this time.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am glad to yield 1 minute of our time to the Senator from Arkansas if she wishes to finish her remarks.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, unless there are other Republican Senators who wish to speak, we yield back our time.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I believe all the Democratic time is used and most of ours is used and the vote is scheduled for 4:10, if I am not mistaken. Let's start from the beginning, once again. The first order of business when Congress convened and the President made his State of the Union Address was to say to the American people: We see that the economy is slowing down, and we want to do whatever we can from Washington. Even though we realize this is a huge economy--15 trillion or so dollars a year--we want to see if there is something we can do quickly that will stimulate the economy. The President, the Democratic Speaker of the House, and the Republican leader of the House, with the agreement of the majority and minority leader of the Senate, took the first stab at it. In very short order, they reported, and the House passed with only 35 or so dissenting votes, provisions that would give about $150 billion--two- thirds of it straight to individual taxpayers, middle and low income, so they could keep more of their own money, spend it, and stimulate the economy; and about a third of it to small businesses in America so they could keep more of their own money and create new jobs. That package was sent to us. The Senate Finance Committee worked hard on that and came up with some additional recommendations. One of those recommendations was to add seniors. Another was to add disabled veterans. That recommendation was an idea that Senator Stevens of Alaska and Senator McConnell of Kentucky thought was a good idea, and in their own amendment offered that on the floor. We then had a vote yesterday which represented a philosophical difference of opinion. Most on the other side wanted to spend another $40 billion. Most on this side thought that was an excuse to spend, so we resolved that, as the Senate always does: Unless you can get 60 votes or a consensus, we can't go ahead. So the ones who wanted to spend more didn't win for now, and we kept the package at about the same spending level that it was, adding, as virtually all wanted to do, seniors and disabled veterans and their widows. So in a very short order, we have a result. I wish to end my remarks as we come toward the vote about where I started earlier, which is that this is a conclusion that deserves--and I hope will earn--the respect of the people of the United States. It was fashioned in the House, and the Senate has largely respected the work they have done. We believe we have improved it. We are sending it back. We are doing this with a provision that is timely and targeted in a temporary way, and then we will move on, both sides will, to offer our long-term solutions for how we can continue to make this economy stronger. There will be differences of opinion. There may be more spending there and there may be more tax cuts here. There may be more reservation of runaway lawsuits here and less there. But we can have those arguments. They will be principled arguments. Hopefully, it will show that the Senate and the House, when they set their minds to it, can work with the President on big issues and get results. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Of course. Is 2 minutes enough?

Mr. ALEXANDER. How much time remains on the Republican side?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I will be glad to complete my remarks and turn the floor over to the Senator in just a moment. But when we get to the question about ``best,'' I assume we are going to be arguing from principles, and we are going to say: To make this economy better for the long term, we need to limit runaway lawsuits. And he may say we do not. I do not mean that will make him politically squirm. I assume he actually believes that. We may say we want to continue tax cuts, and he may want to raise taxes. Should he say that, I do not intend to try to make him politically squirm. I assume he just believes that. Perhaps we can agree that we ought to implement the America COMPETES law which we worked together to pass last year. Perhaps we can agree that we ought to increase the number of HB-2 visas so talented foreign people can come do research and work and then stay here and create jobs here instead of creating them overseas in India. When it comes to an energy package, I may say more nuclear power, and someone on the other side may say less. But I do not say that to make them squirm politically. So I like the fact that we can come here and compete. I like his characterization, if I may say so, of ``good,'' ``better,'' ``best'' because I think if we have an economic stimulus package, the right kind of competition is to say they have an even better one, and then we will have to go to work and come up with an even better one than that. But I reject the notion that what has been done here is to cause Republican Senators to squirm. We feel pretty good about avoiding turning this bill into an excuse to spend more money. But we respect the fact that those on the other side have a genuine belief that spending more money is the way they would prefer to go over the long term. So I guess I am expressing a little bit of disappointment in the tone of the debate here at the end. That is all I am expressing. But I thought I ought to express it instead of letting this go on and on in the same tone.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, in response to the comments of the Senator from New York, I simply would say that it is reassuring to see the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee come to the floor and hear him say: Let the political chips fall where they may, while denying he had any political motives in his comments. I tried to begin the remarks here, after the majority leader made an excellent talk and the Republican leader made an excellent talk, by complimenting Speaker Pelosi, by complimenting Mr. Boehner, by complimenting the President, by saying Senator Baucus and Senator Chuck Grassley deserve a lot of credit for bringing to our attention some things that needed to been done. Then, by complimenting Senator Stevens and Senator McConnell--who a few days ago offered an amendment to add seniors and disabled veterans and to fix a problem that apparently needed fixing by leaving out widows of disabled veterans. They offered that, and we all agreed that was a good result. I guess the Senate floor is always appropriate for whatever any individual Senator may wish to say. But sometimes I wish it were more about substance and less about politics. This is an opportunity when we can talk more about substance. We have our principled differences of opinion on where we go from here, but we have agreed on the temporary. As the Senator from New York said: Good from the House; better from the Senate. I agree with that. Now, when we get to ``best'' we will have a different kind of debate.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, if you want to delay the vote and add 2 minutes to the Republican time, that would be fine.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I yield myself 2 minutes to say to my distinguished friend from California, who is chairman of one committee on which I serve: I am a little puzzled about why, when we come to a good conclusion and we stand up and compliment the Democratic members and the majority leader for a good job and adopt the provision, when we compliment the recommendations of Speaker Pelosi, a great friend of the Senator from California and someone I admire greatly for her work on this stimulus package, why she feels it necessary to stand up and begin to make a political speech about Republicans saying no. Republicans have said yes. Democrats have said yes. We are saying it to the country.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Well, if I may say, the Senator is certainly entitled to say whatever she wishes to say, but if she wants to bring it up, we will begin with the fact that the Speaker of the House and the Republican leader and almost 400 Members of the House sent us this bill. It was not the intention of the Speaker of the House, I assume, to throw grandma from the train by sending us an economic stimulus package. It was her intention to send us a targeted, timely proposal that would be temporary and that the American people could look at and say: The Congress has come to a good result in a bipartisan way. They have many opinions, but they decided what to do. And they will discuss the other issues on down the road. I would like to give the Speaker of the House credit for that, not criticize her for leaving out seniors, not criticize her for leaving out disabled veterans, not criticize our friends on the other side of the aisle on the Finance Committee for leaving out widows of disabled veterans, which would have happened in their first draft. I see no benefit to that. It is much better to do what my friend, the late Alex Haley, used to say: Find the good and praise it. I think there is a good deal to praise here. I am certainly not objecting to the Senator's right to say whatever she wishes. She is eloquent, she is effective, and she works in her committee in a very good way. I would just like to see the tone of the debate on this Senate floor change so that it is possible from time to time, when we do accomplish something together, that we recognize we have different opinions but we can give credit to other people. When we do, we often succeed. I think the majority leader and the Republican leader, the Finance Committee, the Speaker of the House, the President, and the Republican leader in the House deserve a pat on the back for this. There are many other issues to discuss down the road. I can think of some things I would criticize the Democratic majority for spending on, but I see no need to do that. There is nothing constructive to be gained by it, and we will defer that for another time.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, there is one message we hear consistently from the people we represent in this country. It is: They would like for us to change the way we do business in Washington, DC. They would like for us to come and focus our attention on big problems that affect everyday Americans--whether it is helping each American have health care insurance, whether it is keeping our jobs from going overseas, whether it is the $3 price of gasoline--and work together in a principled way to solve it. They do not mind our having big debates on big issues, about big principles such as liberty versus security or terrorism. What they do not like is the ``playpen'' politics, when we bring out the charts and hire the campaign strategists and degenerate into what ought to be in a kindergarten or in a political campaign. I am pleased to say this is a good way to begin the year the way that this has worked out, because the President and the House of Representatives deserve great credit for agreeing quickly on a timely, targeted proposal to help our economy be stimulated and move along. They made it temporary, so it was not anymore of an infringement on the budget, and they sent it to us. I am very proud of the Senate. But I do not think it is such a bad idea, every now and then, to concede that even President Bush and the House of Representatives are not wrong all the time. They actually sent us an excellent package and gave us a good start. What we have done is essentially accept the House package that Speaker Pelosi, Mr. Boehner, and the President negotiated, and we have improved on it in a couple ways involving seniors and disabled veterans. All of us agreed about that, almost all of us. The Republican leader suggested we do that a couple days ago. So I think there is plenty of credit to go around. I would start by giving it to the President and the House of Representatives. Of course we should thank the Finance Committee for the work it did, the Republican leader for his suggestion, with Senator Stevens, that we add the disabled veterans and seniors, which he made a couple days ago. And we should feel good that, by the end of this week, as Senator McConnell said earlier this week, we will have sent to the House and hopefully to the President a piece of legislation that will help taxpayers keep more of their own money, help small businesses keep more of their own money, and in doing that, help create jobs and help create additional spending that will stimulate our economy. We had a disagreement, in actually a very good way. The Finance Committee recommendations included a number of proposals that many of us felt amounted to an excuse to spend, rather than economic stimulus. We voted on that yesterday, and we took most of those off. But that does not mean the Finance Committee was wrong to make the suggestion; it meant we did not agree with them. So we put those things aside for now. We will debate them later, and we will go forward with this bill. A number of us on this side of the aisle, the Republican side, have some things we would like to add to any bill that has to do with economic stimulus. And Senator Hutchinson of Texas and Senator Vitter of Louisiana and Senator Isakson today talked about a number of those such as including long-term lower tax rates whether it is marginal rates or dividends or capital gains. Those include Senator Isakson's proposal to give a tax credit to those who would buy foreclosed homes, $5,000 for 3 years so we can get the consumer back into the housing market. It would include the proposals, as Senators Hutchinson and Ensign and others have made in the America Competes Act, which we passed together, Democrats and Republicans. Now we need to implement it so we can give more incentives to outstanding teachers, help low-income students take more advanced placement courses, bring in more talented people from other countries who get graduate degrees in science and technology, and allow them to have a green card and stay here and create jobs in the United States instead of going overseas. We have some work to do on controlling runaway litigation. All of that has to do with job creation in America. We could have said: Yes, we would like to have that on this. But we agree, we will set that aside for now. But those are the long-term objections we have. We look forward to the debate on those issues and those steps. I wish to congratulate the majority leader and the Republican leader, the Finance Committee, and the others who worked hard on this. I wish to thank the House and the President for sending us a good piece of legislation. I would ask my colleagues to consider this: We may want to send the House something sometime we hope they pass. So why not give them some credit for sending us something that substantially we agree with, and with a couple of improvements, we believe is better for the people of this country.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Yes, I am glad to yield.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, let us remember that the stimulus package we are considering is a plan agreed to by the Democratic Speaker of the House, the Republican leader of the House, the President of the United States, and about 400 Members of the House. It is one that is timely, targeted, and temporary which will help people keep more of their own money and help small businesses to have more money to create jobs. What began as a package to stimulate the economy in the House of Representatives has become an excuse for spending money in the Senate. That is why I hope we will reject the Senate Finance Committee proposal. It is too expensive, spends too much money, and it doesn't stimulate. The goal should be to move quickly, to show the American people we can act in a bipartisan way and get a good result that is to their benefit. The Finance Committee proposal does not do that. I spoke with Senator McConnell, who suggests we simply amend the House bill by adding the seniors and the disabled veterans and send it back, send it to the President, and show the American people we can move promptly to give a boost to the economy. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Chattanooga for his courtesy. I, too, would like to talk about the economic stimulus package and how we Republicans have been ready to go to work on it for 2 weeks, and will later today. But Senator Corker and I have something that is closer to our heart today, and that is the devastation that came across our State last night from a string of tornadoes that was as rough and as pervasive as anything I have seen in my lifetime. Most Americans saw reports of it while they were watching coverage of the elections, but the trouble began in Memphis in the middle of the day, with schools being closed because of tornadoes. It moved on to Jackson, where 3,300 students at Union University barely escaped, although the school was heavily damaged. Often, tornadoes and severe weather of this type head in one direction and then the other, but this one just kept going. It kept on going into middle Tennessee, to Sumner County and Macon County, where several lives were lost, and moved into east Tennessee and the mountain area just this morning. So there is a lot of trouble in our State as a result of that, and Senator Corker and I want the people of our State to know we have been monitoring that during the night, and we and our staffs are working together today. We have talked to the Governor and State officials, local officials. I talked to the athletic director of Union University on his cell phone a few minutes ago. I was trying to reach David Dockery, the president of Union University. So for the next several days, we will be doing all we can do from the Federal level to assist the Governor and the local officials in dealing with the devastation that was caused last night by the severe storms. Forty-five people were killed, more than another 100 injured, a lot of damage to buildings in areas across our State. I thank Senator Corker for taking this time to allow us to express to our constituents our feelings for them. We do want them to know they have our full attention today. The Governor is at the front of the line. That is the way we do things in Tennessee. We work easily with him and his staff and the local official. We will stay in touch with them, and those who need to be in touch with our Senate offices can do that. We will move promptly to deal with applications for disaster relief. Sometimes they say they need to take enough time to be accurately filled out rather than have a race to the mailbox to get those in. But we will be working with local officials with those to do all we can. I thank the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Corker, for his courtesy in allowing me to express my remarks, and I look forward to working with him to help deal with the pain that has been caused to many Tennesseans. I yield for Senator Corker.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, last night the President spoke to the Nation in his State of the Union Address. It is one of the great traditions of American Government. One of the most interesting parts of this spectator sport is to watch and see who stands up on which issue when the President talks or who is sitting by whom. It is well watched across our country, and it is a sign of respect to the Presidency as an institution. The President was in a good mood. It was his eighth such address. He was reflective, but he was decisive. He looked ahead. He talked about the issues facing our country. He did his job, and he challenged us to do ours. The President devoted a good deal of time to the progress of the war in Iraq, and we devoted a good deal of time today to making sure we have a strong system of intelligence to protect ourselves from terrorists. So I wish to comment on what the President talked about at home, because a great deal of what President Bush said last night was that as important as our role is in the world, as important as the long-term fight against terrorism is, we have work to do at home, and we need to roll up our sleeves and get busy. This is a Presidential year. Many of the pundits are saying, some politicians even: The Congress will get nothing done. We Republicans believe there is no excuse for taking a year off, given the number of serious issues facing our country. Let me mention a few the President discussed last night. To begin with, the American economy. The President acknowledged that as strong as our economy is, 52 quarters of growing jobs, it has taken a downward turn, and we need to take appropriate action to help it continue to produce more jobs. That means steps that are temporary, targeted, and that grow the economy and not the Government. The President has agreed with the Speaker of the House and the Republican leader of the House on a simple package that is aimed to do that: rebates for individuals, most of whom pay taxes, and incentives to small businesses to create new jobs. It is a simple idea. Speaking as one Senator, I do not believe we can afford to let this economic growth package, which should pass the House today, become a Christmas tree in the Senate for everyone's favorite idea for spending taxpayers' dollars. I have some ideas. I think every Member of the Senate has some ideas. But maybe we should recognize the American people would like to see us act and act promptly and act decisively. Someone has said the Senate wishes to speak on the issue. I know very well none of us is guilty, usually, of having an unexpressed thought. We love to speak. But one way for us to speak is to say to the House of Representatives: Madam Speaker, and to the House itself, we agree with you. We think your package is simple, temporary, targeted, and a good idea. And to the President: Mr. President, each of us might have written the package a little differently, but we agree with you and we are ready to pass it before the end of next week. I would like to write it differently, but I like the idea that it goes mostly to taxpayers, that it is family friendly, that it gives incentives to small business, and that it temporarily helps with housing. I believe it is important for our Government, particularly at this moment, to send a strong message that we will take the action appropriate to keep the economy strong and that we are capable of functioning as a Government and working in bipartisan ways to deal with real issues. The American people are tired of petty politics. They are tired of playpen politics on the Senate floor. They do not believe they elected us to stick our fingers in the eyes of the Democrats or the Democrats to stick their fingers in our eyes. We have a good example of our leadership working together with the President, and as one Senator, my recommendation is we support what the President and the House of Representatives is about to do. The President said we should get to work this year to make sure every American can have access to health care insurance. At our Republican conference last week, that was the first item on our agenda, and I believe it is fair for me to say virtually every single Republican Senator believes every American should be insured and is ready to go to work this year to help make that possible. The President talked about his plan, which he talked about last year, to redo our Tax Code so dollars would be available to American families to buy at least a basic health care policy that they wouldn't lose when they change jobs. We have had a number of Senators on this side--Senator Burr, Senator Corker, Senator Coburn, for example, Senator Bennett who has authored a bill with Senator Wyden, which has significant bipartisan support. We are all ready to go to work this year. We believe we should start this year to help make sure every American is insured. Runaway Federal spending. The President talked about controlling entitlement spending. This is an issue that is beginning to get the country's attention, and it should have the country's attention. It certainly has mine. What do we mean by entitlement spending? We mean 40 percent of the budget is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and it goes up automatically every year. Over the next 10 years, the annual growth of Social Security is predicted to be about 6 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Medicare about 7.2 percent, Medicaid about 8 percent. Entitlement spending and interest on the debt is 60 percent of every dollar we spend. Another 20 percent is defense, the war and other necessary actions to defend ourselves, and 19 percent is everything else. The ``everything else'' was flat last year. The Congressional Budget Office says the ``everything else''--that is, parks and roads and many of the items Americans believe Government ought to be doing--that is going to go up about 2 percent annually over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Our defense goes up 3 percent annually, and entitlement spending goes up 7 or 8 percent. Senator Gregg and Senator Bond have pointed out to us--they are the heads of our Budget Committee--that we pretty soon are going to be faced with an absolutely impossible situation that will require massive cuts in benefits, massive tax increases that the net worth even of this great country will not be able to pay, and that every year we wait, we risk another problem. The President said do something about it. He challenged us to do it, and Senator Gregg and Senator Bond have a proposal to do that. We should act on it this year. That is not all there is to holding down spending. The President mentioned earmarks. There are too many earmarks. They are not as transparent as they ought to be. That is a smaller part of the budget. It is our constitutional responsibility to deal with earmarks, but we should do that ourselves. We should begin that this year. We could pass a 2-year budget plan, such as Senator Domenici and Senator Lieberman and Senator Feingold at various times have proposed, and Senator Sessions, Senator Isakson. That would give us oversight to repeal rules and regulations every other year. So there are three ways to get a handle on Federal spending. Senator Hutchison and Senator Bingaman have been leaders, as well as others here, on keeping good jobs from going overseas. We passed the America COMPETES Act last year, and the President challenged us to fund it this year. He is right about that. Finally, President Bush mentioned something that is close to my heart. He called it the Pell grants for kids. I remember being in a visit with him a couple years ago, and he said to me: We have to do something about inner-city children who cannot afford to go to good schools. Why don't we have Pell grants for kids? I said: Mr. President, I had a hearing on that idea last month. He looked at me and said: I thought it was my idea. I said: Mr. President, it is your idea. Any idea the President has is his idea, but he had it before anyone suggested it to him. The idea is very simple. We take this brilliant idea that Congress has invented over the last 50 years of giving money directly to college students which they can spend at any institution of education of their choice--public, private, nonprofit, Catholic, Jewish, the University of Tennessee, Notre Dame, National Auto Diesel College. As long as it is accredited, they can go there, and it especially helps those with less money. Let's try that with the poorest children. Sixteen years ago, when I was Education Secretary, the first President Bush proposed a GI bill for kids. Much the same idea. It was the largest provision in his budget, half a billion dollars that year, to give poor kids access to some of the same educational opportunities others had. I proposed, in a Pell grants for kids version, that we give every child, the middle- and low-income children--that is 60 percent of them all $500 for afterschool programs or other programs. The President has advanced the idea. President Bush has painted a strong agenda for America this year. He has said let's give a boost to the economy, let's begin to give every American health insurance, let's control entitlement spending, let's fund programs to keep good jobs here, and let's give poor children an opportunity to go to more of the better schools. He has challenged us to go to work. We are ready to go to work. We are ready to get results, which means working across the aisle in a bipartisan way. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Will the Chair kindly let me know when I have used 8 minutes?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would say to the Senator from Connecticut, welcome back. We are glad to have him here. He has traveled some roads that I know pretty well. We have missed some of his vigor and passion. Sometimes the American people say they don't like to see us engage in partisan bickering, and I am going to say something about that in just a minute. But what I think they do like to see us do, if I may say so, is what the Senator from Connecticut was doing just then and what the Senator from Arizona did on Friday: They were debating the balance of each American individual's right to liberty versus each American individual's right to security--coming to different conclusions but having a serious discussion about an issue that affects every single American in this country. That is what the people expect of the Senate. I come to a different conclusion than he does. We are moving to vote on cloture on a bill on Monday that has come out of the Intelligence Committee by a bipartisan majority of 13 to 2. But this is the kind of debate the Senate ought to have, and I am glad I got to hear his speech even though I disagree with much of it. The Republican Senators gathered in a retreat at the Library of Congress on Wednesday. This is something we do each year, and the Democratic side does it each year as well. We think about our responsibilities, and we look forward to the future. Many of our Members have said to me that this was one of our best days of retreat. In the first place, it was very well attended: 44 out of 49 of us were there, and 3 of those absent were campaigning in Florida, and 1 was ill. So we had virtually perfect attendance. Most of those attending spoke and participated and made proposals. Every single Republican Senator with whom I have talked since that meeting on Wednesday has told me he or she felt rejuvenated and looks forward to this year. I believe the reason for that is because of the way we conducted the day. It takes me back to what I just said a moment ago. Unless we are tone-deaf, I think we can hear what the American people are saying to us, especially through the Presidential campaign, which is that they are tired of the way we are doing business in Washington, DC, and they want us to change it. They want us to take the playpen politics and move it off the Senate floor and put it in the national committees or in the nursery where it belongs, and spend our time on big issues that affect our country--maybe in vigorous debates of the kind Senator Dodd and Senator Kyl would have on the intelligence bill, but spend our time on the serious issues facing our country. Then, after we have had our debate, work across the aisle to get a result. There are only two reasons to work across the aisle to get a result. One is, it is the right thing to do for our country. This is our job, and that is why they pay us our salaries. That is why they sent us here. No. 2, if you can count, it takes 60 votes to get anything meaningful done in the Senate. So if you want to get a result, you have to work across party lines because neither side has more than 60 votes. So what we Republicans did on Wednesday was say this: We have heard the talk that this is a Presidential year and we may get nothing done in Congress, and we reject that. Our leader said--Mitch McConnell--on Tuesday when he spoke: Republicans are eager to get to work on the unfinished business from last year. We are determined to address the other issues that have become more pressing or pronounced since we last stood here. We have had a presidential election in this country every 4 years since 1788 we won't use this one as an excuse to put off the people's business for another day. So there is no excuse for Congress to take this year off, given the serious issues facing our country. We want to change the way Washington does business, and we know how to do it; that is, get down to work on serious issues facing our country, propose specific solutions that solve problems, and then work across the aisle to get a result. We are not here to do bad things to Democrats; we are here to try to do good things for our country. That was the spirit of our retreat on Wednesday. I believe that is the way most Members on the other side feel. The more of that we do, the better. I would submit the approval rating of the Congress and of Washington, DC, will gradually go up if we were to do that. Let me say a word about exactly what we talked about on Wednesday-- the kind of approach that one can expect from Republican Senators this year. First, of course, is that we are here and ready to go to work on these specific solutions based on Republican principles, and we are either looking for bipartisan support or already have bipartisan support on many issues. Of course, to begin with, we know Americans are hurting and anxious because of the housing slump, because of gasoline prices, because of rising health care costs, and we are ready to work with the House and the President, across the aisle, to find the appropriate action to take to try to avoid an economic slowdown. I imagine the Senate will have some of its own views about its proposals when the House brings its proposal here. But we want a result. I, for one, would like to see--and I believe most of my colleagues on this side of the aisle would like to see--a proposal that grows the economy and not the Government. But we will have a debate about that. That is not partisan bickering; that is the Senate in its finest tradition addressing an issue that is central to every single family in this country. We know we need to intercept the communications of terrorists so we can keep our country safe from attack. We know when we do that, we have to carefully balance each of our right to liberty versus each of our right to security. Samuel Huntington, the Harvard professor, once wrote--he was President of the American Political Science Association--that most of our politics is about conflicts between principles or among principles with which almost all of us agree. That is important to Americans because what unifies us, other than our common language, is these few principles, security and liberty being two. Republicans support the Rockefeller-Bond bipartisan proposal which passed 13 to 2 by the Intelligence Committee. We want to make sure those companies which help us defend ourselves aren't penalized for helping to make the country secure, while at the same time protecting individual liberties. We know there are 47 million Americans who don't have health insurance, and Republican Senators said in our retreat on Wednesday that we are ready to go to work this year to make sure every American is insured. Some say put it off a year. Well, perhaps we can't get it all done in 2008, but we can surely start. Senator Byrd and Senator DeMint and Senator Bennett and Senator Corker, among others, spoke at our retreat on this issue. We would like to get going now. We could begin with the Small Business Health Insurance Act, which would permit small companies to pool their resources and offer more health insurance at a lower cost to their employees. That would be a beginning. Many of us on the Republican side have sponsored a bipartisan bill-- one of two or three that have the same general approach to reforming the Tax Code, to put cash in the hands of American families and individuals so they can afford to buy their own private insurance, putting together four words that usually don't go together: ``universal access'' and ``private insurance.'' Those are based on principles we Republicans agree with: free market and equal opportunity. We know on this side of the aisle--and I suspect many over on that side know as well; I know they do--if we don't do something about the runaway growth of Medicare and Medicaid--entitlement spending, in other words--we will bankrupt our country. Every year that we wait to deal with that is a year that makes the solution harder. So Senator Gregg, at our retreat, talked about his proposal with Senator Conrad, a Democratic Senator, to create a base-closing-task-force-type task force for the sole purpose of recommending to the Congress a way to control entitlement spending and force an up-or-down vote on that. That is the principle of limited government. That is a principle that most Republicans and a proposal that many Democrats can support. We know there is a great force in Washington, DC, to spend more money, to issue more regulations and rules, and there are almost no countervailing forces to spend less money, repeal rules, and revise regulations. So Senators Domenici, Isakson, and Sessions, among others, have proposed an idea to change our budgeting and appropriations process from 1 year to 2 years. That may help us get appropriations bills done on time so we can save money in our contracting in the Defense Department and Department of Transportation, for example. But more important to me, and to many on this side of the aisle, it would create a countervailing force of oversight so that every other year we would spend most of our time on oversight, meaning we could review, repeal, and change and improve laws, regulations, and rules that have been in place for a long time. We want to keep jobs from going overseas, and we believe we know how to do it. Last year, we worked with Senator Bingaman and others on the other side to pass the America COMPETES Act. This is an extraordinary response to our challenge to keep our brain power advantage so we can keep our jobs, in competition with China and India. Senator Hutchison has been a leader on this issue. She, with Senator Bingaman, began the effort to fully fund advanced placement courses so more children could take those courses. So we are ready--many on this side of the aisle--to implement the advanced placement provisions in the America COMPETES Act. That will help 1.5 million children to have those opportunities. We are ready to implement the provision that would put 10,000 more math and science teachers in our classrooms. Many of us are ready to implement the recommendation that we pin a green card to every single foreign student legally here and who graduates from an American university in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. Some proposals ought to be bipartisan, but they are not--or at least they weren't. I made one, and we talked about this for a while on Wednesday. In order to encourage unity in this country, we need a common language. That seems to be common sense. Therefore, we ought to pass a law making it clear that the Federal Government should not be suing the Salvation Army, telling them they cannot require employees to speak English on the job. We got it through the Senate and to the House, where the Speaker stopped it. Now Senator Conrad has joined in support, as have Senators McConnell, Byrd, Landrieu, and Nelson of Nebraska. So now we have a bipartisan approach on another important issue. We talked about the idea and the problem of the number of rural women in this country who are pregnant and cannot get the proper prenatal health care. OB/GYN doctors are leaving rural areas because runaway malpractice lawsuits are running malpractice insurance over $100,000 a year. So the pregnant women are having to drive 70 miles to Memphis or other big cities to see a doctor and get the prenatal health care they need and to have the baby. We have proposals to stop it in the way Texas and Mississippi did. We invite bipartisan proposals on that. Mr. President, the Republican agenda will emerge over time. What I would like to say to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and to the American people is, we want to change the way Washington does business, and we believe we know how. The way is to stand up every single day and week with new specific proposals on real issues and have a debate where one is needed. Let Senator Dodd and Senator Kyl have a principled argument about security versus liberty. That is in the finest tradition. Let's cut out the playpen politics. Let's don't have that, and let's earn back the confidence of the American people by dealing with specific solutions. That is what you are going to hear from Republican Senators. No sooner had I heard some encouraging remarks from the majority leader, out comes this release from the Senate leadership and majority leader Harry Reid: For immediate release. Democratic policy experts discuss President Bush's legacy of broken promises. That was announced. This is playpen politics. I am sure we do it here sometimes, but I will do my best as the Republican conference chairman to make the political reward for this playpen politics so low that this kind of release and activity is moved into the nursery school where it belongs, over to the national committee where it belongs, whether it is the Democratic playpen or the Republican playpen, and that we devote ourselves to the issues facing our country. How can we help the economy? How can we help every American be insured? How can we stop the terrorists? How can we implement the America COMPETES Act? Those are the debates we ought to have. I hope that is clear to the American people and to our colleagues. We are looking forward to this year. Republicans are ready for change in the way we do business in Washington. The people of this country are ready for that, too. I look forward to it. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that when I finish with my remarks, the Senator from Texas be recognized.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I, too, welcome Roger Wicker to the Senate. I have known him a long time. He has been a leader for the Tennessee Valley Authority. He is one of Congress's most knowledgeable Members, and he has been a leader in helping to put American history back in its rightful place in our classrooms so our children can grow up learning what it means to be an American. He was the lead sponsor in the House of Representatives on legislation that I introduced in the Senate that created summer academies for outstanding teachers and students of American history. I would also like to congratulate Marty Paone on his service here. We all admire him and will miss him. I thank the majority leader for his remarks at the beginning of the year, and I especially wanted to echo the remarks the Republican leader, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, made. He pointed out that we have had a Presidential election in this country every 4 years since 1788. Senator McConnell pointed that out, and he said we would not use this year's election as an excuse to put off the people's business for another day. In other words, it is a Presidential year, and some around town are writing and saying: Well, they will not get much done in Congress this year. We are saying on the Republican side of the aisle, and I hope it is being said on both sides of the aisle, that there is no excuse for Congress to take a year off, given the serious issues facing our country. A number of politicians are campaigning for change, we have all heard. Republican Senators are ready to help, working with our colleagues, to give the Senate an opportunity to vote for real change. We wish to change the way Washington does business by going to work on big issues facing our country. And not just go to work on them but to get principled solutions this year. And because this is the Senate, where it often takes 60 votes to get a meaningful result, that means we invite the Democrats to work with us in a bipartisan way to get those results. Republicans didn't seek our offices to do bad things to Democrats. We are here to do good things for our country, and there is plenty to do. We see what is happening in the housing market, with oil prices, with rising health care costs. We know we need to move quickly with a bipartisan approach to help get the economy back on track. Our preference is to let businesses and people keep and spend more of their own money to boost the economy. We want to grow the economy, not the Government. We know we need, as Senator Kyl was saying, to intercept communications among terrorists to protect our country. We saw the Rockefeller-Bond bipartisan proposal passed by 13 to 2 in the Intelligence Committee. Our solution is to make sure companies aren't penalized for helping us protect ourselves, while at the same time securing individual rights. We want a strong national defense. We see there are 40 million or so Americans uninsured, and we want to change that. We don't want to take a year off in dealing with health insurance. We want to start this year. As the Republican leader said, our goal is that every American have health insurance, starting with small business health insurance plans, moving on to reforming the Tax Code so Americans can afford to buy private insurance. There are a number of Democratic and Republican proposals on reaching the goal we have in helping every American to have health insurance. We can start this year. There is no need to wait to deal with Medicaid and Medicare spending another year. We all know, at their present pace of growth, those two accounts will bankrupt our Government. It is irresponsible to wait. That is a bipartisan conclusion. There are a number of proposals from both sides of the aisle to begin to deal with that, from Senator Gregg and Senator Conrad, to Senator Feinstein and Senator Domenici and Senator Voinovich as well. We should get started. These are the principles of fiscal responsibility and limited Government. Last year, we took some important steps to keep jobs from going overseas by growing more jobs at home. We see the problem of competition with China and India. We worked together to pass a bill-- the American COMPETES Act--authorizing $34 billion to keep our brainpower advantage. Now let us implement it. Senator Hutchison of Texas, Senators Bingaman and Domenici of New Mexico, and many others have worked hard on this. So let us implement more advanced placement courses for low-income students, a million and a half more; more highly trained scientists and engineers coming in to help grow jobs in the United States; and 10,000 more math and science teachers. That we can do. We know we have to be bipartisan to get a result. Some things are bipartisan, and I have mentioned many of them, but some things should be bipartisan that aren't. For example, the Federal Government is saying the Salvation Army can't require its employees to speak English on the job. Well, Americans, by 80 to 17 percent, believe employers should be able to require their employees to speak America's common language on the job. We have legislation to make that clear. It is bipartisan to some degree, but not as bipartisan as it ought to be. The principle is right there above the Senate Presiding Officer's desk. It says: One from many--``e pluribus unum.'' Another challenge that should be more bipartisan, because most Americans see the wisdom of it, is addressing a shortage of medical care in rural America caused by lawsuit abuse. OB-GYN doctors are abandoning rural areas across America and mothers are driving too far for prenatal health care and to have their babies. We should work across party lines to change that. The solution we have offered is to stop runaway lawsuits that make doctors pay $100,000 or more a year for malpractice insurance. That is why they leave the rural areas. This is the principle of equal opportunity. There is plenty of work to do. Thirty years ago, I began my service as the Governor of Tennessee. I was a young Republican Governor and the State was very Democratic, thank you. So the media ran up to the big Democratic speaker of the house, Ned McWherter, and said: Mr. Speaker, what are you going to do with this new young Republican Governor? And to their surprise, the speaker said: I am going to help him. Because if he succeeds, our State succeeds. And that is the way we worked for 8 years. Now, we are not naive about politics in Tennessee. We had, and have, our fights. We argued about our principles. If I had a better schools program, they had an even better schools program on the other side. But we kept our eye on the ball. In the end, we worked together. In the end, we got results. That is why we brought in the auto industry and created the best four-lane highway system and created chairs and centers of excellence at our universities that still exist, and we began to pay teachers more for teaching well. I would like nothing more than to move that kind of cooperation from Tennessee to DC. I sense that from Democrats and Republicans all through this body. Of course, we will argue. We were elected because we have differences. This is a debating society. But we don't stop with our disagreements, we should finish with our results. So we are here to change the way Washington does business, as the Republican leader said, and I look forward to a constructive year of helping our country move ahead with a steady stream of specific solutions to big problems that get results because they either are bipartisan or because they should be bipartisan. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to congratulate the Senator from Arizona on his thoughtful comments regarding intelligence. How much time remains?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I will take half that, and if the Chair will let me know when 2 minutes remain, I will be grateful.